71–80 of 671 posts
If only the flames of this burning cespool would spread to its kin.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think part of the issue is that the average age of Reddit users plummeted. It was in the high 20s, but I've seen some research that puts it in the high teens these days / early 20s. That has a huge impact on the quality of conversations.
And politics have infected every single discussion. Nowadays it's cool to be partisans, decades ago a teenager talking about politics would be dismissed with a "get a hobby, nerd." It is an absolute disgrace how it's become normal. Or that mine is an unpopular opinion nowadays.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they would be kicked off whatever fund raising platform they use pretty quickly.
At which point wouldn't they switch to BTC? Agree or disagree with who Voat is and what they say, but I can only assume at least one coin exchange would be willing to do business with them.
What a cesspool. There's so much racism, just in this post's comments... Good riddance!
Yeah, I was scrolling through some of the comments and saw things like "kikeflix" as an insulting variation of netflix, references to "hitler was right", etc. First and last time I ever actually went to Voat. I'm not sure anything of value is being lost.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think part of the issue is that the average age of Reddit users plummeted. It was in the high 20s, but I've seen some research that puts it in the high teens these days / early 20s. That has a huge impact on the quality of conversations.
And politics have infected every single discussion. Nowadays it's cool to be partisans, decades ago a teenager talking about politics would be dismissed with a "get a hobby, nerd." It is an absolute disgrace how it's become normal. Or that mine is an unpopular opinion nowadays.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a pretty weird assertion - Voat doesn't have to worry about literally any of the scale problems Reddit does.
Reddit has usability problems by design. Reddit want to make it as obnoxious as possible to use on a mobile phone, so that you’ll download their stupid app. They also push you to login to view more content, so they can track you. Reddit is just a cesspool, and it’s by design. Absolutely nothing to do with scaling problems.
Voat was founded as a neutral free-speech platform. After alt-right extremists were booted off reddit, they found a new home there. The site was bombarded by /pol/ chan culture, and after that nobody else of other political persuasions really wanted to join. Kind of like that "paradox of intolerance" meme. Free speech platforms usually end up becoming extremist platforms. I remember going on voat a couple years ago a…
Voat is proof that we are not yet deserving of free speech.
I find beauty in the principle of FoS: we would never have e.g. legalized same-sex marriages without it - and this is why we need it for future ethical advancements, possibly (as one hypothetical example), the right to die/destiny. Advancement of the moral zeitgeist is impossible without it.
The utter impossibility of it in practice is unavoidable. There are few more willing to violate the rights of others than those who demand the right to speech.
Voat was founded as a neutral free-speech platform. After alt-right extremists were booted off reddit, they found a new home there. The site was bombarded by /pol/ chan culture, and after that nobody else of other political persuasions really wanted to join. Kind of like that "paradox of intolerance" meme. Free speech platforms usually end up becoming extremist platforms. I remember going on voat a couple years ago a…
> Free speech platforms usually end up being extremist platforms. ...when the popular platforms stop being free speech platforms. Reddit, in its earlier days, was never dominated by the Voat contingent. They were there, but they were far less extreme there than they were on Voat. And then whenever they would post rank inaccuracies, there were clearer-minded people to point out why they were wrong, in the same place w…
The framework that fits the evidence and the ideals was
1) we want a market place of ideas to function
2) there is content that easily dominates and sidelines all other ideas.
3) there are Maliciously engineered arguments that need complex rebuttals to Massive emotional payloads, which will never be accepted.
4) cat videos, pictures and memes will out perform everything else
We let things be for a long time. Very light touch approaches. It doesn’t work. The good ideas will become irrelevant before theY are even read, and that is long after bad ideas redefine reality.
The underlying nexus is that our ideals on free speech do not take into account human wetware bandwidth.
If reality must be perceived, and the perception system is flooded, then it doesn’t matter how good our science or reason is. The system is still blind.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think part of the issue is that the average age of Reddit users plummeted. It was in the high 20s, but I've seen some research that puts it in the high teens these days / early 20s. That has a huge impact on the quality of conversations.
And politics have infected every single discussion. Nowadays it's cool to be partisans, decades ago a teenager talking about politics would be dismissed with a "get a hobby, nerd." It is an absolute disgrace how it's become normal. Or that mine is an unpopular opinion nowadays.
I was a teenager three decades ago.
1. No one would ever say “get a hobby, nerd” (“get a life...”, OTOH)
2. No one would say that about teens talking about politics, which non-nerd teenagers did commonly. They would say it about talking about computer code, though.
> It is an absolute disgrace how it's become normal
Why?
> Or that mine is an unpopular opinion nowadays.
The continuous political vigilance widely acknowledged to be necessary to prevent liberal democracy from devolving into tyranny is incompatible with the political disengagement you seem to prefer, so I think would be not at all a disgrace if your opinion were unpopular.
Though lamenting political engagement isn't particularly unpopular (but, amusingly enough since it often is overtly tied to complaints about partisanship, seems particularly popular among partisans of the right.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Free speech platforms usually end up being extremist platforms. ...when the popular platforms stop being free speech platforms. Reddit, in its earlier days, was never dominated by the Voat contingent. They were there, but they were far less extreme there than they were on Voat. And then whenever they would post rank inaccuracies, there were clearer-minded people to point out why they were wrong, in the same place w…
Then the question is whether it's better to allow people with unsavory views a minority platform on mainstream sites where they'll try to convert others, or force them to their own niche echo chambers that will inevitably be extremely toxic. It's basically a tradeoff between visibility to the public and density of toxic content.
Even 1 headline, as outlandish as it may be, if it is read it can influence a user.
Crucially there are some ideas/content that will just get through filters, no matter how thin it’s presence.