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Protect me from what I want

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Re: Protect me from what I want

#71

Post by shadowgovt »

jasonlotito wrote: post #54

> Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be doomscrolling so much, would you? This is the most ignorant and idiotic[1] take I've seen on something like this. Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be smoking so much, would you? Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be drinking alcohol so much, would you? Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t wha…

Interventions to modify behavior (at least successful ones) that I'm familiar with start with understanding that you do want these things (or are at least ambivalent about them) and then getting to how you have conflicting desires and the behavior you want to modify may be incompatible with something you want more if you cling to it.

If smoking had no side-effects, I certainly wouldn't care if my family smoked. But I'm trying to get the one dying from pneumonia to understand that smoking suppresses her immune system. Trust me: she wants that cigarette though; someone doesn't go that far out of their way to hide the lighter and the pack if they don't want to.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#72

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #47
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"paradox of tolerance" is a hypocrisy. If you are intolerant only to the intolerant you are not tolerant, it is as simple as that.

There's absolutely nothing hypocritical about e.g. "defending peace". It's realistic. between Karl Popper's well-known writings on the subject, and one accusatory sentence from someone on the internet, I'll take Karl Popper.

To your knowledge, you have just used a fallacy called "Argument from authority", a popular demagogue technique.

Just because someone wrote in length that white is black, white does not become black. Likewise, intolerance does not become tolerance.

You do not tolerate something => you are not tolerant.

You oppose free speech only for really horrible people => you oppose free speech.

It's really binary, and wherever Popper wrote, it does not change this simple truth. But, of course, you can hypocritically pretend that it does.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#73

Post by ne0flex »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #2

The shock people experience when you tell them any sorting, especially sorting chronologically, requires an "algorithm" is disappointing.

I can't recall where I saw it, but a few years ago I saw an interview that involved some techie. The host asked them about Twitter and said, "what if we get rid of the algorithm, and, say, put everything chronoligically." The interviewee responded with "Well if you get rid of the current algorithm and replace it with that, you'll have an algorithm that sorts in chronological order." to which the interviewer's response was, "no, I'm saying we get rid of the algorithm."

Re: Protect me from what I want

#74

Post by Animats »

nostromo wrote: post #8

Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. In their view, they have the "correct opinions" and have not been biased by any algorithms or moderation. Meanwhile, the people that disagree with them are the ones being duped by algorithms, bad moderation, and bad actors. That's why there's a huge censorship movement right now in the…

> I dunno. Mostly I don't want to see ads. I liked Facebook when it just told me what my friends were doing. I don't want a "news feed" from a social network.

But the news media suffer from a huge punditry to hard facts ratio problem.

Today's first-screen news stories on major outlets that didn't begin as a press release or punditry:

* Fox: "Remains of missing toddler Quinton Simon found in landfill, mother charged"

* Washington Post: "Covid deaths skew older, reviving questions about ‘acceptable loss’"

* New York Times: "Antiwar Activists Who Flee Russia Find Detention, Not Freedom, in the U.S." "Exhumed Grave Near Kherson Shows Occupation’s Brutality"

* New York Post: nothing.

* Reuters: "Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano erupts for first time in nearly 40 years".

* The Times (of London): nothing, because they have such large ads and banners that the content is hidden.

* South China Morning Post: nothing, again mostly because of oversized banners.

* Le Monde: "The unflinching gaze of Ukrainian drones in Bakhmut"

* CNN: multiple stories, because the first screen has many headline links and small banners.

Some of this is optimizing the use of screen space for revenue, not information.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#75

Post by k__ »

nostromo wrote: post #8

Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. In their view, they have the "correct opinions" and have not been biased by any algorithms or moderation. Meanwhile, the people that disagree with them are the ones being duped by algorithms, bad moderation, and bad actors. That's why there's a huge censorship movement right now in the…

That's true.

My timeline is pretty chill.

But when I look what's trending in my country, Twitter is a garbage fire.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#76

Post by jrmg »

nostromo wrote: post #8

Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. In their view, they have the "correct opinions" and have not been biased by any algorithms or moderation. Meanwhile, the people that disagree with them are the ones being duped by algorithms, bad moderation, and bad actors. That's why there's a huge censorship movement right now in the…

I don't think that's correct. I think most people are complaining about what they see, and how they feel when using Twitter.

I'm basing my opinion on:

- The experience of seeing people move to Mastodon and comment on how much more pleasant they find it (I do think this might be fleeting - more because they're seeing only early adopters than because there's intrinsic 'bitterness' missing on Mastodon, at least compared to 'old Twitter').

- My own experience of Twitter. It just makes me anxious and angry now. Every time. Yet I keep going back! It's transformed from a pleasant place to converse and browse to somewhere where everyone is angry at everyone else all the time. I'm fairly liberal in my opinions, so usually people I see are angry at either right wing folks or other left wing folks being liberal in slightly different ways - but I do also see the retweets of angry right wing tweets with the "hey, isn't this opinion SO WRONG" opinion. This is with the 'chronological' feed. With the 'algorithmic' feed, it's _even worse_: I now get more angry people I don't know on both sides of the spectrum, and I don't see the non-angry normal conversations or life updates from people I do follow (presumably because they're low-engagement).

- I _do_ think about how this affects others, you're right - and I imagine that those with more right wing opinions are in much the same state as me, but more 'opposite', and _even more angry_ because right wing accounts seem to be more likely to be aggressive than left wing ones. So, yes, I am concerned about what others see - but only in as much as I'm concerned about what everyone sees and how the current political climate is descending into an angry selfish madness where no-one is prepared to actually listen to anyone else. I do think this angry selfish madness is more prevalent on the right, especially in mainstream politics.

Maybe my experience is not the majority one, but I think you should take it into account.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#77

Post by hutzlibu »

bitwize wrote: post #15
nostromo wrote: post #8

Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. In their view, they have the "correct opinions" and have not been biased by any algorithms or moderation. Meanwhile, the people that disagree with them are the ones being duped by algorithms, bad moderation, and bad actors. That's why there's a huge censorship movement right now in the…

Read Marcuse's "Repressive Tolerance" to see why this is the case: https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/publications/1960s/1965-repr... The tl;dr is that if you actually want to move toward a society of free and equal human beings and eliminate oppression, "free speech for all" is not how you go about it. One side of the political spectrum supports equality and emancipation, the other is opposed to it. Therefore the speec…

"of free and equal human beings"

The problem starts with how you define those two(or any political expression). Because by many definitions, they are contradictory.

Equal chances? Money gives people advantages, so all should have the same money? Even if all would have the same money, some are born smart and some are born dumb. Genetic equalisation?

Pretty much against the idea of "freedom" like I know it.

When people are free, some will party all day, some will work like a dog.

So some will get rich. Some will get by, some will starve.

Unless you mean strictly "equal in front of the law", which we supposedly have, but we all know that the one with the more expensive lawer (or any lawer at all) has a big edge. So de facto we are not even equal in front of the law.

The big question is, how and what would you change about it?

I would actually start with free speech, because when people cannot speak freely, they will start speaking in code. And this will just make the whole political discussions even harder, as it will blur the definitions even more. I think this is mainly what we have on the internet. Lots of talk and lots of people thinking they are right, but only little actual communication and adressing the core problems because people are mostly talking about different things.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#78

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #65
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's absolutely nothing hypocritical about e.g. "defending peace". It's realistic. between Karl Popper's well-known writings on the subject, and one accusatory sentence from someone on the internet, I'll take Karl Popper.

It's still a hypocrisy, but so what. People say it like it's a damnation of the idea. Things in life are fuzzy, that's why it's literally called a paradox. The most tolerant people in the world are not going to be ok with a 20 year-old having a sexual relationship with their 12 year old daughter because of the danger involved. That's the paradox of intolerance, that everyone has a limit, and if you have no limit, som…

It's ok to be intolerant at some things. What's not ok is to be intolerant and still claim to be tolerant. That's hypocrisy.

Also, do not equate actions and speech - and we're mostly arguing about free speech here, right?

Re: Protect me from what I want

#79

Post by jrmg »

Animats wrote: post #74
nostromo wrote: post #8

Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. In their view, they have the "correct opinions" and have not been biased by any algorithms or moderation. Meanwhile, the people that disagree with them are the ones being duped by algorithms, bad moderation, and bad actors. That's why there's a huge censorship movement right now in the…

> I dunno. Mostly I don't want to see ads. I liked Facebook when it just told me what my friends were doing. I don't want a "news feed" from a social network. But the news media suffer from a huge punditry to hard facts ratio problem. Today's first-screen news stories on major outlets that didn't begin as a press release or punditry: * Fox: "Remains of missing toddler Quinton Simon found in landfill, mother charged"…

I liked Facebook when it just told me what my friends were doing. I don't want a "news feed" from a social network.

I have the completely un-researched and un-backed opinion that Twitter changing its prompt from "What are you doing?" to "What's happening?" in 2009 has had an unappreciated, oversized negative affect on the world.

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