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

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

#411

Post by belorn »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #290
givemeethekeys wrote: post #248

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…

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 obviou…

Neither the left or the right is arguing that climate change or COVID does not exist. The loud disagreements is about what strategy to deploy. We have nations like Germany that want to use natural gas to combat climate change, and we got France that want to use nuclear. The left leans towards natural gas, the right towards nuclear, both arguing that their strategy will lead towards an end to climate change and that the other side won't. Should vegetarian diet be part of our cultural diet, insects meal, blue agriculture, or should we focus our climate change priority on energy, transportation, heating, industry, futuristic technology and so on.

With COVID we have had more strategy than can be reasonable described in a comment, some which the left favor and others that the right favors. Should we classify the Swedish strategy as "right" and the Danish strategy as "left"? Doctors all over the world disagree on what optimal treatment is and in the end it is the patient outcome that dictate who was right.

The issue is that politicians get voted in because people fear the bad outcome, not because people favor one strategy above an other strategy. Thus the perception from both sides is that the "other" side do not believe that the bad outcome exist.

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

#412

Post by chalst »

jcbrand wrote: post #398
chalst wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do remember that the Panama Papers whistleblower got mysteriously car-bombed. Remember? As far as I am aware the whistleblower is still anonymous. Where did you get your information? People who believe the elite control the media seem to often be very credulous towards claims that don't come from elites.

Is the Guardian elite enough for you? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car-bomb... Not the whistleblower, but the journalist who investigated it. Now, before you say this is proof that journalists are impartial and not beholden to elites... this is proof that journalists who act against the interests of the powerful and wealthy get terminated. Other "journalists" see this and take note. That's the…

Daphne Caruana Galizia was not the Panama Papers whistleblower. She was a whistleblower who used the revelations of the Panama Papers to join up the dots in her own enquiries into corruption in Malta. It's worth noting her killers got caught and the senior figures in the government who she accused of creating "a culture of impunity" were removed from power.

There's a lot of things I don't like about elitist journalism, but there's a whole class of investigative journalism that got done better in the old model than today. Cf. Evgeny Morozov.

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

#413

Post by Chris2048 »

ekanes wrote: post #366
bambax wrote: post #310

The reason Substack has "content guidelines" is because they want to make their own laws. If they only followed the law, they would only need to remind users what's illegal and what's not. And so they have to go to great lengths to explain those laws that they are making, and why they exist, and how they're enforced, etc. And of course they present them as necessary and reasonable, and "the only way". > We will conti…

Classically, the only way things like that are “hard forced” on a company that refuses to be canceled is visa/mc stop accepting them. This is a real case for crypto-currencies.

The new way is server hosts and/or network providers to cancel them.

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

#414

Post by cjfd »

epgui wrote: post #329
cjfd wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After that one gets into philosophical ethics rather quickly. In practice people not having human rights degrades into much suffering quickly. You said something not-so-nice about the government? Now we throw you in jail! So, why is that wrong? I am sure one can talk pretty endlessly in a philosophy course but in practice there does not seem to be much point. Also, we should keep history in mind. In fact, there is re…

I may not have all the answers, but personally, I think the question is rather important. I am really uncomfortable with the idea of certain things being sacred for no reason. Sometimes I get the impression that a lot of people are fighting for the right things, but by accident. My worry is that I don’t know what then prevents people from fighting for the wrong things by similar accident (eg.: nazism).

Another thing one might ask is what is the goal of having a society in the first place or what should be the goal of having a society. I would say that providing its members with their human rights is pretty high up there as the goal. But maybe we can do a bit better. What about every person being able to strive for what they themselves consider valuable? I think that as such already presupposes human rights. Another thing to think about in this context is economic prosperity. When talking about nazism, I don't think you can see this as separate from the economic situation at the time it came up. If there is enough economic hardship people will follow the great leader who promises better and they will be vulnerable to the suggestion that some outgroup or etnicity is harming them.

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

#415

Post by kylebyproxy »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #290
givemeethekeys wrote: post #248

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…

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 obviou…

Yours seems like a particularly uncharitable interpretation compared to my reading; I didn't hear them saying D == R so much as both are susceptible to the same flaw of human nature: impulsive overreaction to stimuli we find threatening.

I do agree that's an unhelpful analysis, but only because it happens to be tautological.

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

#416

Post by Trombone12 »

raxxorrax wrote: post #403
TulliusCicero wrote: post #395

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.

Which are the classical platforms? I'm not sure we've had any instances of wide reach distribution systems that completely lacks editorial oversight before internet companies figures out how to monetise raw traffic.

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

#417

Post by perryizgr8 »

epgui wrote: post #308
cjfd wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, free speech is an end goal. It is a human right. As such only grave reasons are valid to infringe upon it.

So if I ask you "why do we have or need human rights", would you say "there is no reason, the analysis stops there"?

I saw a video in which Richard Feynman was asked to explain why magnets repel. He went on a long tirade but finally the answer was "magnets repel, because they do". Asking for a deeper explanation does not make sense unless you want to study theoretical physics for the rest of your life.

I feel this question about human rights falls into a similar category. They are required. If you want to go deeper into the reasons, you need to spend a lifetime studying philosophy and ethics and whatnot.

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

#418

Post by Swenrekcah »

cloutchaser wrote: post #250
givemeethekeys wrote: post #248

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…

While the right certainly had their fear based issues before the pandemic, it’s a bit of a stretch to say the left didn’t. Trump was going to become a dictator. We had 12 years to go living on earth 4 years ago. Apparently almost everyone is a white supremacist… I could go on. Why didn’t Obama revoke the patriot act if he was so on the side of non fear? Or allow more whistleblowing.

European perspective here: Trump was definitely trying to make himself a dictator, just look at how he handled losing an election. Please don’t vote him in again America.

Agree on moral panic issues though.

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

#419

Post by Pyramus »

bondarchuk wrote: post #350
Pyramus wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly my point - where do we, as a society, draw the line. suppression of speech != restriction of free speech It is a very very delicate and complicated balance - what I am objecting to is to ignore that this balance exists. If you disagree with the word "restriction", let me rephrase as "free speech has limits" or "free speech is not the end goal". "In the United States, freedom of speech and expression i…

I think we are in complete agreement, but for some reason you want to avoid using the word "censorship" in the case of a restriction of speech that you agree with (a restriction you agree with). Sure, free speech has limits. Beyond those limits, censorship is applied. At this point it's just an argument over the definition of words, not very interesting.

Yes and no. Words do matter. Censorship usually (also) refers to restrictions of free speech typical for non-democratic societies [1], which doesn't lead to productive discussions (in my experience). It is not uncommon to see the false conclusion "censorship is used in authoritarian countries therefore free speech must not be restricted".

> a restriction of speech that you agree with

It doesn't matter whether I agree or disagree. It matters whether we, as a society, can find a balance between the rights of the individuals and the rights of the sovereign/state.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

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

#420

Post by mschuster91 »

exceptione wrote: post #409
mschuster91 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Hateful ideology without followers is just that: ideology to be forgotten in the dustbin of history.

It is one's own choice to believe in hateful ideology like racism, sexism or transphobia. No one forces anyone to believe in any kind of ideology - therefore the focus and the blame should be on the people who willingly decide to believe hateful ideology (and, obviously, the spreaders of such ideology).

The US has been willing to go to war to fight the Nazi regime. For me, it is inconceivable how wide swaths of the US could have ended up with welcoming the successors of the Nazi ideology, not even a century later.

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