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Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

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Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#91
post #43

I'm glad they halted that. But it reduces the common area we can even discuss anything going on this week in politics. Taking a step back... We've got these two sides. Regardless of the merits, each side believes they know the truth, and that the other side is delusional. And it is easy enough to engage with your media outlets of choice, and get your beliefs reinforced. How can we have a meaningful discussion as a na…

I think the problem appears much worse on twitter than it really is. It rewards narcissists and trolls. The far right and far left love fighting online, but in reality most people are somewhere in the center of the two, watching quietly. There is still some good, if not perfect, discussion on HN and other places. I havent seen people calling for public executions here at the very least. The sun will burn out before the twitter mobs learn to be decent to each other, it's best to just disregard them.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#92

Like probably most people in the discussion here, I think I’m smarter than the average person, and can discern the truth from multiple conflicting claims. But a little introspection shows me that no, this isn’t really true. I’m not hunting down original sources for everything I think I know, I’m mostly relying on gatekeepers (experts) to tell me what is true. Unfortunately, in social media, everybody gets to be an ex…

> I’m not hunting down original sources for everything I think I know, I’m mostly relying on gatekeepers (experts) to tell me what is true.

Very honest!

> As much as it goes against my grain, I have to admit that society works better when the gatekeepers decide what the truth is, even though we know they don’t always get it right.

No! They don't always get it right?! They are literally there to ensure you get it wrong! They really are. They are part of the governance structure - they will not tell you the way out of this situation, or give you good information.

All I would say, is that you need to ensure that you act on what you know. Not on what you believe. Verify everything you accept as true or discard or assume it but be prepared to be corrected if you get better information. And if it turns out that you don't know a whole lot - that is fine! At least you're not acting incorrectly and causing problems!

At the end of the day if you are acting on stuff that you don't know, you can inadvertently cause more harm, even though you mean well. You can be manipulated (easily) to go along with the crowd.

All the best.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've got these two sides. Regardless of the merits, each side believes they know the truth, and that the other side is delusional. You're partially right. We have at least two sides. One side is CLEARLY delusional. Fueled by conspiracy theories and lies. We also have other sides, but the two sides that get the most attention are the only sides that matter. We have one side that is most definitely delusional, other…

By definition if you are delusional aren't you unaware of it?

Only if you truely believe in the delusion. I don't think most of the fascist rioters truely believe there was any election fraud. I think they needed a public rationalization in order to radicalize tacit sympathizers. Being delusional is more social acceptable and less alarming than being an out and out violent racist insurrectionist.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it’s fine to lump those people together as domestic terrorists. You can do that, but after many people in power and including in this site supported BLM riots earlier this year this rings hollow. It's clear most people don't care about violence being a limit given that violence was used tremendously throughout the entire year in all those protests and supporting them was the trendy position among the elites,…

People supported BLM -protests-, not riots. The media has worked very hard to conflate the two. Nobody wants our cities to be destroyed. That was also general rioting, not people specifically targeting the U.S. Capitol building and going after the politicians inside in order to interfere with the election process. It's not really comparable unless you omit all context.

President Trump supported the Capitol -protests-, not the invasaion. The media has worked very hard to conflate the two. Nobody wants our institutional buildings to be invaded. That was also a general and very peaceful invasion, not people specifically targeting small businesses during a pandemic and burning them down for no reason other than because they can. It's not really comparable unless you omit all context.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#95
post #59
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what to say to people who want someone else killed...

Almost everyone (including really terrible people) don't want people killed. That is why it is often necessary to de-humanize the enemy. We give them labels, make them not worthy of the protections of civil society, and then it is justified if they die. Because they are not people anymore.

That’s just not true. We have nearly an entire human history to prove otherwise. The only reason why we stopped killing each other is due to nuclear bombs.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#96
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasonable people don't defend violence in either case . You are you defending violence with whataboutism. And advocating for Machiavellianism. Gross.

What's gross is people defending the burning down of small businesses during a pandemic. Either way, reasonable people who don't defend violence in either case are irrelevant, because things happen through violence regardless. What are you going to do about it when a horde of BLM rioters comes for your business and burns it down? Have a peaceful conversation with them about how much you don't think violence will solv…

Why are you now arguing about covid?

The point of your argument is that violence is inevitable and therefore good?

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#97

Like probably most people in the discussion here, I think I’m smarter than the average person, and can discern the truth from multiple conflicting claims. But a little introspection shows me that no, this isn’t really true. I’m not hunting down original sources for everything I think I know, I’m mostly relying on gatekeepers (experts) to tell me what is true. Unfortunately, in social media, everybody gets to be an ex…

> Our current technology allowing any kind of garbage to be amplified to the masses is making things worse, not better.

And now our current technology owners have decided to only let one flavor of garbage be amplified to the masses.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#98
post #34

If that was about reporting what happened at the Capitol I don't think it should've been removed. But if people was asking in Twitter for Pence to be hanged, then yes. We shouldn't treat the same way reporting violence than violence itself.

I don't think I agree. Me tweeting "it's bad to say 'hang mike pence'" is still letting the concept of Mike Pence being hanged propagate. I mean, we're talking about it right now on Hacker News, even!

Toxic ideas are like a virus, and even well-meaning opposition can serve as a host, allowing them to spread rapidly rather than die out.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People supported BLM -protests-, not riots. The media has worked very hard to conflate the two. Nobody wants our cities to be destroyed. That was also general rioting, not people specifically targeting the U.S. Capitol building and going after the politicians inside in order to interfere with the election process. It's not really comparable unless you omit all context.

President Trump supported the Capitol -protests-, not the invasaion. The media has worked very hard to conflate the two. Nobody wants our institutional buildings to be invaded. That was also a general and very peaceful invasion, not people specifically targeting small businesses during a pandemic and burning them down for no reason other than because they can. It's not really comparable unless you omit all context.

Some people clearly do want it. It happened. If trump didn’t want it he could have stopped it with the platform he has / had.

Re: Twitter Confirms It Halted 'Hang Mike Pence' as a Trending Topic

#100
post #65
post #43

I'm glad they halted that. But it reduces the common area we can even discuss anything going on this week in politics. Taking a step back... We've got these two sides. Regardless of the merits, each side believes they know the truth, and that the other side is delusional. And it is easy enough to engage with your media outlets of choice, and get your beliefs reinforced. How can we have a meaningful discussion as a na…

Try to steer people to the media outlets that are still mostly balanced? NPR comes to mind. Or encourage people to read a leftish and a rightish source? And encourage people to think for themselves? It would also be nice, albeit maybe very hard, to encourage even the less balanced media to try to speak to everyone and to write critically and honestly. For example, I personally lean left, but I find the New York Times…

I've got someone, who when I sent her links to The Guardian or other MSM sites, said "They're paid off by Rockerfellers and Rotschilds to report made up stories". Snopes? She sent me a link to a blog that mentioned some Snopes scandal, as if saying Snoopes can't be trusted 100% (and yeah sadly there was a scandal involving the founders of Snopes).

Of course she has her cheap-o fake-news Wordpress sites as her "sources" about her "knowledge", and she's convinced they're telling the truth. I end up seeing the equivalance, why do I believe the network of MSM sites are telling the truth when she can believe the same thing of the network of fake-news sites? One thing is, MSM sites fact-check each other, but a lot of things she thinks are fake news aren't being "fact-checked" by MSM...

A funny thing though, she's a "Bill Gates wants to kill Africans through vaccinations", and she said "Search for this theory, but don't use Google, they're paid off by big pharma, use Duck Duck Go.". Then I had to tell her, "You do know Duck Duck Go uses results from Bing... which is owned by Microsoft?" (I think she knows the BG/Microsoft connection).

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