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You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

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Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#231

Post by smaryjerry »

hnhg wrote: post #47
bopbeepboop wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Free speech” in the moral sense is exactly that people who operate civil infrastructure shouldn’t use their privilege for censorship. So... people who believe in “free speech” as a moral value will disagree with your first paragraph — and hence, your entire post. You assume your conclusion, so your argument fails to be persuasive. “I disagree with what you say, but I’ll fight to the death to defend your right to say…

I guess you have a problem with news editorial decisions then? For example, Fox News have a strong bias running through their programming. Isn't that a kind of implicit censorship of ideas?

Opinions are biased and specific people and programs are biased on Fox News and many other channels, but to be a journalist you literally have to correct false statements you make. This makes Fox News as reliable as all other stations. People often post memes about Fox News or CNN saying something wildly stupid but don’t realize they are posting a literal opinion from an opinion show not news from a news show.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#232

Post by ctdonath »

clusterfish wrote: post #219
XorNot wrote: post #152

So, what is extreme left to you? Which groups, existent groups, are they? This whole line of discussion seems to consist of some rich false equivalency being mediated by presuming the existence of equivalent opposing forces and then making them appear equal in size and threat by not talking about who they actually are.

They're the same racists on the left and the right extremes. It's just, we had decades of wars and (justified) propaganda that thoroughly discredited fascism and their style of racism so it's easy to see how the right extremes is bad. What the extreme left is doing on the other hand is a more modern variation of racism and totalitarianism. It's ostensibly driven by noble concepts like social justice but in reality de…

Yup. Try saying, with genuine honest neutrality, “all lives matter”, “it’s ok to be white”, or “capitalism doesn’t care about race/gender” and see what happens.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#233

Post by tired-dev »

kristopolous wrote: post #116
NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't mean it's wrong... The racists on the right know they're racists. They admit it. The racists I've encountered on the left are the racism-of-low-expectations kind with a dash of openly-racist-against-white-people, and then they go and act morally superior to people who aren't racist against any race. The sanctimony is grating.

Really? Where? Usually I've seen forms like this "I strongly believe in (basic description of X)" "You know that's X, right?!" "I'm not X" "Alright, would you say you believe in (wikipedias first paragraph on X)?" "Oh yes! You really understand!" "You know I just lifted that from wikipedia article on X" "Let me hear it again. Ok, that's not exactly right." Etc... Try it yourself next time, it's pretty remarkable. The…

Exactly. Racists will generally justify themselves as "not racist" by giving claiming something to the tune of "I'm not prejudiced, I just agree with the numbers!", while appealing to some out-of-context statistic to try and act like those disagreeing with them are "denying science" by acknowledging that there's more nuance to the issue.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#234

Post by meheleventyone »

ttt0 wrote: post #201
XorNot wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Minneapolis police department was set on fire by a "Boogaloo Boi". ... Ivan Harrison Hunter, a Texas rightwing extremist, bragged about helping to set the fire then was seen shooting 13 rounds at the building ... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/23/texas-boogaloo...

Boogaloos are far-right only in the sense that they're libertarians afaik. > Video shot that night shows a person later identified as Hunter firing 13 rounds from a semiautomatic assault-style rifle on the 3rd precinct police station while people believed to be looters were inside. He then high-fived another person and shouted, “Justice for Floyd!” according to the complaint. Doesn't seem like a person who you pictur…

It's a similar problem to the whole anti-fa thing. Both have groups organizing around a common idea. Opposition to fascism for anti-fascists and trying to bring about a second civil war for the Boogaloo Bois. Neither are a strict group that exists with a coherent ideology you can point to. Instead they are a name given to lots of groups.

With trying to incite a second civil war comes a lot of baggage associated with white supremacy and their dreams of the same thing along racial lines. So whilst not all groups are out and out racist a lot of them are just due to the people attracted to the idea. In particular when looking at people who are trying to incite a civil war upping the ante by shooting guns and setting buildings on fire we should be suspicious that the slogans they yell might not be in the interests of the cause but in inciting the government to respond and escalate things.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#235

Post by Justsignedup »

Everyone seems to be attacking the arguments from the same angle and I feel it is wrong:

There are a few arguments going on:

- Is the left and the right really the same 2 extremes?

- Should we enable radicals on the platforms because free speech?

- Should we treat everyone with respect?

The problem is that what we really have is a few crowds:

(1) "They took our guns" people. Single issue, at the expense of all others. This unfortunately includes "the climate crisis is a hoax" and "COVID is a hoax" and "Vaccines are evil" crowd.

(2) Ensure human rights to all people of the country crowd. This is more of a social argument that conflicts highly with people who scapegoat. This is effectively the anti-scapegoat crowd, usually considered the "left".

(3) Social equality crowd (usually is a subset of (2)). This is all about people who are looking at patterns in society that elevate one group at the expense of another. This isn't rich vs poor, but rather for example looking at how school funding is set up to make sure certain community have terrible school and thus a perpetuating cycle of crime and poverty.

The problem is that the (1) crowd is being used to elect politicians who basically give no shit about society, and only focus on making the rich richer at the expense of everything else. I mean fucking pandemic and corporate bailouts, while most businesses collapse. These politicians vote directly against the (1) crowd, and everyone else, but push division.

We're no longer actually debating economic policies. We're debating racism and voting based on that. I am not happy with the democratic party in the US. They are pretty terrible. But the other side is literal Nazis.

The problem with "embracing" and fixing the (1) crowd is that a large number of people opposing (1) are directly harmed by (1). Very hard to forgive when the causes of the deaths of your family are asking for hugs caz "sorry I realized I am wrong". Many are not willing to do that. How do you ask someone to give up their trauma and find it in their hearts to forgive the other side? It can happen, but it is not "simple".

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#236

Post by captainredbeard »

Justsignedup wrote: post #235

Everyone seems to be attacking the arguments from the same angle and I feel it is wrong: There are a few arguments going on: - Is the left and the right really the same 2 extremes? - Should we enable radicals on the platforms because free speech? - Should we treat everyone with respect? The problem is that what we really have is a few crowds: (1) "They took our guns" people. Single issue, at the expense of all others…

Do you live in the US? The way you phrased that makes me wonder and the Republicans are not anywhere near unified enough (or draconian enough) to be Nazis. As a reminder, the Nazis interred people based on race and exterminated them. The Republicans are just jerks.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#237

Post by XorNot »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #198
XorNot wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did the rules change? Twitter, and any other private company, has never been under any legal obligation in it's business to provide a public space and it's not clear how you'd even define them as providing one (seeing as how the servers are in Twitter's datacenters, using Twitter's network, paid for by Twitter's revenue). Literally everything on Twitter is Twitter's property other then where governed by intellect…

> Why did the rules change? I'm not a Twitter user so don't know exactly, but from what I see being discussed, it seems to me that there used to be more tolerance towards certain groups (apparently right wing, but probably others, too). But maybe that's just it, the rules themselves haven't changed, they're just more strictly enforced now (I actually don't know). I'd say that what they're doing is obviously not illeg…

It is extremely odd to find so many on Hacker News arguing for laws to say "that server you own and run in your house that hosts a small web forum...that's a public space now, you'll not be deleting things from it anymore". Because there's no way somehow Twitter is a public space but any random phpBB isn't - they both ask for an email address to sign up and can reject me at that point if they don't like my provider.

There are no laws governing how a corporation defines it's "values" as an entity and it certainly has no need to follow that - freedom of speech is my freedom to lie through my teeth publicly about everything I believe, for example.

So again: Twitter has always been able to talk about how it's for things, but at the end of the day it's Twitter's garden and we all play in it.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#238

Post by ncallaway »

smsm42 wrote: post #139
k4c9x wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's: 1. Declare people that want a fascists form of government fascists 2. there is no 2. It's not word play, it's just facts.

Not sure what you mean by "fascists form of government"? Something like Italy in 1924-1945? I don't think there's any political power that advocates anything like that, and I am sure that at least 99.999% of daily use of terms "fascist" and similar ones are not directed at people who advocate appointing Il Duce and advocating government after Mussolini's example.

Well there was just an attempt by the ex president to overturn the results of an election and install himself as the president contrary to the expressed will of the people.

Maybe that’s what they meant by “fascist form of government”?

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#239

Post by zozbot234 »

koonsolo wrote: post #40
dmingod666 wrote: post #17

My reading from the outside is, the left needs to realize (I'm sure it applies to the right equally as well) that scolding people into guilt is not a viable approach to affect action or to change perceptions when you're dealing with adults. Neither does boxing people into this, that and that category do any good. Like if all you want to do is dehumanize those guys so you can happily insult / hurt them without hurting…

Reminds me of some test I read in a book (can't remember which one). A teacher asks some student to stand up and raise his hands before him. The teacher stands in front of him and does the same, touching the students hands. Then the teacher starts pushing, and the student uses force to stay in place. Then the teacher uses more force, and so does the student. Finally the teacher asks: "Whay are you pushing me?". "Beca…

> ... You cannot expect people to give in once you start pushing.

On the contrary, Chinese martial arts (as well as physical exercise more generally, as with Tai chi chu'an) use the pushing hands exercise to teach how to skillfully yield and redirect the other party's power. It's viewed as foundational to the entire discipline.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#240

Post by matthewmacleod »

ctdonath wrote: post #232
clusterfish wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're the same racists on the left and the right extremes. It's just, we had decades of wars and (justified) propaganda that thoroughly discredited fascism and their style of racism so it's easy to see how the right extremes is bad. What the extreme left is doing on the other hand is a more modern variation of racism and totalitarianism. It's ostensibly driven by noble concepts like social justice but in reality de…

Yup. Try saying, with genuine honest neutrality, “all lives matter”, “it’s ok to be white”, or “capitalism doesn’t care about race/gender” and see what happens.

All three of these phrases are political slogans. They are inherently associated with a set of political views, because they exist specifically to oppose another set of views and slogans.

It’s unreasonable to echo a political slogan in public and then complain that people don’t assume your neutrality. You cannot say “it’s okay to be white” and expect others to consider it neutral, in much the same way that you can’t say “blood and soil”.

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