251–260 of 606 posts
The funny thing is that everyone commenting here thinks that we're headed towards an authoritarian nightmare, but for different reasons. It's not until you sit with someone and nut out what they mean by "authoritarian" and "censorship" and so on that you realise you're completely morally and politically opposed to them. This shallow political take is what allows so many strange bedfellows to unite on the "political r…
Here's Trudeau telling Truckers they have unacceptable views. https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1486465351214895108 Is this the kind of censorship we want to empower. One guy is going to decide who's views are acceptable and who's views are not. Turns out those who strongly disagree with him, their views are not acceptable according to him.
Having powerful people disagree with you in public, and to promote their alternate view is not censorship.
I believe the trust crisis is about social media itself - about physical ability to write anonymously. It couldn't not result in avalanche of lies, both honest and malintentional - the infamous "Putin's bots" are a part of the problem but not even such a big part. Problem is because everyone can post, opinions sparking most outrage will be reposted and thus multiply the most - because the neutral, centrist opinions a…
Politicians have plenty of money to publish whatever divisive crap they want.
It might be technically free speech... but would it really help anyone in practice or just censor poor people?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue with that approach to me is you end up saying every piece of information is as valid as any other. We know some things are wrong, we have evidence that they're wrong, and believing in some of those things can cause people to take actions which endanger and even kill others. So what do you do? I'm not advocating censorship as a solution, but simply throwing up your hands and saying "who are you to judge?" is…
> We know some things are wrong, we have evidence that they're wrong, and believing in some of those things can cause people to take actions which endanger and even kill others. It depends on the specific issue. But since we agreed we didn’t want censorship, we err on the side of caution present our evidence with hopefully better and more thorough research supporting it.
Again, please don’t interpret this as “we need censorship”, that’s not what I’m getting at.
The notional “marketplace of ideas” is clearly not functioning in the presence of a lot of people who are not interested in whether their ideas stand up or not, and a whole boatload of motivated mudslingers. I don’t know a good answer, but “present your arguments better and hope” doesn’t seem to be one.
No doubt, these censors and would-be censors have the best of intentions. But you've really got your head up your own ass if you convince yourself that you are protecting people by deciding the information that is appropriate for them to be exposed to. I just don't understand the shortsightedness, the naivete, or the willingness to discard the principle of free speech.
Imagine you have free speech. Yay! Now what? Why was this so important again? Free speech is not an end goal. It's a tool that serves a purpose. In the relationship between a powerful government and a collection of individually vulnerable citizens, it pushes the power balance farther toward the individual. Is the goal to give all the power to the individual? No, that's not the goal. The goal is to have some sort of e…
The government is "individuals"! Every bit of power you take from the individuals in society, you give to the individuals in government. And historically the vast majority of these people have been corrupt and self-serving, because such kinds of people are attracted to positions of power, and most voters can't tell the difference between a good person and a skilled liar. Government attracts narcissists, as it requires a certain kind of narcisissm to go about telling people that they should live their lives how you want, not how they want.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The status quo is a messy conflagration where initial beliefs were the brush, a combination of mental health issues and social frustration were the trees, and the perverse incentives of engagement metrics provided the high winds. So I'm in the awkward middle ground of believing it's counter-productive to try to shelter people from ideas but also believing that lots of people are very easy to manipulate, even so easy…
> So I'm in the awkward middle ground of believing it's counter-productive to try to shelter people from ideas but also believing that lots of people are very easy to manipulate, even so easy to manipulate that it can happen en masse and entirely by accident. Don't think it is an accident. The ruling class has set this stage by design. There is little to no critical thinking being taught in K-12. Create a malleable p…
And while it can be quite important, it's also super exhausting. I think people's tolerance for that kind of work exists along a spectrum (probably with at least some biological component) but that no one can really do it all the time.
Let's take another nation and covid as a concrete example, Singapore. In Singapore, there's not a lot of free speech. Yet there's a lot of trust. Lee Kuan Yew, in his biography, addressed this trust question very directly, and commented on American media as well.
Lee Kuan Yew was very direct in prosecuting speech that put into question the authority of leadership when it faced (unfounded) criticism. His argument was that, when leadership can be cheaply criticized, there is a categorical distrust in authority because everyone is perceived as equally corrupt. Which is something that's part of almost every post in this thread as well. In a culture in which everyone is "equally bad" grifters and con artists can thrive.
When looking at the Covid response, it wasn't really leadership in the US that dropped the ball. Even the fairy sketchy and controversial last administration managed to produce a free vaccine, within a year, distributed at record speed to everyone. Who didn't pick it up? The people. Who railed against it? Talk radio. And yet the line keeps being parroted that authority cannot be trusted.
Merit and authority and trust are build up slowly and are hard won. When everyone can be defamed, when lie and insult comes at no cost, and if everyone can spread competing versions of reality for free you are in an environment in which trust is impossible. Not because there isn't enough criticism, but because there's too much.
I believe the trust crisis is about social media itself - about physical ability to write anonymously. It couldn't not result in avalanche of lies, both honest and malintentional - the infamous "Putin's bots" are a part of the problem but not even such a big part. Problem is because everyone can post, opinions sparking most outrage will be reposted and thus multiply the most - because the neutral, centrist opinions a…
Why would we want to ensure we are only exposed to content from rich people, and our immediate friends? Politicians have plenty of money to publish whatever divisive crap they want. It might be technically free speech... but would it really help anyone in practice or just censor poor people?
The funny thing is that everyone commenting here thinks that we're headed towards an authoritarian nightmare, but for different reasons. It's not until you sit with someone and nut out what they mean by "authoritarian" and "censorship" and so on that you realise you're completely morally and politically opposed to them. This shallow political take is what allows so many strange bedfellows to unite on the "political r…
Fear leads to a loss of freedom. When we're afraid, we give power to politicians that promise deal with it swiftly. Pre-pandemic, the right had a monopoly on fear-based politicking. Then the pandemic hit and the left finally got their turn to exercise it. Has the war on terror stopped? No? When do we get to hop onto a plane without undressing ourselves? Oh, but now there's a war against viruses? So you have to undres…
That being said, I would agree that repressed fear can do us quite a bit of harm and I think it often happens because we'll say fear is bad, without just appreciating how it hurts and helps.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love to hear more of your thoughts on this. One thought experiment that has helped me get my mind around the problem is "why is it necessary that parents shield children from some information?" I think free speech might have a context that is invisible to us. Something like a prior, or trained neural net, in which free speech and no censorship is absolutely the right thing. And then there might be other conte…
To rephrase, your argument: Why lying is ok in small doses. It’s still a morally dubious and supremely arrogant position
I'm strongly for free speech. But it logically entails allowing people to lie as much as they want.