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Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

wired.com

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Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#191

Post by chiefalchemist »

bigdang wrote: post #162

> The company’s aggressive pursuit of growth, coupled with lack of moderation in the app, has already led Signal employees themselves to publicly question whether growth might come from abusive users, such as far-right groups using Signal to organize. Lol what? What exactly does far-right mean in this case? Why intersperse irrelevant political digs at another ill-defined faction? Does far-right just mean non-progress…

The use of anarchism in the title was the first tell. It's an often misused and misunderstood word. I'm confident Wired knows better, but used it because of the pop culture-y biases it is sure to trigger.

This is why we can't have nice things. Why be rational and objective when there a clicks to bait?

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#192

Post by renewiltord »

bigdang wrote: post #162

> The company’s aggressive pursuit of growth, coupled with lack of moderation in the app, has already led Signal employees themselves to publicly question whether growth might come from abusive users, such as far-right groups using Signal to organize. Lol what? What exactly does far-right mean in this case? Why intersperse irrelevant political digs at another ill-defined faction? Does far-right just mean non-progress…

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to be moderated.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#193

Post by nostromo »

enragedcacti wrote: post #179
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rising intolerance of wrongthink on the left has been written about extensively but I’d love to read a sympathetic, anthropological investigation into it. I say sympathetic because I don’t believe you can understand anything without really seeing how a reasonable person could come to those same conclusions.

The paradox of tolerance gets you a long way to understanding it, but you will also have to be far more specific if you want answers because practically everyone has limits to what they consider acceptable speech, even if they don't call it that. Beyond that, there is a pretty concerted effort to elevate minor grievances into the national spotlight to portray the left a certain way, e.g. the Oberlin Cafeteria scandal…

People are constantly misapplying The Paradox of Tolerance - which is an argument for protecting free speech in all cases other than one: opposition of free speech.

Somehow that got contorted by modern-day activists into "I can shout down or physically attack people I don't agree with" -- which is exactly opposite of what was being argued by Popper. It's an argument for more permissive expression, not less. He notes that the best path is nearly always rational argumentation of opposing views.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#195

Post by maxbond »

generalizations wrote: post #189
maxbond wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you say something incisive to piss people off and trigger a reaction, and you get the reaction you're looking for, what we've established is that you are willing to piss people off to serve your rhetorical ends. Nothing else. This of the "stop hitting yourself" form of argumentation.

He observed an 'intolerance of wrongthink' and got a reaction where someone was, in fact, intolerant of wrongthink. I don't see how that's anything but a confirmation.

That's a mischaracterization, the comment was pointing out "intolerance of wrong think" on the right. There are other criticisms to be made of that comment (eg it violated the guidelines by devolving into personal attack), but "intolerance of wrong think" isn't one of them.

Even if it were, it wouldn't matter. If I cared to I could construct an equivalent comment baiting right-wingers and declare victory when someone took issue with it.

If you're going to take someone getting pissed off as proof of something, anyone willing to engage in such rhetoric will be able to convince you of anything.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#196

Post by bjord »

enedil wrote: post #186
nulbyte wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also as a slight but important aside, the article mentions end-to-end encryption technology that existed prior to Signal in its opening sentence. It may be that Signal pioneered E2EE chat, but it didn't pioneer E2EE itself. It built upon it in a way that was perhaps more accessible or appealing to a mass audience. That prior technology, by the way, PGP, is not and was never universally hated. Many businesses continue…

> It may be that Signal pioneered E2EE chat Also false. XMPP OTR existed long prior.

I think the question is who popularized it. Arguably, Signal did, by bringing it (both via its own app and via its protocol) to the masses.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#197

Post by foldr »

bigdang wrote: post #162

> The company’s aggressive pursuit of growth, coupled with lack of moderation in the app, has already led Signal employees themselves to publicly question whether growth might come from abusive users, such as far-right groups using Signal to organize. Lol what? What exactly does far-right mean in this case? Why intersperse irrelevant political digs at another ill-defined faction? Does far-right just mean non-progress…

Hard to tell if you are asking in good faith, but the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page has a perfectly serviceable definition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics

>Far-right politics, or right-wing extremism, refers to a spectrum of political thought that tends to be radically conservative, ultra-nationalist, and authoritarian, often also including nativist tendencies. The name derives from the left–right political spectrum, with the "far right" considered further from center than the standard political right.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#198

Post by [deleted] »

programmarchy wrote: post #190
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rising intolerance of wrongthink on the left has been written about extensively but I’d love to read a sympathetic, anthropological investigation into it. I say sympathetic because I don’t believe you can understand anything without really seeing how a reasonable person could come to those same conclusions.

René Girard has done an anthropological investigation of this topic. The gist of it is through the psycho-social mechanism of scapegoating, opposing groups can simultaneously believe they are victims while acting as oppressors, often using their victim status as justification for their oppression of "the other". Girard explores this phenomenon of scapegoating and postulates it goes back to primitive humans e.g. durin…

[deleted]

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#199

Post by foldr »

nostromo wrote: post #193
enragedcacti wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paradox of tolerance gets you a long way to understanding it, but you will also have to be far more specific if you want answers because practically everyone has limits to what they consider acceptable speech, even if they don't call it that. Beyond that, there is a pretty concerted effort to elevate minor grievances into the national spotlight to portray the left a certain way, e.g. the Oberlin Cafeteria scandal…

People are constantly misapplying The Paradox of Tolerance - which is an argument for protecting free speech in all cases other than one: opposition of free speech. Somehow that got contorted by modern-day activists into "I can shout down or physically attack people I don't agree with" -- which is exactly opposite of what was being argued by Popper. It's an argument for more permissive expression, not less. He notes…

I can't find any textual support for that narrow interpretation of the Paradox of Tolerance in anything that Popper wrote. Where does he say that only opposition to freedom of speech counts as 'intolerance' in the relevant sense?

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#200

Post by f38zf5vdt »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #163
bigdang wrote: post #162

> The company’s aggressive pursuit of growth, coupled with lack of moderation in the app, has already led Signal employees themselves to publicly question whether growth might come from abusive users, such as far-right groups using Signal to organize. Lol what? What exactly does far-right mean in this case? Why intersperse irrelevant political digs at another ill-defined faction? Does far-right just mean non-progress…

The rising intolerance of wrongthink on the left has been written about extensively but I’d love to read a sympathetic, anthropological investigation into it. I say sympathetic because I don’t believe you can understand anything without really seeing how a reasonable person could come to those same conclusions.

Yet, remarkably, many others will identify with:

> The rising intolerance of wrongthink on the right has been written about extensively but I’d love to read a sympathetic, anthropological investigation into it.

> I say sympathetic because I don’t believe you can understand anything without really seeing how a reasonable person could come to those same conclusions.

We are diving deep into the irony of bifurcated political systems where the two groups simultaneously believe themselves to be victims of their opposing teams rather than circumstance and systemic failures.

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