5 ms·

> people are capable of reasoning and forming their own opinions The problem is that people aren't ideal rational agents. Our collective reasoning tends to be

> people are capable of reasoning and forming their own opinions The problem is that people aren't ideal rational agents. Our collective reasoning tends to be heavily biased by the environment, and that there are actors who abuse this (by injecting ideas that indirectly help their agendas) for their personal gains. And in China's case, they want to undermine freedoms, including freedom of speech. We can consider ourselves as "rational, critical thinkers" all we want, but we aren't as there are myriads of ways we're gullible in one way or another. Plenty of examples in our history books. Still, I think that free speech is still more important, as it's the only way for a society to recover. With freedom of speech, an antidote (for a lack of better term) can eventually be found and injected into the public discourse, without it the future looks bleak. The way I see it, we need to encourage improvement of education on social sciences, human psychology, game theory and so on, encourage critical thinking but forewarn of all possible fallacies, and hope that it will be enough and that the inevitable counter-reaction won't prevail and undermine the effort.

vkou 2y ago
Okay, but why is Chinese influence any worse than that of some Australian billionaire who owns the biggest right-wing media conglomerate that broadcasts an absolute firehouse of damaging, divisive, and self-serving lies? If TikTok is harmful to democracy, Fox News is more than an order of magnitude worse. A large portion of the electorate watches its insanity like a full-time job. Most enemies of democracy, when measured by impact are 'domestic' and 'western', not some Chinese boogieman.
- drdaeman 2y ago
  My personal opinion? It's not significantly different. Or maybe it is, but, at least, I don't see a need (and a meaningful way) to develop a scale of maliciousness. Malicious agents have no nationality, race or some single origin. All they share is the mindset and some values, willing to abuse the system for personal gains or flawed misbeliefs (for a lack of better word - beliefs that are known to contradict our collective scientific understanding of the world).
  - photonthug 2y ago
    > I don't see a need (and a meaningful way) to develop a scale of maliciousness. I’m constantly amazed by how easily even smart people will retreat into whataboutism, and this is the most polite way I’ve ever seen to call them on it.
    - drdaeman 2y ago
      I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I can see how my poor choice of words possibly led to this interpretation. I wanted to say that I believe it doesn’t matter who does something, only what they’re doing. So the same standards should be applied uniformly, irregardless of the actors’ identity. Ideally, by no means entity X doing something we consider negative should absolve or justify entity Y’s negative (similarly or different) actions.
      - photonthug 2y ago
        Certainly. I get that, I'm just saying you are remarkably patient to be willing to actually explain this to other people. Maybe you're not familiar with the term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism Personally I'm inclined to be more blunt and impatient. Whataboutism is intellectually lazy in the best case, in the worst case it means the interlocuter is manipulative or just actually operating at the emotional level of a 5 year old. Good people just don't like bad behaviour.. they won't wait around to find out which team committed the bad behaviour, and they won't refuse to fix 1 evil until another 2nd evil is addressed first, etc. Also relevant here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Poisoned_Arrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Poisoned_Arrow
- VectorLock 2y ago
  One is the sworn enemy of the western democratic system, and one depends on it.
  - vkou 2y ago
    Alt-right billionaires don't depend on democracy, all other things being equal, they'd much prefer an oligarchy with them and their friends at the top, and it's why many of them want to steer towards it. Throughout history, big business and the mega-rich have regularly backed coups and authoritarians, compared to their democratic alternatives. It's a much better system for them than one where each person gets one vote, because there's a lot more of us than there are of them[1]. As for sworn enemies of democracy, I think the guy who launched a coup, as part of a broader conspiracy to steal the election when he lost would be towards the top of the list. --- [1] When times get tough, in a democracy, it becomes difficult for them to justify why they get to take three quarters of the pie, while the rest of us fight over scraps.
- tripletao 2y ago
  > some Australian billionaire I think you mean Rupert Murdoch. He was born in Australia but naturalized as an American citizen, due to restrictions on foreign control of broadcast media. If TikTok moved to control by an American citizen born in China, then that would comply with the PAFACA. If the people already controlling TikTok naturalized as American citizens then that would also comply (though that's obviously not going to happen). Restrictions on foreign control of the highest-reach media are nothing new. The PAFACA simply updates them to reflect new viewing habits. "Foreign" continues to be defined by citizenship, not birthplace.
xphos 2y ago
I think there is also a lot to say that your speech is hardly free if you are drowning in tons of bot created content regardless of who is generating that content. I feel there is not to many good compromises that can be made it :*(
- drdaeman 2y ago
  Sowing discord is the well-known age-tested strategy. It doesn't remove freedom of speech per se, but it drowns it in the noise. The very goal of this attack on the freedom of speech is to make people lean towards the easiest and "naturally occurring" pseudo-solution to make those bots shut up. Then abuse the same censorship mechanisms to control the discourse. Sadly, I don't know how to solve this. Censoring speech is a non-solution. Building web of trusts will inevitably create even stronger information bubbles (making it easier to divide and conquer - we're seeing this happening).

vkou 2y ago

Okay, but why is Chinese influence any worse than that of some Australian billionaire who owns the biggest right-wing media conglomerate that broadcasts an absolute firehouse of damaging, divisive, and self-serving lies? If TikTok is harmful to democracy, Fox News is more than an order of magnitude worse. A large portion of the electorate watches its insanity like a full-time job. Most enemies of democracy, when measured by impact are 'domestic' and 'western', not some Chinese boogieman.

drdaeman 2y ago
My personal opinion? It's not significantly different. Or maybe it is, but, at least, I don't see a need (and a meaningful way) to develop a scale of maliciousness. Malicious agents have no nationality, race or some single origin. All they share is the mindset and some values, willing to abuse the system for personal gains or flawed misbeliefs (for a lack of better word - beliefs that are known to contradict our collective scientific understanding of the world).
- photonthug 2y ago
  > I don't see a need (and a meaningful way) to develop a scale of maliciousness. I’m constantly amazed by how easily even smart people will retreat into whataboutism, and this is the most polite way I’ve ever seen to call them on it.
  - drdaeman 2y ago
    I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I can see how my poor choice of words possibly led to this interpretation. I wanted to say that I believe it doesn’t matter who does something, only what they’re doing. So the same standards should be applied uniformly, irregardless of the actors’ identity. Ideally, by no means entity X doing something we consider negative should absolve or justify entity Y’s negative (similarly or different) actions.
    - photonthug 2y ago
      Certainly. I get that, I'm just saying you are remarkably patient to be willing to actually explain this to other people. Maybe you're not familiar with the term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism Personally I'm inclined to be more blunt and impatient. Whataboutism is intellectually lazy in the best case, in the worst case it means the interlocuter is manipulative or just actually operating at the emotional level of a 5 year old. Good people just don't like bad behaviour.. they won't wait around to find out which team committed the bad behaviour, and they won't refuse to fix 1 evil until another 2nd evil is addressed first, etc. Also relevant here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Poisoned_Arrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Poisoned_Arrow
VectorLock 2y ago
One is the sworn enemy of the western democratic system, and one depends on it.
- vkou 2y ago
  Alt-right billionaires don't depend on democracy, all other things being equal, they'd much prefer an oligarchy with them and their friends at the top, and it's why many of them want to steer towards it. Throughout history, big business and the mega-rich have regularly backed coups and authoritarians, compared to their democratic alternatives. It's a much better system for them than one where each person gets one vote, because there's a lot more of us than there are of them[1]. As for sworn enemies of democracy, I think the guy who launched a coup, as part of a broader conspiracy to steal the election when he lost would be towards the top of the list. --- [1] When times get tough, in a democracy, it becomes difficult for them to justify why they get to take three quarters of the pie, while the rest of us fight over scraps.
tripletao 2y ago
> some Australian billionaire I think you mean Rupert Murdoch. He was born in Australia but naturalized as an American citizen, due to restrictions on foreign control of broadcast media. If TikTok moved to control by an American citizen born in China, then that would comply with the PAFACA. If the people already controlling TikTok naturalized as American citizens then that would also comply (though that's obviously not going to happen). Restrictions on foreign control of the highest-reach media are nothing new. The PAFACA simply updates them to reflect new viewing habits. "Foreign" continues to be defined by citizenship, not birthplace.

xphos 2y ago

I think there is also a lot to say that your speech is hardly free if you are drowning in tons of bot created content regardless of who is generating that content. I feel there is not to many good compromises that can be made it :*(

drdaeman 2y ago
Sowing discord is the well-known age-tested strategy. It doesn't remove freedom of speech per se, but it drowns it in the noise. The very goal of this attack on the freedom of speech is to make people lean towards the easiest and "naturally occurring" pseudo-solution to make those bots shut up. Then abuse the same censorship mechanisms to control the discourse. Sadly, I don't know how to solve this. Censoring speech is a non-solution. Building web of trusts will inevitably create even stronger information bubbles (making it easier to divide and conquer - we're seeing this happening).