Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#441

Post by pron » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

kofejnik wrote: post #417

pron wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that believers in homeopathy don't employ anything resembling the scientific method, and there's plenty of evidence against its validity. Social researchers absolutely do use the scientific method, and you don't have any evidence against the validity of their results (obviously, some are wrong -- just as in medicine -- but the field as a whole is serious and as rigorous as possible).

Just as I was preparing to answer your comment about physicists, you edited it. But wow, is this really your argument - "disprove the results or they are considered valid"? Ever heard of Russel's teapot? Using the method is nice, but let me know when they learn to reliably predict anything, such as election outcomes.

And you let me know when mathematicians come up with ways to predict intractable processes. Sadly, dynamical systems are subject to similar undecidability and intractibility results as those affecting computer science. Biologists can't predict specific evolutionary adaptations, either, but that doesn't mean they don't understand the mechanics of evolution. Tracing the cause of a bug is much easier than predicting program behavior, but the fact that we can't predict a program's behavior doesn't mean that computer scientists don't understand the principles of computation. Intractable processes in general can be explained in retrospect, but not predicted.

I'm not saying you should consider every social research result valid, but you cannot dismiss a discipline that employs rigorous observation and the scientific method by employing nothing of even remotely similar rigor. The burden of proof is on social researchers, but they have carried it as much as mathematically possible at present. What you cannot do is ignore the evidence by closing your eyes and saying it doesn't exist, or by picking bad apples as example. It's like an evolution denier saying that evolution is bogus because there are no fossils or whatever, and citing as evidence some cases of fake fossils.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#442

Post by mordocai » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 10:07 PM UTC

xaqfox wrote: post #435

mordocai wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you focusing on taxes? Current government marriage is too tied to religion anyway. Make all government "marriages" be civil unions, no tax breaks but all the legal advantages such as sharing insurance and not having to testify against each other etc (this is the main point of getting married currently IMHO). Then make having kids give you tax breaks. This should sate the religious (they can have their marriag…

Why do we offer any legal advantages? Why do married couples deserve privileges over single or asexual people?

Note that I dropped the word married here in my proposal. It would be a civil union, not marriage.

In any case, the legal advantages are things that make it easier to live together permanently. As far as I'm concerned, if we moved to my proposal you should be able to get a civil union just for that reason.

So, if two best friends or roommates want to have a civil union because it makes their life easier have at it. If irreconcilable difficulties occur, then they can sever the union in court much like today's divorces.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#443

Post by sethrin » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 10:08 PM UTC

jimmywanger wrote: post #413

sethrin wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be clear, the focus on transgender rights is a conservative one. Conservatives lost the fight on gay marriage and needed another moral crusade to rile up their base. So far it has been quite effective. Transgender persons are as you say, a tiny minority, and politically a nonentity. The status quo on bathroom laws was really just fine. Trans people are more worried about nomenclature and paying for therapy, and…

> The main thrust of your argument was that we must either talk about jobs or trans issues. This is a false dichotomy. This is most certainly not a false dichotomy. Everybody has a certain amount of mind share that they command. If you're talking about Subject A you're not talking about Subject B. That goes a long way to explaining again why liberals seem so out of touch with most working class folks living in middle…

The ones "rambling on" are the conservatives. They invented this issue, and immediately started to legislate it. At which point people started objecting. Stop making laws about bathrooms and we all can stop worrying about it.

Mindshare may or may not be a finite resource but there is nothing suggesting that we are over-budget on that. But if that is a problem, again, your team created it. You are the party of legislating bathrooms and bedrooms. Own it.

Also, you may want to consider different news sources, as you seem to have a problem with repeating talking points instead of supporting your arguments with facts. This "out of touch" rhetoric is being heavily pushed by the right-wing apparatchik, and I am sure that you would rather be able to have your own opinions rather than the ones that the Party thinks you should have.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#444

Post by tenpies » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 10:14 PM UTC

woodman wrote: post #176

fiblye wrote: post #11

I think, in a way, the media is kind of empowering the "alt-right" by constantly referring to them as the "alt-right". It presents it as the little guy vs The Man, and I think that makes it much more palatable than "far right." Influential people who think the government is intentionally making gay frogs, that media needs to be under strict control, that climate change is a Chinese hoax, and that everything is us vs…

> ... that media needs to be under strict control ... Is that really an alt-right position? I lost interest in politics a long time ago, but the last time I heard that sentiment was from the left - calling for the Fairness Doctrine to be brought back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

I don't think so. If anything the alt-right probably believes that the media is already under extremely strict control by the left. The elections made it very clear that the majority of the main stream media is in line with Hillary/the Liberals/the regressive Left. Almost every media technology company is also perceived to be in line with that pro-liberal media bloc (See: Twitter's almost exclusive banning of right-wing rule-breakers, Facebook's pro-Liberal news curation, Google's perceived tailouring of Hillary search results).

The alt-right probably wants free speech above all, to the point where hate speech is permitted in much the same way that safe spaces are today.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#445

Post by jimmywanger » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 10:39 PM UTC

king_wentz wrote: post #394

jimmywanger wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Liberals care about someone who has to work 12 hours a day for minimum wage, has no meaningful time with their children, has to go to work even when sick or risk being fired, is possibly just a broken bone away from homelessness, and is preyed on by the financial industry with fraudulent credits etc. Oh – and when they get home, there's Mit Romney on FOX saying poor people are lazy. Ridiculous. I can't tell you how…

Someone using an iPhone doesn't invalidate their views - are they supposed to suddenly stop using a phone as a statement to the world? I see plenty of issues with Chinese laborers working in slave-like conditions. I'm happy to discuss breaking trade treaties and dealing with the consequences to give these people better lives. I'd say their condition is worse than the American poor - so if anything, we should bias tow…

> But, we have power to fix these things within the bounds of our nation and refuse to do it.

We do not. Increase minimum wages, and we increase inflation and the unemployment rate. You cannot legislate prosperity. You can legislate poverty though, as Venezuela found out.

> We have more influence over our country than any other.

We are the consumers of the world. If we suddenly stopped buying consumer electronics/clothing unless it was responsibly sourced and three times (at minimum) the price they were today, don't you think labor conditions would become suddenly far better?

You cannot legislate morality. You can coerce it through economic pressures and incentives, but just legislating that people have to be nice to each other doesn't work. Hasn't worked throughout history, won't be starting now.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#446

Post by jimmywanger » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 10:46 PM UTC

sethrin wrote: post #443

jimmywanger wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main thrust of your argument was that we must either talk about jobs or trans issues. This is a false dichotomy. This is most certainly not a false dichotomy. Everybody has a certain amount of mind share that they command. If you're talking about Subject A you're not talking about Subject B. That goes a long way to explaining again why liberals seem so out of touch with most working class folks living in middle…

The ones "rambling on" are the conservatives. They invented this issue, and immediately started to legislate it. At which point people started objecting. Stop making laws about bathrooms and we all can stop worrying about it. Mindshare may or may not be a finite resource but there is nothing suggesting that we are over-budget on that. But if that is a problem, again, your team created it. You are the party of legisla…

> The ones "rambling on" are the conservatives. They invented this issue, and immediately started to legislate it.

That is ridiculous. We've had gender separated restrooms for the longest time. It's only until now that social mores weren't enough to enforce the fact that you're just not supposed to use a restroom not of your gender, except for children with their parent under a certain age.

A law is a heavy handed way to solve the discomfort of most people, but it was passed in a state by its elected legislature. Since the Constitution doesn't say anything about sexual relations or orientation at all, it devolves to state rights.

> But if that is a problem, again, your team created it. You are the party of legislating bathrooms and bedrooms. Own it.

We are owning it. We're owning it because people aren't respecting long held social norms because of certain ideas of justice they have. Get over yourself. When a majority of people in a political jurisdiction believe a certain thing, either learn to live with it or move.

> This "out of touch" rhetoric is being heavily pushed by the right-wing apparatchik, and I am sure that you would rather be able to have your own opinions rather than the ones that the Party thinks you should have.

Ad hominem much? I have not attacked you personally at all, and you're insulting my ability to have my own opinions on thin evidence. I repeat points in the media because they make sense. Heck, I repeat facts every day. The mere fact that I repeat them so often doesn't make them less true.

Also, the left has been the political leaning that has clamped down heavily on thought crime and dissent. Note that Milo Yiannopoulos is far right, as he found the left far too stifling intellectually.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#447

Post by woodman » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 10:57 PM UTC

icanhackit wrote: post #437

woodman wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You wouldn't call the Republicans "right" if they started handing out generous welfare packages to the masses. Like their pre-Obama universal healthcare proposals? The one dimensional political spectrum, with n-right vs n-left, doesn't work at all.

> The one dimensional political spectrum, with n-right vs n-left, doesn't work at all. It's not a good way of accurately gauging the political spectrum but I'm not sure I'd say it doesn't work at all. A better method would be to add two more axes so you have x, y and z which would allow you to measure social policy (services, infrastructure), fiscal policy (an increase or decrease in state assets, taxation) and inter…

> It's not a good way of accurately gauging the political spectrum but I'm not sure I'd say it doesn't work at all.

As it fails in such a modest charge, I'm comfortable saying that it doesn't work. The only variable that it would come close to measuring is individual freedom vs collective comfort. A multidimensional representation would do a better job, but it would quickly become so complex that it would be useless - as most people hold contradictory ideas.

That is why far-right does not accurately describe alt-right, think of it as a second dimension on the traditional spectrum.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#448

Post by pron » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 10:57 PM UTC

xaa wrote: post #438

pron wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We cannot realistically expect the public to read academic publications before voting. No, but we can hope that people would at least listen to those who dedicate their lives to a rigorous study of society rather than dismiss their views based on nothing of the sort. Academics (and journalists) don't explain those terms and the reasoning behind them only in academic publications.

I agree wholeheartedly with grzm. And I do believe the skepticism he is talking about has generated one positive result: if you want people to believe in expertise now, you have to not just define terms and explain reasoning, but show concrete proof. People believe (mostly) in modern medicine not because of our fancy jargon, or our explained logic about why the cell does this or that, but because it obviously works.…

> if you want people to believe in expertise now, you have to not just define terms and explain reasoning, but show concrete proof.

Yes, and even then you should expect a few decades or centuries for people to be convinced. I think the evidence is here, but sufficient time hasn't passed.

> And they also tend to resist the conclusion that we ought to do this or that about it

I have absolutely no problem with that. People are free to have different views about the goals, and even if the goals are shared, about the best means of achieving them. I'm just not so happy about the denial of facts, but I'm well aware that it takes a long time for facts to sink in.

> Once we start talking about what we should do, we are completely outside the realm of science.

Absolutely, and I don't think social research is about telling us what to do, but classifying actions as racist isn't prescriptive but descriptive, and is certainly under the purview of science.

> Because to them that term is as much or more a political tool for moral condemnation

Right, but there's a problem here. First, saying that the term is just a tool for moral condemnation serves their interest of resisting the facts behind it. Second, in addition to being an academic classification, it is used a (rather weak) tool for condemnation that serves as a very weak defense much stronger opposing forces of marginalization. I mean, in the end, politics is a struggle over the distribution of power. One group yells "women belong in the kitchen; blacks are inferior" or whatever. What tools do you suggest the other side use to fight back? Present evidence? They do, but you just said that the intended audience don't read Slate. So moral condemnation is such (rather ineffective) means.

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#449

Post by pron » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 11:01 PM UTC

kofejnik wrote: post #423

pron wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the layman would be wrong, because to judge the significance of a statement -- in sociology as in math -- context is crucial.

So now we have a privileged caste of self-appointed social 'scientists' who get to decide what constitutes racism and who gets their life ruined. this is gold, seriously

I'm not sure understand what you're asking. Researchers in every field are always a "self appointed caste" and, yes, they tend to be privileged. Racism as an academic term is defined by the academic discipline that studies it, just as physicists get to decide what constitutes energy under the academic definition of energy, even though the word had existed thousands of years earlier, and with a different meaning. I don't think academics often get to decide who gets their life ruined, but social researchers do study the process of what ruins life in society. Have I addressed your questions?

Re: Twitter Suspends Prominent Alt-Right Accounts

#450

Post by icanhackit » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 11:11 PM UTC

woodman wrote: post #447

icanhackit wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The one dimensional political spectrum, with n-right vs n-left, doesn't work at all. It's not a good way of accurately gauging the political spectrum but I'm not sure I'd say it doesn't work at all. A better method would be to add two more axes so you have x, y and z which would allow you to measure social policy (services, infrastructure), fiscal policy (an increase or decrease in state assets, taxation) and inter…

> It's not a good way of accurately gauging the political spectrum but I'm not sure I'd say it doesn't work at all. As it fails in such a modest charge, I'm comfortable saying that it doesn't work. The only variable that it would come close to measuring is individual freedom vs collective comfort. A multidimensional representation would do a better job, but it would quickly become so complex that it would be useless…

> think of it as a second dimension on the traditional spectrum

Maybe I'm missing something but in this thread I haven't seen anything that shows how the alt-right is fundamentally different to, despite the flawed labeling system, what is standard fare for the far-right. What sits in this second dimension, and does the rule apply to the left? Is it consistent?