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You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

freddiedeboer.substack.com

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

#281

Post by [deleted] »

watwut wrote: post #273
TeMPOraL wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the other way around: these phrases are neutral observations and reasonable opinions, perhaps reasonable reactions to insanity of well-known political slogans - importantly, it's something a random person can come up independently, without reading the exact words first. But at some point, these phrases rapidly become politicized, and this catches a lot of people off guard. You voice your thoughts, fully expectin…

There was no "all lives matter" until there was "black lives matter" and people wanted to say they don't like the message. It is quite dishonest to claim that this phrase is neutral and not a political slogan.

[deleted]

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

#282

Post by f154hfds »

bena wrote: post #275
f154hfds wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I don't watch this channel, can't vouch for other vids. The youtube algorithm suggested this to me the other day, posting it here because it's pretty relevant. When Wokes and Racists actually agree on everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg

Maybe you should sample some of the other content to get a feel of who this guy is before promoting his work based solely on the fact that you agree with an opinion you have. Because if someone has mostly bad opinions, you have to wonder if he managed to have just one good one or if this is a bad opinion too.

My assumption when I write comments on HN is that readers can make opinions for themselves. Perhaps that's a bad assumption? I don't have to agree with an article to post it on HN, why should I have to agree with everything a youtube channel produces to post one of their videos? I doubt I would be able to post almost anything as I have opinions about a variety of subjects, it's very unlikely I will align with anyone on all of them.

How about you watch the video and let me know what's objectionable about it specifically?

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

#283

Post by js8 »

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…

You didn't really answer GP's question, can you be a little more specific about which groups and individuals you perceive as left-extremist?

I mean, people write a lot of crap on the Internet. It seems to me that you chose to perceive these people as leftist, rather than them proving it by participating in some kind of leftist organization or at least producing some left-leaning writing.

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

#284

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

DanHulton wrote: post #252
ctdonath wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because there is no "genuine honest neutrality" behind those phrases. They're shibboleths. They're commonly understood slogans, used to indicate what side you're on (or at least what side you're opposed to) while SOUNDING innocent. The people who know, will KNOW what you mean when you say them. (And in the incredibly unlikely situation where you'd somehow been exposed to enough of the discourse to come up with these…

I grew up reasonably familiar with devout Christian culture, and one of the things they were absolutely convinced of is that society was filled with anti-Christian shibboleths. When someone said "let's build a tolerant society" or "climate change is an important problem", those might sound like neutral descriptors, but they knew not to be deceived. Obviously, in their view, nobody actually cares about tolerance or climate change - those phrases are just slogans people use to signal their allegiance to the anti-Christian agenda.

I'm sure you can see the problem there, and I would encourage you to think about whether you've fallen down a similar hole.

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

#285

Post by Spivak »

nindalf wrote: post #221
skybrian wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like well-moderated sites like Hacker News, but this isn’t going to do anything to prevent extremists from communicating using other forums. What are you going to do, shut down all group chats that doesn’t conform to your standards? It’s a much harder problem than creating a site that has good moderation.

The goal isn't to drive extremism to extinction, it's to make it niche so the mainstream doesn't get infected with it.

I genuinely don't understand how a forum of people who would almost certainly self-identify as internet-natives don't understand the concept of mainstreaming. We invented all this language do talk about and describe how ideas work and spread in the information age but decided to just pretend it doesn't exist anymore. When did programmers become so... binary?

Like it's so frustrating to talk about issues like this on HN because huge swaths of the US part of crowd see themselves as very distant from the "gods & guns" crowd but then fall into the same patterns of thinking that hate and extremism are just part of this world and that the free market (of ideas) will solve everything with proper education and personal responsibility. That any solution that isn't perfect or has a downside for them personally is worthless because they're so insulated from the actual harm being done.

That's all fine and good in a world where everyone is acting in good faith, truthfully, and that propaganda, and emotional manipulation don't exist. But the internet isn't some some big Socratic circle.

The people in the comments here haven't had their online life improved by a huge subreddit ban, forumn takedown, or twitterspehere implosion after having exactly zero power to do anything other than endure the abuse and hope to not catch their eye and it shows.

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

#286

Post by willcipriano »

titzer wrote: post #263
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…

Every society exerts social pressure in the form of norms and shaming. People are only sensitive to the shaming they won't accept, which always seems to come from the people they disagree with, and they are completely blind to the shaming that goes on in their in-group.

Interesting thought, it would seem to follow that those less effected by social shaming might find themselves at a evolutionary advantage over those that are greatly effected. For example those who ignore prohibitions on premarital sex may have more children overall.

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

#287

Post by throwaway0a5e »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #260
TeMPOraL wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the other way around: these phrases are neutral observations and reasonable opinions, perhaps reasonable reactions to insanity of well-known political slogans - importantly, it's something a random person can come up independently, without reading the exact words first. But at some point, these phrases rapidly become politicized, and this catches a lot of people off guard. You voice your thoughts, fully expectin…

That's only true in the sense that every phrase can be a "neutral observation" if you choose to ignore the context in which it is used and the associations it has. It's the same concept as dogwhistling at its core. Like the terms "urban", or "big government", or "states' rights", or "law and order". Completely "neutral phrases" that are often used to communicate a hidden message with plausible deniability. I mean aft…

>Like the terms "urban", or "big government", or "states' rights", or "law and order". Completely "neutral phrases" that are often used to communicate a hidden message with plausible deniability.

These are terms used earnestly in neutral ways by academics, professionals and bureaucrats from all over the political spectrum. Does anyone seriously thing the NHTSA or some sociology professor is dog whistling when they use words like "urban environments" or "law and order"?

Yes, you can communicate a hidden message with them but you can communicate a hidden message with damn near any words in the english language if you want to.

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

#288

Post by busterarm »

runarberg wrote: post #36
clusterfish wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the extremes, both left and right, have realized that their greatest enemy is not the other extreme, but the masses in between. A group that has the numbers, with mild views that can dilute your message with reasonable doubt, challenge certain aspects of your extreme yet be broadly acceptable to a much wider audience including those tending towards your side – that's poision for an extremist. Therefore, their…

this might be false equivalence. People far on the left (except from some nas-bols; which I’ve never encountered in the wild) call them selfs anti-facists. It is clear who their greatest enemy is. In fact far left groups (like food not bombs, etc.) often engage in social programs called mutual aid where the goal is to spread propaganda through helping the masses.

> spread propaganda through helping the masses.

1%'er motorcycle clubs, mafia organizations and radical religious cults are notorious for doing this as well.

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

#289

Post by morpheos137 »

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…

Ever try listening to NPR in recent years? It is really approaching the point of self parody. I would say that at least 80% of NPR "stories" have an explicitly stated racial angle and probably greater than 90% have a gender or race angle. It is literally almost the only thing NPR commentary and analysis segments talk about these days. Yes racism is bad. No it is not reasonable that every single segment is about how supposedly blacks, transgender blacks, illegal immigrants, etc, are victims. Even in coronavirus coverage it is all about race and a particular race at that. There is very little mention of anti-Asian hate crimes (often by blacks) almost no mention of interesting race facts, like the fact that Filipino American nurses were far more likely to die of Covid than other ethnic groups. Instead arcane stories, like African Americans in general are afraid of vaccines and that is okay because of the Tuskeegee experiments 50-60 years ago are aired.

Again racism is bad. But when CNN or NPR is spending a huge, gigantic amount of their airtime covering racial issues every single day it is a little perplexing. It would make sense if the goal was to manufacture racial tension as distraction from real issues. Maybe it is. If you constantly focus on the outrage of the day you can ignore the slow boiled frog of rising economic inequality over the past 20 years.

I am seriously interested in a study that quantified the number of NPR news analysis stories that contain explicit commentary on race in 2020. I bet it is over 80% meanwhile the black share of the population is around 12%. Seems to me it would make sense to have the number of stories more proportional to that.

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

#290

Post by bena »

f154hfds wrote: post #282
bena wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you should sample some of the other content to get a feel of who this guy is before promoting his work based solely on the fact that you agree with an opinion you have. Because if someone has mostly bad opinions, you have to wonder if he managed to have just one good one or if this is a bad opinion too.

My assumption when I write comments on HN is that readers can make opinions for themselves. Perhaps that's a bad assumption? I don't have to agree with an article to post it on HN, why should I have to agree with everything a youtube channel produces to post one of their videos? I doubt I would be able to post almost anything as I have opinions about a variety of subjects, it's very unlikely I will align with anyone…

What's objectionable?

After 5 seconds, it does the exact thing which I expected it to after only looking at the titles of his other videos. Grossly misrepresenting positions to make them look similar enough to "both sides" the issue so he can present himself as an "enlightened centrist" but really is looking to quiet people who would call him out on his problematic opinions.

It's a lot like your "assumption". You're trying to present your position as a "gee golly jeez, I'm just asking questions" being sort of overly, even comically naive about content you wish others to consume.

You're also asking people to be able to refute the entire video or not voice their objections. To ignore the context of the channel. Blah blah blah. The entire "foot in the door" approach to radicalization.

I personally don't believe your claim that you don't watch the channel. Otherwise, why even post a disclaimer? The only reason to post a disclaimer is because you kind of know what to expect from his channel. Either because the video itself is telling (it is) or you know what the rest of the content of the video would show (not great).

So please, stop with the disingenuous positions. A good number of people here are savvy enough to see through it.

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