4 ms·

> speech standards should be determined by public opinion and not by reason, evidence and a scientific mindset. Yes this is largely a debate between a top-dow

by dmix 2y ago

> speech standards should be determined by public opinion and not by reason, evidence and a scientific mindset. Yes this is largely a debate between a top-down technocratic worldview vs democratic/meritocratic one. The point is FB is still very much on the former highly centralized expert-defined guideline/automated system side while only making small moves in the other direction with community notes. Maybe they'll keep going in that direction but what they say vs do is an important distinction.

sunshowers 2y ago
To be clear, the people who believe speech standards should be determined by public opinion are as incorrect as, say, flat earthers. I don't have a huge problem with community notes per se. I do have a huge problem with blatantly unequal standards just because large parts of the public have morally rotten views.
- PathOfEclipse 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - sunshowers 2y ago
    Centralized and diffused power are each vulnerable in their own ways -- diffused power to cults in particular. You'd generally expect people with more training to make better decisions than people with less training. Regardless, morality in general is quite objective. In particular, it is objectively the case that letting some groups of people be called mentally ill while other similarly situated groups not is bad. > Fact checking organizations proved themselves wildly left-biased Meh. The only thing that matters is whether they're reflecting objective reality (including objective moral reality). There's no a priori reason to believe that each political tendency is equally attached to reality.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - bandofthehawk 2y ago
      When the grandparent post said: > Fact checking organizations proved themselves wildly left-biased I think they implied that this bias also ran counter to objective reality. When someone calls out something that is objectively false, it's not usually considered bias.
      - sunshowers 2y ago
        > I think they implied that this bias also ran counter to objective reality. But did it actually? > When someone calls out something that is objectively false, it's not usually considered bias. I wish what you were saying were true. In reality, motivated actors will call anything that shows them wrong biased. The whole point of having a scientific mindset is to try and ascertain what's true by building the best models one can. This often means a lot of inherent complexity, since the world is quite complex (map-territory relation). But humans prefer simpler models over more complex ones, which leads to bad outcomes.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - PathOfEclipse 2y ago
      > Centralized and diffused power are each vulnerable in their own ways. Of course that's true. But one of them is worse. > You'd generally expect people with more training to make better decisions than people with less training. When it comes to politics, morality, and judgement, we cannot defer to an expert class. It's everyone's responsibility to be "trained" and make good decisions. > There's no a priori reason to believe that each political tendency is equally attached to reality. That's certainly true. For instance, post-modernism, the foundational religion of the far left, rejects truth, objectivity, and the scientific method: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3463968/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3463968/ I 100% believe that one side is far less grounded in reality than the other. I still would prefer a diffused speech enforcement system to one that allowed a few "experts" to elevate my opinion and suppress the opinion of those I disagree with.
      - sunshowers 2y ago
        Postmodernism is not the foundational religion of the far left, whatever that means. To the extent that any philosophy is that, it is Marxism, a kind of modernism. Postmodernism is explicitly and inherently anti-Marxist. I think postmodernism and post-structuralism have useful things to say around map-territory relationships, but the extreme "there is no objective reality" form of postmodernism is plainly false. And I share your concern about public perception of GMOs being wrong. I'd recommend checking out Simulacra and Simulation by Baudrillard. There are deep insights there about how society has replaced ground-level (i.e. objective) truths with symbols and signs, and there's a lot of discussion about map-territory relationships in there. You might enjoy it!
        PathOfEclipse 2y ago
        > To the extent that any philosophy is that, it is Marxism I actually don't think that's the case at all. Post-modernism is far more prevalent today than Marxism and even more dangerous. > Postmodernism is explicitly and inherently anti-Marxist. Some post-modernists may claim that, but I don't think it's true in practice or even in theory. If anything, post-modernism is, in some ways or facets, an evolution of Marxism beyond economics: https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/postmodernism_does_it_have_marxist_or_historicist_origins https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/postmodernism_does_it_have...
captainbland 2y ago
And it still works less well than community moderation.
- thephyber 2y ago
  “Works less well” is a subjective claim. How are you evaluating this? Are you including the truth of the Facebook post, whether moderators correctly/accurately act upon the flagging, whether users choose to stick on the platform after seeing the content, whether users stop believing in any objective truth, or something else? Community notes only does fact-checking, but moderation has the ability to reduce the activity of bad actors. They serve 2 different purposes from where I stand.
worik 2y ago
Let me make a correction please: > a top-down technocratic worldview vs democratic/meritocratic one. You mean to say: "a top-down technocratic worldview vs majoritarian one." Majoritarian != Democracy

by dmix 2y ago

sunshowers 2y ago

To be clear, the people who believe speech standards should be determined by public opinion are as incorrect as, say, flat earthers. I don't have a huge problem with community notes per se. I do have a huge problem with blatantly unequal standards just because large parts of the public have morally rotten views.

PathOfEclipse 2y ago
[flagged]
- sunshowers 2y ago
  Centralized and diffused power are each vulnerable in their own ways -- diffused power to cults in particular. You'd generally expect people with more training to make better decisions than people with less training. Regardless, morality in general is quite objective. In particular, it is objectively the case that letting some groups of people be called mentally ill while other similarly situated groups not is bad. > Fact checking organizations proved themselves wildly left-biased Meh. The only thing that matters is whether they're reflecting objective reality (including objective moral reality). There's no a priori reason to believe that each political tendency is equally attached to reality.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - bandofthehawk 2y ago
    When the grandparent post said: > Fact checking organizations proved themselves wildly left-biased I think they implied that this bias also ran counter to objective reality. When someone calls out something that is objectively false, it's not usually considered bias.
    - sunshowers 2y ago
      > I think they implied that this bias also ran counter to objective reality. But did it actually? > When someone calls out something that is objectively false, it's not usually considered bias. I wish what you were saying were true. In reality, motivated actors will call anything that shows them wrong biased. The whole point of having a scientific mindset is to try and ascertain what's true by building the best models one can. This often means a lot of inherent complexity, since the world is quite complex (map-territory relation). But humans prefer simpler models over more complex ones, which leads to bad outcomes.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - PathOfEclipse 2y ago
    > Centralized and diffused power are each vulnerable in their own ways. Of course that's true. But one of them is worse. > You'd generally expect people with more training to make better decisions than people with less training. When it comes to politics, morality, and judgement, we cannot defer to an expert class. It's everyone's responsibility to be "trained" and make good decisions. > There's no a priori reason to believe that each political tendency is equally attached to reality. That's certainly true. For instance, post-modernism, the foundational religion of the far left, rejects truth, objectivity, and the scientific method: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3463968/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3463968/ I 100% believe that one side is far less grounded in reality than the other. I still would prefer a diffused speech enforcement system to one that allowed a few "experts" to elevate my opinion and suppress the opinion of those I disagree with.
    - sunshowers 2y ago
      Postmodernism is not the foundational religion of the far left, whatever that means. To the extent that any philosophy is that, it is Marxism, a kind of modernism. Postmodernism is explicitly and inherently anti-Marxist. I think postmodernism and post-structuralism have useful things to say around map-territory relationships, but the extreme "there is no objective reality" form of postmodernism is plainly false. And I share your concern about public perception of GMOs being wrong. I'd recommend checking out Simulacra and Simulation by Baudrillard. There are deep insights there about how society has replaced ground-level (i.e. objective) truths with symbols and signs, and there's a lot of discussion about map-territory relationships in there. You might enjoy it!
      - PathOfEclipse 2y ago
        > To the extent that any philosophy is that, it is Marxism I actually don't think that's the case at all. Post-modernism is far more prevalent today than Marxism and even more dangerous. > Postmodernism is explicitly and inherently anti-Marxist. Some post-modernists may claim that, but I don't think it's true in practice or even in theory. If anything, post-modernism is, in some ways or facets, an evolution of Marxism beyond economics: https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/postmodernism_does_it_have_marxist_or_historicist_origins https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/postmodernism_does_it_have...

captainbland 2y ago

And it still works less well than community moderation.

thephyber 2y ago
“Works less well” is a subjective claim. How are you evaluating this? Are you including the truth of the Facebook post, whether moderators correctly/accurately act upon the flagging, whether users choose to stick on the platform after seeing the content, whether users stop believing in any objective truth, or something else? Community notes only does fact-checking, but moderation has the ability to reduce the activity of bad actors. They serve 2 different purposes from where I stand.

worik 2y ago

Let me make a correction please: > a top-down technocratic worldview vs democratic/meritocratic one. You mean to say: "a top-down technocratic worldview vs majoritarian one." Majoritarian != Democracy