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Mark in the Middle

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Re: Mark in the Middle

#491

Post by schuyler2d »

grawprog wrote: post #422
jarpadat wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty simple, although it may not be obvious. There are 2 different views about "what freedom/democracy is" that are presently doing battle in america, at least among inteligentsia One, the worldview embedded into your comment, is that freedom is about the limits of discourse. Under this system, limiting discourse is inherently undemocratic, so if facebook "censor(s) things they disagree with" this is bad and w…

>For example, misinformation that might persuade voters into voting based on a false premise undermines a democratic system. So, what's different now vs when there was paid political campaigns and advertising on TV, radio, magazines etc.? Partisan political ads have never been a source of reliable information as long as i've been alive. I'm curious as to what elections you've participated in within your lifetime that…

Paid ads (including political ones) on TV are not allowed to make false statements. Networks have had that policy for a long time.

It's Facebook that is undermining that norm -- even though they have the same standard for ads from non-politicians.

There's a GOP pac head that is running for something just to dodge Facebook's policy about lying.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#492

Post by dragonwriter »

crazygringo wrote: post #423
dragonwriter wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And even in the US, "yelling fire in a crowded movie theater" isn't protected either. Well, if you believe tangential dicta that was grounded in no preexisting law offered in a since-overturned case allowing the repression of core political speech, sure... But best not use that example.

It's a widely understood example that is perfectly fine to use, since the underlying concept is immediately understandable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the... If you're feeling pedantic, perhaps you can replace the phrase with "yelling things to incite an imminent lawless action" (to crib from Wikipedia's summarization of Brandenburg ) any time anyone ever says it. Does that work for you?…

> It's a widely understood example that is perfectly fine to use

It is a misquote (leaving out "falsely", a modifier which is key to the meaning of the original quote) of a statement the original of which is inaccurate as a description of the prior state of the law when the case it was in was decided, or the state of the law once the case was decided (being dicta, it itself had no binding effect), or the current state of the law, from a decision now widely recognized as anathema to the central protection of the First Amendment.

It is, almost literally, the worst example that you could use.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#493

Post by montagg »

samatman wrote: post #457
montagg wrote: post #441

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…

Well, we’re talking about Facebook, so I’m not worried about gulags. At least from Facebook itself. From the people who get their information on Facebook, though, maybe I should be.

I’m positing that in the long run it will be easier and less detrimental to society to establish some kind of editorial guidelines around misinformation and hold platforms accountable to them than it will be to educate enough people quickly enough to vet misinformation for themselves, especially as misinformation becomes increasingly hard to spot. I say this knowing fully that defining what misinformation is will be extremely hard, and you’re putting a lot of power in the hands of whatever person or group does that. Every decision is a trade off where you choose what benefits you think are best and what problems you think you can solve best and trying to balance them. I think we can better solve the problem of effectively limiting power abuse than we can of limiting the broad abuse of inherent human biases.

Edit: I should also note, I agree with a handful of the assumptions I listed above, specifically that democracies are built on the idea that people can broadly reach the right answer together. I still believe that. But I also believe in clearing out the brush and debris in the way so the crowd can actually use that superpower well.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#495

Post by hinkley »

scottlamb wrote: post #179
_qulr wrote: post #87

Politics aside, many Facebook employees come across as rather childish, incapable of taking care of themselves. The big complaint is about lack of snacks! Zuck has to scold them by asking rhetorically whether they joined the company for the free food. And one employee asks if they can go live on an island by themselves, apparently like Lord of the Flies. Of course one may fairly ask whether Facebook's hiring process…

> The big complaint is about lack of snacks! Free food , including meals. If Facebook is anything like Google, some single people were literally using that for every meal and snack 5/7 days per week. It's tasty, nutritious food, and you don't have to prepare it or do dishes. Sure, an adult should be able to take care of this on their own, but this is a major perk, not just a box of granola bars on a shelf. It might c…

The Towel Debacle for Microsoft wasn't about towels. I doubt this is about food.

We fight proxy wars all the time because we can't seem to bring ourselves to say what's really bothering us. All these other minor problems accumulate to make the unspeakable thing intolerable.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#496

Post by makomk »

seiferteric wrote: post #259
zimpenfish wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are all those people morally bankrupt and unworthy of a place in the hallowed gardens of equality? I would say that places in the "hallowed gardens of equality" are for those who believe in equality, not those who consider any set of other people as lesser. > and in doing so force the other group to take a side. No-one forces anyone to be racist, homophobic, etc. > have had their own life circumstances shape their…

There is a problem with this view because all groups of people are essentially (statistically) the same and are in fact shaped by their environment. What I mean is, if you were born in their world, you would statistically share similar views to them right? Or are you saying that you are somehow naturally morally superior to them and would resist these bigoted view if you were born in their shoes? I don't think so...…

From what I've seen over the last few years, this pretty much gets right to the heart of how this kind of push to shape discourse and control what's possible to say is justified: the people pushing for it really, truly believe that whatever moral beliefs are currently the norm amongst the (narrow, geographically, socially, religiously and racially unrepresentative) community of people campaigning for this are the one objectively correct moral framework and that anyone who deviates from it is a morally bankrupt monster who is treating others as subhuman.

What makes this particularly interesting is that those beliefs actually vary a lot more than the people pushing for this realize. There's actually this argument that they shouldn't have to spell out what the correct beliefs actually are to justify this since they're obvious to everyone, and any demand to be specific is just an attempt by wrongthinkers to pretend they don't know why they're supporting evil. This means any differences only get discovered when that specific situation comes up, and can just get pinned on the other side being evil monsters masquerading as decent people when an unreconciled divide does appear. Also, they change over time rapidly enough that the mandatory non-bigoted views from even a few years ago are beyond the pale in critical ways now.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#497

Post by s1artibartfast »

linuxftw wrote: post #483
s1artibartfast wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guarantee that facebook employees have an employment contract they signed. This would cover assignment of intellectual property, moonlighting, and other topics. In the US, an employer can absolutely cut your salary by 5k/yr if it isn't in your contract.

But this is all beside the point, I'm not saying that 5k isn't insignificant to people, even FANG employees. I totally understand that. Im saying that facebook can take this away at the drop of a hat with no notice. It is weird to outsiders that the employees don't seem to understand this.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#499

Post by shadowgovt »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #443
shadowgovt wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's worth noting that the wave of fascism that swept the world during the early 20th century coincided with radio and television being widely deployed. This may be correlation that does not imply causation. But demagogues had, for the first time, a way to reach into people's homes directly with their messages all the time, if they had access to microphones, video cameras, and broadcast towers. And it was a m…

> "I think it's worth noting that the wave of fascism that swept the world during the early 20th century coincided with radio and television being widely deployed." Surely you mean both fascism and socialism?

That also correlates, agreed.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#500

Post by ufmace »

908B64B197 wrote: post #182
linuxftw wrote: post #144

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 don't know why this is downvoted. Honestly, I bet a lot of employees were fine with living in apartments with minimal kitchens (most studios have the kitchen be a single long counter in a corridor of the apartment) since they would be getting their meals at the office anyways.

It was an oddly contemptuous take IMO. Like what's the beef with having a single frying pan? If you really don't cook anything at all, why do you have even one? Or there's no reason you couldn't cook 3 meals a day in a single frying pan if you wanted to, just a little more cleaning.

As a small-kitchen-haver, cooking is perfectly doable. What's tougher is making enough food for 6 people or a 4-dish meal.

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