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

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401–410 of 606 posts

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

#401
Balaji Srinivasan's scenario where both sides lose, https://old.reddit.com/r/weirdcollapse/comments/sbwf3e/balaj...

> What’s coming isn’t fascism or communism, like the left-wing and right-wing pundits will have you believe, even though they don’t believe it themselves. What’s coming is the exact opposite of that, a world where the civilized concepts of freedom and equity are extrapolated to their decivilizational limit, where you ain’t the boss of me and we are all equal, where all hierarchy is illegitimate and with it all authority, where no one is in charge and everything is in chaos.

> You can argue this may be preferable to the status quo, in the same way the chaotic Russia of the 1990s was on balance better than the authoritarian Soviet Union of the ’80s. You can argue it may be inevitable; as the Chinese proverb goes, “the empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide.” And you can argue that this transitional period of anarchy may be lamentable, but that it’s better than the other team being in charge, and that we can build a better order on the other side.

> Maybe so. But prior to any rebundling, I think we’re on track for quite the unbundling.

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

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think the only way out of this is empathy. You don't have to think both sides are morally or rationally the same to have empathy for both sides. The alternative is either mass slaughter or mass displacement, at the extremes. You can't eliminate your "enemy" without either murdering/displacing them or somehow coming to terms with them (ideally, being friends with them). MLK got this right, and he was able to s…

Why should one have empathy with people who deny other peoples' basic human rights simply because of their gender, sexual orientation or religion? Back in 1939 the world decided they had enough of my ancestors (I'm German) and put a stop to bigotry by using force. These days, such views can get you elected to US Presidency. What a goddamn shame.

> Why should one have empathy with people who deny other peoples' basic human rights simply because of their gender, sexual orientation or religion?

Because if you don't, why should they have empathy for you?

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

#403

Low-moderation platforms tend to have...issues. They attract trolls and extremists, the regular people don't like sharing space with trolls and extremists, so they leave. Rinse and repeat for a while, and soon all the normal people are gone. If Facebook permitted everything, they'd just be committing business suicide.

And yet the popular social media sites have far more moderation than classical platforms, which are not regarded as causing problem. You mean low-moderation platforms tend to have objectionable content. True, but I don't see the problem.

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

#404
post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> members of professional organisation and they have code of conduct Laws exist, so there are no crimes? > Thanks to investigative journalists, you have things like Pandora papers. Yes, but that’s their point - not everyone is exposing things, because the elites control the media. Do remember that the Panama Papers whistleblower got mysteriously car-bombed. Here’s a viral modern-day example: https://www.vox.com/polic…

> Laws exist, so there are no crimes? More if you don’t trust journalists to be honest when they at least try to establish norms of behaviour you should trust some random person even less. Both are amenable to corruption.

The choice is not between journalist and "some random person".

There are many non-journalists, experts in their fields and who have a long history of credibility who publish information that one can read.

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

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens because there's a lot of cultural bias towards being centrist, being perceived as the reasonable middle. People like that a lot, it feels good, so whenever such people try to describe political disputes it's tempting to try and describe both parties as the same when arguably they're not. This Substack article is a good case in point. It makes it sound like there's two sides, both demanding censorship, an…

This seems to be the public perception: only one side demands censorship. This isn't quite true and only shows you how well one side is at publicizing that they're being censored, which, ironically, means they're censored -less-. Palestinian accounts on facebook have been deleted for years when they were trying to report on occupation. Facebook also deleted all the accounts of Nicaraguan socialists trying to counter…

I am not sure about your reasoning. Parent is talking about vaccine opposers, while you are talking about Nicaraguan socialists and Palestinians.

Could we really draw such lines?

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

#406
post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> currently accepts antivax What is antivax? Some things which EU governments accept as law is deemed antivax in Canada (recognizing immunity from past infections)... M-W dictionary recently updated antivax to include those opposed to vaccine mandates. But now entire governments are dropping vaccine passports and not implementing mandates at all... So what exactly does antivax mean and why should Substack not allow d…

That's not my point. My point is that Substack pretending to defend "free speech" is deeply misleading, and probably delusional, if they believe it themselves. Substack is not a white knight of liberty, it's the product of a time and a place, and as such is subject to external forces (the customs of said time&place). When those change, so will Substack, theories about "freedom" notwithstanding.

Judging by this whole thread, they are liberal enough (not political liberal, the real meaning) to still be attracting haters who think they're allowing too much.

They're definitely pushing what 2022 society thinks is 'too much freedom' although you're also correct in that they're doing it for profit because plenty of people think that the status quo is too restrictive...

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

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Without fear, however, you don't get any kind of progress. Fear is powerful. Back in the 60s-80s, the world managed to use the fear of pox to eradicate the disease from existence - and most did so by instituting a vaccine mandate. Back in the late 70s/80s, the world managed to use the fear of acid rain to ban sulphur emissions (LRTAP convention). In the early 90s, the world managed to use the fear of ozone to ban CFC…

> Without fear, however, you don't get any kind of progress. Fear is powerful.

this is critically underrated. dismissing ths current feardriven environment really misses the issue.

what is new now is not fear, but the communication - the market penetration. sowing dissent used to be the game of spies. now any political enemy, foreign and domestic, just has to tweet or facebook.

perhaps trust SHOULD be at an all time low.

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

#408
My position is the deplatforming free speech will never work, as censorship itself legitimizes the censored: a nice example of poetic irony in action, but few people understand it.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FrozenVoid/Philosophy-DB/a...

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

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think the only way out of this is empathy. You don't have to think both sides are morally or rationally the same to have empathy for both sides. The alternative is either mass slaughter or mass displacement, at the extremes. You can't eliminate your "enemy" without either murdering/displacing them or somehow coming to terms with them (ideally, being friends with them). MLK got this right, and he was able to s…

Why should one have empathy with people who deny other peoples' basic human rights simply because of their gender, sexual orientation or religion? Back in 1939 the world decided they had enough of my ancestors (I'm German) and put a stop to bigotry by using force. These days, such views can get you elected to US Presidency. What a goddamn shame.

Hate the bad, not the people.

"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering"

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

#410
post #244

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…

I disagree that it is a tool. A silenced individual becomes a slave at some point. Not the individual challenges government power, other state institutions do that, so there is no compromise needed at all. Many people believe those control mechanisms are failing as they get more and more politicized. It is normal by now that government breaks the law. It is not allowed to put people under surveillance. Yet it does constantly. People responsible for that should be in prison. For a very long time. The problem would be solved since the next one would think hard of repeating the mistake. Yet many states are dysfunctional here.

So people are wise to insist on their right to make live hard for government. Until it repents this will not change.

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