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Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

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Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#101

Post by protonfish »

Natsu wrote: post #64
waterlesscloud wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a word for requests for data citations that are really just disguised admissions of having no meaningful response to a point.

> There should be a word for requests for data citations that are really just disguised admissions of having no meaningful response to a point. I'd be careful about this one. People don't always have the same news sources, so what constitutes "common knowledge" for one person might be alien to another. Personally, I expect myself to be able to provide a citation for anything reasonably controversial or not widely kno…

A citation to what? When few are allowed to publish, and what is submitted to be published is heavily filtered, and the final articles are being paywalls, how can a plea for citations be a legitimate request?

If you are claiming you have a unicorn in your garage, I don't want citations - I want EVIDENCE. A picture would be a fine place to start. I can't imagine any citation being of value either pro or con. In a discussion I want to read evidence or reason - everything else is filler.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#102

Post by ddingus »

protonfish wrote: post #98
ddingus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use the phrase "add value" for this. Calling for people to add value requires them to make material, original contributions to a dialog, not just quote, cut, paste and link. Link dropping is the worst. People won't actually express themselves. They will just collect information and drop it into a dialog like a trump, or battle card, rendering the whole thing a mess. A call to add value helps push back on garbage like…

Good points, but I think I still disagree with the power of citations. Just because a peer-reviewed article exists doesn't mean its true. Appeal to authority is, and always will be, a logical fallacy. But my beef with asking for citations as a counter-argument is that it is shifting the burden of proof. If someone makes a statement that you are questioning, you may ask for clarification, but the ball is in your court…

Yes, in debate that is true.

In advocacy it is NOT TRUE. Let that sink in for a while... :)

Most of the time we are doing advocacy. Let that sink in too.

Now, let's discuss what that really means:

It means people who want their way more than they want to be right or just or true, etc... can and will dominate a discussion with effective advocacy techniques whether or not they have rational merit.

Secondly, emotional arguments are only partially rational, yet they carry very significant weight. Being logically right, yet having that result feel bad, or cruel, or unjust is a very significant part of policy discussions.

For an example, this is why libertarians often do not gain traction in many policy discussions. (no slight on liberitarians, just an example) They are typically, and often brutally rational, dismissing emotional and character arguments entirely.

Somebody who can read a room, employ effective advocacy, and who can provide emotional, character and a fair degree of rational support will win the day almost every time.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#103

Post by arca_vorago »

maxerickson wrote: post #37
arca_vorago wrote: post #27

This is more insidious than I think even most HN readers realize. In the intelligence community, the big black sheep people don't really talk about is psychological operations, or psyops, units. They are the same breed that used research from MK ULTRA style programs to learn how to deprogram humans (some claims on how to reprogram them), and part of that is a scientific analysis of mass social community discourse. Pr…

The difficult thing is figuring out how much of it is insidious and dangerous and how much of it is The Men Who Stare at Goats .

The problem is that we like to imagine the hippy version of the Men Who Stare at Goats, but that's not the reality of the kind of people who kill for a living. More aptly, The Men Who Stare at Goats ... and try to kill them.

Doesn't make them any less dangerous or insidious, perhaps even more so! Hanlon's razor may be a strawman that should be put in the dustbin of rational conversation, but nevertheless do not doubt the malice hidden within incompetence.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#104

Post by ddingus »

protonfish wrote: post #98
ddingus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use the phrase "add value" for this. Calling for people to add value requires them to make material, original contributions to a dialog, not just quote, cut, paste and link. Link dropping is the worst. People won't actually express themselves. They will just collect information and drop it into a dialog like a trump, or battle card, rendering the whole thing a mess. A call to add value helps push back on garbage like…

Good points, but I think I still disagree with the power of citations. Just because a peer-reviewed article exists doesn't mean its true. Appeal to authority is, and always will be, a logical fallacy. But my beef with asking for citations as a counter-argument is that it is shifting the burden of proof. If someone makes a statement that you are questioning, you may ask for clarification, but the ball is in your court…

And just for review, advocacy consists of logical arguments, emotional ones and character of everyone touched by the argument.

People resonate on these three in varying degrees. Your average "Uncle Liberty" FOX news viewer, for example, will rely strongly on emotional and character arguments, only lightly touching the rational. (why is a much longer post, and again, no slight on FOX viewers, I'm just highlighting an easy example we've all seen)

That fetish completely marginalizes a person who is otherwise solid and in their best interests.

An effective advocate can leverage that and convince somebody to support a much worse person for them, on character and emotion alone.

Your technical, smart, rational geek with modest to poor people skills will not consider emotion very strongly at all, and will be marginal on character.

To them, somebody who is a vital part of the process, but who may not be technical, or reason quite as well as they do, will be marginalized on that basis.

Say we've got a smart person, who is fighting for the people, who happens to have a fetish. The fetish has nothing to do with their policy vision, but they will lose on character arguments every time.

Other examples should be obvious now.

So then, we need to step back and understand the purpose of the dialog. We may be thinking, "let's get at the truth", where a bunch of people may be thinking, "let's make it better" (which is a different thing), and some others may be thinking, "let's make it the way it ought to be."

Honestly, few people are interested in the truth in political discussions. They are more interested in seeing it go their way, or favor them, or see "those other people", "taught a lesson" more than anything else.

Advocacy rules here. The strictly rational doesn't. Sorry.

What does that mean?

Lots of things. First, it means debate isn't the norm most of the time, even though we frame things as such.

It also means stories matter. Yes, stories. Personal experiences are extremely potent advocacy.

Lots more here, but let's just say framing things in terms of debate isn't inclusive enough to be broadly effective given the dynamics of how advocacy actually does work.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#105

Post by arca_vorago »

drcomputer wrote: post #79
arca_vorago wrote: post #27

This is more insidious than I think even most HN readers realize. In the intelligence community, the big black sheep people don't really talk about is psychological operations, or psyops, units. They are the same breed that used research from MK ULTRA style programs to learn how to deprogram humans (some claims on how to reprogram them), and part of that is a scientific analysis of mass social community discourse. Pr…

> This is the state we live in, the real question is "Are the people going to let this happen?" I am terrified of mental manipulation. My only inclination and direction is to train my mind to be an independent blank slate. There's also an odd web that forms, the direction of information flows, word choice, word frequency, like it ping pongs in between groups of people. The form of abstract ideas, the direction of tho…

>The form of abstract ideas, the direction of thought. These things can be studied.

Indeed you are on to something there. I have long called for a return to our Enlightenment roots for just that reason. It encourages an independent and able mindset, which is precisely why education has been deliberately manipulated in to preventing any such thing.

Education of the populace is not in the interest of the international or domestic oligarchs. Remember this.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#106

Post by Natsu »

protonfish wrote: post #101
Natsu wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should be a word for requests for data citations that are really just disguised admissions of having no meaningful response to a point. I'd be careful about this one. People don't always have the same news sources, so what constitutes "common knowledge" for one person might be alien to another. Personally, I expect myself to be able to provide a citation for anything reasonably controversial or not widely kno…

A citation to what? When few are allowed to publish, and what is submitted to be published is heavily filtered, and the final articles are being paywalls, how can a plea for citations be a legitimate request? If you are claiming you have a unicorn in your garage, I don't want citations - I want EVIDENCE. A picture would be a fine place to start. I can't imagine any citation being of value either pro or con. In a disc…

> A citation to what? When few are allowed to publish,

I think you just exposed the root of this.

You're thinking a citation has to be a scientific paper or something equivalent. I'm saying that when you argue something, you should be willing to cite ordinary evidence, of which a scientific paper is just one kind.

A photo would be a perfectly reasonable thing to cite as evidence.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#107

Post by dragonwriter »

protonfish wrote: post #98
ddingus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use the phrase "add value" for this. Calling for people to add value requires them to make material, original contributions to a dialog, not just quote, cut, paste and link. Link dropping is the worst. People won't actually express themselves. They will just collect information and drop it into a dialog like a trump, or battle card, rendering the whole thing a mess. A call to add value helps push back on garbage like…

Good points, but I think I still disagree with the power of citations. Just because a peer-reviewed article exists doesn't mean its true. Appeal to authority is, and always will be, a logical fallacy. But my beef with asking for citations as a counter-argument is that it is shifting the burden of proof. If someone makes a statement that you are questioning, you may ask for clarification, but the ball is in your court…

> Good points, but I think I still disagree with the power of citations. Just because a peer-reviewed article exists doesn't mean its true. Appeal to authority is, and always will be, a logical fallacy.

Incorrect. "Appeal to authority" is a form of argument which is a fallacy when misused.

Further, a citation can be an appeal to authority, but usually its not, its incorporating an existing argument by reference and/or incorporating supporting evidence for the existing argument by reference.

> But my beef with asking for citations as a counter-argument is that it is shifting the burden of proof. If someone makes a statement that you are questioning, you may ask for clarification, but the ball is in your court to find evidence for disproof.

No, if someone is making a statement that you are questioning, it is quite fair to ask them to support the claim. As the one making the claim, the burden of proof is on them -- the position you take above is the one shifting the burden of proof off of the person asserting a positive claim.

Its true that making the opposing positive claim places the burden on you, but some simply stating something doesn't suddenly make it the default hypothesis. If there is no prima facie case for the positive claim, then it can be discarded as unnecessary without counterevidence, you don't need to prove the negation.

> The existence or non-existence of a published supporting article is neither proof nor disproof.

The content of the published supporting article, however, is often at least evidence, and may be proof where the question is subject to definitive proof, e.g. there exist no positive integers x, y, and z such that x^n + y^n + z^n = 0, for n > 2 [0].

[0] https://www.math.wisc.edu/~boston/869.pdf

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#108

Post by superuser2 »

fiatmoney wrote: post #59

2013's "Most Reddit Addicted City" was Eglin Air Force Base. http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddi...

Air Force Bases are also full of technologically inclined 18 to 25 year old men, i.e the Reddit demographic.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#109

Post by Udik »

Hmmm. The only verified case of sophisticated, organized sockpuppetry in the wild mentioned by the article seem to be related to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and anti-semitism, and in every case they seem to be orchestrated to favour Israel. But all the comments here seem concentrated on the NSA, AIs, and even abortion. Now downvote me :)

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#110

Post by krapp »

Udik wrote: post #109

Hmmm. The only verified case of sophisticated, organized sockpuppetry in the wild mentioned by the article seem to be related to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and anti-semitism, and in every case they seem to be orchestrated to favour Israel. But all the comments here seem concentrated on the NSA, AIs, and even abortion. Now downvote me :)

Then clearly either you, or the article, or both are just another reeking layer in the American government's propaganda onion. Edward Snowden clearly proved, scientifically, that the NSA/CIA/Military Industrial Complex controls everything and everyone I don't personally agree with, especially on the internet.

Now go tell your controllers your mission has failed, Udik. If that even is your real name.

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