Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse • Hacker News Board

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#281

Post by dash2 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:45 AM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #212

brandonmenc wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They may have some details wrong, but do you think their overall impression of the event is wildly inaccurate? Jan 6th, BLM protests, and the pandemic are all Rorschach tests. Unlike 9/11, the 1992 LA riots, and the Spanish Flu, the more recent events occupy a mushy middle ground of severity - a lot of people can go either way when deciding if they're the worst thing ever or just nuisances. The ambiguity is causing…

There is no "mushy middle ground" when it comes to a coupe attempt at the capitol building. Sorry but you are simply wrong about this. There is no ambiguity at all in that statement.

Ah, but it wasn’t a coup attempt:

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-two-authoritarians

Maybe you disagree with the linked article and think it really was a coup attempt. Fine, my point is that sensible people can disagree on how serious the Jan six riots were. That doesn’t mean that the first group is trivialising them.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#282

Post by playpause » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:49 AM UTC

throwawaygh wrote: post #97

rdiddly wrote: post #23

It's sad that Substack has to sit there and explicitly explain that "Here is where you go when you want no censorship and to have all different views in a big melting pot where it's up to you to sort them out through rational interrogation, thought and/or debate." Even in my lifetime I seem to recall that place was usually just called "society." Granted I was young and am partly remembering what I was told the world…

Meh. It's consistent with their business model. And talking publicly about it is also consistent with their business model. The entire debate is a red herring.

Could you elaborate what you mean here? It seems obvious that it’s consistent with their business model, but I don’t get what point you’re making by saying that. Or how this means the debate is a red herring. Can you thread this together a bit?

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#283

Post by dools » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:52 AM UTC

jimkleiber wrote: post #263

dools wrote: post #240

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…

I was noticing that pattern as well, many people seem to be hurling the same insult but from opposite sides. In a way, it worries me, because the words lose their theoretical meaning and stand more for the assumed malevolence of the other side. If I could wish one thing on the world at this moment it would be for us to realize that most of the people who we believe are attacking us don't actually believe that they ar…

Yep. I had this conversation with my daughter the other day. She was like "But ... they just think the same thing about what you're saying". I was like "Totally, the only difference is that I'm right, and they're wrong". She was like "how do you know?". That lead to a much longer session of reviewing types of biases and fallacies, the scientific method and various other critical thinking tools I've developed over the years, but whoever is on the "other side" is having the same conversation with their kids, and showing them tools and resources they've developed over the years to decide what information to trust and, to the kid, it's just as convincing!!

This was one of the videos we looked at, I think it's totally on point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvk2PQNcg8w

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#284

Post by Gareth321 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:53 AM UTC

RedBeetDeadpool wrote: post #203

paulpauper wrote: post #47

As bad as twitter and Facebook censorship is, it's worse for other sites, like Reddit or probably any v-bulletin forum. Reddit subs have soooo much moderation, especially any sub that that is even slightly popular, so many arbitrary and hidden rules and content guidelines. On twitter I can call someone a jerk and the worst that may happen is the person may block me, but that will get your banned from many reddit subs…

Just adding onto this argument. Reddit moderators just don't know how to take criticism. The lately famous /r/antiwork just had a moment. I tried to find the post where they were banning every dissenting opinion, but the thread got locked. Now the entire subreddit is locked. For reference here's a link to another subreddit locking a thread because the /r/antiwork mod got offended: https://www.reddit.com/r/Cringetopia…

I've been using the site for ~14 years and watching its decline has been quite difficult. I really like the premise, but it clearly hit the limits of its system many years ago. I recall reading some commentary from one of the founders near the beginning. They were working on research to exploit crowd-funded effort. Effectively incentivising users just enough to encourage them to work for free. They came up with the distributed moderation system. Give egoists just a little bit of power and they'll spend 12 hours a day moderating Reddit for free.

This worked fine with smaller communities and the ability for competition when moderators overstep their mandate and make their communities a bad place. Unfortunately, for many reasons, this is all failing.

1. Reddit management has made their political leanings clear: if you are conservative, you are unwelcome. When I say "conservative" I'm not referring to the far-right. I'm referring to mainstream conservatism about family values, hard work, religion, etc. No example could better encapsulate their position than their "Anti-Evil Operations" team, which bans people for any and all reasons, including unpalatable political positions. Admins/staff on this team have been quite candid about their desire to ban conservative views. This aligns well with Reddit's announced IPO. Sanitising discussion to be advertiser friendly will help their bottom line.

2. The user base leans heavily left. It seems certain large websites have a theme now. When one considers the kinds of discussion which happen on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, we all know which way those sites lean. Reddit is pretty hard left now. For example, the /r/Science subreddit is 24/7 "Study finds Trump voters have low IQ." The Joe Rogan fun subreddit is 24/7 "Does anyone else think Joe Rogan is Hitler?" There is zero space for nuanced discussion except in some very niche subreddits, and they are all inevitably taken over by a power mod who purges nuanced discussion.

3. The anonymous mod system is just not equipped to deal with tens of millions of users in a single subreddit. The top mod is the dictator, and they always end up enforcing their biases on the sub; overtly and subtly. This is exacerbated because of...

4. Subreddit squatting. A perfect example of this are the country name subreddits. Everyone from said country new to Reddit subscribes to these subs. They are all cheerleaders for a particular political party within each country. If you don't like that political party, you're marginalised and usually banned. It's not as simple as creating a competing country subreddit because few people will ever find it. No one thinks to search for "TrueCanada" if they're looking for "Canada." Of course, the the original subreddit automatically removes any mention of the competing sub, and bans anyone discussing it.

There are just too many issues to discuss them all, or in much detail. IMHO, Reddit is ready for a Digg-style exodus. People are just waiting for a clear alternative.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#285

Post by dash2 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:55 AM UTC

I have a substack which occasionally talks about human genetics (from an informed POV – I have published in the field) so I checked out Substack’s actual policies.

They really are pretty liberal. I assumed they would have some policies against racism, but all they have is a ban on threats of harm to groups.

OTOH they have a blanket ban on porn. I suspect that is less due to deep political principle, more due to just not wanting to become a porn platform.

I’m glad they’ve made this statement, but I worry that they will feel pressure to water it down as a profit making company. So, I think we still need “protocols not platforms“. Or “not just platforms“.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#286

Post by ayngg » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:56 AM UTC

dools wrote: post #240

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…

I think it largely comes from a lack of empathy that has been cultivated for a while now through the loss of social cohesion. It seems like across the board (families, friends, local communities, spouses etc), people are suffering socially and turn to insular groups on social media to cope.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#287

Post by dools » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:59 AM UTC

ayngg wrote: post #286

dools wrote: post #240

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…

I think it largely comes from a lack of empathy that has been cultivated for a while now through the loss of social cohesion. It seems like across the board (families, friends, local communities, spouses etc), people are suffering socially and turn to insular groups on social media to cope.

I don't think empathy has anything to do with it, and I think that both-sidesing is one of the biggest challenges we face.

The trend that I see as most damaging is denialism as a mainstream philosophy. Denialism leads to distrust and fuels libertarinism, which, by it's very design, is a philosophy of decohesion.

The beginnings of my education on denial came from people fighting one of the largest denialist projects in history, but the strategies across all forms of denial are very similar. It's worth studying in-depth:

https://www.nizkor.org

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#288

Post by Chris2048 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:00 AM UTC

lliamander wrote: post #256

kolanos wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You can't teach critical thinking. There are techniques you can learn, but critical thinking is fundamentally an attitude . It's the attitude of never taking anything you read or hear at face value. 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…

You can teach the principles, and example of why it's important to create motivation.

any subject requires a motivated attitude to succeed. Critical thinking also requires an attitude to value the topic IRL - but arguable that ought to be the case for all topics.

> It's the attitude of never taking anything you read or hear at face value.

A class in philosophy (or history) of science will teach you all the ways in which people where wrong before the process was established, and will make you see the value of science. CT is the same thing applied to everything, not just formal physical studies.

> it's also super exhausting

Only because most things are written to manipulate. If publications actually suffered for their reputation b/c of poor articles the whole thing would be easier. Also, if journalists set out to prove their claims, and properly source them - arguably something like Wikipedia is a group effort to do what is hard for the individual (I think it fails, btw, by leaning too much on published material).

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#289

Post by mns » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:00 AM UTC

mint2 wrote: post #66

dukeofdoom wrote: post #54

Clearly, part of the problem is over reliance on experts. Somehow the professional class (empowered by Twitter and Social Media) has now convinced themselves that they're God's gift to to the world ... because they read a book. And is totally oblivious to how stupid some of those things they're advocating for are. When I go to a doctor, chances are he will prescribe me some drugs. Why? because thats what they're trai…

if the problem is our culture trusting experts, perhaps we need some sort of revolution to get rid of those experts and elite, and turn to populism mass movements. Hold that thought, I seem to remember some historical trials of that path. How did they go? Strange how they ended up with even more censorship.

Too bad that most of these experts you're talking about are sociopathic and egotistical growth hackers and nutritionists who overnight ended up being epidemiologists just because it helped them grow their brand.

Re: Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse

#290

Post by ZeroGravitas » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:00 AM UTC

givemeethekeys wrote: post #248

dools wrote: post #240

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…

I realise this was a /rant, but it's still spectacularly misinformed and unhelpful.

If your hot take on politics is that climate change, COVID and the war on terror are all the same thing and this proves the left and right are both the same, then you're part of the problem.

This reads more like a smart person trying to rationalize their cognitive dissonance, when they know deep down they've found themselves on obviously the morally and factually wrong side of an argument and see no way to retreat while maintaining face.