Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

on.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 606 posts

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

#521

Post by rgrieselhuber »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #248
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…

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…

This illustrates perfectly the false axis of the idea of right vs left outside of economic spheres (and labor vs capital is more accurate than left vs right in the economic realm).

The spectrum of totalitarianism vs anarchy is a much better axis to use with regards to this topic, IMO. In that light, it is easy to see that all of the post-9/11 fear-mongering and the COVID fear-mongering are run with the same agenda: more restrictions, less freedom.

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

#522

Post by nradov »

BeefWellington wrote: post #278
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.

Here's what I don't understand about this argument: Why do slander and libel laws exist? There's already limitations on free speech in place. The article's broader point is that trust is low in a lot of institutions (for good reasons and bad) and thus the focus shouldn't be on censorship but on improving that trust. I agree with this approach. However I think it is also important to recognize that propaganda has only…

There are no US federal criminal laws against slander and libel. Those are civil issues and don't represent a limit on free speech.

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

#523

Post by salemh »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #55

I think that part of the problem is that we are under a disinformation attack. Russia did a lot around the elections, but I don't think they've gone to zero. I think both China and Iran are active. (The old Soviet "active measures" is what I have in mind - you get a number of sock puppets to all say the same idea, and it looks like that's what the consensus is, because people hear it from several sources.) That erode…

No post body was provided.

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

#524

Post by hutzlibu »

nradov wrote: post #518
hutzlibu wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very basic idea of the scientific method as I learned it, is: testing ideas by experiment. If it looks cold outside, but not too cold - I have the idea that a medium warm jacket of mine is enough. And then outside I see if it was adequate or not and next time under similar conditions I change accordingly, or go back to the house that instant. Sounds like common sense and it is. But not everyone is doing it. I ser…

Actually, wanting to be comfortable all the time is irrational. You should intentionally make yourself uncomfortable occasionally in order to avoid becoming too "precious". Hypothermia is an old friend of mine. https://davidgoggins.com/book/

Sure, did I mention, that I like wintercamping and just done so recently?

And people usually look at me strangely when I wear just a light jacket, when they look like Inuit.

But I would never intentionally wear shoes that do not fit right. There is no benefit in that - but it rather can mess up your whole body.

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

#525

Post by MockObject »

mschuster91 wrote: post #503
sethammons wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still not seeing it. Nazis lined up people and shot them because of who they were. A literal economic machine was created to kill millions of people. But, hey, the president apparently mocked someone. Seriously? That is included in your comparison to nazis?

> Nazis lined up people and shot them because of who they were. The Holocaust did not happen over night, it built upon years of dismantling the democracy of the Weimar Republic. The Nazis took power in 1933, the Holocaust began in 1941 - that's eight years . > But, hey, the president apparently mocked someone. Seriously? That is included in your comparison to nazis? The Nazi ideology was based upon declaring people u…

This is hyperbole that really goes against the spirit of this website.

Trump was overwhelmingly popular in Israel, and notorious literal white nationalist Richard Spencer endorsed Biden in 2020.

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

#526

Post by BeFlatXIII »

zozbot234 wrote: post #116
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…

Newsflash, there is little of anything being taught in K12. Public schooling is a sad joke in the US.

It’s why I was so unconcerned with the school shutdowns early in the pandemic. Even an entire semester lost wouldn’t noticeably impede the nonexistent learning of US students. However, now that’s it’s been two years of on and off online school, that’s well past the point when detrimental effects would show, even in the US education system.

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

#527

Post by brandonmenc »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #212
brandonmenc wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They may have some details wrong, but do you think their overall impression of the event is wildly inaccurate? Jan 6th, BLM protests, and the pandemic are all Rorschach tests. Unlike 9/11, the 1992 LA riots, and the Spanish Flu, the more recent events occupy a mushy middle ground of severity - a lot of people can go either way when deciding if they're the worst thing ever or just nuisances. The ambiguity is causing…

There is no "mushy middle ground" when it comes to a coupe attempt at the capitol building. Sorry but you are simply wrong about this. There is no ambiguity at all in that statement.

Military participation is required for a coup.

Even participants declaring “this is a coup” does not make it by definition a coup.

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

#528

Post by RedBeetDeadpool »

Gareth321 wrote: post #284
RedBeetDeadpool wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just adding onto this argument. Reddit moderators just don't know how to take criticism. The lately famous /r/antiwork just had a moment. I tried to find the post where they were banning every dissenting opinion, but the thread got locked. Now the entire subreddit is locked. For reference here's a link to another subreddit locking a thread because the /r/antiwork mod got offended: https://www.reddit.com/r/Cringetopia…

I've been using the site for ~14 years and watching its decline has been quite difficult. I really like the premise, but it clearly hit the limits of its system many years ago. I recall reading some commentary from one of the founders near the beginning. They were working on research to exploit crowd-funded effort. Effectively incentivising users just enough to encourage them to work for free. They came up with the d…

> Give egoists just a little bit of power and they'll spend 12 hours a day moderating Reddit for free

That really blew up in their face didn't it? 12 hours by the way is probably a low ballpark by the way. In my mind the power mods compulsively play Reddit like World of Warcraft addicts gearing up on a 7-day no shower session, going around silencing and ban-hammering users they dont like. I don't have the link but someone posted statistics of the top "players" in these communities, and it approaches something like making a post/comment/edit about every 6 minutes of being awake, or something equally ridiculous.

> There are just too many issues to discuss them all, or in much detail.

Couldn't agree more. Someone could probably write a thesis on the devolution of social media companies. I might be crazy but I see a pattern here. If it didn't have so much political implications I wouldn't care what a website here or there does, but it clearly has implications on real life.

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

#529

Post by bondarchuk »

Pyramus wrote: post #507
bondarchuk wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Yes. And this is called... censorship. Even when we, the good guys, do it. You can't just change the definition of words based on whether a western democracy or an authoritarian hellhole does it, when they're doing exactly the same thing.…

Not sure where I changed the definition of censorship - I was saying that using the word censorship can easily lead to false equivalences, such as > they're doing exactly the same thing. No, they aren't, baseline and context matters. You are falsely equating the removal of say, anti-vax conspiracy content in the US, with the removal of say, political/homosexual/religious/ethnic content in an authoritarian regime. If…

I'm not passing a value judgment on how western democracies restrict speech, I'm just saying that if they restrict speech, then they are doing censorship. Indeed they are doing the same thing, qualitatively, as more authoritarian countries, but on different subjects and with different intensities. If it makes you uncomfortable to call it what it is, perhaps you'd do well to investigate why that is.

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

#530

Post by dang »

joshuahughes wrote: post #501
Kye wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the left really got power we would all get a month paid vacation so we could actually afford to stock up and stay home while the virus dies off. The left is not in any way empowered in this country.

"stock up and stay home while the virus dies off" Given the existence of animal reservoirs, short-lived immunity, asymptomatic carriers, continued transmission after vaccination, and the genetic instability of SARS-CoV-2, this seems like an incredibly naive view. The only virus we've been able to eradicate — smallpox — was a VERY different beast because it had none of the issues listed above.

Hi there - it looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle for a long time now. I had to go back 2 years to find anything else! That's not a legit use of HN, regardless of what your positions are, because it's not in keeping with the intellectual curiosity this site is supposed to be for. In fact, it's destructive of it. For that reason, we ban accounts that are using the site this way. I don't want to ban you, so could you please fix this?

Further explanations are at these links if anyone wants more:

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Post reply on HN