This is a long piece. I am submitting it because particularly the second section, about comment moderation, seems to have wide-reaching implications for tech and conversations.
Thank you; it was quite illuminating.
RIP Culture War Thread
101–110 of 313 posts
Re: RIP Culture War Thread
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I scanned the thread a bit and can second this. I am originally from Ohio the type and extremity of right wing ideas present there seemed far to the right of anything typical in the midwest. There are KKK types and similar in Ohio of course but they're pretty extreme outliers in most areas, especially anywhere near a city or a college. I agree that SF is a special kind of bubble, but I do think there's been an explos…
After reading a few of the articles in the new sub, if that is far-right then far-right has a very different definition to the one being popularized. Take this one that has two relative high voted threads and was at the top for a while: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/at8cuq/the_orches...
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Re: RIP Culture War Thread
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem, as described in this article, is that some people have good faith beliefs, respectfully expressed, that are nevertheless so repugnant to others that you will be tarred for not censoring them.
>is that some people have good faith beliefs, respectfully expressed, that are nevertheless so repugnant to others that you will be tarred for not censoring them. I'm skeptical of this - I've never seen a polite racist argument, for example, or a polite homophobic one. The closest I've seen is a post riddled with condescension - something along the lines of "you don't understand, I'm trying to save your soul from the…
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Re: RIP Culture War Thread
#104As to the "no comments section" policies, I'm gonna be honest: I don't blame them one bit. No one owes anyone a platform, and considering how easy and cheap it is to host your own content, why should anyone be forced to broadcast someone else's opinion? The truth of the matter is there are more trolls these days - see especially "The Card Says Moops" ( https://youtu.be/xMabpBvtXr4 ) as to one reason why. If you say "…
>> anyone can get a website and domain name.
Except they can't. The outrage brigades come after the registrars and the hosting services and the payment processors and anyone else they can coerce into compliance. A few platforms have survived this process (...so far...) and are thriving, but joe schmoe will get disappeared in no time at all.
Re: RIP Culture War Thread
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem, as described in this article, is that some people have good faith beliefs, respectfully expressed, that are nevertheless so repugnant to others that you will be tarred for not censoring them.
I don’t understand why people think giving space and respect to odious beliefs is somehow virtuous. What it does is normalize those beliefs and enable them to propagate while simultaneously exhausting those who oppose them. See Sarte’s comments on Anti-Semitism; the holders of odious beliefs are generally not “playing the same game” as those who oppose them, and giving space to all ideas, no matter how awful, is actu…
Who defines what beliefs are odious?
The point is not to convince the person you are talking to, which is very difficult given how much people stick to their political beliefs, but to convince the lurking third party, who has weakly held opinions. If they can see in the debate that one person has the stronger argument, you can convince that third person. If they see one side refuse to debate, angrily yell, and banish the other to places like the_donald, well, maybe the undecided lurkers will wonder if perhaps the person got angry because they had no good counter-argument, decide to go explore a place like the_donald, or some other echo chamber where they just become more convinced, that also has no counter-acting voices of reason. The people in the_donald agree with you by the way, and don't give space or respect to people with odious blue tribe beliefs.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Re: RIP Culture War Thread
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem, as described in this article, is that some people have good faith beliefs, respectfully expressed, that are nevertheless so repugnant to others that you will be tarred for not censoring them.
>is that some people have good faith beliefs, respectfully expressed, that are nevertheless so repugnant to others that you will be tarred for not censoring them. I'm skeptical of this - I've never seen a polite racist argument, for example, or a polite homophobic one. The closest I've seen is a post riddled with condescension - something along the lines of "you don't understand, I'm trying to save your soul from the…
Part of the problem is that too many people think “polite” just means “no profanity or name-calling.”
It is impossible to respectfully argue for a racist or homophobic position. The very nature of what you’re arguing for is that some people are inherently less than others, which is the opposite of respect.
But if you state such an argument without using naughty words, a lot of people will misinterpret that as respectful and demand that it be given respect in turn.
Re: RIP Culture War Thread
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may well be right about the civil nature of things in the early days being due to being composed of a small group of techies whose culture wasn't all that different from each other. Maybe it was naive of everyone. It doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world, though, to hope that even the most different of us could talk out our difference more and resort to violence and intimidation less. Maybe we're now see…
Naive is also calling this demographic diversity. (It's increased, yes, but lol.)
You know, the rest of the planet is setting the standard. So diverse - compared with the rest of the planet- yes.
Re: RIP Culture War Thread
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have determined that I am far too liberal for Alabama, yet too conservative for California_SFO. The feedback loop of exclusion works for a lot of monocultures. They just have to be offensively fanatic about something , and the zeal will drive out anyone foolishly moderate enough to disagree. If you wouldn't enjoy assigning the Christian apostles to football team positions, you will feel like an alien somewhere. If…
>I'd like to be able to live somewhere that I might hear people discussing open borders at the gun range, or misogyny at the gym, or military budgets at the coffee shop. There's a gun range in the Santa Cruz mountains that's about a 20 minute drive from downtown Mountain View where I've had just those types of conversations. I had a discussion on military budgets, with sailors , in a bar in SF months back during Flee…
Problem is, relatively benign viewpoints are labelled as racist, misogynistic or homophobic when they aren't. And it's done in an effort to silence "undesirable" opinions.
What I've noticed the most about SF are it's inhabitants being shocked (shocked!) to learn that people have views different than them. It's as if their entire world ends at the city limits.
Re: RIP Culture War Thread
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
>is that some people have good faith beliefs, respectfully expressed, that are nevertheless so repugnant to others that you will be tarred for not censoring them. I'm skeptical of this - I've never seen a polite racist argument, for example, or a polite homophobic one. The closest I've seen is a post riddled with condescension - something along the lines of "you don't understand, I'm trying to save your soul from the…
I've been racially slandered for posting MLK quotes, even though I'm not black (they assumed I was). Conversely I've also been called a racist/bigot for claiming white people didn't invent racism/slavery, or that statistical differences in social groups shouldn't automatically be attributed to oppression, or that Frederick Douglass is evidence of how someone can free themselves from oppression. They obviously had nev…
> rather because I was suggesting something antithetical to their ideology.
Ideological differences are a major source of arguments turning ugly and lots of downvotes, if you disagree with whatever majority in that particular forum.
Re: RIP Culture War Thread
#110This highlights some very troublesome trends on the internet these days. We once envisioned the internet as a place of revolutionarily open discourse, where any idea under the sun could get posted somewhere and read, no matter how crazy or bad it seemed, with the worst ridiculed and dismissed, but still able to be read, and the best rising to the top. It seems like we're moving in the opposite direction these days, w…
> We once envisioned the internet as a place of revolutionarily open discourse, where any idea under the sun could get posted somewhere and read, no matter how crazy or bad it seemed, with the worst ridiculed and dismissed, but still able to be read, and the best rising to the top.
Maybe I had a late start, but as far as I remember the internet has never been like that. So much of the forums and comment sections I used to read were mountains of junk, starting with the way people would write "First!" as a comment on nearly anything. The best didn't rise to the top - things that generated the most interest did, and the two were often completely divergent.
> It seems like we're moving in the opposite direction these days, with the internet as a means to control, oppress, and indoctrinate. Giant tech corps effectively taking over most means of communication and using their powers to openly censor things are part of the problem.
Feels like the reverse to me. Giant tech corps are failing to take measures against actively harmful memetic material - antivax, MLM, conspiracy theories, racism/white supremacy, extremism, etc. because these things drive their primary metric: engagement.
Generally, it feels to me like large tech companies only take action on these issues after significant public outcry or advertiser action. The problem of censorship has little to do with them and everything to do with opposing groups that harass or threaten individuals (Scott's post being a prime example).