Live data from Hacker News

Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

nonogra.ph

341–350 of 663 posts

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#341
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, the evidence is that people already pretty firmly against things like chat control and the will to push it through tends to come from the political circles more than popular belief it is a good idea. I expect that if the measure itself went to a general vote, the majority would be against it once they have to deal with a specific proposal. It takes repeated pushes by the authoritarians looking for an opp…

When you think about it, the idea of a representative democracy is rooted in the technical difficulties of implementing a direct democracy: both spread of information/discussion to the masses and organizing the votes. In this day and age, probably with a relatively tiny investment into public access points, we could very reasonably have a technically functional direct democracy. The legislative cycle is already authe…

Representative democracy is rooted in the idea that the average person is kind of a moron. Just look at states where it's incredibly easy to get state-wide referendums on basically anything on the ballot and you'll see the legal landscape there quickly becomes a mess.

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#342
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be better to curtail social media's addictive design choices, and improve things for everyone, rather than force the audience to carry the weight of responsibility?

> Wouldn't it be better to curtail social media's addictive design choices Hacker news has a doomscroll front page. Ive never notice you have a problem with it

HN specifically does not. You have to click "more", leading to most people not moving beyond two or three pages, rather than infinite scrolling.

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you think about it, the idea of a representative democracy is rooted in the technical difficulties of implementing a direct democracy: both spread of information/discussion to the masses and organizing the votes. In this day and age, probably with a relatively tiny investment into public access points, we could very reasonably have a technically functional direct democracy. The legislative cycle is already authe…

Is there such a thing as "unbiased public opinion" at all though? The memetic effects of language and communication means propaganda and similar tools of rhetoric and leveraged communication will always work, with or without an internet. There's no "solution", only "good enoughs". Direct democracy is cool, but also impractical. I do not want to vote on every counties appropriations for road maintenance. So what's a l…

> Direct democracy is cool, but also impractical. I do not want to vote on every counties appropriations for road maintenance. So what's a level of direct democracy that's "good enough"?

This particular question has an extremely simple answer - derived from the decades of practical development of consensus based systems in democratic spaces (art spaces, leftist political groups etc). You vote / participate in the consensus decision making of the issues that are most important to you. It's that simple. Every issue is democratically decided, and you just 'tune in' to the ones that matter to you.

In terms of brigading / trolling are harder. In consensus institutions they're usually dealt with by limiting the amount of blocking (forcing tabling of an issue) and ensuring that voting / consensus participation is limited to those who are actively involved in the community. This is obviously far more complex on a societal level.

Overall this requires a bigger investment of time, but you're in no way required to care about everything. Over time though, the group / institution / society, is forced to grow up. Or at least grow out of the learned helplessness that dominates contemporary representative democracy.

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#344
post #10

If we taught systems thinking in schools things like internet age verification would never get past being an idea on the back of a napkin. People struggle to consider the second-, third-, and nth-order effects of anything so asking them to consider what else might happen if we bring in laws and technical mechanisms to 'protect the children' is unfortunately too a big leap for a lot of them. Most people are bad at spo…

Classic STEM guy thinking that STEM is the cure for everything

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you think about it, the idea of a representative democracy is rooted in the technical difficulties of implementing a direct democracy: both spread of information/discussion to the masses and organizing the votes. In this day and age, probably with a relatively tiny investment into public access points, we could very reasonably have a technically functional direct democracy. The legislative cycle is already authe…

You are confusing the ability to bring information to people, with the ability of people to consume it. As has been mentioned elsewhere on the thread - the real issue is often there are complex 2nd and third order effects, often there are devils in the details. I'm not saying people are not capable of consuming it, I'm saying people don't have the bandwidth. Direct democracy is best when it's used for very specific p…

Do you think the average person - ~98 IQ, at most one year of college but likely none, working some sort of retail, home health, or counter food service job - is truly capable of synthesizing third-order effects of a legal proposal and how it interacts with the current environment? If you do, what about someone 10% below average? 20%? Even at 20% below average intelligence we're still talking about one out of every three people, roughly.

I don't think it's just a bandwidth problem.

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#346
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, the evidence is that people already pretty firmly against things like chat control and the will to push it through tends to come from the political circles more than popular belief it is a good idea. I expect that if the measure itself went to a general vote, the majority would be against it once they have to deal with a specific proposal. It takes repeated pushes by the authoritarians looking for an opp…

When you think about it, the idea of a representative democracy is rooted in the technical difficulties of implementing a direct democracy: both spread of information/discussion to the masses and organizing the votes. In this day and age, probably with a relatively tiny investment into public access points, we could very reasonably have a technically functional direct democracy. The legislative cycle is already authe…

> When you think about it, the idea of a representative democracy is rooted in the technical difficulties of implementing a direct democracy: both spread of information/discussion to the masses and organizing the votes.

REPLACE FED CHAIR WITH DOVE OR HAWK?

BUILD NEW STRATEGIC BOMBERS?

START A WAR WITH IRAN?

VOTE NOW!

Imagine the chaos. Imagine all the ads.

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#347
post #29
post #10

If we taught systems thinking in schools things like internet age verification would never get past being an idea on the back of a napkin. People struggle to consider the second-, third-, and nth-order effects of anything so asking them to consider what else might happen if we bring in laws and technical mechanisms to 'protect the children' is unfortunately too a big leap for a lot of them. Most people are bad at spo…

In fairness, the evidence is that people already pretty firmly against things like chat control and the will to push it through tends to come from the political circles more than popular belief it is a good idea. I expect that if the measure itself went to a general vote, the majority would be against it once they have to deal with a specific proposal. It takes repeated pushes by the authoritarians looking for an opp…

I disagree, if anything the last 12 years or so have shown that there are groups on both sides of the political spectrum that are quite willing to engage and justify censorship.

From "Muh freeze peach" to the actual government requested censorship during COVID everyone is rushing to get a new shiny stick they can use to beat their political opponents with.

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#349
Gonna repost this comment I made last week, as no one interacted with its core idea. I am torn. I have bore first-hand witness to the scale of the PsyOps war waged on the American people by institutions near and far. Artroturfing to sew division to one means of another.

In all these operations, anonymity is what drives it.

I was born and raised in the anonymous internet, and tasted its freedoms. I oppose censorship. But, at this point, I have come to wonder it it would be best to always have your real-life personality attached to all you do. At least to any action that feeds an algorithm or creates something someone else can see.

It is the nature of the internet that you could never achieve absolute censorship -- and maybe anonymity should belong to the hackers and tinkers with the will and drive to hunt and craft for it.

I do not like holding this opinion, because it feels as though it is on the similar boat as that of those who 'pull up the ladder after themselves'. Increasingly, I see it as pulling shut the trapdoors to hell.

P.S. This goes without saying -- it's also the only was to defend against "ai" bots.

EDIT: I'm thoroughly convinced that my initial position here was wrong. Yeah -- easy to forget that, with, COINTELPRO, the feds are not bound by the same laws as the people, and that oligarch-controlled media will bend over backwards to give them backdoors. Thanks for all the feedback.

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I say something illegal A situation that should be impossible due to freedom of speech.

Here are some crimes you can commit by speaking, where freedom of speech cannot be used as a defence: - assault / terror threats - extortion / blackmail - fraud - conspiracy / solicitation to commit a crime - treason / sedition - perjury - slander

Slander isn't a crime in most places.
Post reply on HN