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

#461

Post by naasking » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:46 PM 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…

> 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.

Shared enemies makes for strange bedfellows. If some group in power is threatening groups B and C, even if B and C otherwise hate each other they will band together and fight for their own survival.

Creeping censorship will ultimately always self-defeating for this reason. You'll win some early victories against the extreme fringe that no one supports, but it never ends there.

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

#462

Post by argvargc » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:47 PM 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…

Some of us are already living an authoritarian nightmare. One that we weren't living two years ago, regardless of politics.

It's not up for debate, it's up for acknowledgement.

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

#463

Post by asow92 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

What's interesting to me personally is that no matter where someone stands on their political spectrum, they may interpret Substack's guidelines http://substack.com/content very differently.

I find myself standing with what Substack are saying in this post, and yet after reading their guidelines, I can see someone attempting to forge an argument for censoring the topics discussed in their post (promotion of vaccine distrust and misinformation) in the name of preventing harmful activities.

Of course, on the other hand, and this is where I believe to stand with Substack–what someone may find to be the promotion of vaccine distrust or misinformation, another may find as healthy discourse on the topic.

Ultimately, in my opinion, we should let people decide on their own and not let tech companies masquerade as arbiters of truth.

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

#464

Post by hnuser847 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:49 PM UTC

Swenrekcah wrote: post #418

cloutchaser wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He was handed a global pandemic in which it was completely permissible for leaders to take on unprecedented, unlimited emergency powers, and yet he did nothing. He was actually criticized for not using his emergency powers to implement an (unconstitutional) national lockdown. If his true goal was to become a dictator, why did he do nothing when he was given the perfect opportunity?

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

#465

Post by naasking » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:51 PM UTC

MagnumOpus wrote: post #446

account42 wrote: post #402

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? 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

> 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.

That is literally NOT what Popper says. Your own link refutes that point in Popper's own words.

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

#466

Post by slibhb » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:52 PM UTC

epgui wrote: post #245

unityByFreedom wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without any curation, everyone would have to wade through tons of spam.

Exactly this. When it comes to your health, you are what you eat. Why do people think their brains are completely unaffected by their training set? You think what you read/hear. We're just meat computers, and information hygiene (or the lack thereof) actually matters and has a big impact.

Lovely, and who gets to determine which information is "hygienic"?

I don't think it's a coincidence that people who support censorship think of humans as "meat computers". I suggest that if someone says "we are meat computers," we start treating them like one, i.e. ignoring them.

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

#467

Post by nandhinianand » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:56 PM UTC

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…

I think your comment got an unfair downvote. The rant was okay, but it went on to talk about a strawman argument of a measure(beef consumption) before flying. However, the better I'd have put the whole rant(not sure OP agrees, this is just my reading of it), is like this: We've been reactively forming policies out of fear of extreme bad/negative consequence events. Since, the time window of public/societal memory is limited and there's a cycle of elections and power structure climbing too involved, the policies tend to be ones that are sellable/explain-away-able to the vast majority of the public. And these become the standards till another event occurs and never re-considered.

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

#468

Post by giantg2 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:56 PM 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…

"Yet each writer is convinced that the other’s policy leads directly to slavery, and the alarming thing is that they may both be right."

So true.

My view is that the more involved "the system" gets in people's lives with laws dictating what can and cannot be done (for increasingly trivial things, or by abusing the legal process!), the more people will be negatively affected. People mostly only care about what affects them, or only see what affects them.

This essentially lead to a simple majority forcing a substantial minority to do, or refrain from doing, something. Yet the members of that majority may find themselves being similarly forced as a member of the substantial minority on a different subject.

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

#469

Post by naasking » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

epgui wrote: post #244

ziroshima wrote: post #4

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…

> Imagine you have free speech. Yay! Now what? Why was this so important again?

It's important because it's a human right.

> Free speech is not an end goal. It's a tool that serves a purpose.

No, it's a human right. Thinking that "human rights" are tools to serve a purpose is authoritarian thinking, where we grant people fictitious "rights" only if they serve some greater social purpose, but if that social purpose is threatened by those rights, we reserve the right to oppress them.

That said, I agree that recognizing free speech is a right doesn't mean it must be unrestricted. Other rights exist too after all.

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

#470

Post by dtech » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 1:59 PM UTC

dools wrote: post #283

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…

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…

This is basically a less-polished exposition of GGP Grey's excellent video [1], which he also mentions in the talk

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc