Kanye West is buying Parler • Hacker News Board

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#321

Post by lghh » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

themitigating wrote: post #279

mort96 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just evident to a lot of people; he has claimed it himself, and it's basically confirmed. Here's the relevant part of his Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West#Mental_health There's a lot of stuff there, among other things: > West said that he often has suicidal ideation. In a 2019 interview with David Letterman, West stated that he has bipolar disorder.

Brittney Spears, who hasn't made any public racists remarks (at least that I know) lost control

It was a lot harder to make those public remarks when Brittney was at her lowest publicly than it is for Kanye right now.

I'm not saying Brittney would have, just saying that it's easier to have a very public manic episode where your every thought is aired than it was 15 years ago.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#322

Post by viscanti » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

spywaregorilla wrote: post #306

AlwaysRock wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad because to become successful Kanye had to ignore hundreds/thousands of important people telling him he wasnt good enough and he would never make it as a rapper. Then he became, arguably, the most popular rapper/hip hop artist of all time. Now image you've done what seems impossible despite countless people telling you it wont work out. You are in the top 1% of fame. Now someone tells you your other ideas are…

As someone who doesn't listen to much rap / hip hop, and can only name his cover (adaptation?) of Stronger, I do know who Kanye is. I don't know anything about his music. Mostly I just know of him because he's a very public asshole. Much like his wife. I find it basically impossible to empathize with him. I just wouldn't ever be in that situation. "Rising against adversity" is not the story I'd be be using here so mu…

> "Rising against adversity" is not the story I'd be be using here so much as just a typical strongman bravado leading to an absolute disconnect from reality.

It's not really a story of rising against adversity though. It's that people who have a lot of success doing something have trouble turning around and doing the opposite. There seems to be a human tendency to double down on what people think got them their success.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#323

Post by kibwen » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #256

mrtksn wrote: post #11

Musk and everyone else is right that we do need a platform with free speech. The only problem is that all those free speech advocates are actually NIMBY's when it comes to free speech. I have been following self proclaimed free speech absolutists(because I too, believe in free speech but don't believe it exists) and they are totally not the kind of people that say "I hate what you say but I will die defending your ri…

I used to be free speech absolutist, but I am not any longer, especially when it comes to social media. The argument in favor of absolute free speech for me was basically “let everyone hear everything and make up their own mind”. This presumes that people are swayed by the content of an argument. This is a false assumption, people are mostly swayed by the volume of the argument. This is well documented in psychologic…

Same here. The notion of "free speech" was one of the most successful and liberating memes (in the original sense of the word) in human history. But with the advent of technology, overflow attacks on free speech make unrestricted speech as useless as no speech.

It's like living in darkness, and then someone invents light, and everyone cries "more light", and it's great, and then after a while the light gets so bright that it's blinding, making the light useless for its original purpose of letting you see things, and yet we still cry "more light" because we're afraid of going back to the darkness.

I don't know what new thing to replace the rallying cry if "free speech" with. Something about signal-to-noise ratio, but all the alternatives involve trusting people to moderate, which is obviously an undesirable property compared to the original concept, but I think it might be simply unavoidable. At a high enough level, free speech itself can be used to eliminate free speech.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#324

Post by winternett » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #117

This is really a story about a celebrity's mental illness and public breakdown. If you haven't been following the news, West has spent the week saying increasingly unhinged things, not just about politics but about Pete Davidson, his wife, and (if I'm remembering right) his kids and the fake actor children that have been installed in his former home to corrupt them. He was interviewed for a show on Fox and a big chun…

he is a victim of his own choices... I don't want to sound callous, but to be honest, we all face a much more harsh and unforgiving future than him if we made the same mistakes. He has squandered the good faith he built over many years by making bad decisions. Somehow he generated wealth out of it all, but continued to make bad decisions in hopes of hanging on to his dramatic public personality/popularity. It's not for me to judge of course, but it's a vital lesson to us all in the age of Internet fame, integrity and reputation matter... The more we forgive and cast a blind eye to people that "sell out" based those principles, the more we end up forgetting exactly why morality, good conduct, and positive reputations matter in life.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#325

Post by coinbasetwwa » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

jonathanyc wrote: post #119

mrtksn wrote: post #11

Musk and everyone else is right that we do need a platform with free speech. The only problem is that all those free speech advocates are actually NIMBY's when it comes to free speech. I have been following self proclaimed free speech absolutists(because I too, believe in free speech but don't believe it exists) and they are totally not the kind of people that say "I hate what you say but I will die defending your ri…

I don't like how "I'm a free speech absolutist" has become "I want to force you to read my toxic rants, even when you try to get away from me." You yourself say 4chan is "barely bearable." What free speech has meant historically is "I don't believe the government should be able to criminalize certain kinds of speech." It never meant "I am entitled to insert garbage into someone else's newspaper or book" until people…

This is a weird take. Most folks are old enough to remember the pre trump-era internet and society where alternating views were allowed and engaged with as opposed to leading to bans and social cancellation. Conflating that with allowing people to shove views in your face is odd, your ability to tune out is distinctly different from one’s ability to broadcast.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#326

Post by colinmhayes » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

causi wrote: post #288

colinmhayes wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2020 election was stolen isn't an inconvenient truth, it's not naughty language, it's a lie that the majority of GOP house candidates are furthering. You're mischaracterization of the debate leads me to believe you made this comment in bad faith.

I was actually talking about CRT and the history of slavery in the United States. That's the inconvenient truth legislatures in some states are attempting to arrest people for teaching. Plenty of people are trying to keep election conspiracy theories off social media but as far as I know nobody is trying to pass a law against spreading them. You're mischaracterization of the debate leads me to believe you made this c…

Right, no one actually wants free speech, they're just mad when the moderator disagrees with them.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#327

Post by eropple » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

mariusor wrote: post #251

colinmhayes wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end you end up with the same problem. All the "exterminate the jews" types go to the free speech platforms at which point everyone else leaves, even if the people with the ideas that aren't liked are using respectful language. It's not just the bad faith and trolling that make people want to leave the site, it's the base level ideas of the people who have been moderated off other platforms.

I think that a platform where people expect the ugly ideas to be debated (in good faith) will have the users that are willing to do that[1]. Not every platform needs to have _all_ the users. I know that it's a bit of an anathema on a discussion board built by venture capitalists to say that the goal of a social platform should not be to maximize the amount of users and engagement, but here we are. I think optimizing…

> I think that a platform where people expect the ugly ideas to be debated (in good faith) will have the users that are willing to do that[1].

This does not actually...happen. At least not over the medium and long term. What actually happens, and you can see this in practice, is that decent people are not particularly interested, over long periods of time, in arguing that no, there is no globalist (read: Jewish) conspiracy to take over the world. They lose interest almost immediately, while the frothers intellectually crossbreed and turn from one particular flavor of bigot into all the flavors of bigot.

The problem isn't, as you are characterizing, that a platform must have "all the users". The problem is that this strategy hyperconcentrates relatively anodyne conservatives into literal-not-figurative fascists, and has been doing so for quite a while. The active creation of intellectual cul-de-sacs, of epistemic closures for hateful beliefs, is a major factor in why we're where we are right now.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#328

Post by kbelder » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #227

mrtksn wrote: post #11

Musk and everyone else is right that we do need a platform with free speech. The only problem is that all those free speech advocates are actually NIMBY's when it comes to free speech. I have been following self proclaimed free speech absolutists(because I too, believe in free speech but don't believe it exists) and they are totally not the kind of people that say "I hate what you say but I will die defending your ri…

Forgive my ignorance: I thought you could basically say/post anything on Twitter as long as: * it was not actively illegal (CP, terrorism etc) * hacked info * deadnaming trans people Is that not the case anymore?

That is not the case, and hasn't been for years.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#329

Post by mariusor » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

themitigating wrote: post #295

mariusor wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think moderation should be about the words that are being said, not the ideas that are being discussed. A free speech platform should allow a wide range of topics, but it's not expected to stand for all manner of trolling and bad faith argumentation. I think that conflating the two is tripping a lot of people up in the debate about the topic.

If I think jews control the world and I calmly discuss it, present circumstantial evidence, etc would that be acceptable? Sure I'm using offense terms but that's not as bad as claiming they control the world. Or if I thought slavery should be brought back but I don't use the n word. Is that really the issue?

I personally would dismiss you as a lunatic and racist in both cases and move on with my day. However I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to make a fool of yourself if you so choose.

Making you feel like a martyr because you are being "censored" is worse in my opinion than allowing you to express your points of view and hopefully be receptive to counter arguments.

Re: Kanye West is buying Parler

#330

Post by detaro » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

P0l83q4p1Hw3Ul wrote: post #320

taylodl wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and these Parler people are scamming him - that's an interesting point I hadn't thought of. My first thought on hearing this news was so what? I don't care about Parler or Kanye West, but if Parler is taking advantage of Kanye's mental decline then that's next-level awful. Like I said, I'm no fan of Kanye, but that's horrible to take advantage of people like that.

Is Elon Musk being scammed by Twitter? Same situation. Can't a rich dude buy a company without goofy rumors being spread (scammed into buying Parler)? Having a celebrity owner increases the value.

I don't think Kanye West saying that he suffers from bipolar disorder is a rumor.