121–130 of 284 posts
More succinctly: The Nash equilibrium of public discourse on social media is extremism and polarization ... ... because for each individual, the way to get more clicks and influence is by becoming more extreme and polarizing. Sigh.
But what’s polarized me isnt that. It’s just reading regular news and caring about the world.
> You get certainty in an uncertain world. You get a community that will defend you. You get a simple heuristic for navigating complex issues. This is what faith used to provide. I say this as a not religious person: Maybe societies really need something like religion to channel irrationality?
We need something new.
> But exposing yourself to articulate versions of positions you oppose does something valuable: it makes you realize that intelligent people can disagree with you without being monsters or morons. The idea that being articulate implies intelligence and/or sanity is very common, but really a bit weird. You can find plenty of articulate defences of, say, flat earth theory.
Yes, it's easy to cherry-pick an obviously absurd position that could be articulately argued. But the point is that you are definitely wrong about some things and should generally keep an open mind. Even intelligent people are wrong about certain things, and in fact their propensity for rationalization can lead them into some absurd positions. But some of those positions turn out to be right, like the Earth orbiting…
I would take it a step further and include that it has no bearing on the morality of the author.
The original claim was:
> But exposing yourself to articulate versions of positions you oppose does something valuable: it makes you realize that intelligent people can disagree with you without being monsters or morons.
In truth, it does no such thing. Articulate arguments serve neither as proof the person making it isn't a monster nor that they are particularly intelligent or knowledgeable about that which they argue.
Though, I would also point out that monsters can occasionally be right as well.
The main issue for me is the size of our platforms. If the owner of a platform tries to enforce a set of virtues, it will always be seen as censorship by a fraction of its users. That fraction will increase as the user base increases, as the alternatives diminish, and as the owners govern with more impunity. I personally think these loud users are immature, disrespectful, anonymous cowards, but my opinions are irrele…
A better solution to this would be to fragment within social media platforms. Allow users to post any content that's legal within their local jurisdiction. And give other users easy tools to create their own "filter bubbles" so that they don't see content which they personally consider insane or offensive. This would allow the social media platforms to sidestep political debates about censorship.
The main issue for me is the size of our platforms. If the owner of a platform tries to enforce a set of virtues, it will always be seen as censorship by a fraction of its users. That fraction will increase as the user base increases, as the alternatives diminish, and as the owners govern with more impunity. I personally think these loud users are immature, disrespectful, anonymous cowards, but my opinions are irrele…
Nah, the solution is deanonymization. People with no shame, and with strong anti-social tendencies should not be given a safe space.
We should make everyone who disagrees with baxuz where name tags on their chest in the real world too. So we can know who they are.
We can even put the names on a bright yellow six sided star. That way everyone can see them clearly.
I don't quite get the connection between the premise and the conclusion. Sure, influencers get rewarded by social media algorithms for polarising content, but most people are not influencers.
i found it weird that this person has multiple friends that were able to "make bank" by having polarizing opinions. i know a ton of folks with polarizing opinions and none of them are monetizing it. what kind of world is this author living in where their social circle includes so many influencers that are cashing in on social media?
> But exposing yourself to articulate versions of positions you oppose does something valuable: it makes you realize that intelligent people can disagree with you without being monsters or morons. The idea that being articulate implies intelligence and/or sanity is very common, but really a bit weird. You can find plenty of articulate defences of, say, flat earth theory.
Trying to talk reason to multiple sides makes you an outcast.
I thought people might argue that this could put an unfair burden on poor families or fixed income families, or maybe some reason to justify or not.
Nope. Lots of name calling, trying to dox me, ad hominem attacks on everyone from multiple sides.
I'm convinced that anonymity (or, more correctly, perceived anonymity) makes some people act in ways they never would face to face.
Eh this probably makes me a "Boomer" but I've seen it for years. Basically everyone's a troll now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not on social media unless you consider HN social media (I don’t) and the world is still totally as insane as it was before the internet. For your average city person: The food you’re offered is sugar + preservatives, the water is either non-existent (Tehran) or poisoned with fracking gas (Flint), almost all local communities have collapsed into extreme versions of themselves, the rich and poor still don’t mingle…
Your disconnect from Social Media and "the world still totally insane"—the latter is of course not dependent on the former. Perhaps we need to get the rest of the world also off Social Media? Off the internet? Given that we can't do that, I choose then to continue my hobbies, take more walks, try to declutter my place, improve my health, lose weight, look for comfortable chats with my daughters, wife, friends… I'm no…
Across high schools in the US kids aren’t dating like they used to and are vocal about not just ambivalence but hostility toward having kids.
Oddly enough my kids want to get married and have kids and report on how it’s odd to them others positions, so if anything I’m biased the other direction from exposure.
I don’t care either way, not having kids is a valid approach, but it’s a fact that there’s going to be societal impacts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The idea that being articulate implies intelligence and/or sanity is very common, but really a bit weird. You can find plenty of articulate defences of, say, flat earth theory. The author has to say this because the consumers of the author's content would stop being right if the author was constantly dropping truth bombs like "being articulate doesn't make you right" they wouldn't get liked, retweeted, shared, and c…
Alex Jones literally did this though starting around 2016. This is a strong argument probably but strangely aimed here. Reading the article, it does seem like you and the author agree about everything in this regard? You are kind of just rearticulating one part of their argument as critique about them. Why? Or where do we place the reflex here? What triggered: this author is BS, is pseudointellectual, is bad. We jump…
My guess is Alex Jones is actually a big enough personality to be able to have a brand independent of his ideas. Not every creator has that luxury.