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Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

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Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#311

Post by throwaway19937 »

amelius wrote: post #221
version_five wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ironic (or maybe appropriate) that this, talking about how better ideas don't rise to the top, is the top comment. The most abhorrent idea of all to me is that there are stupid, weak people that are worse than "us" that we need to shield from bad ideas because they are not smart enough (like we are) to handle them. Lots of support for this view in downstream comments (we're just intelligent apes etc). The strawm…

> we can be adults and let everyone get the same information and make their own choice One of the problems is that we don't all get the same information. > or we can go the other way where someone who thinks they know more than us (and you hope it's you but it doesn't have to be) gets to decide. Frankly, the latter idea is ridiculous to me. You've bumped into the exact same problem that exists with our democracy. Do…

> Do you want our future determined by a few well-informed, rational people? Or do you want it determined by an ignorant, short-sighted mass?

An elite in practice means that we're stuck with irrational beliefs such as Lysenkoism. Democracy allows beliefs to compete and often correct ideas win. It's far from perfect but still has a better track record than self-styled rational elites.

The following quote is from Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning Was the Command Line.

> But more importantly, it comes out of the fact that, during this century, intellectualism failed, and everyone knows it. In places like Russia and Germany, the common people agreed to loosen their grip on traditional folkways, mores, and religion, and let the intellectuals run with the ball, and they screwed everything up and turned the century into an abattoir. Those wordy intellectuals used to be merely tedious; now they seem kind of dangerous as well.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#312

Post by acituan »

version_five wrote: post #203
Nursie wrote: post #26

>First of all, the internet’s “marketplace of ideas” is severely lopsided at the platform level The marketplace of ideas itself has been show to be a bust in recent years, IMHO. Better ideas, better models of truth and reality don't win out. People have not shown themselves interested in intellectual debate or argument. We do not see the 'best' ideas rise to the top. And before anyone asks who I am to judge the best…

It's ironic (or maybe appropriate) that this, talking about how better ideas don't rise to the top, is the top comment. The most abhorrent idea of all to me is that there are stupid, weak people that are worse than "us" that we need to shield from bad ideas because they are not smart enough (like we are) to handle them. Lots of support for this view in downstream comments (we're just intelligent apes etc). The strawm…

> All this to say, we can be adults and let everyone get the same information and make their own choice, or we can go the other way where someone who thinks they know more than us (and you hope it's you but it doesn't have to be) gets to decide. Frankly, the latter idea is ridiculous to me.

This is a false dichotomy and a rather romantic notion. Independent adults rarely, if ever, make their minds from first principles. They do already cluster around people who think/convince others that they know better. So few of what we’re talking here is original thought, we are mostly riffing on what we’ve read elsewhere. And that’s OK. That how distributed cognition saves us a lot of time, when working correctly.

But distributed cognition of independent adults get to super irrational conclusions too, I don’t need to list past atrocities based on ridiculous ideas.

So while the failures and wins of distributed cognition is yet to be understood properly, it alone is not the culprit nor can be corrected via the virtues of atomized individualized cognition.

One thing is clear, ideas distributed over ad fueled companies’ screen estates conform to a particular topology and a particular objective function. The normativity of engagement is not that of reality. And the irrationality of those systems effect us even from afar, permeates into our culture and even into non-ad based forums like this.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#313

Post by skindoe »

cartoonworld wrote: post #259
TheFalun wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how many people did those neonazis actually effect? How many more people saw that and immediately criticized the neonazis who wouldn't have seen them before?

The answer to your questions are very many, and some. The numbers are of course relative, but consider the following: During the 1980's early internet, white supremacist groups were among the first[0] to being using the new medium for organization and information purposes. They used it then to publish among other things a list[1] of "race traitors" etc including name, address, phone number, promulgate misinformation,…

How many white supremacists do you think there are? How many people who fully denounce white supremacy do you think there are?

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#314

Post by trainsplanes »

version_five wrote: post #203
Nursie wrote: post #26

>First of all, the internet’s “marketplace of ideas” is severely lopsided at the platform level The marketplace of ideas itself has been show to be a bust in recent years, IMHO. Better ideas, better models of truth and reality don't win out. People have not shown themselves interested in intellectual debate or argument. We do not see the 'best' ideas rise to the top. And before anyone asks who I am to judge the best…

It's ironic (or maybe appropriate) that this, talking about how better ideas don't rise to the top, is the top comment. The most abhorrent idea of all to me is that there are stupid, weak people that are worse than "us" that we need to shield from bad ideas because they are not smart enough (like we are) to handle them. Lots of support for this view in downstream comments (we're just intelligent apes etc). The strawm…

> The most abhorrent idea of all to me is that there are stupid, weak people that are worse than "us" that we need to shield from bad ideas because they are not smart enough (like we are) to handle them.

Gullible people exist. I mean, it's such a well-known phenomenon that the term "gullible" exists to describe people who fall for what should be obviously false information and lies. We all have our instances of gullibility, and we all have domains that we know nothing about, and there are countless people who prey on people with lack of knowledge in some area.

If people go around in real life deceiving people, someone might step in and tell them to watch out for the scam. There'll be signs in tourist areas where scammers frequent. Banks will send out notices on how to help their customers avoid financial traps. Schools teach kids to look out for bad information and misleading conclusions. Signs are posted in parks warning people not to venture out to certain areas because they're likely unprepared and could die (and people still die anyways).

This is all generally accepted as good.

But flag a post on some social networking site with a "This might be fake. Be careful", and people go wild saying the elite are trying to police us and they're destroying our freedoms.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#315

Post by xyzzy21 »

Nursie wrote: post #26

>First of all, the internet’s “marketplace of ideas” is severely lopsided at the platform level The marketplace of ideas itself has been show to be a bust in recent years, IMHO. Better ideas, better models of truth and reality don't win out. People have not shown themselves interested in intellectual debate or argument. We do not see the 'best' ideas rise to the top. And before anyone asks who I am to judge the best…

It's about the time constants of communication that cause this. Given time, the truth wins out. But when you accelerate communication beyond human capacitor to process it, you get what we have today.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#317

Post by isaacremuant »

daenz wrote: post #5

Take what you support and imagine it used against you in the worst possible ways. Do you still support it? If yes, then it is worth supporting. If it's not, then maybe you're only supporting it because of who it currently helps or harms. This exercise also works with things that you don't support.

I thought this would finally help many rabid anti Trump people realize giving so much power to the gov was a bad idea but since the major media outlets and tech companies seemed to be part of the "resistance" this association of "limiting power" for the WCS never actually transpired.

I don't expect people to be persuaded by your argument. They'll just demand and increase of power to further their idelogies that they deemed objective and righteouss truth.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#318

Post by TheFalun »

cartoonworld wrote: post #259
TheFalun wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how many people did those neonazis actually effect? How many more people saw that and immediately criticized the neonazis who wouldn't have seen them before?

The answer to your questions are very many, and some. The numbers are of course relative, but consider the following: During the 1980's early internet, white supremacist groups were among the first[0] to being using the new medium for organization and information purposes. They used it then to publish among other things a list[1] of "race traitors" etc including name, address, phone number, promulgate misinformation,…

Are there less neonazis now than the 1980-90s? Are there more people now than ever who totally disavow white supremacy?

What is the population the KKK right now? What percentage of America is that?

Don't get lost in the narratives.

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#319

Post by TheFalun »

seizethegdgap wrote: post #154
TheFalun wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of…

You're using the quote of someone who lived and died before the invention of the telephone, and also ignoring that he also advocated for a 'harm principle' ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_principle ) which states "...that for such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishments, if society is of opinion that the…

So you think we should completely ignore anyone who has said anything of substance before any arbitrary technology was invented or if they have any other opinion that you disagree with? We can safely cast theses people's opinions out as invalid? Is that not exactly what you are implying? Do you not see how absurd those implicit arguments are?

That's not to mention the fact that you are ignoring the amount of influence that man had on our political and economic systems which benefit your life in ways you probably haven't considered...

Re: Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

#320

Post by TheFalun »

Smeevy wrote: post #178
TheFalun wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just have public audits of police forces and provide accountability and transparency into cases as necessary. In addition good policing should be rewarded with significant bonuses. Incentivizing good behavior will always Trump criticizing "bad" (often never defined) behavior.

I personally would rather see disciplinary action akin to what's done in the military. Not that that isn't without its issues, but the machinery that makes it work is larger and more independent from the people being disciplined than what you get at the state and local law enforcement level.

Right now you have a damned if you do damned if you don't situation where police get 0 credit for saving thousands if not more lives, yet the one time they make a mistake their are immediately put on the chopping block. Recognizing what policing should look like and idealizing that would go a long way.
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