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

#441

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 12:57 PM UTC

native_samples wrote: post #356

jimkleiber wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

[deleted]

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

#442

Post by hn_version_0023 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:01 PM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #210

hn_version_0023 wrote: post #12

We don’t have a trust problem. We have a lack of trustworthy people in positions of power problem. I see how one can be easily confused. But we (the People) don’t trust politicians or business leaders because they have show repeatedly they’re not worthy of trust.

If there are so many of you then you should start your own platform. There is no reason facebook/twitter/etc have to host your point of view. There is absolutely zero stopping people from doing this. There are conservative oriented web hosting services, put your stuff there and let the money and followers roll in. If your point of view is popular you will draw people in like flies to honey

I suspect you replied to the wrong person; I’m neither conservative nor interested in people sharing or even really much hearing my point of view.

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

#443

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #420

exceptione wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bee…

>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.

The people who spent their early adulthood shooting at literal nazis generally held beliefs that would have the group you endorse in your profile calling them nazis today.

I'm not sure how you can call the current quibbling about race ethnicity "the successors of the Nazi ideology". Ignoring the "believes in literal superiority of one race" types who are a rounding error, most of the people getting called racist today say things that 1990s sociologists would have published without thinking twice.

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

#444

Post by nosianu » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:12 PM UTC

meheleventyone wrote: post #388

yunohn wrote: 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.

> some random person

A journalist is some random person too. Only a handful of people know the person to any degree. You are asking to trust some brand. A brand that is controlled by few rich centralized media owners (in the "free" countries, government, directly or indirectly, in others).

The main incentive of a journalist is the same as for any other employee. To Keep ones employment and to make money. The idealism, if it ever exists, diminishes over time as experience grows and the need for stable income too (family).

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

#445

Post by matthewdgreen » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:12 PM 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…

“Never taking anything you read or hear at face value” makes it impossible to operate in a functioning society. This is particularly the case in a society where some people are happy to fill your information channels with conflicting information. Even if you do your research and reject some of the bad data, the effort will paralyze you (and others like you) which is almost as good from a malicious perspective.

Or to think about it from an information security perspective, once you adopt a specific defense mechanism, someone will look for ways to exploit it. This one is particularly easy to exploit.

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

#446

Post by MagnumOpus » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:18 PM UTC

account42 wrote: post #402

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.

> 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?

Trick question, they will not have empathy for you either way.

The paradox of tolerance is not a novel idea, and people from Plato to Popper have chewed through it, and it is pretty much incontrovertible by now that the only way that a society can remain open and tolerant is to not tolerate intolerance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

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

#447

Post by ekanes » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:18 PM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #413

ekanes wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes great point.

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

#448

Post by sleepingadmin » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

>“We don’t have a misinformation problem,” Larson said. “We have a trust problem.”

How much 'misinformation' ended up being true? Some things very rapidly was labelled misinformation.

How much 'truth' ended up being misinformation?

Let's say hypothetically covid disappears and a new virus starts spreading that is actually as bad as the spanish flu. The consequences of all the lying by politicians means we're nowhere near prepared for it.

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

#449

Post by axiomsEnd » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:23 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #420

exceptione wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bee…

People do not exist outside their circumstances. Being raised in religion/hateful worldview, without contact with outsiders and shunning doubtful members of group (alienating and shunning are really popular in such circles, in more or less vidible manner) doesn't give to many options in what to believe. Also, such ideas are not viewed as -isms inside such groups, they are often "fruit" of a whole tree of ideology and dogmas.

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

#450

Post by brightstep » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #436

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 would like to hear a long-form version that actually spells out your argument. I think we’re headed towards an authoritarian nightmare because politicians worldwide seem to be interested in tearing up the democratic process. Others seem to think we’re headed towards an authoritarian nightmare because YouTube takes down some videos. These things don’t seem comparable to me, but your comment makes me think I’m missin…

They're not comparable if you see YouTube as just a company. But you can look at it differently. It is also an organization with total authority over a widely used realm of global public discourse. It can use that power to determine what you hear and see, including both censorship and promotion via "the algorithm". It has massive economic and political influence. Careers are built on its platform, and it has effectively unlimited resources to manipulate politicians and effect policies to its benefit. All this, and it is 100% undemocratic, unresponsive in nearly every way to even those within the organization much less the greater public.

To be clear, governments turning away from even what is mostly limited representative democracy is very worrying. But it's also fair to worry about corporate power.