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Mark in the Middle

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Re: Mark in the Middle

#481
post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of which politics you're for or against. It's one thing to join in occasional political discussion as part of a variety of intellectually interesting topics, but quite another to only (or mostly) be using the site for that. Once that line is crossed, HN is clearly not being used as intended, and there's a huge…

Dang, educate yourself on Facebook’s effect in Myanmar. If you think this is just political battles, perhaps do a bit of self reflection and maybe Hacker News is not the pinnacle of intellectual thought you are giving it the credit of being.

I don't think that about HN, or anything close to that.

Please follow the site guidelines when commenting here.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're doing a poor job of explaining the first worldview. Which is okay, you've acknowledged that you have trouble understanding it. This worldview has been called the "liberal consensus". What it holds is that the power to determine a discourse is inherently against freedom is corrupting , and by allowing an authority to determine that, it will inevitably be used as a weapon. Goalposts will shift. We will, hmm, go…

I think there's a non-splippery-slope way to position the worldview you're describing that might be more palatable to the values of a worldview based on limiting discourse based on content. I believe the hardcore freedom of speech view has a few important underlying assumptions: 1) More information is better, and shining a light on something is better than trying to selectively hide it, because eventually the real tr…

The hardcore freedom of speech view ignores the societal transaction costs that come from dealing with lies by people who don't give a f... about truth, but only about power.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. Not everyone knows, or even wants to cook 3 meals a day (me included). For people who have gotten free food through their work, it is a big deal. Now they either have to make stuff themselves (which costs time) or source it from outside (which costs money).

I understand that this can be a point of dissatisfaction, but I think most people are reacting to the presumption that it is somehow the employers responsibility to address it. For most of society, the answer is obvious: Figure it out, Snacks aren't in your contract.

In the US, we don't typically have employment contracts. Facebook was serving up 2+ meals per day. At (a modest estimate) $20/day, that works out to be about $5k per year. That's not an insignificant amount of cash to some people.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're doing a poor job of explaining the first worldview. Which is okay, you've acknowledged that you have trouble understanding it. This worldview has been called the "liberal consensus". What it holds is that the power to determine a discourse is inherently against freedom is corrupting , and by allowing an authority to determine that, it will inevitably be used as a weapon. Goalposts will shift. We will, hmm, go…

I think there's a non-splippery-slope way to position the worldview you're describing that might be more palatable to the values of a worldview based on limiting discourse based on content. I believe the hardcore freedom of speech view has a few important underlying assumptions: 1) More information is better, and shining a light on something is better than trying to selectively hide it, because eventually the real tr…

> I think there's a non-splippery-slope way to position the worldview (...)

I wouldn't discount the "slippery-slope way", because a slippery slope is not a fallacy when the slope is, in fact, slippery (and demonstrably so).

> My main counter to these ideas is that, similar to (pure) free market proponents, it takes on a very idealistic view of rationality that doesn't match real behavior.

That cuts both ways, though. Some vocal proponents of the "there's bad speech" view weaponize the Paradox of Tolerance argument, way past the point it's rationally applicable, and use it to beat people into submission. It's a very big problem in well-known online communities (including Facebook, Reddit and HN). For now, the effects are mostly limited to being called an -ist or -obe if you don't agree with maximally extremist view on some issues, and every now and then someone loses a job due to a Twitter mob. But I wouldn't want to live in a country ruled by the same principles.

Note that the side effect of extreme policing of wrongthing isn't just that the bad people get underground instead of being "disinfected by light". It's also extremely polarizing, because those on the fence now have to pick a side or get accused of being inssuficiently rightthinking - and some of those will adopt the wrongthink, at the very least because the wrongthinkers are nice to them. The historical equivalent of that is running your country by calling everyone not conspicuously patriotic enough a traitor and executing them; at some point you'll find that a chunk of your population actually defects to the enemy just to save their lives.

The way I see it, I'm all for maximizing accuracy and precision of beliefs and opinions, which correlates with rooting out disinformation. As for wrongthink - I believe the Paradox of Tolerance is recursive. That is, if in the process of rooting out the intolerant you start causing collateral damage among the innocent, you become the intolerant that should be rooted out.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#485
post #353

To be honest I wish Zuckerberg would say "We're not censoring political posts, and if you don't like it, --> there's the door. Who's leaving first?" Facebook engineers may love to beat their chests about social justice, but when push comes to shove, they are not about to walk away from those gold plated salaries & stock grants. Most of them could leave FB and get another job paying somewhere in the ballpark of $200k…

Maybe I’m out of the loop a little bit I feel that the argument framed as political activism is a deflection. Post 5g causes sickness or other theories... These aren’t political at all, they are just factually incorrect. Framing them as political is a mistake and it seems to have worked so well, even here on HN.

Employees were mad specifically because he wouldn't take down the president's post threatening a violent crackdown on rioting & looting. Is it your perception that the main objection of employees was to explicitly counterfactual claims? That's not what I got from TFA

Also TFA makes clear that facebook takes down tons of posts, that's the biggest complaint they get from users, so it's not true that they are leaving everything up. Respectfully: did you read TFA?

Re: Mark in the Middle

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young urbanites don't cook. They don't drive, how do they get groceries. They probably have a single frying pan. For these people, free food at work might be a large portion of their daily caloric intake, outside of the beer/booze.

I completely agree. Not everyone knows, or even wants to cook 3 meals a day (me included). For people who have gotten free food through their work, it is a big deal. Now they either have to make stuff themselves (which costs time) or source it from outside (which costs money).

But they no longer have to commute to work (which costs time, or which costs money). They could use that time or money to learn the joys of cooking tasty food, tasty food being one of the few things people of all walks and persuasions can agree is a joyful thing. But they perhaps instead choose to use their free time to play grindy addictive video games, or binge watch Netflix, or consume cannabis, or rage-read political newsfeeds, or get mired in political threads on HN. Why take up music or cooking or reading good books with good friends and why find joy and peace and purpose in life when you can instead wallow in a web-cesspool?

Re: Mark in the Middle

#487
post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang, educate yourself on Facebook’s effect in Myanmar. If you think this is just political battles, perhaps do a bit of self reflection and maybe Hacker News is not the pinnacle of intellectual thought you are giving it the credit of being.

I don't think that about HN, or anything close to that. Please follow the site guidelines when commenting here.

I will. But let me say this, for 30 years Godwin’s law was sort of a joke on the internet and circa 10 yrs ago, I would have expected a genocide comment to be ridiculous. But considering this context, it is relevant not merely a “political” battle.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/21/facebook-keeps-failing-...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Re: Mark in the Middle

#488

To be honest I wish Zuckerberg would say "We're not censoring political posts, and if you don't like it, --> there's the door. Who's leaving first?" Facebook engineers may love to beat their chests about social justice, but when push comes to shove, they are not about to walk away from those gold plated salaries & stock grants. Most of them could leave FB and get another job paying somewhere in the ballpark of $200k…

I wish he'd say this for a different reason: we'll find out whether you're correct or not very quickly. In a way, I also wish I could be this cynical, because I wouldn't have to think about the complexities of human motivation, and that would be a lot easier. But I don't think money and status is all there is. Which is exactly why these outcries are happening: people are negotiating as best they can to maximize all t…

Totally agree–eliminate the rhetorical hiding places ("I work here but I object strongly...) and let people either be honest about the fact that the money is worth the compromise (i.e. stop performing outrage) or actually be outraged enough to do something (walk out & get another job).

Personally I would not work at Facebook precisely because I object to the negative impact I think it has on society. I'm not condemning employees for objecting, I'm rolling my eyes at them objecting loudly but seemingly avoiding the personal sacrifice of actually refusing to contribute to facebook and foregoing the pecuniary benefits of those contributions.

I also personally make compromises. I cannot always work at my "dream job" that's "mission driven" etc., and I'm honest with myself about that. We all make compromises, we all draw our own line somewhere.

(also I know some FB workers who have left due objections to FB policy so it's definitely wrong to say "none of them do that")

Re: Mark in the Middle

#489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a non-splippery-slope way to position the worldview you're describing that might be more palatable to the values of a worldview based on limiting discourse based on content. I believe the hardcore freedom of speech view has a few important underlying assumptions: 1) More information is better, and shining a light on something is better than trying to selectively hide it, because eventually the real tr…

It seems to me that you're still ignoring the tail risk of authoritarian control of the concept of truth, namely, gulags. It's a justified fear, since it's happened repeatedly in living memory, and is happening still: you're welcome to go hand out pamphlets about the June Fourth Incident on Tiananmen Square if you don't believe me. If you want to discount that risk, ignoring it or glossing it as some sort of slippery…

I think I'm generally on your side of the debate, but are we really talking about authoritarian control of public discourse here? I thought we were talking about Facebook, a private corporation, deciding whether they want to allow their platform to be used to spread false and potentially harmful information.

Facebook is powerful, but it's not an authoritarian state. I'm not sure I see much danger in Facebook weighing in on different kinds of falsehood (i.e., your insight that things can be false in different way). It seems more akin to a journal having standards for what it publishes, or HackerNews hiding or removing egregiously bad comments, than it does to the Chinese government jailing dissidents.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#490
post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most modern states with the necessary capabilities spread disinformation to other countries for their own political gain or the political gain of their allies, Russia is far from the only one.

Fair, but Russia is the most direct example of the specific fears mentioned in spreading disinformation with the goal of polarization as opposed to a different specific goal. When the US spreads propaganda in a foreign country, it is usually to get the people to align with US values as opposed to a goal of destabilization.

That’s deeply false. The US has engineered and provided support for coups around the world. Does that not count as destabilization?
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