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

on.substack.com

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

#481

Post by hutzlibu »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #472
hutzlibu wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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!!" I wish. And sometimes they do. But there are lots and lots of people who have various religious/ideological dogmas. They do not show their kid the scientific method - they preach their…

It has helped me to realize that most of politics is preference, and preference rarely need be informed by the scientific method, especially when most of our daily choices are preference based. E.g. who do I love, what should I wear/watch/eat, where should I spend my money, etc. Our culture has now taught a few generations that people get to decide their own truth, and they conflate preference for truth, and now we a…

"E.g. who do I love, what should I wear/watch/eat, where should I spend my money, etc."

Ok, my feelings of love are not guided by a scientific method (except analyzing and reflect on what I feel).

But by deciding what to wear, eat, watch etc. I do apply the scientific method. Meaning I test out systematically, what works best for me. And I try to teach this to my children.

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

#482

Post by nradov »

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.

If you read American leftist media from late 2020 to January 2021 you'll find a bunch of breathless editorials claiming that Trump was about to declare martial law and assume dictatorial powers. That was obviously nonsense and displayed a complete lack of knowledge about how the US federal government and military work.

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

#483

Post by syshum »

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.

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

#484

Post by prox »

giantg2 wrote: post #468
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…

Social (global) media means that that One Thing You Oppose can now be found quickly. Don’t like X, well X is happening somewhere. Whereas information used to be much more siloed, and therefore problems at least seemed much more local.

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

#485

Post by kylebyproxy »

> To those who endorse such an approach, we can only ask: How is it going? Is it working yet?

What argument is the writer trying to make here? It's not functioning well. Neither is complete lack of censorship. All that says is we haven't found the right balance.

Frankly, this article just reads like promotional copy to me.

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

#486

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #417
epgui wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> They are required.

Why are they required and what are they required for? Countries exist that don't have the exact same human rights, so clearly those rights don't need to exist for a nation or an individual to successfully exist.

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

#487

Post by throwawaygh »

dash2 wrote: post #270
throwawaygh wrote: post #110

I say Bah to the entire censorship debate! My critique of Substack is that our lesson from the last ten years is simple: speech should happen primarily on platforms that are prohibited from profit-seeking and run in the public interest. Censorship on these platforms should be prohibited, of course, but so should any form of profit seeking. Our problem isn't censorship. Our problem is that our political/economic/relig…

But if you ban profit-seeking speech that is also a kind of censorship, and a rather open-ended one. Plus you’ve now banned speech on the wrong kind of platform. I mean, if you think that’s a solution fine, but then don’t claim to be against censorship.

Profit Uber Alles is going to destroy western democracies.

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

#488

Post by throwawaygh »

yakireev wrote: post #198
throwawaygh wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, the substack incentives are even worse. At least radicalizing was a second-order effect of Google/FB incentives. It's damn close to the first-order optimization objective for a company that depends on getting people so worked up that they'll pay to join a mailing list. (Who pays to join a mailing list?! never in my life....) Answer: the Most True Believers.

> Who pays to join a mailing list?! Every newspaper subscriber over the course of history.

That’s not the same. It’s more analogous to subscribing to only one particular column.

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

#489

Post by mschuster91 »

sethammons wrote: post #474
mschuster91 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Help me out. Watch Schindler's List (famous movie) and after, let us know if you still feel that, and in what ways how, the US is welcoming the successor of Nazi ideology. I'm not seeing it. Not even at a glance.

> how, the US is welcoming the successor of Nazi ideology. I'm not seeing it. Not even at a glance.

The guys in Charlottesville shouting "Jews will not replace us"? A Presidential candidate (and later President) openly mocking a disabled person on stage? Said President who sees immigrants as a threat and has no problem being backed by literal white supremacists, antisemites and KKK members? Who made first popularity with spreading the myth that Barack Obama was not a citizen of the US? Who openly called for the illegal locking up of a political opponent? Who disrespected the freedom of the press and the independence of the legislative and judicial branch that forms the pillar of a democratic society? Who invited if not outright ordered his backers to disrupt and prevent the orderly transition of power to his democratically elected successor? Who continually and baselessly accused vote fraud?

The Trump Presidency, its campaign and its voter base was and is filled with Nazi ideology at its core.

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

#490

Post by throwawaygh »

suslik wrote: post #269
throwawaygh wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You asked what substack is trying to do, and I think I gave the only accurate answer. That said, your point is well-taken. I think one of my other comments already captures my thoughts on the point your making; let's move there to discuss: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30093683

While accurate, it isn't a full answer. Substack does provide profits for venture capitalists, but it does so by fulfilling a particular market demand - demand for a censorhsip-free (or censorship-lite) platform. It is a somewhat niche demand, obviously - but it is the only aspect that differentiates them from facebooks of the world.

No, it is the full answer. The other stuff is their market position. That can change on a dime. (It also does nothing about to dual problem of stoking social division to generate more profit.)
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