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Mark in the Middle

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Re: Mark in the Middle

#521

Post by umvi »

maxsilver wrote: post #508
jdminhbg wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to redefine the political landscape according to your niche views is really pointless. Obviously the conversation is being conducted with the understanding that the US left/right/center are the reference points. There's no more point to this comment than there would be to a libertarian saying that Facebook shares are all from "statist" news sources.

> Obviously the conversation is being conducted with the understanding that the US left/right/center are the reference points. Right. And by US reference points, /r/politics stories news sources are generally centrist or right-leaning. The comments and commenters may not be, but the stories and sources definitely are. Even by US standards, MSNBC, USA Today, Politico, Washington Post, Newsweek, NY Times are all centri…

> Even by US standards, MSNBC, USA Today, Politico, Washington Post, Newsweek, NY Times are all centrist or right-leaning news sources

No, I think you are just out-of-touch with US politics. Every single one of those is left-leaning by "US standards"[0].

[0] See p.5,9: https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2014/...

Re: Mark in the Middle

#522

Post by fareesh »

zimpenfish wrote: post #506
fareesh wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - but they can still participate in society. Why shouldn't they? A klansman like Robert Byrd turned his life around. This is after Al Gore's father and he filibustered the civil rights act. Byrd went on to mentor Hillary Clinton, and I assume Al Gore's father was an influence on his son - the Vice President of the United States and the first lady, who went on to become a Senator from New York and then almost bec…

> I'm not afraid of engaging with white supremacists, they always lose anyway. The current state of the USA would disagree with you. > the more we let them speak, the weaker their allure will be. Except, somehow, they keep getting elected.

Seems like the goal is to ensure a specific election outcome then, and the narrative about hate etc. is just a cover.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#523

Post by shadowgovt »

chrisjarvis wrote: post #511
shadowgovt wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some might. Google had an exodus of some dozen to two-dozen high-performing engineers in the past 2 years resulting from multiple controversial management decisions. I don't expect FB to see an exodus more than sub-1% over topics like this, but the company can feel outsized impact if the sub-1% are 10x engineers... Or decide you can air any dirty internal laundry you want once they're no longer buying your silence an…

I doubt the people who take time out of their workdays for political activism are, by and large, the "10x engineers".

I can't imagine why. 10x engineers tend to either find a blend of their work / life balance or are so productive and organized that they have surplus time-in-day to burn.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#524

Post by shadowgovt »

thissitecensors wrote: post #513
shadowgovt wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I agree; this site regulates what topics are valid for conversation. It's the rest of your comment I take issue with. Wake me when dang rolls tanks into a public square. (... and I'll use my own logic to defend Facebook any day of the week. It's their site and their rules. If anything, I think the employees who believe they should be responsible and forthright about their policies there instead of pretending to n…

I'm sorry but saying it's not censorship unless a goon is putting gun to your head is sinply retarded.

I don't know how you keep arriving at the conclusion we disagree on this topic.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#525

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

montagg wrote: post #441
samatman wrote: post #380

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 don’t agree that the “hardcore freedom of speech” view requires or implies the assumptions you spell out.

They could all be false (eg more information is not better, people are frequently unable to parse out untruths and limiting information actually improves discourse quality) and still it is vastly more harmful to allow private institutions to wield the power of defining acceptable discourse than to permit all discourse.

The key issue is what the endowment of discourse-approval power grants to that institution. The issue is not whether discourse is true, productive or high-quality.

A bunch of nuts spouting off conspiracy theories on Facebook is low quality, likely to mislead people, and does not add useful information.

But allowing private entities to have the power to make policing decisions about it is a dramatically greater evil.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#526

Post by shadowgovt »

slg wrote: post #509
jakelazaroff wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the goal of allies gaining power. That is fundamentally different than Russian's initial goal of simply knocking the US out of their superpower role Why do you think Russia is trying to knock the US out of its superpower of its superpower role? They’re not doing it just to be petty.

Who said they were doing it to be petty? They are doing it because we have a hostile relationship, not because they want to eventually be allies. There is a fundamental difference between let's interfere with this country to install a friendly government and let's interfere with this country so it rips itself apart .

I think there can be a difference in goals, but history strongly suggests no country has mastered the difference in outcomes, so regardless of which goal, attempts to do either should be held to the highest suspicion and probably censured by the international community.

America learned a bloody and horrible lesson trying to install a friendly government in Afghanistan after Russia diminished their influence in the region.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#527

Post by raydev »

ghiculescu wrote: post #518
paulgb wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook (at HQ and some if not all satellite offices) provide multiple meals per day. When evaluating offers, I've priced similar perks at equivalent to an additional ~$10k of pre-tax income. If I had priced a $10k perk into my salary and no longer got it, I'd be disappointed in Zuckerberg's dismissiveness here.

If you were still making an easy six figures during a global pandemic and the only cut was (temporarily) 10k in perks, complaining would not be the right move.

It's an unacknowledged cut. If your employer suddenly reduced your paycheck by N%, you'd probably want an explanation to go with it, pandemic or not.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#528

Post by sjg007 »

retox wrote: post #515
erik_seaberg wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that left-wing pageviews are divided among more sources so none of them individually get this much traffic?

I think the answer is that the US population is much less "lefty" that people in that milieu would like to believe.

I think you are wrong. Almost all Americans want police reform for example.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#529

Post by sjg007 »

tqi wrote: post #163
sjg007 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is just delicious. It's just like the problem that very small minority of folks on FB have been given a megaphone to spread lies and hate. All FB has to do is tone down the engagement algorithms. Put up a bunch of invisible walls.

10 years ago the concern was filter bubbles. Now we want invisible walls?

Yep, increase friction. Instagram is a good example.. You have to post a photo and you can't retweet.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#530

Post by crocodiletears »

sjg007 wrote: post #528
retox wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the answer is that the US population is much less "lefty" that people in that milieu would like to believe.

I think you are wrong. Almost all Americans want police reform for example.

'Want police reform' and, 'want leftist-espoused police reform' are two very different things.

Just because the majority of a population support a given policy abstract doesn't mean that the gamut of their potential demands doesn't span the entirety of the political spectrum.

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