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We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

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441–450 of 520 posts

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#441
post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't says decision and action can't have real consequences. Every action will have its consequences. Forcing other to wear mask has its consequences too.

> Forcing other to wear mask has its consequences too. Like lower death rates and being able to reopen everything more completely and earlier?

Decision to open has nothing to do mask. Its politics. I never support the lockdown in the first place, regardless of mask.

And whether mask actually help with the pandemic, its still inconclusive.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we can't trust our institutions, then what is the solution? There doesn't have to be much education to pass this test. A small book with the material could be mailed to each person on request with no charge. Crafting a strong ammendment with protections like this could address those concerns.

This I don't particularly mind if a small book with the material is provided to each person on request with no charge, potentially even at the point of voting. The point after all is to ensure that maximum numbers of people participating are aware of the systems, not as a gating mechanism. I'm merely protesting the use of a gating mechanism in isolation. If the gating mechanism came with an educational booklet then m…

Yeah, I think any law creating restrictions should also provide protections so it's not abused.

For an example on another topic, gun rights groups want a punishment in the new red flag laws for people who file false red flag claims against others so that it can't be "weaponized", as restraining orders have increasingly been used as a "standard" part of divorce proceedings by some lawyers (in cases without any abuse). Seems to make sense, but like most laws it doesn't seem to get any legitimate debate because both sides are just passing laws on mostly partisan lines instead of investigating possible tweaks that would make both sides accepting (no empathy or devil's advocate).

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#443
post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its fine for you doesn't mean its fine for other. Not everyone the same. Whether its too much or not can be different for different people. Its not hard to understand right?

> Its fine for you doesn't mean its fine for other. True. I mentioned that disease which causes actual pain. That is a legitimate reason. However If your reasoning is "It's uncomfortable" you are being ridiculously childish, and risking the lives of others. I literally cannot understand the "I would rather risk killing someone than having this piece of cloth on my face for a few hours" mindset. EDIT: Spelling (that -…

I don't at all mind wearing a mask when I go out, and the risk of causing harm is higher now, but wouldn't "I would rather risk killing someone than having this piece of cloth on my face for a few hours" apply in December of 2019 for example? I think this is what makes the perceived seriousness of the virus such a central point of conflict, as it determines what people see as the appropriate level of response.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Controversial ones can prove themselves with facts/science. The details matter, but as a rule I disagree with this. Some facts are obvious, like pigs not growing on trees, but others aren't, like climate change. Science has been corrupted for decades and I don't believe it to be a proper arbiter of truth in certain areas, particularly ones that can't be tested against reality easily, such as climate change. You prob…

You seem pretty fine with accepting the corrupt science to deliver your message over the internet it invented. You are right, we won’t agree, because you haven’t got a point. What you first replied to and where you’re at now are unrelated positions. This is a classic “bring them to your level and beat them with experience” situation. You’ve moved the goal posts to climate change now. I’m not taking up that fight. You…

>People are being (unknowingly) manipulated and the sheer quantity of misinformation is being mistaken for evidence of truth.

This is something you said that I originally replied to. We don't agree on what constitutes truth, so we can't have a reasonable conversation, and we also can't fairly judge what is and isn't misinformation, because we don't agree on the basics.

This is the point I'm making. I don't believe that climate science is nearly as valid as everything that goes into making my computer work, because my computer works. I have evidence in the real world that my computer works, so all the physics that went into it must be pretty solid. I don't have evidence that climate science works, because climate scientists can't run their models 100 years into the future, see what happens, then change a variable and run it again to see what changes (with the same accuracy that you'd have if you ran the experiment in real life). Their models are fundamentally less powerful than anything that went into making my computer work by the very nature of the discipline.

Most of politics falls way closer to climate science in terms of its power as a science than it does to the physics that goes into a computer. This, fundamentally, is why "truth" and "misinformation" when talking about politics is generally pointless. There are very few discussions in current day politics that are about truths as solid as what makes a computer work. Most of it are around fields like climate science, economics, social science, which are all softer (and thus more corruptible) fields.

The reason I said we won't be able to have a reasonable and logical discussion about this is because you probably disagree with everything I just said, and you likely won't really change your mind about it. I certainly won't change my mind about it, so we're forever stuck not being able to reconcile our different views of the world in regards to the relationship between politics and science, and thus we'll never be able to reach 'ground truth' from which we could then work up towards stopping the spread of misinformation. A general notion of truth itself has to be agreed upon before we can have reasonable and logical discussions about this subject, but that likely won't happen.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#445
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I live in California, and recently had a conversation with a family member in The Hague. She was telling me about her frustrations with Anti-Maskers and Covid-deniers she has been arguing with locally. Apparently these are not just US political issues.

Honest question -- do you think that without Facebook there will be no tensions between anti-maskers and people who insist on wearing masks everywhere? Is FB really to blame here?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Mask_League_of_San_Franci...

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#446
post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Forcing other to wear mask has its consequences too. Like lower death rates and being able to reopen everything more completely and earlier?

Decision to open has nothing to do mask. Its politics. I never support the lockdown in the first place, regardless of mask. And whether mask actually help with the pandemic, its still inconclusive.

>Decision to open has nothing to do mask. Its politics.

Decisively false. Masks influence pandemic influences lockdown.

> And whether mask actually help with the pandemic, its still inconclusive.

Do you have a credible source for that?

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#447

So the premises to support the title are that Facebook 'steals' revenue from traditional news publishers and allows user generated content to proliferate, which can contain conspiracies. I don't know that breaking up Facebook will actually fix these issues or 'save' democracy. Conspiracies will still spread on other sites (Reddit: The Frontpage of the Internet, anyone?). Ad revenue will continue to go to electronic p…

For starters conspiracies were created by the CIA, but an underlying fact of truth is part of what makes a conspiracies a driving factor. The question one asks themselves is, If Microsoft was not forced back in the 90's by the government to break up their monopoly on controlling the Operating System sector we all would be using 1 OS today and that would be Microsoft. Just as these major tech giants as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and the rest are allowed to censor the freedom's that the internet was designed for. Freedom of speech and your way of thinking. Not to be limited or call out what someone thinks is misinformation. The thing that really pisses me off about this site is I get limited on how many fucking things I can reply to. Says I am posting way to fast. I must be faster than the damn computer.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#448
post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its fine for you doesn't mean its fine for other. True. I mentioned that disease which causes actual pain. That is a legitimate reason. However If your reasoning is "It's uncomfortable" you are being ridiculously childish, and risking the lives of others. I literally cannot understand the "I would rather risk killing someone than having this piece of cloth on my face for a few hours" mindset. EDIT: Spelling (that -…

>That is a legitimate reasons So you get to decide which are legitimate and which are not? >If your reasoning is "It's uncomfortable" you are being ridiculously childish, and risking the lives of others. Likewise, I can also says your decision to force other to wear mask is childish. You also get to decide what childish and what is not? >I literally cannot understand the "I would rather risk killing someone than havi…

> So you get to decide which are legitimate and which are not?

No, but I get to have an opinion, which I stated. A doctor would be better suited to decide which is legitimate or not.

The condition I was referring to was Trigeminal Neuralgia. If a doctor says that it's okay to not wear a mask because "it's uncomfortable", then okay.

I somehow suspect you'll have difficulty with that.

> Likewise, I can also says your decision to force other to wear mask is childish.

I would agree... If people could be trusted to wear masks.

> You also get to decide what childish and what is not?

No, but I can call someone baselessly risking others lives childish. Probably selfish as well.

> Driving car in the road has non zero risk of killing people too but we do it anyway.

Of course. However, driving has a obvious and very real benefit: being able to move yourself effectively from location to location.

Is avoiding some mild discomfort really a worthy risk/benefit trade off?

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its fine for you doesn't mean its fine for other. True. I mentioned that disease which causes actual pain. That is a legitimate reason. However If your reasoning is "It's uncomfortable" you are being ridiculously childish, and risking the lives of others. I literally cannot understand the "I would rather risk killing someone than having this piece of cloth on my face for a few hours" mindset. EDIT: Spelling (that -…

I don't at all mind wearing a mask when I go out, and the risk of causing harm is higher now, but wouldn't "I would rather risk killing someone than having this piece of cloth on my face for a few hours" apply in December of 2019 for example? I think this is what makes the perceived seriousness of the virus such a central point of conflict, as it determines what people see as the appropriate level of response.

> I think this is what makes the perceived seriousness of the virus such a central point of conflict, as it determines what people see as the appropriate level of response.

I have to agree there. The hospitals in my hometown are getting to the breaking point, and people are dying. It seems reasonable to expect some sort of response under the circumstances.

Re: We can have democracy or we can have Facebook

#450
post #435
post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't says decision and action can't have real consequences. Every action will have its consequences. Forcing other to wear mask has its consequences too.

> Forcing other to wear mask has its consequences too. As you've said before, people like you would be forced to wear something you think is uncomfortable. I'd even be forced to play the world's smallest violin for you. The thing is, you have to weigh those consequences (ideally non selfishly), not just assert they exist. So, one the one hand, you have minor inconvenience and intolerable oppression of having to think…

You dismissed my concern as "minor inconvenience". I acknowledge that for you its minor but for me its major inconvenience.

Its not clear that thousand of deaths will be avoided if everyone wear mask.

I agree that it is poorly managed pandemic, that is the decision to do lockdown.

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