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YouTube shadowbans video titled “The CIA is a Terrorist Organization”

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Re: YouTube shadowbans video titled “The CIA is a Terrorist Organization”

#251
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is basically what's known as survivor bias. The number of times this comes up on here it is a bit of a meme. So I will counter with the maxim of "If all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail".

I don't think that's a very good counter, and I don't think it addresses the substance of my post at all. I'd say the term comes up often because it's a very common phenomenon - much like the one about hammers and nails. I'm sure there are many other terms for it - the idea that "history is written by the victors" It's certainly older than the concept of cognitive biaess, and I could as easily have invoked that.

Yes it does. It isn't survivorship bias if the process has been going on centuries. Whenever people bring up "X has worked" you will have someone on this site say "survivorship bias".

It has become such a trope of this site I have heard other people mention it on discord discussions and I haven't brought the subject up.

If you start with a faulty premise we can just stop there (and one that is a complete trope).

Re: YouTube shadowbans video titled “The CIA is a Terrorist Organization”

#252

Speaking as a lurker, this seems basically like what people have been asking for for awhile now including here. I remember seeing numerous top comment chains over the last four years (and of course before that but not here) that all boiled down to very eloquent defenses of censoring fringe thinkers. Who knows, maybe in theory land there's no reason we can't have it both ways. But it seems to me that in the real world…

I think that people are increasingly getting stuck in their own filter bubbles. This leads to people drifting apart over time and into extremes. This is because there is no cohesive force getting them to think together anymore. One proposed solution is to simply filter the more 'extreme' standpoints out of the dialogue. Hence censorship. But I don't think that filtering and moderation are going to help much if people…

People are stuck in bubbles created by companies. If recommendation algorithms were developed to recommend videos that tell contrary perspective or didn't recommend similar videos and fill My Feeds with similar videos, no individual would have being in the bubble in first place in best scenario or at worst in some private forum like he/she used to in early days of internet. Instead people have started allowing companies to create bubbles and censor them too and now they are rationalising the power they gave to corporates.

Re: YouTube shadowbans video titled “The CIA is a Terrorist Organization”

#253
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a very good counter, and I don't think it addresses the substance of my post at all. I'd say the term comes up often because it's a very common phenomenon - much like the one about hammers and nails. I'm sure there are many other terms for it - the idea that "history is written by the victors" It's certainly older than the concept of cognitive biaess, and I could as easily have invoked that.

Yes it does. It isn't survivorship bias if the process has been going on centuries. Whenever people bring up "X has worked" you will have someone on this site say "survivorship bias". It has become such a trope of this site I have heard other people mention it on discord discussions and I haven't brought the subject up. If you start with a faulty premise we can just stop there (and one that is a complete trope).

I don't think the argument I was addressing can be summed up as "X has worked". It's more like "X has happened, therefore X is an inevitable consequence of Y which preceded it."

Also, tropes are often tropes for a reason. You can't dismiss something just because it comes up often.

Re: YouTube shadowbans video titled “The CIA is a Terrorist Organization”

#254
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just absence of mentions of actions by other clandestine actors, it’s absence of even acknowledging what kind of world does cia operate in - everybody all the time is engaged in secret operations to advance their agenda. Everybody does that in multiple parallel projects, operated in different capacities with people of varying competency. Any “storytelling” about single agency or project or a person is incomp…

Asking out of curiosiry. Do you have an contemporary actors in mind that operate on the same level as CIA? Because it seems to me like there is much concern about other "conpetitors", but I do not know of any. Not to be missinterpreted, I don't say there aren't spy agencies from other countries trying to do similar things, I'm saying I am not aware of any that operate on a similar scale and range as CIA. Interested i…

KGB did not go anywhere since USSR’s collapse. They literally operate a mafia superpower with nuclear capacity right now in form of Russia. They are also more sophisticated in terms of people operations since they’ve been at it for quite a bit longer and they were never restrained by even a facade of moral responsibility USA places upon itself by pretending to be democratic and leader of the free world.

Whatever China’s counterpart to CIA is can’t be small either be it in scale or sophistication.

Don’t underestimate those by comparing purely financial side of things, agencies that operate on ideology tend to have way more motivated and focused humans which more than makes up any financial shortcomings. The whole industry operates on the idea of asymmetric response and making the US waste so much resources is part of the goal.

Re: YouTube shadowbans video titled “The CIA is a Terrorist Organization”

#255
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does. It isn't survivorship bias if the process has been going on centuries. Whenever people bring up "X has worked" you will have someone on this site say "survivorship bias". It has become such a trope of this site I have heard other people mention it on discord discussions and I haven't brought the subject up. If you start with a faulty premise we can just stop there (and one that is a complete trope).

I don't think the argument I was addressing can be summed up as "X has worked". It's more like "X has happened, therefore X is an inevitable consequence of Y which preceded it." Also, tropes are often tropes for a reason. You can't dismiss something just because it comes up often.

> I don't think the argument I was addressing can be summed up as "X has worked". It's more like "X has happened, therefore X is an inevitable consequence of Y which preceded it."

You are splitting hairs now. The point I am making is that frequently on this site observations are discounted immediately as survorship bias. It almost as if it the only one people know.

It simply isn't survorship bias if something been going on for hundreds of years in a particular direction.

> Also, tropes are often tropes for a reason. You can't dismiss something just because it comes up often.

I am dismissing it because it doesn't make sense and it is frequently overused. Thus the hammer and nail analogy.

In any event it pointless continuing this discussion further. So lets just leave it.

Re: YouTube shadowbans video titled “The CIA is a Terrorist Organization”

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How else am I to interpret this, then? People are simply expressing that a police state is scary and those that work for the police state are working against the interests of their citizens and the ethos of the nation. Whether or not that was the original intention of your founders is irrelevant.

As an American, I would consider that highly relevant. Since you use the phrasing "your founders," I would suggest you have no standing to say otherwise.

Firstly you don't get to tell me what I can and can't consider and what I happen to think is relevant. As for what is relevant, I was talking about the relevance to this particular discussion nor the wider implications.

It was pretty obvious to me what was meant, but at this point it is pretty obvious people want to make it about something else.

Re: YouTube shadowbans video titled “The CIA is a Terrorist Organization”

#257
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100%. The lack of critical thinking skills in this country is a national security threat. We need a national initiative improve the baseline education and critical thinking skills of the next generation. The powers that be, haven't got the memo yet that it doesn't benefit them anymore to have a populous which is easily manipulated. In the past, old media acted as parameter control, though concentrated ownersh…

What is the old line, people get the government they deserve, they elect people that they like and/or agree with? Even here on HN most people only upvote comments they like or otherwise agree with. Its the same everywhere. Massive massive echo chambers on the left and right with propaganda being retweeted and shared to millions. >We must bring the security to each individual endpoint. Why? Why must we treat adults as…

>>We must bring the security to each individual endpoint.

>Why? Why must we treat adults as children

I am suggesting the opposite. Rather than treat adults as children and censoring what they can and can not see. I am suggesting we give them the skills to critically analyze input they receive.

> that we have been entrusted with, and that it is our responsibility to give them 'mental medicine'? What makes our thinking superior to others' that we need to lord over them in this way?

Why provide any education at all then? As a society it is our responsibility to skill the next generation with the skills they need to operate in our society. I believe critical thinking skills is one of these required skills.

> I believe that these ideals are bottom-up. We form governments that align with the ideals of the people, not the other way around

I agree with this. But to get the best form of government we need educated and intelligent citizens.

> If the people out of choice or ignorance no longer care about the ideals of liberal democracy, who are we to force them onto others?

We really are fucked then aren't we. I kind of like living in a liberal democracy. If we throw our current system out due to ignorance I am very confident what comes next will not be superior. I'm not willing to accept that as path we take.

Re: YouTube shadowbans video titled “The CIA is a Terrorist Organization”

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radicals are now people that speak truth in plain language.

This is a romantic characterization that's rooted in only believing people who are "on your side", which is what is destroying society.

This is a simplistic and reductionist understanding of what is destroying society.

Re: YouTube shadowbans video titled “The CIA is a Terrorist Organization”

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, I would consider that highly relevant. Since you use the phrasing "your founders," I would suggest you have no standing to say otherwise.

Firstly you don't get to tell me what I can and can't consider and what I happen to think is relevant. As for what is relevant, I was talking about the relevance to this particular discussion nor the wider implications. It was pretty obvious to me what was meant, but at this point it is pretty obvious people want to make it about something else.

Unless you live in America, yes, I do. Stick to your own house. And, maybe learn to read what people actually write, rather than putting your own spin on it. It was clear to me what was meant as well, and you didn't get it.
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