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>Becoming China is not how you compete against China. I don't disagree, but I also don't know what alternative works without weaponizing our own ideals against

by bumby 4y ago

>Becoming China is not how you compete against China. I don't disagree, but I also don't know what alternative works without weaponizing our own ideals against us. Free speech is wonderful, but, as irrational apes, it can also amplify divisiveness. I worry that the alternative at a technological scale requires a civically engaged and rationally-minded populace, and my optimism is waning. So what do you suggest as a workable alternative?

pclmulqdq 4y ago
Treat people as being smarter than you give them credit for, and more able to see through BS. There's a reason scammers try to put time pressure on you - given time, lies are easy to spot.
- bumby 4y ago
  It’s not just “other people” though; it’s all of us. I think the crux is there is abundant research that shows humans are not particularly rational, but your take seems to assume they are. How do you reconcile those two diverging viewpoints?
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    Humans aren't necessarily rational, but they are good at social stuff - humans are wired for living in social situations. You only need the latter to give people credit for having a "BS radar."
    - bumby 4y ago
      Do we lump social media into this "social stuff"? Because I think there's mounting evidence that we aren't particularly good at managing it rationally. As I read it, that's really what the article and the law are about: how social media can be leveraged by adversarial actors by leveraging our irrational/unhealthy relationship with it. Or, alternatively, maybe that's the how the veiled power-grab is being framed. But we'd probably still need to undermine that claim about irrationality to offer an alternative.
      - pclmulqdq 4y ago
        The alternative theory is almost certainly correct. If you actually read the bill, there is nothing in it about quality of information or misinformation. At the same time, the government has been warning about "malinformation" recently, which they define roughly as "true facts that do not fit the broader narrative." If that definition sounds like something from the soviet union, that's because it is. The talk about controlling the flow of bad information is a naked power grab, and always has been ever since the first governments tried to do it in the ancient era. What history has taught us is that the truth always catches up eventually, and that it is better to provide people with more information than less. I honestly don't think that the social media era has changed that at all, and it would require some very strong evidence that it did (which is completely lacking). Remember that before Facebook, news/gossip junkies were subscribing to papers and tabloids of varying quality. We have just eliminated the dead trees. The content was just as bad, emotionally-charged, and false, and there were so many of these papers that you could create a Facebook-style information bubble.
        bumby 4y ago
        I’ll be more blunt: how do you then undermine the claim that such a bill is necessary due to the irrationality of humans which can be more easily leveraged in the age of social media for bad outcomes? It seems like you either need to make the case that: 1) humans aren’t irrational or 2) the risk of such irrationality at scale is not really a major risk or 3) social media isn’t uniquely poised to capitalize on that risk or 4) we already have tools capable of mitigating that risk It sounds like you’re debating 3) but there seems to be some evidence that social media tends to spread “bad” information faster and farther than “good” information by hijacking innate human psychological traits more easily.
        pclmulqdq 4y ago
        I'm suggesting primarily that 3 is true, and we (as individuals in a society which is and has always been full of misinformation) have developed pretty good BS detectors to compensate. Bad information has always been faster to spread than good information. The only difference today is that all information is faster. Also, to some degree, 1 is fairly true. You see this in economics, for example, where individuals are generally irrational about their choices, but modeling populations as a whole by treating them as 100% rational individuals gives pretty similar results to real life.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  > given time, lies are easy to spot. Really? Maybe small lies. But not bigger ones. "The election was rigged" is a binary statement that should be resolvable. In 2022[1], when asked about the 2020 US election, more than 25% of US citizens polled thought it was rigged. More than 55% thought it was not. (Some were unsure). Certainly it's not "easy to spot" lies in that basic example. [1] https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/axios-january-6-revisited/ https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/axios-january-6-revis...
  - iamerroragent 4y ago
    25% is not a majority opinion. In fact it's a minority opinion. So the majority of people seemly are able to discern lies by that data. Which is a good thing for free speech and democracy.
    - staticman2 4y ago
      "Good thing for freedom and democracy" is a bit optimistic. Suppose 40% of voters think social security should be eliminated, 35% of voters think social security should be saved, and 25% voters vote to save social security because they think lepricons are poisoning babies, and only the social security save party is willing to do something about it. This would show that social security's future is now now determined by who tells the best lies about lepricons. Whatever this thing is, I don't think "good" is the right work to describe it.
      - iamerroragent 4y ago
        I believe it to be fair to say all societies rely on some form of trust in others and the institutions setup within to function. Regardless if it is in a Democracy, Republic, Monarchy, etc. Regardless of it's means of resource distribution such as capitalism, communism, socialism, etc. America for example, despite at times in the past having slavery being legal, committing genocide, segregation, the stealing of land, etc. Despite being majority one religion. Still expanded the vote. Expanded freedoms. Expanded access to education. And has shown an ability to let people that were previously expected to hide to live out in the open and freely. If we are going to really take one survey result at one moment in time as gospel to say that American voters can't be trusted seems counter to the examples of the past where despite majority of Americans voters feeling one way, opinions were changed and progress was made. Slowly. Painfully. Yet still some positive direction. Thanks for reading my rant and I'll leave with one last thing: The public trust is sadly a fragile thing. When that trust is abused and poisoned by the very elected officials that have sworn to protect it the voters faith in the system becomes erroded. It unfortunately then takes longer and more work to rebuild that trust again. To move back to a society where arguments were made in good faith; not to just to troll or wage culture wars.
- xenospn 4y ago
  We’ve all learned that is not the case, unfortunately.
FpUser 4y ago
>"So what do you suggest as a workable alternative?" Do not ever limit freedoms of your own citizens under false pretense of "saving the children". As George Carlin said on this particular subject - fuck the children. Rights supposed to be increasing if you are healthy society. If you do not like China you can kick them out. You already have enough laws an discretions to do so. There will of course be consequences but that's the price.
- bumby 4y ago
  I'm inclined to personally agree, but we need to at least acknowledge the counterpoint. That being, in a cliched phrase, that "the Constitution isn't a suicide pact." Or, in the words of Jefferson, "The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation." That's the claim being made by lawmakers: that certain trade constitutes a threat to national security. I'm not really seeing much debate about that claim. If I understand your point correctly, you're instead saying we already have the tools to ban TikTok (presumably under commerce laws) and we don't need any other means.
  - FpUser 4y ago
    Yes we already have tools to ban TikTok if this is what we need. Instead they want a law which would allow them more and more ways to criminalize our own people. Message to them - GFY. >"the Constitution isn't a suicide pact." Acknowledged long time ago - do not yell fire in a cinema example.
fishpen0 4y ago
The same bill but without criminalizing the use of VPNs to access foreign networks that are deemed "bad" by random politicians

by bumby 4y ago

pclmulqdq 4y ago

Treat people as being smarter than you give them credit for, and more able to see through BS. There's a reason scammers try to put time pressure on you - given time, lies are easy to spot.

bumby 4y ago
It’s not just “other people” though; it’s all of us. I think the crux is there is abundant research that shows humans are not particularly rational, but your take seems to assume they are. How do you reconcile those two diverging viewpoints?
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  Humans aren't necessarily rational, but they are good at social stuff - humans are wired for living in social situations. You only need the latter to give people credit for having a "BS radar."
  - bumby 4y ago
    Do we lump social media into this "social stuff"? Because I think there's mounting evidence that we aren't particularly good at managing it rationally. As I read it, that's really what the article and the law are about: how social media can be leveraged by adversarial actors by leveraging our irrational/unhealthy relationship with it. Or, alternatively, maybe that's the how the veiled power-grab is being framed. But we'd probably still need to undermine that claim about irrationality to offer an alternative.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      The alternative theory is almost certainly correct. If you actually read the bill, there is nothing in it about quality of information or misinformation. At the same time, the government has been warning about "malinformation" recently, which they define roughly as "true facts that do not fit the broader narrative." If that definition sounds like something from the soviet union, that's because it is. The talk about controlling the flow of bad information is a naked power grab, and always has been ever since the first governments tried to do it in the ancient era. What history has taught us is that the truth always catches up eventually, and that it is better to provide people with more information than less. I honestly don't think that the social media era has changed that at all, and it would require some very strong evidence that it did (which is completely lacking). Remember that before Facebook, news/gossip junkies were subscribing to papers and tabloids of varying quality. We have just eliminated the dead trees. The content was just as bad, emotionally-charged, and false, and there were so many of these papers that you could create a Facebook-style information bubble.
      - bumby 4y ago
        I’ll be more blunt: how do you then undermine the claim that such a bill is necessary due to the irrationality of humans which can be more easily leveraged in the age of social media for bad outcomes? It seems like you either need to make the case that: 1) humans aren’t irrational or 2) the risk of such irrationality at scale is not really a major risk or 3) social media isn’t uniquely poised to capitalize on that risk or 4) we already have tools capable of mitigating that risk It sounds like you’re debating 3) but there seems to be some evidence that social media tends to spread “bad” information faster and farther than “good” information by hijacking innate human psychological traits more easily.
        pclmulqdq 4y ago
        I'm suggesting primarily that 3 is true, and we (as individuals in a society which is and has always been full of misinformation) have developed pretty good BS detectors to compensate. Bad information has always been faster to spread than good information. The only difference today is that all information is faster. Also, to some degree, 1 is fairly true. You see this in economics, for example, where individuals are generally irrational about their choices, but modeling populations as a whole by treating them as 100% rational individuals gives pretty similar results to real life.
HWR_14 4y ago
> given time, lies are easy to spot. Really? Maybe small lies. But not bigger ones. "The election was rigged" is a binary statement that should be resolvable. In 2022[1], when asked about the 2020 US election, more than 25% of US citizens polled thought it was rigged. More than 55% thought it was not. (Some were unsure). Certainly it's not "easy to spot" lies in that basic example. [1] https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/axios-january-6-revisited/ https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/axios-january-6-revis...
- iamerroragent 4y ago
  25% is not a majority opinion. In fact it's a minority opinion. So the majority of people seemly are able to discern lies by that data. Which is a good thing for free speech and democracy.
  - staticman2 4y ago
    "Good thing for freedom and democracy" is a bit optimistic. Suppose 40% of voters think social security should be eliminated, 35% of voters think social security should be saved, and 25% voters vote to save social security because they think lepricons are poisoning babies, and only the social security save party is willing to do something about it. This would show that social security's future is now now determined by who tells the best lies about lepricons. Whatever this thing is, I don't think "good" is the right work to describe it.
    - iamerroragent 4y ago
      I believe it to be fair to say all societies rely on some form of trust in others and the institutions setup within to function. Regardless if it is in a Democracy, Republic, Monarchy, etc. Regardless of it's means of resource distribution such as capitalism, communism, socialism, etc. America for example, despite at times in the past having slavery being legal, committing genocide, segregation, the stealing of land, etc. Despite being majority one religion. Still expanded the vote. Expanded freedoms. Expanded access to education. And has shown an ability to let people that were previously expected to hide to live out in the open and freely. If we are going to really take one survey result at one moment in time as gospel to say that American voters can't be trusted seems counter to the examples of the past where despite majority of Americans voters feeling one way, opinions were changed and progress was made. Slowly. Painfully. Yet still some positive direction. Thanks for reading my rant and I'll leave with one last thing: The public trust is sadly a fragile thing. When that trust is abused and poisoned by the very elected officials that have sworn to protect it the voters faith in the system becomes erroded. It unfortunately then takes longer and more work to rebuild that trust again. To move back to a society where arguments were made in good faith; not to just to troll or wage culture wars.
xenospn 4y ago
We’ve all learned that is not the case, unfortunately.

FpUser 4y ago

>"So what do you suggest as a workable alternative?" Do not ever limit freedoms of your own citizens under false pretense of "saving the children". As George Carlin said on this particular subject - fuck the children. Rights supposed to be increasing if you are healthy society. If you do not like China you can kick them out. You already have enough laws an discretions to do so. There will of course be consequences but that's the price.

bumby 4y ago
I'm inclined to personally agree, but we need to at least acknowledge the counterpoint. That being, in a cliched phrase, that "the Constitution isn't a suicide pact." Or, in the words of Jefferson, "The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation." That's the claim being made by lawmakers: that certain trade constitutes a threat to national security. I'm not really seeing much debate about that claim. If I understand your point correctly, you're instead saying we already have the tools to ban TikTok (presumably under commerce laws) and we don't need any other means.
- FpUser 4y ago
  Yes we already have tools to ban TikTok if this is what we need. Instead they want a law which would allow them more and more ways to criminalize our own people. Message to them - GFY. >"the Constitution isn't a suicide pact." Acknowledged long time ago - do not yell fire in a cinema example.

fishpen0 4y ago

The same bill but without criminalizing the use of VPNs to access foreign networks that are deemed "bad" by random politicians