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"They Saw a Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism and the Speech-Conduct Distinction [pdf] (2012)

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Re: "They Saw a Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism and the Speech-Conduct Distinction [pdf] (2012)

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so, given the drastically different takes on something that seemed quite obvious to me after rewatching the video many times. It was quite clear that many takes, on both sides, seemed to bypass the events in the video and jump straight to whatever ideologically-driven interpretation they needed to be true.

I don't think it takes much ideological bias to understand that was an unprovoked murder of a citizen

Indeed, murder is the point. They don’t actually believe that the agent “feared for his life”. The only disagreement here is about whether it’s ok to murder people who you don’t like.

Re: "They Saw a Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism and the Speech-Conduct Distinction [pdf] (2012)

#52
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and now we have billionaires arguing in public about such basic facts: X link: https://x.com/paulg/status/2008989862725341658 Screenshot: https://old.reddit.com/r/GenZ/comments/1q6zgq5/theres_someth...

The in-progress community notes are a shit show too. I saw the video and saw someone trying to avoid the ICE agent, but also being EXTREMELY reckless about driving a huge SUV close to people with guns. Everyone is at fault here imo.

The ICE agents WANTED to use guns, they just put themselves in a position where a seemingly trivial action by the driver could be twisted to be perceived as enough of a threat to justify pulling a gun out and shooting them multiple times in the head. Murderers with a badge.

Re: "They Saw a Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism and the Speech-Conduct Distinction [pdf] (2012)

#53
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and now we have billionaires arguing in public about such basic facts: X link: https://x.com/paulg/status/2008989862725341658 Screenshot: https://old.reddit.com/r/GenZ/comments/1q6zgq5/theres_someth...

The in-progress community notes are a shit show too. I saw the video and saw someone trying to avoid the ICE agent, but also being EXTREMELY reckless about driving a huge SUV close to people with guns. Everyone is at fault here imo.

To me, the shooting probably wasn't justified, I don't believe that guy genuinely feared for his life, but she definitely escalated the situation by plainly trying to avoid arrest and being reckless in the process. My take of both sides doing wrong (and neither wrong canceling out the other) has gotten everybody riled up at me today. Oh well, the best I can do is go off what I see, flawed as that is.

Re: "They Saw a Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism and the Speech-Conduct Distinction [pdf] (2012)

#54

Can we really conclude that people "see" what they say they see? I think most people would not think twice about saying "protesters did not block the road" when in fact they know full well protesters blocked the road and they really mean "protesters blocked the road and that's good actually".

That basketball gorilla experiment seems like pretty solid evidence that people only notice what they expect to see and are primed to pay attention to, even in situations with no ideological component.

Re: "They Saw a Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism and the Speech-Conduct Distinction [pdf] (2012)

#55
post #47
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also why the era of pervasive videotaping of everything hasn’t ended disputes over basic facts of what happened.

I'm not sure how this intersects with the point of the paper, but part of the problem with the Renee Good case (or things like it) in my opinion is that the focus too often is on the actual events at a particular moment, and not what is surrounding it. I can see some argument, for example, that goes something like "Jonathan Ross was afraid he was going to get hit by a car and misperceived her as trying to ram him whe…

We do know that it’s been a longstanding policy of DHS for officers not to stand in front of cars on purpose just so they’d have an excuse to fire upon the driver. There was an internal audit in 2014 that called out this exact behavior.

Re: "They Saw a Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism and the Speech-Conduct Distinction [pdf] (2012)

#56
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not claiming that those people are right, only that the "videos ... speak for themselves" claim isn't true. If people can watch the same video and come to entirely different conclusions, how can you say it "... speak for themselves"? If so, can we also say ambiguous studies on whether ivemectin was effective against covid "speak for themselves"? Or does it just become a no true scotsman where you can say whatever…

> if people can watch the same video and come to entirely different conclusions, how can you say it "... speak for themselves"? because a disappointingly large fraction of the public is unable to acknowledge facts of reality. the video is speaking, but some people just ain't listening.

>because a disappointingly large fraction of the public is unable to acknowledge facts of reality. the video is speaking, but some people just ain't listening.

If something really does "speak for themselves", but also "disappointingly large fraction" (1%? 5%? 10%? 20%? 50%?) refuse to accept it, is that a meaningful statement? Is it the epistemic equivalent of "80% of the time, it works every time"?

Re: "They Saw a Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism and the Speech-Conduct Distinction [pdf] (2012)

#57
post #4

My tldr: people see what they want to see according to their political commitments. The abstract: > “Cultural cognition” refers to the unconscious influence of individuals’ group commitments on their perceptions of legally consequential facts. We con- ducted an experiment to assess the impact of cultural cognition on perceptions of facts relevant to distinguishing constitutionally protected “speech” from unpro- tecte…

I think this (from near the end) is also noteworthy (based on the two quotes from the late Justice Scalia at the beginning of the article): >Still another point illustrated by Justice Scalia’s reactions is the ubiquity of cultural cognition. The disposition to form perceptions of fact congenial to one’s values isn’t a pathological personality trait or a style of reasoning integral to a distinctive, and distinctively…

> The kind of cultural cognition highlighted by the article/study is common to everyone, not to some groups that just are incapable of seeing it in themselves.

Yeah this seems political, and it is, but it's really about cognitive bias. Reframing the thing in terms of daily workplace dynamics is pretty easy: just convert "legally consequential facts" to "technically consequential facts" and convert "cultural outlook" to "preferred tech-stack". Now you're in a planning and architecture meeting which is theoretically easier to conduct but where everyone is still working hard to confirm their bias.

How to "fix" this in other people / society at large is a difficult question, but in principle you can imagine decision-systems (like data-driven policies and a kind of double-blind experimental politics) that's starting to chip away at the problem. Even assuming that was a tractable approach with a feasible transition plan, there's another question. What to do in the meanwhile?

IOW, assuming the existence of citizens/co-workers that have more persistent non-situational goals and stable values that are fairly unbothered by "group commitments".. how should they participate in group dynamics that are still going to basically be dominated by tribalism? There's really only a few strategies, including stuff like "check out completely", "become a single issue voter", or "give up all other goals and dedicate your entire life to educating others". All options seem quite bad for individuals and the whole. If group-commitment is fundamentally problematic, maybe a way to recognize a "good" faction is by looking for one that is implicitly dedicated to eliminating itself as well as the rival factions.

Re: "They Saw a Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism and the Speech-Conduct Distinction [pdf] (2012)

#58

[flagged]

I'm sorry, but it is deeply ironic for you of all people to be posting this given your statements on the ICE shooting not even 24 hours ago [1] [2]. You are quite literally the exact basis for this research in question. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46546310 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46546283

This guy has made half a dozen comments saying her murder was justified, but some views seem to be immune to moderation on here. I've had dang or tomhow come at me for waaay less (and I'm not saying I was in the right).

Re: "They Saw a Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism and the Speech-Conduct Distinction [pdf] (2012)

#59

[flagged]

I'm sorry, but it is deeply ironic for you of all people to be posting this given your statements on the ICE shooting not even 24 hours ago [1] [2]. You are quite literally the exact basis for this research in question. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46546310 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46546283

[flagged]

Re: "They Saw a Protest": Cognitive Illiberalism and the Speech-Conduct Distinction [pdf] (2012)

#60
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but it is deeply ironic for you of all people to be posting this given your statements on the ICE shooting not even 24 hours ago [1] [2]. You are quite literally the exact basis for this research in question. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46546310 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46546283

This guy has made half a dozen comments saying her murder was justified, but some views seem to be immune to moderation on here. I've had dang or tomhow come at me for waaay less (and I'm not saying I was in the right).

[flagged]
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