141–150 of 182 posts
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On the other hand... on the internet, everybody is an American (or a Brit). There are many people who don't live in a country where English is spoken natively, but who speak it well enough to lurk on the English internet. Those people are exposed to American and British politics and start to form opinions. It's not unusual for us to have our own takes on what happens in these countries.
But we don't pretend to be something we're not.
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> It just so happen that young men and former soldiers were the keenest on WWII. Weren't they subject to crushing economic conditions as a result of the diplomatic terms on which WWI ended? The context is important (as usual).
The actual context is that they believed they would win the war if they continued fighting. They believed that peace deal was "stab in the back" of great fighters by soft politicians (and jews). To large extend, WWII was redo because by and large Germans did not accepted defeat. Btw, that is literally why WWII ended up without peace deal, with complete military takeover of Germany. The alliance wanted to avoid anothe…
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> I wonder how "free speech absolutists" defend the idea of people in low-income countries using these platforms to spread outrage simply to make themselves a little money By recognizing that undesirable uses of free speech are the price society pays for having free speech, and by strongly believing that it is a price worth paying. Just like 1.3 million global road traffic deaths per year are the price society pays f…
Don't forget that undesirable uses of free speech can be made less effective by more speech - as long as what you desire is actually in the interest of the people you want to influence. Like for example this article. And of course in this case the root problem is not that people have free speech but that they are financially rewarded for using it in bad ways. Financial models that reward impressions are fundamentally…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It just so happen that young men and former soldiers were the keenest on WWII. Weren't they subject to crushing economic conditions as a result of the diplomatic terms on which WWI ended? The context is important (as usual).
The actual context is that they believed they would win the war if they continued fighting. They believed that peace deal was "stab in the back" of great fighters by soft politicians (and jews). To large extend, WWII was redo because by and large Germans did not accepted defeat. Btw, that is literally why WWII ended up without peace deal, with complete military takeover of Germany. The alliance wanted to avoid anothe…
I remember reading about the post-war reconstruction of Germany, where a handful of anti-nazi German politicians (in particular Ludwig Erhard) tried to rationalize how the German people, that gave the world Beethoven and Bach, fell to the evils of Nazism. The oversimplified answer could just be it depended on who was in control. There are evil people everywhere.
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It doesn't indicate intent. It indicates incentives and outcomes. A system is what a system does, not what a system is claimed to stand for.
The original phrase, "the purpose of a system is what it does", was coined as a contrast to people saying "the purpose of this system is X" even though it consistently fails to achieve X. It does not make sense to look at an arbitrary problem and declare that the system is that problem or exists to produce the problem.
If Facebook propaganda is so effective (and cheap) Western democracies should promote democratic values in Belarus/Kazakhstan. Canada should use this channel to promote tariff cancellation in the USA. I doubt that Facebook is efficient on important matter. If I'm wrong then Canadian government is doing very bad job in promoting democratic values in and outside Canada.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I wonder how "free speech absolutists" defend the idea of people in low-income countries using these platforms to spread outrage simply to make themselves a little money By recognizing that undesirable uses of free speech are the price society pays for having free speech, and by strongly believing that it is a price worth paying. Just like 1.3 million global road traffic deaths per year are the price society pays f…
Free speech absolutists just don't defend their position because it devolves into absurdity immediately. It's just a dogwhistle of the far right or people that haven't put any thought into their beliefs.
The implication that if someone is unwilling to compromise on free speech, they must belong to the far right, is certainly revealing.
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It's pretty amazing corporate america was able to find a revenue scheme based on Russian disinformation campaigns, init.
It's more like astroturfing since forever, any mention of Americans doing disinformation instantly gets Russian bots brought up, like bro come on now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The original phrase, "the purpose of a system is what it does", was coined as a contrast to people saying "the purpose of this system is X" even though it consistently fails to achieve X. It does not make sense to look at an arbitrary problem and declare that the system is that problem or exists to produce the problem.
Facebook does this consistently though.
Canada may not have laws against this, but some countries might classify this as "subversive activity harmful to the nation". That is normally punished by imprisonment, losing the right to conduct business and hold public office.
She lives in a different country, Canadian laws can't do anything about it. I'm not sure what the answer is to this, but it's a real problem.