[HN Gopher] You can't censor away extremism or any other problem
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You can't censor away extremism or any other problem
Author : barry-cotter
Score : 374 points
Date : 2021-03-12 05:03 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (freddiedeboer.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (freddiedeboer.substack.com)
| didibus wrote:
| I think this article is pretty light on alternate solutions. It
| proposes rationally and intellectually trying to make the other
| side see why you are right and they are wrong, and makes a kind
| of snarky claim that somehow that CAN more easily be done, where
| I'm only seeing a normative idea here, it should be done, but can
| it?
|
| I'm not so sure it can personally.
|
| I think it forgets that most people are just whatever their
| surrounding makes them. That's why "trends" are so powerful
| influencers. That's why you have clear pockets, areas where the
| people in the same geographic areas all vote mostly similar and
| share similar values and ideas.
|
| The people who think their way unbiased through value, moral and
| ideas are rare.
|
| What we're left with in my opinion as viable solutions are two
| approaches:
|
| 1. Censorship 2. Propaganda
|
| Of the two, I think Propaganda is the best. I think we've seen
| that on both side now, left or right, it's the "trending"
| messages, tweets, memes, and all that which work best to convince
| and influence others. Propaganda creates culture, and culture
| defines peoples viewpoint.
|
| The issue today is all about Propaganda and the powers behind
| them. What is being most promoted? Retweeted? Recommended?
|
| When you have legitimate bots and troll farms participating in
| these efforts, and when you have extremists on all sides actively
| pushing messaging online, it creates new "trends" and it slowly
| plants seeds in people's head one way or another.
|
| Whichever side I'd be on, I'd focus my effort there to win.
| Publish messaging, memes, photos, clips, headlines that discredit
| the other side at every turn, adds haze and confusion, throws
| shades. And fill every channel with an abundance of your own
| messaging, values, ideas, alongside catchy positives.
|
| Now do this well, and it also results in censoring the other as a
| side effect. If you're the thing trending and being recommended,
| it means the other messages won't reach as many people. If you
| flood things, the other messages are less likely to be seen.
| mcguire wrote:
| You may not be able to censor away extremism, but you can prevent
| them from organizing violence at your kitchen table.
| dominotw wrote:
| you can. North korea is a good example.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| It's almost likeky that no one will read this, but for what it's
| worth the main thing is understanding.
|
| Ask your opposite "why do I think like this".
|
| Seems to me, that, at least in the commentaries, that the right
| understands why someone is left than the left understands why
| someone is right.
|
| 10 years ago the left wing understood things. Now they just label
| and other their opposition
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| >Should we stop hate speech? What makes you think we can?
|
| Can we even define hate speech?
|
| If you think that you're going to eliminate discrimination or
| racism through banning speech by calling it 'hate speech' you're
| wrong.
|
| When you ban 'hate speech' what gets banned is speech that the
| people in power hate.
|
| In other words you're not stopping Nazis and people calling for
| genocide. That basically never happens. Instead those in
| political power use the hate speech laws to crush political
| activists and journalists.
|
| Here is Canada for example, hate speech laws have been used
| against many comedians. Journalists quite often. Book authors
| even, there are examples where RCMP arrest and jail book authors
| because their book was critical of the government. No racism or
| threats of violence. No charges are ever filed and the book stays
| in publication.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| I predict this comment section will be full of normative
| statements.
| ralmidani wrote:
| You can't censor it away completely, but you can help the
| redeemable extremists __know__ they're indulging in extremism by
| forcing them to go to fringe websites rather than allow them to
| stay on Twitter and Facebook as if nothing is wrong. As for the
| "deplorables" who know what they're doing and will never question
| it or feel any remorse, we should not be giving them a megaphone.
|
| sources[0]: I was susceptible to extremist thought (not actions,
| fortunately) when I was younger. The sense that I might get into
| trouble if I participated in fringe websites kept me from going
| further down the rabbit hole. I kept reading mainstream news and
| sites, and while I would give a lot of things an extremist spin
| in my mind, eventually the narrative stopped making sense.
|
| sources[1]: https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi (can't find the
| specific Tweet, but he went through a similar experience, and
| almost became a full-blown extremist Muslim, before the sites he
| used to frequent were taken offline).
| anonymouswacker wrote:
| This is the mainstream thinking in the US, and why everything
| is rapidly going to shit. There is no "we" giving people a
| microphone -- it is a select few oligarchs who wield
| exceptional control to take away the voice of people whose
| views run counter to their and their cronies' interests. There
| is no democracy, representation, or transparency. The coming
| antithesis will be bypassing the control of the few on the
| voice of the many, and an Internet 2.0 which will be resistant
| to the censorship of tyrants and warmongers who comprise the
| faux-woke... if we still have the electrical grid & network
| infrastructure to support it...
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Your assertion lacks any evidence, supporting argument, or
| sense. It also offers no solution beyond "some different kind
| of Internet" but don't describe anything beyond, essentially,
| decentralization.
|
| And that the United States will actually collapse in the near
| term because Twitter is mismanaged.
| anonymouswacker wrote:
| You're right. I could spend the hours of time to write a
| thesis here, as if it will make any difference, but I
| prefer to just play the contrarian while I blow off from
| work for a few. Take it with a grain of salt, or just mark
| it as spam, etc. I wonder at what point I will just have
| this account banned off HN.
|
| Big Corporations and centralization of power in the hands
| of few is bad, and should be obvious. I didn't think one
| would need to provide evidence that Big Tech/Media is
| canceling conservatives, libertarians, liberals, greens,
| and surmise that it is not just because of benevolence or
| public safety. These are advertising companies deciding
| what is truth. That some people still cheer as more people
| that disagree with them are wiped off the de facto public
| forums on the internet should be scary to the masses who
| are just one wrong idea from being similarly muzzled. US
| Government is bought and paid for by these interests, so
| the logical hope would be for a technical solution by
| neoanarchists and other disenfranchised groups. It's just a
| hope, sure... but with the growth of crypto for
| decentralizing infrastructure (Filecoin, for instance) it
| seems all but inevitable.
| stretchwithme wrote:
| There isn't a single widely-held opinion that did not begin as
| an extremist opinion.
|
| And plenty of irrational ideas that became widely held.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Only that we went already through the most hard core right
| wing positions, and it didn't end well. These experiments
| happened in the 1920s and 30s. Same goes for Stalins form of
| Communism, which by the way has nothing to do with socialism.
| stretchwithme wrote:
| Just going by the definitions Google provides first,
| socialism seems pretty similiar to Communism or at least a
| superset of it.
|
| Communism is intended to produce "a society in which all
| property is publicly owned and each person works and is
| paid according to their abilities and needs."
|
| Socialism is "a political and economic theory of social
| organization which advocates that the means of production,
| distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by
| the community as a whole."
|
| Socialism means the public owning or regulating everything.
| Communism is definitely about the public owning everything.
| And socialism is not necessarily about allocating by need
| the way Communism is supposed to be.
|
| Maybe that's the National Socialists in Germany called
| themselves that. The State didn't own everything but it did
| try to control everything. For the good of the people.
| Well, some of the people. The definition of Socialism
| doesn't address that detail.
| wtetzner wrote:
| > As for the "deplorables" who know what they're doing and will
| never question it or feel any remorse, we should not be giving
| them a megaphone.
|
| The problem is that this is a _very_ slippery slope. Who gets
| to decide what 's OK and what's not?
| mancerayder wrote:
| There are different types of extremists, and only one type of
| extremism is targeted by the mainstream broadcast sites.
|
| It's tiring hearing the "megaphone" meme. It's a loaded term
| and means more than its literal meaning.
|
| There are extremists on the left and the right. If you only
| only target extremism on the right, you might think you're
| doing a service, but in fact you're going to make the problem
| worse.
|
| Here come the downvotes.
| cloverich wrote:
| 1. In what way does it make it worse? 2. Do you have some
| common examples of left wing extremism that are rampant and
| unchecked? I have many examples in my personal Facebook feed
| of right wing extremism, but few or perhaps no left wing
| extremism, despite many of my right wing friends voicing a
| similar complaint.
| mancerayder wrote:
| I have to swallow the fact that any reply means downvotes
| in this Silicon Valley community, but:
|
| 1. Because you're not actually removing right-wing
| extremism (which would be nice), you're pushing people into
| the corner. You can't legally or morally prevent people
| from having extremist views among themselves, having
| conversations, and in an Internet age you're going to play
| wack-a-mole if you try to chase after things, monitor and
| shut things down. Not to mention the overreach inherent in
| a real crackdown. By punishing them publicly, you feed into
| conspiracy theories, you feed into the idea that they are
| victimized, you feed into the idea of bias, and in the end
| you make people, more, not less radicalized.
|
| edit: two more (I think) good arguments. One, the U.S. has
| less extremism than Germany or France, with regards to
| right-wing extremism, and yet those countries have hate
| speech laws and ban books and fine people with extremist
| views. Yet, the FN in France and the AFD in Germany have
| power locally and possibly nationally. Two, people will use
| innuendo and implication and code. Thus, you have to ban
| the code and innuendo. Is that the path you want to go
| down, banning and evaluating interpretations of speech that
| is constantly changing as one thing gets banned and a new
| one sprouts?
|
| This is not new, and we already know this, and we know this
| from over a century of extremist views. It's not in 2015
| that magically extremism started to exist.
|
| The correct way to combat right-wing extremism is to let
| people be lunatics, make it obvious that they are lunatics,
| reply to the lunatics with logic and reason, and don't
| infantalize viewers are being influenced by bad views.
|
| The "megaphone" theory being espoused by mainstream pro-
| censorship tech people is a cover for the underlying
| assumption: _I_ know what 's good for you, and I feel if I
| hide content from _you_ , then I can prevent you from being
| influenced, in short, I, tech censor, protect you from
| yourself.
|
| I cannot get behind that, and I hope the question that
| should be on everyone's mind is, _who decides_ what 's
| extremism.
|
| 2. Absolutely. Where do you want to start. I could go to
| Twitter and spend a few minutes to find some, but that
| would be awkward and appear like cherry picking. There were
| and still are many posts asking for abolishing of
| government, of authorities, of institutions. That's been
| extremist since the 19th century. With regards to racist
| speech, I offer to you Sarah Jeong (editor from the NYT)
| tweets which were deleted and apologized (ish) for, but had
| the editorial board stand behind her and no warnings from
| Twitter itself.
| hef19898 wrote:
| How exactly do we have more right wing extremists in
| Germany in France? Because if you apply the same poitical
| standards, the FN and AfD are more like center GOP.
| mancerayder wrote:
| This is a comment steeped in ignorance. But let's put
| aside that fact. Let's take the following logical
| conclusion
|
| 1. We should ban extremist views
|
| 2. The centrist GOP is extremist (since the Front
| National and the AfD are agreed extreme)
|
| so obviously:
|
| 3. We should ban the GOP from Twitter and other places
| discussed in this thread.
|
| ^^ is anyone else seeing this?? Is anyone but me very
| very scared that people like this are possibly getting
| hired in Facebook and Twitter and Google?
|
| Banning the GOP would be good for democracy? I've never
| voted GOP in my life, but the view you've espoused is
| _extremist_.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I never advoated banning the AfD or the FN, did I? If
| they are overstepping, like AfD politicians like to do in
| terms of Volksverhetzung, they get investigated. And if
| they vilated the law, the go on trial and ma get
| convicted. Sounds reasonable to me.
|
| And yes, according to European standards, people like Ted
| Cruz are found in the AfD and FN. If you disagree, please
| share examples where AfD / FN positions differ from the
| GOP, meanin where these two parties are farther right
| then the GOP.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > You can't legally or morally prevent people from having
| extremist views
|
| Or, y'know, practically (short of lobotomizing them).
| skipwalker wrote:
| Are you kidding? CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle. Portland occupation.
| The various summer 2020 riots. Numerous conservative
| speakers over the years being blocked from speaking on
| college campuses...
| mancerayder wrote:
| The answer you'll almost certainly get in rebuttal is,
| oh, that's not extremism. And that brings us back to this
| cental question of _who decides_. I feel like a large
| percentage of people with strong opinions about
| censorship in this long posting /thread have a very
| limited historical memory / education. They want to mash
| on the Ban button without really understanding the
| implications for all of us who are not extremists.
| grawprog wrote:
| I've spent a lot of time on the internet over the years and the
| thing i've noticed about 'extremists' of all kinds, not just
| idealogical ones, i'm talking like any kind of 'extremist'.
|
| That handful of people you find on a forum more devoted to
| whatever the topic or niche is than everybody else. The people
| that are there, every day all day immersing themselves in it.
|
| They're fairly far and few between and wherever you are, you'll
| find a handful of them.
|
| The rest of the more vocal people tend to be the 'hanger ons'.
| The ones that are into it as long as a bunch of others are, but
| will lose interest if the community fades.
|
| Then there's the flyby people. The people who just kinda pop in
| from time to time, but aren't really all that into it.
|
| People seem to forget, we call it 'extremism' because it's at
| the extreme end of what humans consider acceptable. Most people
| in general are not 'extremists' with anything otherwise we
| wouldn't call it extreme. It would just be normal.
|
| Everyone seems to just label someone as an extremist for a
| tweet, or an idea, or some words, where in reality a good
| majority of people being labeled as such are more than likely
| just normal people saying some dumb shit.
|
| Everybody's done it, nobody's perfect anywhere, everybody
| believes ridiculous things from time to time, everybody's said
| things they shouldn't, it's just a part of being human. It
| doesn't mean they're this, that or the other kind of extremist.
| playingchanges wrote:
| Underrepresented POV I think. 'Never attribute to malice that
| which is adequately explained by stupidity'.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
| pstuart wrote:
| ...or laziness
| Lammy wrote:
| I don't believe in Hanlon's Razor at all any more,
| personally. John Oliver does a good job debunking it here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXyO_MC9g3k
| Lammy wrote:
| You're still using subjective terms like "extremism" in an
| objective way that the people on the receiving end of that
| label may not agree with or appreciate.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| As a child, I admit I was wholly taken in by digital IP
| extremists. The danger is real!
|
| They convinced me that information should be free, that it
| was my right to download and share anything digital, and that
| the internet was a borderless utopia of knowledge, limited
| only by our imaginations.
|
| Now, I see the error of my ways and the harm I, and those who
| thought like me, caused to content creators and distributors.
|
| I understand that the internet is safer, more secure, and
| better when suckled through the benevolent teat of large
| corporations, whose wisdom and foresight allows it to be
| restricted, filtered, and repackaged into a socially
| beneficial form.
|
| Don't make the same mistakes I did! Trust in the system.
| salawat wrote:
| You dropped this!
|
| \s
| pjc50 wrote:
| Al-Quaeda might not appreciate being labelled as extremists,
| but so what?
|
| We have to call things as we see them. And build a consensus
| around what's core values and within the normal range of
| debate, and what's beyond that into dangerous, destructive,
| and even murderous.
| wtetzner wrote:
| You ban dangerous _actions_ , not speech. When you start
| censoring speech, you give a very small group of people the
| ability to silence whoever the please.
| claudiawerner wrote:
| Surely it's also true that when you start preventing
| actions, you give a very small group of people the
| ability to prevent the actions of whoever they please.
| It's hard to see the point being made here.
| wtetzner wrote:
| The difference is that when you prevent speech, you can't
| even discuss changes to the laws. The censorship of
| speech gives a much different and somewhat _hidden_ form
| of power.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Who is "we" that is determining the acceptable range of
| debate?
| T-hawk wrote:
| This is a major and serious point. A large part of the
| discourse has become slapping the "extremist" label on
| _every_ dissenting argument from the other side, regardless
| of where the position actually is.
|
| If you ban extremist speech, then what you've done is create
| incentive to label everything as extremist.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| It's like the rule: "Don't debate Nazis, just punch them!"
|
| Sounds reasonable, but the real fun begins when you add:
| "Everyone who disagrees with us is a Nazi."
| rodone wrote:
| That's just not true.
| pmichaud wrote:
| Which part is not true in what way?
| ralmidani wrote:
| I consider myself a centrist; I have been registered as an
| Independent since the first election in which I voted (21
| years ago), and have voted for Republicans and Democrats.
| Politically, I try to evaluate each idea on the merits
| rather than which party espouses it. So at least in my
| case, there is no "other side" which I can mislabel as
| extremist.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Hahaha, of course there is. There is much more to
| politics than only Republicans and Democrats - in many
| countries they would both the be considered as on the
| same side.
| jimbokun wrote:
| That doesn't mean others won't label you as "extremist".
| buescher wrote:
| Not only subjective terms like "extremism", but religious
| terms like "redeemable".
| unethical_ban wrote:
| You and the people who talk like you are getting downvoted
| because you're contrarian without actually stating an
| opposition view to what you're ranting about.
|
| Someone: Extremism is bad.
|
| You: What is extreme is subjective.
|
| The next step would be for you to try to give counter
| points of what you think _is_ extreme that others consider
| not, or better, what you think is _not_ extreme that others
| consider so.
| wnoise wrote:
| > You and the people who talk like you are getting
| downvoted because you're contrarian without actually
| stating an opposition view to what you're ranting about.
|
| That's true, but it also seems to effectively hold for
| the originals, only with conformity rather than
| contrarianism:
|
| > Someone: Extremism is bad.
| buescher wrote:
| You're just fishing for a nice and spicy example. Here is
| a bland one. I have a big cup of coffee on my desk right
| now. There are very nice people right here in the USA,
| some of whom have been my neighbors and about whom I will
| say nothing derogatory, who think I am endangering my
| immortal soul by drinking from it. Some might consider
| taking one or the other stance extreme. I think weighing
| in publicly on whether such behavior is "redeemable" as
| if it is for you to decide is wholly inappropriate.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| You're looking for some pure, objective reality that will
| never exist. You have to take a stand at some point; you
| cannot sit and say "who am I to say?"
|
| "Who am I to say if it's wrong to believe people should
| be killed and enslaved for their skin color? Next thing
| you know, someone may think I'm extreme for what coffee I
| drink!"
|
| Your argument is inane.
| buescher wrote:
| The _redemption_ of (your fictional) people who _merely
| believe_ your more inflammatory example is not between
| them and me.
| wtetzner wrote:
| > The next step would be for you to try to give counter
| points of what you think is extreme that others consider
| not, or better, what you think is not extreme that others
| consider so.
|
| I don't think that's the next step. I think the _point_
| is that what is extreme will _always_ be subjective, and
| there is danger in allowing some group of people to
| decide what speech is acceptable and what is not.
| therealjumbo wrote:
| If "extremism" gets banned, then individuals are
| incentivized to get things they don't like labeled as
| extremism.
|
| We wouldn't be having this conversation if the things
| labeled extremism and thus banned from platforms was
| limited to ISIS and literal Nazis. It's been far more
| far-reaching than that. That's probably due to the
| incentives, not due to actual extremism.
|
| So if extremism is subjective, it will be leveraged in
| that manner and you can't stop that behavior without
| removing the incentive. That's the point, not what is or
| isn't labeled as extremism today, that's just dragging
| the conversation back into the political gutter.
| vlanders10 wrote:
| Also "remorse", which is quite popular among SJW tribunals
| when they silence someone on unverified testimony of the
| popular clique members while refusing to hear the "accused"
| even once.
| ralmidani wrote:
| I'm not even close to being a leftist (but sign me up for
| Social Justice without the tribunals).
|
| Regarding your parent post's objection to "redeemable",
| it's not used in religious contexts exclusively.
| buescher wrote:
| Yeah, sure, the original post meant that extremists are
| redeemable for prizes. The other senses of the term are
| religious metaphor.
| ralmidani wrote:
| They might not agree with it at first, but eventually, large
| numbers will realize how non-sensical their movement's ideas
| are. CNN has profiled former QAnon true believers who are
| recovering.
| twirlock wrote:
| CNN is just Fox News for extremists like you though.
| yeetawayhn wrote:
| CNN is just Fox News for a different flavor of extremist
| Alupis wrote:
| Can anyone name a time in history where the people censoring
| things turned out to be the "Good Guys"?
| Banyonite wrote:
| Honestly cannot- doesn't mean there isn't one, but this leads
| to a possible heuristic worth exploring.
| Pyramus wrote:
| Your argument/trope fails for a simple reasons: "They" don't
| exist.
|
| * Here on HN we censor each other.
|
| * The US censors basic nudity.
|
| * Germany censors denying the Holocaust.
|
| * The patent office censors inventions.
|
| * Scientists have devised a peer-censorship system.
|
| * The police censors your attempts to distribute illegal
| material.
|
| * Banks censor your funds to ISIS.
|
| ... the list goes on and on and on.
| wnoise wrote:
| Almost half of those are indeed bad guys, and much of the
| rest does not fit under the normal meaning of the word
| censorship.
| Jarwain wrote:
| Isn't this subject to survivorship bias? If, 1000 years ago
| some movement was censored by the "good guys", if they've
| done a half-competent job, would we even Know they tried
| censoring things in the first place?
|
| Not to mention how the "good guys" are usually just whomever
| manages to last/survive
| Alupis wrote:
| How about in the last 100 years then?
|
| In the 50's-70's, the US tried it's hardest to
| censor/hide/destroy Marxism, it's ideals, and derivatives
| (Socialism) - yet it still exists today.
|
| You cannot disappear ideas by silencing the individuals
| that believe them. Instead of trying to hide them away, the
| ideas need to be exposed publicly and discussed openly. If
| one side truly is righteous, it will prevail through open
| discussion and logic.
|
| Just like in the 50's - what we have today is a weaponized
| notion of censorship to destroy our political enemies and
| those who do not think the same way we do. That's certainly
| not what "Good Guys" do.
| Pyramus wrote:
| > If one side truly is righteous, it will prevail through
| open discussion and logic.
|
| Unfortunately that is not always how it works out.
|
| In Germany in the 1930s the idea that Jews/non-Arians
| have conspired against Germany and should be retaliated
| against was discussed openly - and accepted. Obviously it
| was not righteous.
|
| In several US states in the 1980s the idea that homo
| sapiens was created by God and creationism should replace
| evolution in school textbooks was discussed openly - and
| accepted. Was it righteous?
|
| These are two very different examples, but both ask the
| same question: What do we do in the case where truly
| righteous ideas do not prevail?
| Alupis wrote:
| The righteous ideals prevailed in the end, in both
| examples you provided - no?
|
| Nobody pretends Nazism never happened - that would be
| Censorship. Instead, you can buy, find, read about Nazism
| - including Mein Kumpf and more.
|
| Creationism is not a dominating idea in the US either -
| nobody censored Creationism (even to this day you can
| find private schools that teach it!). Instead,
| Creationism was defeated by questioning it's teachings,
| and exposing it's logical flaws.
|
| I do believe you have very eloquently proven my point.
| Censorship never works.
| NoodleIncident wrote:
| The allied forces did not storm Omaha beach on D-Day to
| openly discuss Nazism, in case you weren't aware
| Alupis wrote:
| Winning the war destroyed the Nazi regime - not the Nazi
| ideas.
|
| That's not how ideas work... (see US Civil War and
| racism, as just one clear example)
| Jeema101 wrote:
| Yes. 1945 post-war Germany saw mass-censoring as part of the
| Allied de-Nazification program:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification
|
| "the US Army continued its efforts to denazify Germany
| through control of German media. The Information Control
| Division of the US Army had by July 1946 taken control of 37
| German newspapers, six radio stations, 314 theaters, 642
| cinemas, 101 magazines, 237 book publishers, and 7,384 book
| dealers and printers."
| Alupis wrote:
| Propaganda isn't the same as censorship. It does not appear
| any of the Allies made it illegal to believe in Nazism, or
| to write about it, or even dare to own something from the
| Nazi era.
|
| Nonetheless, it's arguable these efforts were futile,
| likely misguided, and likely drove some to extremism as a
| result. You cannot simply compel a population to think a
| certain way.
|
| Instead, you must allow the "bad" ideas to be exposed in
| the public forum, and win over the population through
| logical arguments. Hiding them away does nothing to
| disappear them.
|
| Regardless, it's pretty well established the average German
| citizen didn't believe in the extremes the Nazi party had
| gone to anyway.
| notahacker wrote:
| Oh, but the Allies _did_ make Naziism illegal (the
| Soviets of course went further and made most other
| political speech illegal in their half of Germany)
|
| Not only did West Germany have denazification programmes,
| but things like denying the holocaust are still illegal
| in Germany _today_ , as the article discusses.
|
| It's a bold claim to argue this was "futile" or "likely
| drove some to extremism" when the context was a reaction
| to the last war so extreme that it resulted in mass
| public support for a guy who blamed the Jews and geared
| up for a second war. Failing to defeat those arguments
| with logic drove an entire country to extremism, and
| there were a lot more people who still believed in those
| extremes in 1946 (even after suffering for them) than
| express sympathy for Germany's much watered down far
| right today. I doubt that would radically alter if they
| relaxed holocaust denial laws today, but there was
| certainly a time when public debate about whether the
| Holocaust was real or a big lie would have been useful to
| anyone wanting to follow in Hitler's footsteps and cast
| Germany as the victim.
|
| Of course, on the other side the GDR absolutely failed in
| its attempts to force people to love its state and not
| realise their friends and family in the West were richer
| and free-er than them. There were limits to the
| effectiveness of censorship in achieving those goals,
| even when the censorship itself was almost unparalleled
| in its pervasiveness and harshness.
|
| But sometimes not facilitating the discussion terrible
| niche ideas is much more effective at preventing them
| from going mainstream than debating them
| Alupis wrote:
| > Oh, but the Allies did make Naziism illegal
|
| You can be a Nazi in the US, UK and I'm sure pretty much
| anywhere in the world (except Germany) - and not go to
| jail, etc. So no, the Allies did not make Nazism illegal.
| Instead, they attempted to squash Nazism through
| propaganda (both domestic and foreign), and through
| spreading the truth about what Nazism had accomplished
| (Holocaust, among other atrocities). There's Holocaust
| Deniers roaming the streets of the US today - although
| they are in the extreme minority due overwhelming
| evidence to the contrary.
|
| In the end, the evils of Nazism led to it's demise, and
| the free trade of that information championed over
| censorship.
|
| As an aside, making Holocaust Denial illegal has
| accomplished nothing - we have Genocide occurring around
| the world today, including openly in China - the very
| same country US companies like the NBA and Disney are
| falling over each other to do business in. China, of
| course, denies it's a Genocide...
| hef19898 wrote:
| With all the relevant criticism against German
| denazification, the policies and laws worked. Not just in
| Germany, but also in the other countries in Europe wih
| similar laws. That German laws failed to prevent genozid
| in other continents is to be expected, I guess.
| Alupis wrote:
| The point was those polices were not Censorship.
|
| I can buy Nazi paraphernalia today, read about Nazism on
| Wikipedia, purchase newly printed copies of Mein Kumpf,
| watch Hitler's speeches on Youtube, and more.
|
| The ideals of Nazism were defeated by openly exposing,
| and combating them with freely available information.
|
| Censorship would have been to pretend Nazism never
| happened, and banning of anything that might encroach
| upon "Right Think".
|
| And think what would happen if someone made Nazism
| illegal? What would that mean? What about some new group
| that calls themselves Izan's, but shares all the same
| ideas of Nazism? Would that be illegal too?
|
| You cannot ban ideas - someone else, at some point in
| time, will have the very same idea even if they do not
| know someone else had it first.
|
| Instead, you must fight with logic and exposure - expose
| bad ideas for what they are, and prove them wrong with
| logic.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I'm confused now. Either the German laws against hate
| speach are censorship, as claimed in the original linked
| blo pst, or they are not.
|
| And funny enough, we Germans are usually hammered by the
| right for over working on our historical gilt. Especially
| by the German right wing.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I have a saying, that which is abused gets taken away.
|
| Which is say one should be cautious about exercising
| rights if you want to keep them.
| Alupis wrote:
| Modern day Germany is censoring Nazism as far as I'm
| aware (it's illegal to call yourself a Nazi in Germany,
| no?).
|
| The parent post asserted the Allies propaganda campaign
| after the war was censorship - it's flatly not,
| particularly since everywhere else in the world you can
| freely call yourself a Nazi with no repercussions. At no
| point was it illegal anywhere outside Germany to possess
| a copy of Mein Kumpf, even if it was signed by Hitler
| himself.
|
| I don't think outlawing Nazism in Germany was a good
| thing, nor productive. Nazism could be (and very
| successfully was) destroyed through exposing it's ideals
| for what they were.
|
| We often forget there was a Nazi movement here in the US
| leading up to the war - that was also stamped out not by
| censorship, but through exposing the evils of the Nazi
| regime.
| api wrote:
| Censorship of child pornography?
| Alupis wrote:
| I don't really consider that censorship. We made it illegal
| to exploit minors that are unable to make decisions for
| themselves (both legally and maturely).
|
| Then, at the arbitrary age of 18, we (the US, other
| countries differ) decided they can participate in, create,
| and distribute as much self-pornographic material as they
| want.
|
| The entire LEO world dedicated to combating child
| pornography revolves around the exploitation of children
| and how wrong that is.
|
| That's not quite the same as banning ideas, books, etc,
| simply because some find the words objectionable.
| ttt0 wrote:
| It's not a political ideology or political speech. The
| reason we came up with freedom of speech is primarily so
| you can criticize the people in power. I know that people
| for whatever reason got this weird idea that pornography is
| somehow free speech, presumably because of lobbying, but
| historically free speech always coexisted with obscenity
| laws. If you want to silence your political enemy, it's
| going to be hard to do on the basis of pornography, but
| it's rather easy to do on a basis of 'hate speech'.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| It's certainly true, if the only places where people criticise
| the mainstream consensus are dominated by neo-nazis, that
| reasonable people are less likely to criticise the mainstream
| consensus. The downside to that 'solution' is, sometimes
| reasonable people need to criticise the mainstream consensus.
|
| I recently thought of a great example: If the goal is to reduce
| extremism, one of the lowest-hanging fruit would be to censor
| all videos of police misconduct. There is no question that
| seeing the George Floyd video radicalised a number of people.
| If your solution is that a few tech giants should have memory
| holed that video as it began to go viral, I'd love to hear you
| explain yourself.
| loopz wrote:
| So we should not expose abuse and misconduct, just because
| some fragile minds get upset when brown people speak up?
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| I raised that example to illustrate the problem with
| censorship as a social engineering tool, there seems to be
| a lack of nuance around the question.
|
| People talk as if the question of whether to censor is
| identical to whether there are viewpoints that are harmful.
| That's the wrong question IMHO, of course some viewpoints
| are harmful. Harmful enough that it would be better if they
| weren't shared, we can all imagine some. Censorship is like
| torture, we shouldn't swear it off because it doesn't work,
| but because the benefit we gain from using it is miniscule
| compared to the harm received when it's used on us.
|
| The George Floyd video is a clear case in point. How many
| people who were happy to see #45 removed from social media
| would have been dismayed if the George Floyd video had been
| similarly removed for the sake of public order? How much
| benefit did they gain from their enemy being off the
| platforms compared to the harm it would have done to them
| if the same tool had been used against them?
|
| Society progresses in proportion to the number of
| uncomfortable conversations. Because they are
| uncomfortable, we can all be tempted by people flattering
| us that we don't need to have them. Therefore, it's a tool
| that tends to be overused. As such, it should be one that
| reasonable people of all tribes can agree is a sign of
| hypocrisy, an opportunity for grandstanding when employed
| by the other side and soul-searching when employed by our
| own.
| loopz wrote:
| Yeah, it's a good point. There is however a problem when
| lies and tribalism take over the agenda, rather than
| fairness and justice for all. The laws and rule must
| apply to all, so we must resist unfair special treatment
| (and you may see this regards to all). The very notion of
| sides, is false (ie. right vs left).
|
| So bribes, threats, falsehoods, abuse need to be exposed
| for what it is.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| Yes. The ability to spread truth must not be compromised
| to stop the spread of lies.
| dominotw wrote:
| > You can't censor it away completely
|
| I don't understand why everyone is saying this. There is not
| extremist content in north korea.
| penetraitor69 wrote:
| Agree 100%. I essentially started going down the "Qanon" rabbit
| hole a few years before "Q" existed (the tropes have existed in
| right-wing circles for longer than the specific conspiracy
| theory has); part of my realization that it was wrong was
| noticing that the sorts of things I believed were promoted
| _almost exclusively_ in places also rife with obvious racism,
| sexism, and antisemitism.
| bleah1000 wrote:
| This is just a few people explaining how they de-radicalized.
| Now imagine the opposite, someone with some slightly bad
| opinion suddenly finds themselves shut out of the main
| platforms because of hate speech rules. They now become more
| radicalized. Due to the number of people constantly being
| suspended/banned I think there is a greater chance that these
| people will become radicalized, than someone will realize they
| have a bad opinion because they got suspended/banned.
|
| I'm reminded of Daryl Davis, and the way he de-radicalized KKK
| members. He did it by talking to them, engaging them in speech.
| It feels like hate speech censoring could actually lead to more
| radicalization as people feel persecuted and become even more
| radical than if you had let them talk. It's a hard problem
| because you can get radicalization if you allow people to
| create their own echo chambers of hate. How do you balance
| trying to avoid creating these kinds of echo chambers, versus
| creating radicals by pushing them to other sites where there
| are no restrictions?
| spaced-out wrote:
| >How do you balance trying to avoid creating these kinds of
| echo chambers, versus creating radicals by pushing them to
| other sites where there are no restrictions?
|
| By aggressively removing it to limit how many people are
| exposed, and ban those who continue to share it despite being
| warned.
| ds206 wrote:
| And all those evil drug users need to be aggressively
| removed to limit how many people are exposed to drugs... /s
| eplanit wrote:
| Which is censorship. The thesis of the article asserts it
| is ineffective, and counter-productive to the parent
| comment's point.
| loopz wrote:
| No, it is anti-targeted propaganda.
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| > some slightly bad opinion suddenly finds themselves shut
| out of the main platforms because of hate speech rules
|
| A "slightly bad opinion" has to be more than "slightly bad"
| to break hate speech rules.
|
| If you feel a platform is overzealous in enforcing hate
| speech rules, don't use it. Or maybe ask yourself some
| questions before moving out.
|
| EDIT: the rain of downvotes is telling as usual.
| lliamander wrote:
| > EDIT: the rain of downvotes is telling as usual.
|
| You suggest that people subject to social stigma and
| censure should "maybe ask [themselves] some questions". Do
| you think the reaction you are receiving should cause you
| to question your own position?
| stretchwithme wrote:
| skillfully done.
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| > Do you think the reaction you are receiving should
| cause you to question your own position?
|
| If there was a clear accusation of hate speech on my
| behalf I would certainly do.
|
| Would you?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Nobody is accusing you of hate speech. The downvotes are
| accusing you of being _wrong_ , though. You might
| question your position, not because it might be hateful,
| but because it might be wrong.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> If you feel a platform is overzealous in enforcing
| hate speech rules, don't use it. Or maybe ask yourself
| some questions before moving out.
|
| >> EDIT: the rain of downvotes is telling as usual.
|
| > You suggest that people subject to social stigma and
| censure should "maybe ask [themselves] some questions".
| Do you think the reaction you are receiving should cause
| you to question your own position?
|
| That's twisting what he said. What he actually said is
| that people who are bothered by "hate speech rules"
| should "maybe ask [themselves] some questions." He didn't
| say anything about downvotes should lead to similar self-
| questioning.
| lliamander wrote:
| You are making a distinction without a difference.
|
| As the original article itself pointed out, "hate speech"
| is an amorphous term that can refer to any socially
| unacceptable speech. Actual "hate speech rules" and
| "downvotes" are merely different mechanisms for enforcing
| social stigma and censure.
|
| The real question is at what point should a person
| reevaluate their opinions in light of social pressure.
| The commenter I was responding to seems to think it
| should only happen when the opinions in question are ones
| he disagrees with.
|
| EDIT: additionally, complaining about downvotes is also
| against the rules of this site. For someone to do that
| while extending no charity to those who break other
| content moderation policies is...interesting.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > You are making a distinction without a difference.
|
| > As the original article itself pointed out, "hate
| speech" is an amorphous term that can refer to any
| socially unacceptable speech. Actual "hate speech rules"
| and "downvotes" are merely different mechanisms for
| enforcing social stigma and censure.
|
| No, you're blurring things to the point of
| meaninglessness. For instance, "first post" competitions
| would clearly be unacceptable speech here, yet I doubt
| anyone in good faith would actually call such posts hate
| speech.
|
| Also, downvotes are an opaque mechanism. Did your post
| get downvoted because you said something widely regarded
| as offensive, are this guy [1], or because you just had
| too many typos? You can speculate, but that's not very
| good basis for self reflection. However, if you're mad
| you can't post speech that (for instance) directly
| attacks some race as being inferior [2], you have a
| pretty clear thing to reflect on.
|
| [1] https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2015/0701/What-
| happened-to-t...
|
| [2] https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/objection
| able_co...
| lliamander wrote:
| > For instance, "first post" competitions would clearly
| be unacceptable speech here, yet I doubt anyone in good
| faith would actually call such posts hate speech.
|
| No, but if you think "hate speech" is a clear and
| definite term with no room for abuse you are deluding
| yourself.
|
| > Also, downvotes are an opaque mechanism.
|
| The person I responded to clearly knew why he was being
| downvoted. He presented an unsophisticated and (on this
| forum) unpopular view of hate speech rules.
|
| > If you're mad you can't post speech that (for instance)
| directly attacks some race as being inferior [2], you
| have a pretty clear thing to reflect on.
|
| Insisting that people who are critical of hate speech
| rules are white supremacists is not a constructive take.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > No, but if you think "hate speech" is a clear and
| definite term with no room for abuse you are deluding
| yourself.
|
| That's actually not an uncommon situation for a term,
| such is human language. Most terms have fairly
| established meanings with a bit of fuzziness around the
| edges. That doesn't mean they're meaningless, arbitrary,
| or not useful.
|
| > The person I responded to clearly knew why he was being
| downvoted. He presented an unsophisticated and (on this
| forum) unpopular view of hate speech rules.
|
| It was certainly unpopular with some, but I wouldn't say
| it was unsophisticated.
|
| > Insisting that people who are critical of hate speech
| rules are white supremacists is not a constructive take.
|
| I made it clear that was an example, not a general
| characterization of any group. You'll also notice I
| didn't specify any particular race, so you're basically
| putting words in my mouth.
| closeparen wrote:
| Today Dr. Seuss is hate speech. Tomorrow Dr. Seuss apologia
| will be hate speech. Even from the perspective that this is
| progress, it's _very fast_ progress. Today's white
| supremacists are last week's liberals who didn't update
| their opinions fast enough.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| When did Dr. Seuss become hate speech? Last I checked, my
| extended family still reads Dr. Seuss books with their
| small children.
|
| Yes, Seuss's family pulled a few books from production
| but I don't recall anyone decrying them.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| I'm guessing GP is referring to how eBay banned third
| parties from selling used copies of the Dr. Seuss books
| in question. See
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26347654
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Hm. I think it would have been in better taste to just
| have a flag on the items stating that the family has
| discontinued distribution for xyz reason.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Who is making the rules?
| Larrikin wrote:
| The people who don't want hate speech on their website
| rednerrus wrote:
| Who decides?
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Who decides?
|
| Who decides if Nazis are allowed to put signs with Nazi
| slogans on your lawn?
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > on your lawn?
|
| Twitter and Facebook are common carriers[0], not private
| residences.
|
| Edit: 0: By which I mean that are common carriers _in
| practice_ , not that they are legally recognized as such.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Twitter and Facebook are common carriers, not private
| residences.
|
| Except they aren't actually common carriers. Some people
| are of the opinion they should be, but having an opinion
| doesn't make it so.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > Some people are of the opinion they should be
|
| I think (based on this) that you mean they aren't legally
| recognized as common carriers (which isn't what I said,
| but fair enough; edited to clarify).
| DC1350 wrote:
| That's not true. Not being attracted to transgender people
| is enough to get banned on Reddit.
|
| I was banned from r/asktransgender for telling a girl in a
| relationship with a pre-transition MtF person that it
| doesn't make sense to call herself a lesbian (since sexual
| orientation is based on sex and not gender)
| [deleted]
| ilovethrowawysq wrote:
| This view, that sex exists and matters at all, is called
| by trans rights activists "biological essentialism" and
| it'll probably get you banned here, too. I definitely
| wouldn't post comments with the opinion that sex is
| binary from an account that could be linked to my real
| identity.
|
| Belief in binary or bimodal sex expression in homo
| sapiens is grounds for removal from the technology
| industry entirely
|
| I like to eat so you'll never see me again on this site,
| at least not with this handle.
| lliamander wrote:
| I'm often surprised at how those who insist of the
| independence of sex and gender don't correctly or
| consistently separate those terms in practice.
| kelnos wrote:
| Why would you barge into someone else's community and
| police their use of terminology? Why would you think
| anyone cares about what you have to say on that topic?
|
| At best it's an annoying distraction; at worst it makes
| people feel like shit for needing to constantly justify
| their existence.
| lliamander wrote:
| In general I agree. This was the same problem when social
| justice advocates (particularly those who were not core
| contributors) were trying to force "codes of conduct" on
| open source communities that felt no need for them.
|
| But in this case, my understanding is that the
| distinction of sex and gender is essential to the concept
| of transgender in the first place. Is insisting (perhaps
| somewhat pedantically) on using those terms in a
| consistent fashion really an offense?
|
| Now, they are free to exclude people for whatever reason
| they want. Sub-reddits are not supposed to be all things
| to all people. But the statement does not strike me as
| obviously offensive to trans people (I've even seen them
| make the same distinction).
| morelisp wrote:
| It sounds more like being an asshole in a forum that's
| not yours is enough to get you banned from reddit.
| DC1350 wrote:
| I'm gay so things like this matter to me. A lot of trans
| rhetoric is deeply homophobic.
| morelisp wrote:
| I'm gay and you are deeply transphobic.
|
| It has nothing to do with your sexual preferences. It's
| because you went onto a message board for trans people to
| complain about trans people to other trans people.
|
| Then when they refused to put up with your bullshit you
| tried to spin it into a grand censorship narrative,
| rather than bog-standard asshole behavior.
| DC1350 wrote:
| ok
|
| btw the term "sexual preference" is cause for
| cancellation now (see ACB incident) so you're still not
| woke enough to please the mob. Do better.
| websites2323 wrote:
| What trans rhetoric is homophobic?
| DC1350 wrote:
| Like the idea that a homosexual can be attracted to an
| opposite sexed person, the term "genital preference",
| that a gender non-conforming boy might actually be a
| girl, etc.
|
| Essentially, the idea that a person could be attracted to
| the body of the sex they aren't attracted to is the same
| idea behind conversion therapy. Anecdotally, I've spent
| way too much time trying to change my "genital
| preference" for me to think it's true.
| marpstar wrote:
| that all depends on who makes the rules and how they
| distinguish "bad and not tolerated" from "slightly bad but
| tolerated".
| NoodleIncident wrote:
| > This is just a few people explaining how they de-
| radicalized. Now imagine the opposite
|
| How do you downplay "a few people" saying one thing, without
| giving even a single example of your imaginary opposite?
| morelisp wrote:
| > I'm reminded of Daryl Davis, and the way he de-radicalized
| KKK members. He did it by talking to them, engaging them in
| speech.
|
| 1. Daryl Davis is literally the only person ever mentioned in
| this context. If you don't have another example, this doesn't
| even qualify as an anecdote anymore.
|
| 2. Over the course of multiple decades Davis has, via intense
| 1:1 work and personal connection and at great risk to
| himself, deradicalized something like 4 dozen people. Gab
| alone had something like 400k accounts.
| sabarn01 wrote:
| Megan Phelps-Roper Derek Black George Wallce Via Shirley
| Chisholm
|
| https://www.persuasion.community/p/lessons-of-a-black-
| pionee...
|
| You are basically saying there is no power in integration
| and that the only effort for reform here should be negative
| consequences which generally isn't viewed as a liberal
| perspective on how to reintegrate people into society.
| morelisp wrote:
| > You are basically saying there is no power in
| integration and that the only effort for reform here
| should be negative consequences
|
| This an extremely uncharitable reading of my comments. I
| said a structural problem needs a structural solution,
| not a personal one. To invoke Chisholm as a counter-
| argument is offensive.
| sabarn01 wrote:
| Then you are easily offended.
|
| I think that what Chisholm did and what Davis did are in
| the same category. Personal outreach. You said Davis was
| the only example so I gave you others.
|
| I don't think racism is structural problem Its a personal
| problem solved by individuals. The legacy of racism and
| its former codification may be structural and addressed
| in a structural way but they are fundamental different.
| morelisp wrote:
| > I don't think racism is structural problem... The
| legacy of racism and its former codification may be
| structural and addressed in a structural way but they are
| fundamental different.
|
| E2 80 8A
| claudiawerner wrote:
| >Now imagine the opposite, someone with some slightly bad
| opinion suddenly finds themselves shut out of the main
| platforms because of hate speech rules. They now become more
| radicalized.
|
| This is a bad argument; it is a fact, for example, that child
| pornography by being censored creates a taboo around it. It's
| also true that _some_ people will seek it out because of its
| taboo nature - something it would not be (or only to a lesser
| extent) if it weren 't illegal. The fact that people will
| download and masturbate to child porn _because_ it is illegal
| is not a good argument against child porn laws.
|
| We (justifiably, I think) do not allow speech for the
| purposes of terrorist recruitment. The fact that someone is
| mistakenly banned for terrorist recruitment and later becomes
| radicalized is _not_ a good argument to allow terrorist
| recruitment.
|
| The argument is fundamentally self-defeating; it presupposes
| that free speech is so good and basic that it overrides all
| other rights. However, it also supposes that people in
| general lack sufficient ability to introspect after being
| censored - people are thought of here not as rational beings
| to use their rights of speech to engage in democratic
| deliberation, but as animals who when poked by a stick become
| enraged.
|
| >He did it by talking to them, engaging them in speech.
|
| Why should it be society's burden to deradicalize people?
| Does this work at scale? What of all the people who heard
| Davis or his ideas but were not persuaded? Is the number of
| people he failed to convince known?
|
| Finally, what of the people who, according to your theory,
| only become more 'radicalized' when they encounter the
| position that their views are wrong or harmful?
|
| There's just as good of a chance that one hundred Daryl
| Davis' trying to deradicalize people will actually cause
| radicals to dig in their heels. Maybe these hypothetical
| Davis' don't have a welcoming tone. Maybe the radical doesn't
| want to listen to a hypothetical Davis because of his race.
| Maybe the radical actually publicises the exchange and uses
| it as a megaphone to gish-gallop with 'radical' ideas. Maybe
| the radical convinces a hypothetical Davis that actually the
| radical and hateful ideas are correct. Doesn't honest and
| open dialogue, after all, permit both sending and receiving?
|
| I feel as though the Daryl Davis approach has a lot more risk
| and a lot less going for it empirically than you suppose.
| airhead969 wrote:
| > Why should it be society's burden to deradicalize people?
|
| Because your neighbor's problem eventually becomes your
| problem. Cases in point: Saudi Arabia helps 9/11
| terrorists; US meddling in South American politics
| promoting fascists, death squads, and the War on Drugs
| fueling powerful gangs and cartels; Western-caused climate
| change refugees fleeing Africa, the Middle East, and South
| America; Dec 8, 1947.
|
| > Does this work at scale?
|
| No. It doesn't matter if something is difficult or not if
| it is a moral duty to counter. "I do not fight fascists
| because I will win. I fight fascists because they are
| fascists." -- Chris Hedges." It is a moral imperative for
| anyone and everyone in a potential capacity of mentorship
| to dispel and debunk faulty ideas that neighborhood youth
| get involved with. No one can be an island onto themselves
| and local community is essential (although all-but-
| dissolved in most modern city life). (Boston Marathon
| Bombers)
|
| _" I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the
| death your right to say it"_ - _The Friends of Voltaire_ by
| Beatrice Hall
|
| When you start editorializing an individual's speech rather
| than debating them, it's a slippery-slope down the road to
| censorship and fascism. There are some costs to having an
| open society, like the risks of being open. You might hear
| some idea you might not like, or find absolutely repugnant.
| Having venues that can debate and debunk bad ideas with
| better better ones is preferable to preaching to the choir.
| Someone can't influence or the change minds of people they
| refuse to talk or listen to. Society will eventually come
| to a head if there become separate, hermetically-sealed
| ideological camps persist for much longer; this is a very
| dangerous phenomenon for social stability.
| intended wrote:
| Yes yes, and these arguments were all well and good when
| we were young and innocent on the internet.
|
| But those arguments rested on so many assumption that the
| internet has disproved.
|
| "When you editorialize instead of debate..." for example
| - There are ways to configure sentences that they will
| parasitically thrive on debate, without actually being
| debated. Like a virus that targets the immune system.
|
| This happens all the time - cranks, nazis, racists of all
| stripes will want to start a discussion on "IQ" or some
| seemingly innocent facet so that they can appear to be a
| victim and radicalize minds which don't have an anti
| virus pre installed.
|
| I forget the original saying, but agitators deign to
| argue with you. They don't really think your ideas or
| rebuttals are material, instead you are simply a backdrop
| for them to perform their recruitment drives.
| claudiawerner wrote:
| >Because your neighbor's problem eventually becomes your
| problem.
|
| This is an argument for _doing something_ , not
| necessarily for putting a burden on individuals to
| counter extremist and murderous ideology - especially
| those who are most likely to be targeted by it. It may be
| a moral imperative, but moral imperatives really are
| sensetive to a variety of individual circumstances to
| exercise, because they only work by way of moral
| obligations and moral responsibilities - both of which
| are only parts of rational decision making.
|
| Someone who has had a strong past of experiencing racism
| may balk at the idea of starting a dialogue with an
| extremist whose entire ideology is founded on the view
| that he is not even worthy of consideration as a
| civilized person.
|
| I firmly believe that most people lack the capacity of
| mentorship, or if they have it, then they are not
| terribly experienced with it. The fact that _professional
| mentors_ take so much time and effort to nurture someone
| _who they know is already receptive_ and still fail
| should be a testament to a significantly worse ability in
| the common person to do that, especially when, as I
| mentioned, communication is a two way street. What makes
| you think the mentors will be any less susceptible to
| radicalization than the people they are mentoring?
|
| The biggest problem is that most people do not have the
| requisite knowledge to be such mentors. They may know
| racism is wrong, but maybe they can't explain it
| sufficiently well. They may appeal to humanity, but it
| may not get far to do so with someone whose ideology for
| the past two decades has been the fundamental inhumanity
| of the person they're talking to. Needless to say, all
| this completely leaves out the fact that I really don't
| think most extremists are keeping an open mind in the
| first place.
|
| >When you start editorializing an individual's speech
| rather than debating them, it's a slippery-slope down the
| road to censorship and fascism.
|
| Slippery slopes need to be justified, not merely
| supposed. The mechanism needs to be explained and the
| risk made clear. For example, the mechanism that one form
| of speech (like hate speech, defined stringently) can be
| banned. It is not at all obvious that this leads to other
| ideas being banned; the legislature, for instance, need
| not and generally does not work on the basis of
| precedent. Superior courts can override precedent.
| Similarly, the fact that a hate speech law can be abused
| is not a good argument; plenty of laws can be abused,
| including, say, anti-terrorism laws. This does not mean
| that anti-terrorism laws should be done away with.
|
| >Having venues that can debate and debunk bad ideas with
| better better ones is preferable to preaching to the
| choir.
|
| This assumes the debating and debunking works and wins
| out over rhetoric. We're not dealing with pure ideas,
| we're dealing with two forms of _expression_ of those
| ideas: firstly, hate speech which is a generally non-
| argumentative and derogatory expression of the idea
| designed to be hurtful; secondly, speeches, texts,
| videos, music, etc. which combines rhetoric and
| argumentation. Debate does nothing for the first
| category. It may do something for the latter category,
| but it 's unclear if it does so at the scale or
| effectiveness to satisfy the moral obligation you pointed
| out.
|
| >Someone can't influence or the change minds of people
| they refuse to talk or listen to.
|
| The point of the laws discussed is not to change peoples'
| minds, it's to hobble the spread of their ideas.
| Veen wrote:
| > child pornography by being censored creates a taboo
| around it
|
| Surely it's the other way around. It is censored because
| there is a taboo around it. The taboo comes first.
| Lammy wrote:
| > it presupposes that free speech is so good and basic that
| it overrides all other rights.
|
| Yes. Speech is not action :)
| [deleted]
| claudiawerner wrote:
| The fact that speech can be distinguished from action
| does not in itself provide a reason to prioritize speech
| over action. Further, speech and action share a number of
| commonalities that there are good arguments made (by
| Susan Brison and Frederick Schauer, for instance) that
| the categorical difference between them rests on a
| philosophical error.
| Lammy wrote:
| When one censors 'speech' they are really censoring
| thought. We just call it speech because that's the
| highest-bandwidth and lowest-latency mechanism us humans
| have to exchange our ideas. Eumemics and eugenics are two
| sides of the same coin, and I am very suspicious of
| people practicing either of them.
| claudiawerner wrote:
| >When one censors 'speech' they are really censoring
| thought.
|
| This is incorrect; we would surely say that a
| hypothetical person who cannot communicate at all, only
| absorb information, has thoughts, even if he has no
| speech. Further, thoughts are abstract, quite literally
| figments of the imagination. Speech is concrete as
| something we _do_ with thought.
|
| Just because someone is prohibited from, say, shouting
| that Jews should be rounded up and shot in a Jewish
| neighborhood it does not mean he cannot think it or even
| express the idea in other contexts. Speech is
| _expressive_ in that it takes an abstract idea and makes
| it concrete through the action of speaking. Only certain
| forms of the expression of that idea, in certain
| contexts, would be prohibited.
|
| A baseball player will get in trouble for swinging his
| bat on a busy street. He may still swing it at the
| stadium without any trouble. The act of swinging the bat
| hasn't been prohibited, only its specific 'expression',
| provided by its context as determined by time and place
| and who is around him. The player has freedom of bat-
| swinging. We have freedom of thought.
|
| The idea that speech is not action is a relic of the
| doctrine of mind-body dualism, in which the effect of
| words on a listener is so substantially different that
| they are deemed lesser harms, because they affect the
| mind, not the body. Advances in neuroscience and
| philosophy have put dualism in hot water[0]. The law in
| several non-speech related areas has for a long time
| realized dualism is false, such as with the issue of the
| insanity defence and voluntary manslaughter.
|
| [0] https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar
| ticle=1... [1] http://www.susanbrison.com/files/B.16.-spe
| ech_harm_and_the_m...
| intended wrote:
| Daryl Davis does not scale.
|
| Pithy, but I say it after being a big fan of using him as an
| example.
|
| Persuasion has moved from the cottage industry of human
| interaction to industrialized consent manufacturing.
|
| Fox and cable television were the steam engine, social media
| is the industrial revolution. Human scale approaches such as
| Daryl's are akin to using buckets to drain a sea.
| jdlyga wrote:
| Definitely agree. Back a year ago when you saw this kind of
| stuff all over Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc it felt so
| normalized. But now you have to go to fringe websites. It's
| still out there of course. But it's very back-alley and
| definitely makes you take what people are saying with a grain
| of salt.
| vkou wrote:
| It also has much lower reach. Ideas are viral - and don't
| spread very well when they have less exposure.
|
| You don't see too much pro-Al-Qaeda or ISIS material on
| Facebook or Twitter. Somehow, we've managed to censor that
| extremism away.
| Causality1 wrote:
| You're not hanging out in the correct circles or reading in
| the correct language. The proper nouns aren't there but the
| ideas and principles are. White supremacists spend more
| time praising police killings than they do saying "Heil
| Hitler". Change your language to Arabic and you'll see much
| more praise for the beheading of Samuel Paty than "praise
| IS"
| tanseydavid wrote:
| I have to wonder out loud whether many commenters actual
| took the time to read the article.
|
| Because the responses seemed heavily skewed towards "Yeah,
| but..." responses that sort of ignore the article's main
| point.
| vkou wrote:
| The article's main point is that apparently, 10-15% of
| the population voting for unabashed fascists is a
| colossal policy failure.
|
| Whereas I don't actually see that as a problem. In any
| given population, about ~10% of it is going to be
| sympathetic to fascism. That is what it is. It's an
| appealing ideology for a lot of people.
|
| The problem is when you get closer to 40%, or 50%, and
| unabashed fascists start making their way onto first, and
| second-rate political party tickets, as opposed to
| ineffectively screaming into the void on third-rate ones.
| We've just had a bit of a brush with that, here. Not
| interested in repeating it.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| And when the systems/mechanisms for them to oppress their
| opposition were already put in place in an attempt to
| limit them from getting that power in the first place.
|
| If you go down the path of "censorship", you better get
| it right. Otherwise you'll probably be worse off in the
| end.
| vkou wrote:
| As the history of repressive governments has shown, they
| don't need any help in building these systems. Once they
| are in power, they really don't give two figs about how
| open and accepting your society was of viewpoints like
| theirs, and they can quickly assemble any instruments of
| oppression that they find lacking.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there.
| Do you really believe that because it isn't on Facebook
| people have stopped believing it? That people don't believe
| these things, teach their kids, find other avenues to
| organize? We have not censored anything away, ever, in
| human history. This article actually directly addresses
| that.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| This is a shortsighted take IMO. "Fringe" websites are
| growing rapidly while engagement on the big, normal websites
| is declining or slowing down. The problem is people _want to_
| talk about these things, and if that 's what people want to
| talk about they're going to go where they can talk about
| them. This is directly addressed in the article (when we say
| we want to ban hate speech, what we really want to ban is
| hate, but hate cannot be banned). These big legitimate sites
| only feel permanently dominating _now_ , but are not
| permanent by any means. People don't go on the internet and
| talk because talking is a way to use Facebook, people go on
| Facebook to talk about what they want to talk about. If
| people want to talk about edgy or even hateful stuff, they
| will, and if they can't do that on Facebook they'll do it
| elsewhere.
|
| That's not to even get into the fact that all to often these
| terms like "fringe websites" are used by entities to shame
| users into not using their competition, which further
| degrades the integrity of any anti hate message.
| spaced-out wrote:
| >"Fringe" websites are growing rapidly while engagement on
| the big, normal websites is declining or slowing down.
|
| source?
| salawat wrote:
| Better question: If increasing, is it because more topics
| of conversation are getting binned as 'fringe'? Or are
| extremists merely circumventing centralized efforts at
| blocking by moving around, which is exactly what those
| anti-censorship weenies like me jave been saying will be
| the inevitable result?
|
| The problem you ignore or quash never goes away. It just
| gets harder and more distributed.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't know about engagement on mainstream sites
| declining, but the rising popularity of sites like Parler
| and Gab seems undeniable. Parler's recent (attempted)
| deplatforming is evidence enough: you don't bother with a
| tiny fringe site that isn't growing or wielding any
| influence.
| throwaway134oe8 wrote:
| >but the rising popularity of sites like Parler and Gab
| seems undeniable
|
| It does? Any evidence to support this?
| tgragnato wrote:
| Just look at the "leaks"... Their user base is not so big
| to be worrisome, but it's undeniably big. And it's
| growing too.
|
| https://ddosecrets.com/wiki/GabLeaks
| https://ddosecrets.com/wiki/Parler
| ralusek wrote:
| And would you describe things as having gotten better this
| last year?
|
| And I don't mean in the sense that you see less of what you
| think there should be less of online, because then of course
| it's gotten better if that's the variable being minimized. I
| mean, do you think the state of extremism and political unity
| has improved via marginalizing views held by enormous
| portions of the population?
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Yeah, absolutely! In the US, Trump lost the election and we
| have a genuine shot at police reform for the first time in
| a generation. In Europe, the pandemic has exposed the
| incompetence of empty populism.
| meshenna wrote:
| > has exposed the incompetence of empty populism.
|
| I'd say it has exposed incompetence in general.
| splistud wrote:
| summary: looks great through your rose-colored telescope
| eh?
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| If it's difficult for you to see political opinions with
| which you disagree being normalized, imagine how they feel.
| Falling3 wrote:
| It's completely disingenuous to categorize statements like
| "the US tax code is too complex" and "Jews are starting
| forest fires with space lasers" both as just 'political
| opinions'.
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| It's only "disingenuous" if you aren't a liberal. I'm a
| liberal so I believe people are free to hold any opinion
| they want as long as they are not promoting direct harm
| to anyone else and I will not be shamed out of a liberal
| position by exceptional strawmen.
| NoodleIncident wrote:
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/marjorie-taylor-
| gree...
|
| Blonde, sure, but IDK if I'd call her hair straw.
| fatsdomino001 wrote:
| "you can help the redeemable extremists __know__ they're
| indulging in extremism by forcing them to go to fringe websites
| rather than allow them to stay on Twitter and Facebook as if
| nothing is wrong."
|
| This is such a terrible idea. All this accomplishes is causing
| extremists to find echo chambers where they will never actually
| know what they're doing is wrong. It's much better to keep
| extremists in mainstream platforms so they can be called out
| and atleast informed that they are wrong. Your solution is
| totally backwards and accomplishes the opposite of what you're
| hoping for.
| pjc50 wrote:
| In practice, anyone on an extreme platform is also on the
| mainstream ones.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> "you can help the redeemable extremists __know__ they're
| indulging in extremism by forcing them to go to fringe
| websites rather than allow them to stay on Twitter and
| Facebook as if nothing is wrong."
|
| > This is such a terrible idea. All this accomplishes is
| causing extremists to find echo chambers where they will
| never actually know what they're doing is wrong. It's much
| better to keep extremists in mainstream platforms so they can
| be called out and atleast informed that they are wrong. Your
| solution is totally backwards and accomplishes the opposite
| of what you're hoping for.
|
| It's not that simple:
|
| 1. It's totally believable that someone might follow a neo-
| Nazi on twitter, if the neo-Nazi avoids Nazi iconography and
| mainly tweets about Nazi-adjacent topics, but have second
| thoughts about joining an actual neo-Nazi website.
|
| Not all extremists will seek out a fringe echo chamber.
| _Some_ will, but others will not. The result is likely one
| where the most-extreme core gets separated from its
| recruitment opportunities, disrupting the first step in the
| recruitment funnel. That core may get more extreme in its
| echo chamber, but its overall movement could end up being
| smaller and weaker.
|
| 2. Counterintuitively, people tend to dig in to their
| existing beliefs when they're "called out." Also, I'm sure
| every neo-Nazi has been informed _many_ , _many_ times that
| they 're wrong. Extremism is not a problem of lack of
| information.
| fatsdomino001 wrote:
| > That core may get more extreme in its echo chamber, but
| its overall movement could end up being smaller and weaker.
|
| This is precisely the problem. That core will certainly get
| more extreme because there's no cross pollination between
| it and other more moderate groups.
|
| I would rather have more people with less extreme views
| than fewer people with more extreme views, because it's
| much more likely the more extreme people are a greater
| danger to society than the less extreme people.
|
| > Extremism is not a problem of lack of information.
|
| True, but it's more complicated than that. Extremism almost
| always results when you disenfranchise or ostracize a
| community. It's much better to integrate it so there's
| crossflow of information and empathy still. Dehumanizing
| groups of people also dehumanizes yourself.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > This is precisely the problem. That core will certainly
| get more extreme because there's no cross pollination
| between it and other more moderate groups.
|
| But the question is how much? I'm highly skeptical that
| "cross pollination" moderates hard-core neo-Nazis to any
| significant degree, for instance. They might get a little
| more extreme in an echo chamber, but I don't think it
| will be that much more.
|
| In fact, I think the "cross pollination" mainly goes _the
| other way_ , by spreading extremist ideas to moderates
| that are vulnerable to them. Let them spread enough, and
| they could even become _normalized_.
|
| > I would rather have more people with less extreme views
| than fewer people with more extreme views, because it's
| much more likely the more extreme people are a greater
| danger to society than the less extreme people.
|
| I think the better way of thinking about this is "total
| quantity of extremism." You're always going to have a
| hard core, so the question is more about how big will
| that core be, and how many adjacent supporters will it
| have.
|
| Let's say you keep neo-Nazis on twitter, and that leads
| to a hard-core that is 10% less Nazi, on average, but
| that's also ten times larger. You now have a far more
| dangerous situation on your hands.
|
| > True, but it's more complicated than that. Extremism
| almost always results when you disenfranchise or
| ostracize a community. It's much better to integrate it
| so there's crossflow of information and empathy still.
| Dehumanizing groups of people also dehumanizes yourself.
|
| Maybe in some cases, but not others. For instance, neo-
| Nazis extremists weren't created by disenfranchising some
| kind of "moderate" natural neo-Nazi community.
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| > I would rather have more people with less extreme views
| than fewer people with more extreme views, because it's
| much more likely the more extreme people are a greater
| danger to society than the less extreme people.
|
| History proves otherwise. All wars, massacres, tyrannies
| required extreme views to become popularized enough to
| achieve momentum.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| Ctrl+F "Popper" - zero results found.
|
| If you don't provide a cogent counterargument to Karl Popper's
| paradox of tolerance, I can't take an essay like this seriously.
| Simply throwing up your hands and saying, "hate exists, let it
| rain free on the marketplace of ideas" is ... well, not worth a
| lot.
|
| Also, I love the absence of evidence = evidence of absence
| argument:
|
| * Germans have stringent anti-hate speech laws * ... yet there
| are still German extremists!
|
| ... and what if the laws were not so stringent?
| slibhb wrote:
| The "paradox of tolerance" states that a tolerant society must
| be intolerant of intolerance or else it will become an
| intolerant society.
|
| That idea is frequently abused by people who don't know what
| tolerance is. These people conflate "tolerance" and "approval".
| What they actually oppose is disapproval (they only disapprove
| of people who disaprove). For them, being "against
| homosexuality" is intolerant. "Preferring Christianity to
| Islam" is intolerant. "Making a distinction between trans women
| and biological women" is intolerant. But this is all wrong.
| Tolerance is only possible in the presence of disapproval. To
| tolerate something is to put up with it.
|
| A devout Christian who considers homosexuality a sin but who
| works with, is friends with, is neighbors with a gay couple is
| an example of tolerance. He doesn't like homosexuality but he
| puts up with it.
|
| An example of intolerance is someone who tries to "deplatform"
| other people for disapproving of this or that. People can
| approve or disapprove of whatever they like. The qustion is
| whether they put up with it. As long as they do, they are
| tolerant.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| So hatred is only hatred if you act on it?
| slibhb wrote:
| There's a distinction to be made between disapproval and
| hatred. But there's plenty of both to go around.
|
| Neither of them are synonymous with intolerance.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| hatred begets intolerance
| kian wrote:
| While true, a source and its causal sinks are still not
| identical. To whit - in a large enough free society, some
| will choose to offer themselves up for enslavement. Since
| freedom begets slavery, freedom is slavery. All's well
| that's Orwell, right?
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| "The existence of intolerant speech doesn't exclude anyone."
|
| Except people who want to draw certain cartoons.
|
| Do you even think through your statements?
| vwatson wrote:
| The Popper part is easy: In the 1970s, during the student
| revolts, many right leaning people (who would be called
| fascists these days) got platforms on talk shows and politely
| debated their left wing counterparts.
|
| It did not lead to the Fourth Reich, on the contrary, public
| opinion has shifted to the left in and after the 70s.
|
| The right wing backlash you see now is a direct result of the
| insanity and totalitarianism of today's "left", which is really
| a smoke screen for the corporate-directed suppression of the
| middle classes (both black and white).
|
| This Popper statement, made in a completely different era, is
| overused to shut down opponents and justify censorship.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| You can draw a line from rush limbaugh to tuker carlson, they
| built a legion of people who they encouraged not to think for
| themselves and now they are sicking them on the world
|
| >insanity and totalitarianism
|
| citation needed? Thats literally the same line limbaugh used
| in the 70s
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop perpetuating flamewar and posting
| low-quality ideological battle comments to HN? You've been
| doing a ton of it on HN, unfortunately, and it's not what
| this site is for. Regardless of how right your underlying
| positions are or you feel they are, discussion here needs
| to be better than this.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| justaman wrote:
| >You can draw a line from rush limbaugh to tuker carlson,
| they built a legion of people who they encouraged not to
| think for themselves and now they are sicking them on the
| world
|
| Citation needed.
| GVIrish wrote:
| > * Germans have stringent anti-hate speech laws * ... yet
| there are still German extremists!
|
| Yeah I found that a bit of a strange point. I don't think the
| goal of Germany's anti-hate laws was to magically and
| completely eradicate extremism. It was to prevent them from
| getting powerful enough to take Germany back down the path to
| darkness that they did during the Third Reich.
|
| Not to say that I think their model should replicated or
| exported, just that I don't think that's right lens to view it
| through. Just like saying, 'Well the Civil Rights Act didn't
| eradicate racism, what's the point?'
| mariksolo wrote:
| I can't take your argument seriously. Simply throwing up your
| hands and saying, "This theory exists, but it wasn't addressed
| in the article!" is ... well, not worth a lot.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| I keep running into "but who are the intolerant people these
| days?"
|
| The J K Rowling mess as an example: clearly someone
| historically very tolerant. Writes some articles about some
| areas where she disagrees with the current thinking. Is
| immediately cancelled. I don't see much tolerance there? Who,
| exactly, is being intolerant here? Or is it just everyone?
| Maybe I should not tolerate this any more?
|
| We've totally lost the ability to have a civil discussion about
| anything with anyone where the participants can disagree about
| the subject. Part of this, I'm convinced, is that social media
| doesn't actually allow a discussion. Everyone is screaming in
| the town square.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| JK rowling tolerant? Is this the same woman who wrote a race
| of hooked nose greedy villians who control all the world's
| banks into her books?
| Seirdy wrote:
| Don't forget the elves who turned out to actually enjoy
| slavery, and the girl fighting for their liberation
| essentially being labeled a "whiny SJW" after founding
| STEW.
|
| It's easy to make a series of tweets to look like an ally,
| but they don't offset starting a campaign against trans
| recognition. Ask yourself if you'd take a company promoting
| "environmental sustainability" seriously if it continues to
| fund climate-change-denying politicians.
|
| Easy advocacy doesn't cancel out the more significant types
| of advocacy.
| websites2323 wrote:
| We haven't totally lost the ability to have a civil
| discussion, we've just for some reason raised the stakes to
| mean that we should be able to have a civil discussion in a
| forum of hundreds of people, behind screens. Civil discussion
| exists plenty in smaller forums, like group chats and
| discords and slacks where people care about being civil.
| justaman wrote:
| [On the internet, people aren't afraid of getting punched
| in the mouth] - Mike Tyson
| sir_bearington wrote:
| The paradox of tolerance is simply factually incorrect when it
| comes to speech. The existence of intolerant speech doesn't
| exclude anyone. People who are offended don't have to listen.
| The paradox of tolerance only exists when people or groups are
| taking action to exclude others. And we _don 't_ have blanket
| tolerance for actions, only for speech. Someone is free to talk
| the talk of intolerance, but the moment talk turns into action
| the law swoops in and takes them away.
|
| In short, the paradox of tolerance doesn't hold true at all
| when we're talking about blanket freedom of speech. If we were
| talking about anarchy, blanket freedom not just of speech but
| of actions, then yes the paradox of tolerance comes into play.
| Some
| benchaney wrote:
| Is there any actual evidence that the paradox of tolerance is
| correct? I suspect people stopped taking it seriously (and
| mentioning it in discussions on speech) because it's advocates
| always seem to expect everyone to take it on faith, instead of
| providing a real argument to support their claims.
| sevencolors wrote:
| To me it's like leaving cancer unchecked, and praying it'll
| go away. Just because you dislike it. There needs to be a
| point at which we collectively go, nope that's too far.
| You're done. And we prune back the cancer.
| traject_ wrote:
| The irony of the paradox of intolerance is that Popper
| defines it in the context of physically violent and
| irrational intolerance:
|
| "But we should claim the right to suppress them if
| necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that
| they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational
| argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may
| forbid their followers to listen to rational argument,
| because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments
| by the use of their fists or pistols."
|
| Most citations of Popper's paradox are used, however, to
| justify suppression of "dangerous" ideas with very indirect
| and nebulous notions of harm on the level of social
| contagion. So the irony is that modern uses of the paradox
| is intolerance beyond acceptable limits for Popper.Or, in
| other words, in a society with a developed norm for
| tolerance, the intolerant can only resort to the paradox to
| censor ideas as long as people just believe the paradox
| naively and don't take a careful look at the potential harm
| caused.
| cousin_it wrote:
| Popper's book is more philosophical than historical, and I'm
| as annoyed with people who only know one soundbite from it as
| the next guy, but over time I've come to believe that the
| paradox encodes an important truth: there's no reason for me
| to support freedom of speech for those who don't support
| mine. Maybe the way of the future is something like Substack,
| groups of people who say "we'll protect each other's right to
| speak freely, but if you want to enjoy our protection too,
| you must contribute materially". Without such coordination,
| there's no point playing the good soldier in favor of free
| speech for everyone. Freedom for those who care enough to
| coordinate is the only way freedom ever worked.
| oehpr wrote:
| "there's no reason for me to support freedom of speech for
| those who don't support mine."
|
| Tit for tat free speech. That's interesting. Reminds me a
| bit of the GPL, honestly.
|
| Thanks for posting, I'm going to reflect on this idea and
| it's ramifications.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _Is there any actual evidence that the paradox of
| tolerance is correct?_ "
|
| Nope, it's just a sound bite that people latched on to that
| supports their pre-existing beliefs, even though it's just
| one philosopher's opinion. Despite the fact that they're
| appealing to Popper's authority, most people using can't even
| name the book that Popper wrote that in, let alone any of his
| other philosophical stances.
|
| That's why I say that there's a Meta-Paradox of Intolerance:
| " _Those who quote Popper 's Paradox of Intolerance are
| usually merely seeking to use it to justify their own
| intolerance, paradoxically identifying themselves as among
| those whom the Paradox of Intolerance warns us against._"
| bhupy wrote:
| Ironically, I could even cite Popper's Paradox of Tolerance
| as itself problematic: the more I tolerate the use of that
| philosophical argument, the more likely we are to lose the
| ability to freely express ourselves, therefore we ought to
| ban its use.
|
| It's a circular argument that assumes its premise is
| correct a priori without any proof.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Like most of these rants against "censorship" they skip over
| people's rights to restrict speech as a form of speech itself:
| there is no moral (or legal) right to give people you disagree
| with a forum or audience to express their view.
|
| Calling to silence others (that is, encouraging them to take your
| view of not giving them an audience) is fine as long as people
| have a choice on how to respond.
|
| If there is some notion that we have no choice but to enable
| other's views then our own views become secondary to them. We no
| longer have absolute control over expressing the views we agree
| or disagree with.
|
| Is the government or some other absolute authority censoring
| wrong? Yes. Are powerful monopolies (or near monopolies) wrong to
| censor? No, because they have the same speech rights as others,
| the problem there lies in the market power of the monopolies, not
| their speech.
| bcgraham wrote:
| > Calling to silence others (that is, encouraging them to take
| your view of not giving them an audience) is fine as long as
| people have a choice on how to respond.
|
| The urge to preempt what an audience hears is suspect.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >Like most of these rants against "censorship" they skip over
| people's rights to restrict speech as a form of speech itself:
| there is no moral (or legal) right to give people you disagree
| with a forum or audience to express their view.
|
| I don't disagree with this as stated. But the reality is
| different. When the tech-oligopoly has a mono-ideology and they
| all censor the same people, _and then_ pull the rug (hosting)
| out from under competing platforms, and then rip up the signs
| (dns) pointing to alternatives, and then siege the opposing
| cities (payment processors ban them) it becomes a much worse
| problem. That moves from the theoretical to the practical.
|
| > Are powerful monopolies (or near monopolies) wrong to censor?
| No, because they have the same speech rights as others, the
| problem there lies in the market power of the monopolies, not
| their speech.
|
| Yes, because it's not just websites. It's infrastructure and
| finance colluding with the presentation layer. At what point do
| we all agree that it's a problem, and admit that the powerful
| aren't always right?
| Impossible wrote:
| There are multiple issues with free speech no matter what, and
| some of them are the result of closed platforms that have too
| much power over communication channels, but ultimately need to
| moderate to avoid turning their platform into 8chan. I agree
| with you that many complaints about free speech on the internet
| have weird caveats like... You should have the right to say
| whatever you want without criticism or you should have the
| right to engage in rational debate or play devil's advocate on
| any topic even if another party doesn't want to. Like you said
| this might make the free speech proponent happier, but ends up
| limiting the speech of the person that doesn't want to engage
| in that way.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| So, if AT&T cut out phone service from union sympathizers, that
| would be OK, because they are just expressing their right to
| free speech?
|
| I think there is such a thing as critical communication
| infrastructure, and even if it run by private companies, it
| should be protected from censorship. Whether all of FB or just
| private messaging fall under this is more debatable, but there
| have to be clear limits on what a company that facilitates
| communication between 1 billion people can do.
| Griffinsauce wrote:
| > the problem there lies in the market power of the
| monopolies, not their speech.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| So if there were 50 companies, and all of them censored you
| for saying something really unpopular, would things be any
| better?
|
| Critical infrastructure must be legally protected from
| censorship and (private, mandate-less) eavesdropping.
| Whether it is run by a monopoly or many small companies is
| immaterial.
| XorNot wrote:
| Critical infrastructure has never been regarded as a
| public platform.
|
| No one has been prevented from buying their own internet
| connection or DNS names and running their own site over
| the "common carrier" status internet backbone
| infrastructure.
|
| It's just a lot less useful when your goal is
| radicalization and you need to hit the widest possible
| audience to get conversions.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Is that guaranteed? Parler has found that the machines
| their code ran on could be taken away for having bad
| opinions. I'm not a defender of fascists, if anything I
| lean towards being happy when their megaphone is taken
| away, even when they receive the occasional punch, but
| the precedent this has set with the power of these
| companies is frightening for anyone.
|
| What if Amazon will refuse to do with business with
| people who support unions next? It no longer seems
| impossible to ke.
| XorNot wrote:
| Amazon contracts haven't changed, they always have had
| the right to drop you for any reason.
|
| Amazon is not a common carrier: the cloud, other people's
| data centers, have no legal requirement to be neutral
| about what runs on them (and it's not even clear how this
| would work given the difference between compute and
| communications).
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >Critical infrastructure must be legally protected from
| censorship and (private, mandate-less) eavesdropping.
| Whether it is run by a monopoly or many small companies
| is immaterial.
|
| Well said.
|
| What we have today is an oligopoly on speech by a small
| handful of ideologically identical technotyrants who have
| managed to circumvent the first amendment without ever
| having had to so much as introduce a bill to Congress.
|
| If this keeps going it isn't going to end well.
| GVIrish wrote:
| AT&T is regulated as a common carrier and there are federal
| laws that prevent them from discriminating against their
| customers. I don't think classifying Twitter and Facebook as
| common carriers would work out very well for those companies,
| and I'd imagine they don't want that either.
|
| Maybe there is a different set of regulations that could be
| applied to those platforms beyond something like Section 230.
| But the side effects of that could cause serious damage to
| those companies, depending on how the regulation was crafted.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| > there is no moral (or legal) right to give people you
| disagree with a forum or audience to express their view.
|
| I think there actually is such a moral obligation.
| bopbeepboop wrote:
| "Free speech" in the moral sense is exactly that people who
| operate civil infrastructure shouldn't use their privilege for
| censorship.
|
| So... people who believe in "free speech" as a moral value will
| disagree with your first paragraph -- and hence, your entire
| post.
|
| You assume your conclusion, so your argument fails to be
| persuasive.
|
| "I disagree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death to
| defend your right to say it" is a maxim of free speech -- and a
| bold declaration of the exact opposite of your message: if we
| want a free society, we have a moral duty to aid the freedom of
| others -- not suppress it.
| hnhg wrote:
| I guess you have a problem with news editorial decisions
| then? For example, Fox News have a strong bias running
| through their programming. Isn't that a kind of implicit
| censorship of ideas?
| smaryjerry wrote:
| Opinions are biased and specific people and programs are
| biased on Fox News and many other channels, but to be a
| journalist you literally have to correct false statements
| you make. This makes Fox News as reliable as all other
| stations. People often post memes about Fox News or CNN
| saying something wildly stupid but don't realize they are
| posting a literal opinion from an opinion show not news
| from a news show.
| GVIrish wrote:
| > but to be a journalist you literally have to correct
| false statements you make
|
| What? No, you absolutely do not have to correct false
| statements you make to be a journalist. Reputable
| publications post retractions and clarifications because
| that is how they maintain their reputation, but it is in
| no way a requirement.
| smaryjerry wrote:
| You actually do or you can lose your license to
| broadcast.
|
| The FCC is prohibited by law from engaging in censorship
| or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press. It
| is, however, illegal for broadcasters to intentionally
| distort the news, and the FCC may act on complaints if
| there is documented evidence of such behavior from
| persons with direct personal knowledge.
|
| This is also besides slander and libel, lying about an
| individual or organization.
| GVIrish wrote:
| > It is, however, illegal for broadcasters to
| intentionally distort the news, and the FCC may act on
| complaints if there is documented evidence of such
| behavior from persons with direct personal knowledge.
|
| What particular laws are you referring to?
|
| > This is also besides slander and libel, lying about an
| individual or organization.
|
| Sure, you can get sued for that. But getting sued for
| libel or defamation doesn't mean you can't be a
| journalist anymore. A journalist who loses a libel
| lawsuit can keep writing even if they've been sued into
| oblivion.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Note how "to defend your right to say it" actually makes
| sense in its normal context of positive and negative rights.
| One can in theory fight to defend _every person's_ right to
| say what they want to say, because saying something generally
| does not preclude anyone else from also saying something.
|
| However, these modifications doesn't work the same way: "to
| defend your right to be trending on Twitter" or "to defend
| your right to be on CNN tonight." These things are still
| forms of speech, of course, and yet their exercise does in
| fact preclude others from likewise exercising. It doesn't
| make sense do defend _every person's_ right to be trending on
| Twitter.
| bopbeepboop wrote:
| The response is that Twitter is more like a neighborhood
| bar than CNN -- and yeah, it would be pretty weird to
| exclude people from the bar's karaoke or comedy night based
| on their political beliefs. Being able to speak your mind
| at the bar (or other neighborhood center) is exactly what
| free speech is about.
|
| Actually, it would be illegal to ban people based on
| politics (as Twitter does) where I live (Seattle), as doing
| so violates rules for public accommodations which require
| the owner (a private company) not to discriminate based on
| political ideology. Rules for private establishments to
| enforce public access and equality are normal.
|
| Whether or not you think it makes sense to defend the right
| to be trending on Twitter depends on whether you view it
| like the bar (mic night open to all) or like CNN (editorial
| control).
|
| Of course, if Twitter is like CNN and not the bar, they
| should lose copyright protections -- those aren't meant for
| edited anthologies (like CNN).
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Disclaimer: I don't really use Twitter, so my understanding
| of its mechanics might be wrong.
|
| Isn't "trending on Twitter" a popularity contest? As in
| something's "trending" because more people (users, as
| opposed to Twitter the company or their moderators) have
| chosen to interact with that tweet instead of some other?
|
| I think that "to defend your right to say it", in this
| context, does mean "to defend your right to be trending on
| Twitter". What I understand by that is that anyone has a
| right to not be artificially prevented from trending, such
| as hiding the tweet from other users (censorship) or "not
| counting the votes" correctly which won't have a tweet
| "trend" even though it's the most retweeted / replied to.
|
| As I've said on another comment on this thread, my tweet is
| my speech, it's not Twitter's. And if the "trending" is the
| effect of the users' actions, having a tweet become
| trending is the collective speech of the users, not
| twitter's.
|
| It's pretty much the same thing with CNN. Having someone on
| "cnn tonight" is CNN's speech. They choose to have person A
| instead of person B.
|
| Twitter removing a tweet or otherwise preventing it from
| trending is like some external entity - e.g. the cable
| company - preventing CNN from having person C on the show
| because they don't agree with person C's speech.
|
| In my opinion, in this scenario, CNN is like the Twitter
| user, not like Twitter the company. Just because they have
| some third party on the show doesn't make CNN any less of a
| publisher of speech. Just as if a Twitter user chooses to
| quote someone instead of someone else (as opposed to
| twitting an "original thought" or "own opinion").
| tshaddox wrote:
| I think you're making a common mistake, which is to
| assume there's some "natural" algorithm that determines
| which tweets trend, and that human intervention is
| "unnatural" and unfair.
|
| But on the contrary, Twitter's trending feature (and
| indeed all distribution on all public social media
| networks I'm aware of) is _active promotion_ of speech.
| Humans at Twitter are deciding which tweets trend,
| regardless of whether they're doing so manually or using
| algorithms (which they designed) to automate the process.
|
| Even a very simple change to a very simple ranking
| algorithm, like changing the relative value of
| likes/comments/etc. or the time decay of whatever values
| are being counted, can significantly change which content
| gets promoted. These are choices that humans make at
| Twitter.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > I think you're making a common mistake, which is to
| assume there's some "natural" algorithm that determines
| which tweets trend, and that human intervention is
| "unnatural" and unfair.
|
| That's partly true. I think it's "unfair", or rather
| disingenuous, only when the company claims there's no
| manual intervention. I wouldn't really have an issue with
| a company saying "we're looking to promote this or that
| speech". I think no one really takes issue that Democrat
| or Republican conventions don't have speakers from the
| opposing parties. They are clearly labeled "Democrat", so
| people expect this going in.
|
| I think the crux of the matter is these platforms pretend
| being an unbiased space for people to communicate, when
| they clearly aren't. Or rather, they aren't as open
| anymore. Once people flocked to them, and they became a
| common place of exchange, the rules drastically changed.
| XorNot wrote:
| Why did the rules change? Twitter, and any other private
| company, has never been under any legal obligation in
| it's business to provide a public space and it's not
| clear how you'd even define them as providing one (seeing
| as how the servers are in Twitter's datacenters, using
| Twitter's network, paid for by Twitter's revenue).
|
| Literally everything on Twitter is Twitter's property
| other then where governed by intellectual property law
| agreements and even then _it 's still someone's private
| property they have a right to control!_
|
| A country club being very popular doesn't suddenly make
| it a public space.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > Why did the rules change?
|
| I'm not a Twitter user so don't know exactly, but from
| what I see being discussed, it seems to me that there
| used to be more tolerance towards certain groups
| (apparently right wing, but probably others, too). But
| maybe that's just it, the rules themselves haven't
| changed, they're just more strictly enforced now (I
| actually don't know).
|
| I'd say that what they're doing is obviously not illegal,
| or else we probably wouldn't be having this conversation
| because it would be much more clear-cut.
|
| However, it's more of a "moral" issue, for lack of a
| better term. They advertised the _platform_ as a medium
| for _everybody_ to exchange. Now that a lot of people
| have gone there because of this advertisement, it has
| become more or less a public utility.
|
| Now, again, I'm not saying what they're doing is
| _illegal_ , they are not legally a utility, there are
| other avenues for people to communicate, etc.
|
| > A country club being very popular doesn't suddenly make
| it a public space.
|
| While I think you're right in the general case, I can't
| help but think there's a question of measure involved.
|
| The country club will advertise exclusivity. Even if it's
| just for pose, and it's actually easy to gain membership,
| it will actively not pretend it's open to any and
| everybody. Also, it will require people be somewhat close
| geographically and will have a fairly limited reach. If
| the club said "we're open to everybody, we want to
| encourage public conversation" [0], then I'd consider it
| the same way I do Twitter.
|
| Contrast this with Twitter, which explicitly advertises
| its openness.[0] And when you can subscribe to Twitter
| just by having a random browser and an internet
| connection, wherever you are in the world, and when
| pretty much anyone and their grandmother are using it to
| communicate, and when there's an assumption (be it
| misguided!) that Twitter is a public space, I think it's
| at least worth it to consider the question.
|
| The answer may well be a firm "no", but it may also be
| "woops, this is actually something new, which we hadn't
| considered in our (quite old) laws. Maybe we should do
| something about it".
|
| To sum it all up, I think Twitter, FB, etc are all a
| fairly new kind of "thing". They are private entities in
| that they are funded, operated, etc by a private company
| and with that private company's goal in mind. But their
| operations are clearly designed to attract the most
| people who then communicate on their platform.
|
| Just as we regulated what can and can't be done by a
| telephone company or an electrical company (all private
| entities!) when those came about, I wouldn't be shocked
| for there to be some kind of specific regulation for
| those platforms, more than "just don't break any laws".
| It seems pretty obvious to me that trying to apply pre-
| existing models to them doesn't work all that well.
|
| ---
|
| [0] From about.twitter.com, emphasis mine:
|
| > We serve the * public* conversation. That's why it
| matters to us that people have a _free_ and safe space to
| talk.
|
| > We believe real change starts with conversation. Here,
| your voice matters. _Come as you are_ and together we'll
| do what's right (not what's easy) _to serve the public
| conversation_.
| XorNot wrote:
| It is extremely odd to find so many on Hacker News
| arguing for laws to say "that server you own and run in
| your house that hosts a small web forum...that's a public
| space now, you'll not be deleting things from it
| anymore". Because there's no way somehow Twitter is a
| public space but any random phpBB isn't - they both ask
| for an email address to sign up and can reject me at that
| point if they don't like my provider.
|
| There are no laws governing how a corporation defines
| it's "values" as an entity and it certainly has no need
| to follow that - freedom of speech is my freedom to lie
| through my teeth publicly about everything I believe, for
| example.
|
| So again: Twitter has always been able to talk about how
| it's for things, but at the end of the day it's Twitter's
| garden and we all play in it.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > It is extremely odd to find so many on Hacker News
| arguing for laws to say "that server you own and run in
| your house that hosts a small web forum...that's a public
| space now,
|
| I mean if for you the scale simply doesn't come into
| equation, then yeah, I guess Twitter, serving millions
| and millions of users and being used for communication by
| many public figures is exactly the same thing as a random
| server in someone's basement serving 100 people talking
| about some niche subject.
|
| Of course there has to be a line drawn to distinguish the
| two, and I don't know where it should be drawn. I think
| it's a tough call.
|
| But then, in the case of FB and Twitter, maybe this has
| "run out of hand"? Maybe those platforms became public
| forum in spite of the companies' wishes? Let's assume
| that's the case. Does that mean we shouldn't do anything
| about it?
|
| > There are no laws governing how a corporation defines
| it's "values" as an entity and it certainly has no need
| to follow that - freedom of speech is my freedom to lie
| through my teeth publicly about everything I believe, for
| example.
|
| It is, but your doing that exposes you to my freedom of
| calling you a liar. Hence, the "moral" component I talked
| about in my previous post.
|
| I think where the government should come in is when
| you're trying to get everyone inside your private space,
| to use it as a general communications medium (as opposed
| to niche, interest-based), and then you cut off those you
| don't like for whatever reason. Would you be OK with a
| utility, say the electric company, denying you service
| because they don't agree with your - non-illegal! - use
| of their electricity? If not, why's Twitter different?
| XorNot wrote:
| You've avoided answering the question: if Twitter and
| other private platforms are suddenly "public spaces" due
| to scale...what does that mean? Practically? These are
| businesses with costs, expenses, legal liabilities (i.e.
| copyright and defamation law), advertisers to keep happy
| for revenue.
|
| You're demanding the government step in and nationalize a
| business which in no way has a monopoly on a concept
| which has never been protected - the right to a broadcast
| platform.
| peytn wrote:
| It probably means changing laws to allow users to hold
| internet platforms liable for harms caused. All parties
| can then have their day(s) in court. That seems fair to
| me.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I'm not talking about nationalizing anything, just
| defining what they are. In the particular case of Twitter
| and FB, I'd be on the side of declaring them utilities.
| They wouldn't be liable for what people say there as long
| as it's otherwise legal. In return, they wouldn't be
| allowed to cut people off without due process (in an
| actual court, not by some contractor following an order
| because the CEO doesn't like someone).
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >Isn't "trending on Twitter" a popularity contest?
|
| Right up until it runs into their 'trending blacklist'.
| An admin tool that the existence of was leaked a while
| back.
| Bud wrote:
| We don't have a "moral duty" to force corporations to allow
| Nazis on their platform, though.
|
| The Nazis are perfectly capable of building their own
| platform.
| bopbeepboop wrote:
| Twitter allows the CCP to post pro-genocide propaganda
| about how they "emancipate" the minds of Uyghur women.
|
| Disney filmed Mulan next to a concentration camp where
| people are butchered for organs and thanked the CCP for
| their generous support.
|
| These are actual acts supporting a genocidal regime engaged
| in ethnic cleansing.
|
| The "Nazis" of modern America are solidly on the left --
| and generally the people calling for censorship.
|
| Twitter's support of pro-genocide propaganda from the CCP
| shows they're definitely unqualified to act as a censor.
| esja wrote:
| What percentage of the people being kicked off these
| platforms are actually Nazis? It seems very close to zero.
| smsm42 wrote:
| There's no legal right, unless you are a government employee
| (who btw routinely censor anyway, e.g. any state university
| with a content-based speech policy is violating the law). But
| there's very much a moral right and moral obligation - if you
| are in a position of power, as people leading the high-tech
| industry and prominent politicians are, you are responsible for
| maintaining the society that promoted you to that power in good
| health.
|
| And good health of the society requires free exchange of ideas
| and freedom to debate this ideas without fear of being
| persecuted and punished. Yes, even if you're end up being wrong
| - in fact, freedom to be wrong (excluding, of course,
| recognition that you're wrong) is vital to any proper debate,
| since if being wrong implies one's destruction and punishment,
| no serious and honest debate is possible, and no serious and
| honest truth-seeking through free exchange of ideas is possible
| either. You'd either fear to express your ideas, if you're
| powerless, or use your power to suppress other's ideas and
| punish them, if you're powerful - and that would have no
| relation with whose ideas are better.
|
| Only when the exchange of ideas are free, and only when ideas
| can participate in this competition without prior approval by
| powerful incumbents, any healthy democratic society is
| possible.
|
| And yes, whoever in power in such society, which now includes
| the big tech leadership, have moral if not legal responsibility
| for it - a responsibility that they are not only neglecting but
| blatantly violating right now. Censorship by powerful
| monopolies is as wrong as censorship by the government, and we
| need to stop hiding behind this stupid idea "but it's not
| government, so we can ignore it".
| GVIrish wrote:
| So in the case that participants on a social platform engage
| in trolling, harassment, and abuse (sometimes with bots),
| that company should not do anything? If some people who are
| attempting to exchange ideas and debate in good faith, are
| shouted down by people hurling epithets and death threats,
| the platform owners should shrug their shoulders?
|
| When people openly promote and even plan violent attacks
| against others big tech should just leave things be?
| benchaney wrote:
| This article has nothing to do with whether or not platforms
| ought to be able to perform content moderation.
|
| The point you are making is just not relevant. Not even
| tenuously.
| blastro wrote:
| > Calling to silence others (that is, encouraging them to take
| your view of not giving them an audience) is fine as long as
| people have a choice on how to respond.
|
| This succinctly expresses a feeling of mine I hadn't been able
| to put into words so beautifully. Thank you!
| jonemi wrote:
| The article made the distinction between empirical "can" you
| censor and normative "should". His point is that censorship or
| cancelling isn't effective.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Watching the score on this post go up and down so much is
| fascinating.
|
| But a warning to those who downvote: It's a trap! By doing so
| you're agreeing with me.
| triceratops wrote:
| Hahaha!
| ycombigator wrote:
| Choosing not to be part of an audience (and encouraging others
| not to be) is not the same as denying others from being part of
| one they wish to be part of.
| slibhb wrote:
| > Like most of these rants against "censorship" they skip over
| people's rights to restrict speech as a form of speech itself:
| there is no moral (or legal) right to give people you disagree
| with a forum or audience to express their view.
|
| Free expression is a moral right.
|
| And what is a platform anyway? A wordpress site? A twitter
| account? An IP address? A bank account? A megaphone? A street
| corner? A sign? How far are you willing to go to shut other
| people up because you disagree with them?
|
| > Calling to silence others (that is, encouraging them to take
| your view of not giving them an audience) is fine as long as
| people have a choice on how to respond.
|
| How did we turn so quickly to this view? When I was growing up,
| everyone would have blanched at the suggestion that attempting
| to "silence others" is a-okay. It wasn't that it was illegal.
| It was that it was a strategy that would only occur to weak,
| ineffectual people who were afraid to argue on the merits.
|
| > Is the government or some other absolute authority censoring
| wrong? Yes. Are powerful monopolies (or near monopolies) wrong
| to censor? No, because they have the same speech rights as
| others, the problem there lies in the market power of the
| monopolies, not their speech.
|
| By what principle is it wrong for the government to censor?
| Once you've answered that, please explain how that principle
| magically stops at the government.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> Like most of these rants against "censorship" they skip
| over people's rights to restrict speech as a form of speech
| itself: there is no moral (or legal) right to give people you
| disagree with a forum or audience to express their view.
|
| > Free expression is a moral right.
|
| > And what is a platform anyway? A wordpress site? A twitter
| account? An IP address? A bank account? A megaphone? A street
| corner? A sign? How far are you willing to go to shut other
| people up because you disagree with them? ...
|
| > By what principle is it wrong for the government to censor?
| Once you've answered that, please explain how that principle
| magically stops at the government.
|
| Yeah, it's a moral right, but its implementation is more
| complicated than a lot of people want to acknowledge.
|
| Is it censorship for you to refuse to wear a shirt that I
| give you with some slogan I agree with? No. Is it censorship
| for you to take down a yard sign with that slogan that I
| placed in your front yard? No. What if you allowed someone
| else to put up a yard sign that you agree with? Still no.
|
| If literally one guy owns all the land in the world, is it
| censorship for him to control what signs get put up? Almost
| certainly.
|
| No one's going to be able to give you a _pithy_ principle
| that fits in an internet comment that tells you where the
| censorship /not censorship line is, given the huge grey areas
| between those extremes. This is an area where lots of
| interests need to be balanced, and where reasonable people
| can disagree.
| mahogany wrote:
| > And what is a platform anyway? A wordpress site? A twitter
| account? An IP address? A bank account? A megaphone? A street
| corner? A sign? How far are you willing to go to shut other
| people up because you disagree with them?
|
| Well, I'm curious, what do _you_ think it is?
|
| If I run a forum or a blog, should I have to allow any
| comment, to be morally in the right? Let's say I run a forum
| dedicated to discussing Christianity, and some person keeps
| posting arguments that God isn't real, or posts pictures of
| aborted fetuses, in every thread on my forum. If free
| expression is a moral right, is it immoral for me to remove
| such content from any thread? Even threads about daily
| worship or about lost loved ones?
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I think you have a point in that no one has a right to force me
| to listen to their speech.
|
| However, I think that in the case of the monopolies being
| discussed here, it's different. The issue is that they "enable"
| speech in a generic way. They don't enable this or that speech
| in particular. They also don't force A to listen to B's speech.
| If anything, they do the complete opposite, what with the whole
| "echo chamber" situation. I think this is the whole meat of the
| "platform vs publisher" debate.
|
| A newspaper or other media have to actively "enable" something.
| When they publish speech A, they choose to not publish speech
| B. It's often an "either / or", at least for questions of
| space. They produce whatever speech they print / show. It's
| theirs, it's their point of view.
|
| However, Facebook, Twitter and other similar companies only put
| out a tool. This tool is then used by this or that person to
| speak this or that argument. FB doesn't actively and directly
| help speaker A anymore that they help speaker B. Also, as an FB
| user, no one forces you to listen to B's speech if you don't
| care for it. Your right not to listen to speech you disagree
| with is not infringed. If I publish a story on FB, it's my
| story, my speech, not Facebook's. Just as if I shout in the
| town square it's my speech that I shout. It doesn't become the
| mayor's speech because it's in his town or the square's
| architect because he built it in such a way that my voice can
| physically be heard.
|
| If you consider that FB has some right to prevent people from
| speaking "wrong" views, then why stop at FB? We should come up
| with ways to help other companies to prevent their product from
| being used for speech and other actions they don't agree with.
| Like the power company. Maybe they don't like their electricity
| being used to spread some "wrong" ideas. I'm pretty sure the
| local bakery isn't all that happy either to support some X-ist
| fanatic.
|
| Where do we draw the line?
| adamcstephens wrote:
| The argument is we draw the line at public versus private.
| Elected governments are not allowed to restrict speech, but
| private companies are. I don't subscribe to this view, but
| it's what the libertarian paternalists think.
| GVIrish wrote:
| > However, Facebook, Twitter and other similar companies only
| put out a tool. This tool is then used by this or that person
| to speak this or that argument. FB doesn't actively and
| directly help speaker A anymore that they help speaker B.
|
| Facebook actually deliberately manipulates people's feeds in
| order to promote content that will increase engagement.
| Twitter does the same by default.
|
| > Just as if I shout in the town square it's my speech that I
| shout. It doesn't become the mayor's speech because it's in
| his town or the square's architect because he built it in
| such a way that my voice can physically be heard.
|
| The town square is public property. If you instead decide to
| step inside a private business and shout they can have you
| removed from the premises.
|
| > Like the power company. Maybe they don't like their
| electricity being used to spread some "wrong" ideas.
|
| Electricity is regulated as a utility and as such wouldn't be
| allowed to cut service for that reason. A bakery could refuse
| to bake cakes with swatiskas on them if they so chose for
| example. Where the private business's choices on refusing
| service runs into trouble is when they refuse service based
| on a customer's race/ethnicity, religion, or sexual
| orientation.
| BaseS4 wrote:
| And you don't have the freedom to measure the presumed audience
| reach of someone's speech.
|
| Furthermore, your calculation of someone's reach isn't entitled
| to be the standard of how reduction of reach is to be applied.
|
| In fact, you don't even own the audience or the platform that
| you claim you have the right to deny others from using.
|
| You have absolutely no say, sway, or stake in anything you are
| discussing. You're just hiding behind a Google lobbyist's
| buzzphrase and pretending you are targeting people you don't
| like.
| spoonjim wrote:
| I feel like the choice on how to respond is less than it ever
| was, at least for myself.
|
| It is 100% infeasible for me to contract any of the canon
| taught in my office: diversity is a top priority, women are
| oppressed, etc. I don't even disagree with all of it, but I do
| know that I don't have the option of doing anything but
| earnestly nodding my head at the diversity events.
| SiVal wrote:
| By that argument, the US "monopoly or near monopoly" phone
| company AT&T during the Vietnam War could have decided that
| anyone who spoke on the phone about their opposition to the
| Vietnam War was unpatriotic and canceled their telephone
| service, and leftists who so often now make the argument you're
| making would have supported their right to do so. "The private
| phone companies should be allowed to enforce their terms of
| service prohibiting anything they consider 'hate speech'
| against America," explains Noam Chomsky, adding that "I don't
| share their opinions about the war, but it's not as if the
| govt-run postal service is doing it, so I don't see the
| problem."
|
| The two major credit card companies that dominated could have
| canceled anti-war "haters'" credit cards in the name of
| patriotic support of the just cause, banks closed their
| checking accounts, the major airlines refused to fly them, and
| so on, and those on the left with your principled commitment to
| the right of "monopolies and near monopolies" to enforce their
| political preferences would have had no major objections--as
| long as it really is a general principle and not just a
| pretense.
|
| _Is the government or some other absolute authority censoring
| wrong? Yes. Are powerful monopolies (or near monopolies) wrong
| to censor? No, because they have the same speech rights as
| others_
|
| And yet I suspect that this support for the "freedom" of the
| most powerful to silence, control, and enforce their will is
| not really the general, politically neutral commitment to
| everyone's freedom of choice that it pretends to be.
| XorNot wrote:
| They literally could have if the technology and motivation
| was there, that's why they were considered a monopoly and
| broken up by act of the state: because the lack of a viable
| competitor service means that sort of consumer hostile action
| was possible.
|
| Of course, in reality phone company's exchange the right to
| monitor what you say for common carrier status which makes
| them legally immune to the fact you are saying it, and credit
| card companies do in fact ditch whoever they want because
| they have no such burden.
|
| The solution in one case is obvious (protect net neutrality)
| and the solution in the other case would line up with the
| calls for US Post to be extended to offering basic banking
| services to ensure an appropriate floor on the transaction
| market, and as a government entity would have to allow
| everyone to transact.
|
| It's not clear to me what you seem to think Google, Twitter
| or Facebook should get in response for becoming a "public
| plaza" style arrangement which would be detrimental to their
| business model and wouldn't destroy the rest of the internet
| in the process? After all is a DDOS attack also free speech?
| A botnet? What are we going to obligate them to carry and on
| what basis?
| refurb wrote:
| If you are calling to silence people then you don't believe in
| free speech. Simple as that.
| elastolin wrote:
| Pretty much this.
| square_usual wrote:
| > Are powerful monopolies (or near monopolies) wrong to censor?
| No, because they have the same speech rights as others, the
| problem there lies in the market power of the monopolies, not
| their speech.
|
| This doesn't work if every platform - whether they have market
| power or not - are compelled to censor by mobs. Most recently,
| Glenn Greenwald wrote about journalists trying to get Substack
| to censor its authors [1]. Well before, Signal employees tried
| to make their company have an anti-extremism policy [2].
|
| The fact of the matter is, most people don't know enough about
| censorship to fight against it, and so small groups of
| dedicated people can create enough of an uproar in their
| circles about something to make it untenable for any major
| platform to speak about it, simply because those platforms now
| have to contend with a vocal minority pushing a narrative. This
| has been a very common tactic in India, where I'm from:
| interest groups will object to a movie or a book loudly enough
| to de-facto, and even sometimes, de-jure censor it. Most
| recently, a Netflix series lead to a controversy as it dared to
| show teenagers doing drugs. This lead to Netflix being notified
| buy the Indian equivalent of the CPS, and was directly caused
| by people complaining about the show on Twitter. [3]
|
| There is a pardadox of tolerance with respect to free speech.
| We cannot expect to maintain freedom of expression if we treat
| everyone who actually expresses themselves as a sinner.
|
| 1: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/journalists-start-
| demanding...
|
| 2: https://www.theverge.com/22249391/signal-app-abuse-
| messaging...
|
| 3:
| https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2021/mar/11/netflix-...
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >There is a pardadox of tolerance with respect to free
| speech. We cannot expect to maintain freedom of expression if
| we treat everyone who actually expresses themselves as a
| sinner.
|
| In every thread about free speech, the people against it cite
| the 'paradox of tolerance'. Or half of it anyway. They
| invariably leave off the back half, which is pointedly anti-
| censorship:
|
| >Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of
| tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who
| are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant
| society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the
| tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. -- *In
| this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we
| should always suppress the utterance of intolerant
| philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational
| argument and keep them in check by public opinion,
| suppression would certainly be unwise.* But we should claim
| the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it
| may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on
| the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all
| argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to
| rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to
| answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We
| should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right
| not to tolerate the intolerant.
|
| -Karl Popper
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Saying censorship is unwise as long as an idea remains
| sufficiently unpopular isn't anti censorship.
| [deleted]
| ofrzeta wrote:
| I never understood the point of Strafgesetzbuch section 86a. It
| does not make any sense to outlaw using Nazi symbols. It's like
| outlawing symptoms instead of caring for the illness. People will
| just take it underground and you will have a harder time tracking
| it down.
| modmans2nd wrote:
| Being underground makes it hard for those wishing to spread it
| to spread it.
| ofrzeta wrote:
| Maybe I shouldn't have mixed up two different aspects of this
| question. "Taking it underground" relates more to the
| expression of ideas as the discussed in the article. I don't
| see much of this in the use of the classical Nazi symbols.
|
| On the other hand the law has been used to a ridiculuous
| extent in banning Nazi symbols from all sorts of cultural
| artifacts such as games or movies. Doesn't make any sense to
| me.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Its purpose was somewhat historic in that it kills any attempt
| to invoke their symbolism or terrible power for "legitimacy".
|
| While nearly everyone rightfully recognizes it as terrible some
| see that as fear and a source of power. Fascism is a death cult
| which conflates its ability to commit travesties with strength
| and vicarious empowerment to its supporters to make crimes
| against humanity heroic. Stopping the death cults from drawing
| upon resources for their twisted in-group is a purpose.
|
| The constitution embedded ban means any resurrectionists can be
| hammered down without any credible slippery slope worries.
|
| It is true that a new set could emerge eventually. However
| having to neuter their own symbols undermines their twisted
| claim to strength and makes them look pathetic in the same way
| the battle of Cable Street undermined their claims of strength
| - even with their warped doublethink trying to be both mighty
| victor against overwhelming odds and crying victim after they
| lost is too much.
|
| Gangs get impressionable recruits by dealing violence to
| demonstrate power not being seen getting laid out after they
| try to attack somebody and get decked in the face.
| JamisonM wrote:
| I feel like the author should consider the /actual/ alternative..
| Jobbik, etc with real governing power in places that do not
| "censor" instead of citing 13% support for fascism in France.
|
| It is a complex issue, but censorship does "do" something, lots
| of research out there about how making things like QAnon just a
| little harder to access trims off support at the edges. If you
| want to make this argument you have to reckon with those facts.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Let me ask a related question looking at it from the other
| direction: can you encourage an idea by spreading it more widely?
|
| If not, then propaganda and advertising are both myths that don't
| really work.
| ofrzeta wrote:
| Related: can you make an idea more appealing to some people by
| contemning it?
| oblio wrote:
| Propaganda and advertising absolutely do work.
|
| Chess set sales were up a huge percentage when the Queen's
| Gambit became popular. Daenerys became a somewhat popular baby
| girl's name after Game of Thrones became popular. These are
| super simple, super obvious examples, but you can find more.
|
| They're not guaranteed to work, but they do work.
| [deleted]
| TameAntelope wrote:
| > Look: the most powerful governments, militaries, and
| intelligence services in the world have in recent decades tried
| to prevent the communications of terrorist groups such as Al-
| Qaeda and ISIS, using the most sophisticated digital means
| possible and with the full backing of various publishing and
| social media platforms. And yet those organizations effortlessly
| shared their propaganda and their rhetoric and coordinated across
| distance all the same.
|
| This isn't entirely true [1]:
|
| > As of January 2015, ISIS had reconstituted its regional
| accounts with strong privacy settings, allowing only a small
| group of known ISIS supporters to follow the accounts and read
| their tweets. The content of the tweets--primarily news releases,
| videos and photos from ISIS's various provinces--are then
| disseminated by a number of other smaller accounts using
| hashtags. After the initial dissemination, the content is more
| widely distributed, but at significantly reduced levels from
| early 2014.
|
| > Despite this, the number of new accounts created dropped
| significantly after the first round of suspensions in September
| (section 2.5.4), and while we do not have complete data to make a
| positive assessment, it appears the pace of account creation has
| lagged behind the pace of suspensions.
|
| Another study about the impacts of Twitter's more aggressive
| stance against ISIS found, "These findings support the notion
| that Twitter's policy deteriorates IS followers' ability to gain
| traction on the platform, likely hindering their reach to
| potential recruits. " [2].
|
| A third study also concluded, "Our data showed that the costs for
| most pro-IS users of engaging on Twitter (in terms of deflated
| morale, diffused messages and persistent effort needed to
| maintain a public presence) now largely outweigh the benefits."
| [3].
|
| Deplatforming seems to work to reduce the spread of extremist
| ideas, which then reduces the spread of extremist actions, based
| on the years of research we've apparently been doing on the topic
| prior to today. We can reasonably disagree on the philosophy (and
| this appears to largely be a think piece), but there are
| practical realities that cannot be ignored.
|
| [1] https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/06/isis_tw...
|
| [2]
| https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/Digital...
|
| [3]
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319395856_DISRUPTIN...
|
| [4] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1348147867739975681.html
| <- where I found this info (there's more here I didn't add to
| this comment, all credit to @AmarAmarasingam for compiling this
| data)
| Bud wrote:
| These are very good examples, but we just witnessed an even
| better one: Trump has been, for all practical purposes,
| entirely silenced, simply because Twitter deplatformed him.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Trump spoke at CPAC. Press covered it.
| blockmarker wrote:
| Because he didn't go anywhere else. He could have joined
| Parler or Gab and continued drawing attention.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| He did, and is.
|
| Just because you only pay attention to mainstream (D) media
| doesn't mean he's not on others.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Donald Trump did not join Parler or Gab.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| https://gab.com/realDonaldTrump
|
| edit: should have done my own research better, the
| profile reads:
|
| >Reserved for the 45th President of the United States of
| America This account is an uncensored Twitter archive and
| shares email statements sent by The Office of Donald J.
| Trump.
|
| AFAIK Trump isn't on gab.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >As of January 2015, ISIS had reconstituted its regional
| accounts with strong privacy settings, allowing only a small
| group of known ISIS supporters to follow the accounts and read
| their tweets. The content of the tweets--primarily news
| releases, videos and photos from ISIS's various provinces--are
| then disseminated by a number of other smaller accounts using
| hashtags. After the initial dissemination, the content is more
| widely distributed, but at significantly reduced levels from
| early 2014.
|
| I'm sure detonating high explosives on their heads and putting
| bullets through most of them had nothing to do with it!
|
| > Despite this, the number of new accounts created dropped
| significantly after the first round of suspensions in September
| (section 2.5.4), and while we do not have complete data to make
| a positive assessment, it appears the pace of account creation
| has lagged behind the pace of suspensions.
|
| Lack of something doesn't prove it's gone. So they realized
| they couldn't use twitter. Did that change their views? Did it
| change their minds? Citing a lack of participation in a hostile
| platform proves nothing except that twitter controls twitter.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS
|
| They're not "terrorist groups", they're just following the
| Koran. What do you think the first 2 letters in ISIS mean?
|
| Also, Muslims who promote traditional Islamic violence have
| dozens of Youtube channels today. The reason is that Youtube
| delegates complaints to ... Muslim moderators, who are also
| "just following the Koran."
| [deleted]
| 4varyingodds wrote:
| _um_ dumb stuff ...this time... dumb people... _damned_ P-:
|
| 1st.) There is a mechanism in conflict: 'crimination'
| (Schuldzuweisungen) => 'justification' (Rechtfertigungen) => 'to
| order sombody to be quiet', censoring maybe ditiching somebody
| (den Mund verbieten) +[vary]; _recursion_
|
| Now while practicing, 'censoring ?' The hatecrime-testspecimens
| calcitrate: "No! this is the so called 'harmonisation' of
| contents", not ?
|
| (Disclaimer: 'explicit' and a little OT) The Coach asks: 'This
| time obsession, do you bought all the emotional stuff ?' ^^
| Aunche wrote:
| You can censor obvious examples of extremism. I don't think
| anyone disagreed that Youtube was correct in censoring Isis
| recruitment videos, for instance.
|
| The problem is that people are trying to censor "dog-whistling"
| extremism. By its very nature, it's a losing battle. Only dogs
| can hear dog whistles, so there's a high likelihood that you're
| censoring someone innocent. Also, even if you do censor a dog
| whistle, they can easily make another.
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| Allowing "dog whistles" to be censored also creates a powerful
| incentive to redefine ideas the censors don't like as "dog
| whistles." For example:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote...
|
| > With the help of two liberal pollsters, Joshua Ulibarri and
| Celinda Lake, we conducted 15 focus groups with members of
| various Hispanic communities across the country and ran a
| national survey. We also polled large cohorts of whites and
| African-Americans. The results are sobering. We began by asking
| eligible voters how "convincing" they found a dog-whistle
| message lifted from Republican talking points. Among other
| elements, the message condemned "illegal immigration from
| places overrun with drugs and criminal gangs" and called for
| "fully funding the police, so our communities are not
| threatened by people who refuse to follow our laws."
|
| > Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message
| convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage of
| African-Americans agreed, as did an even higher percentage of
| Latinos. These numbers do not translate directly into support
| for the Republican Party; too many other factors are at play.
| Nevertheless, the results tell us something important: a
| majority across the groups we surveyed did not repudiate Trump-
| style rhetoric as obviously racist and divisive, but instead
| agreed with it.
|
| "Liberal pollsters" and "progressive" opinion writers perceived
| this example of "Trump-style rhetoric" as "dog whistles" and
| "obviously racist and divisive" but most Black and Latino
| people agreed with it.
| feoren wrote:
| This reminds me of the argument that police forces can't be
| racist if they employ black officers. Even black police
| officers are more likely to shoot an innocent black man than
| an innocent white man in the same situation. Want to find
| someone who is racist against Argentinians? Go to Peru or
| Chile. Just because some Latinos in a focus group agree with
| a message does not mean it's not racist against Latinos.
| wnoise wrote:
| The stats show the police, black or white, are about
| equally likely to use excessive force against black or
| white people _per incident_. The problem is that they make
| contact with black people far more often per-capita. Some
| of this is being more suspicious of black people, of
| looking harder at them to find something. This is most
| convincingly seen with the drug war, where uses of drugs
| are about equal by race, but black people are stopped,
| searched, and arrested significantly more often. Some is a
| larger pre-existing societal problem of where people live.
| When black people are more likely to live in bad
| neighborhoods, and police are more likely to have
| encounters in bad neighborhoods...
| rayiner wrote:
| > Just because some Latinos in a focus group agree with a
| message does not mean it's not racist against Latinos.
|
| It's not "some." According to the article, it's a decisive
| majority (more than 3 in 5).
| ralmidani wrote:
| You can hear a dog whistle even if you're not a dog. For years,
| Trump's bigotry was designed to be just subtle enough to get
| past the media censors, but a lot of people aside from his
| followers knew exactly what he was doing. The media and big
| tech only started censoring Trump when he became a danger to
| American institutions and political figures; endangering the
| lives of Mexicans, Muslims, and Black people was not deemed
| extremist enough to warrant censorship.
| splistud wrote:
| That is a breathtaking amount of assumptions to make in 3
| lines of text
| modmans2nd wrote:
| Deplatforming it helps prevent it from normalizing in the
| community.
| ycombigator wrote:
| No, just makes it edgier for the kids. Takes longer to
| crystalise but crystallises harder.
| pii wrote:
| so if we don't have "actual nazi's" right now, in 20 years we
| 100000% will, and it will be "the left's" fault?
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| Yes.
| dmingod666 wrote:
| That is with the assumption that 1) the platforms are
| controllable and 2) those that control it vaugely align with
| your beliefs / morals.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| If you cannot censor away opinions, if suppression of ideas
| doesn't work then why in exactly these kinds of articles do
| people bemoan it as dangerous?
|
| I may agree that most censorship is wrong but it does work. It
| worked for centuries to help maintain systems of inequality.
|
| It worked for centuries to maintain familial control and enforce
| sexual monoculture in many countries. Information control works
| so well, it prevents people from even understanding themselves or
| what they really want in the face of ideologically imposed
| values.
|
| We are steeped in a culture of Hollywood telling us what the
| lessons of history are about. One of the off repeated "hopeful"
| messages we are fed is that you can't kill an idea but my reading
| of history has led me to the other conclusion entirely. That
| controlling the conversation, its constraints and determining the
| status quo are profoundly powerful tools.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| > If you cannot censor away opinions, if suppression of ideas
| doesn't work then why in exactly these kinds of articles do
| people bemoan it as dangerous?
|
| They may think censorship doesn't work but can still do damage,
| such as by lowering the standing and integrity of the left,
| damaging the liberal commons, or paradoxically making censored
| ideas more appealing.
| pochamago wrote:
| >If you cannot censor away opinions, if suppression of ideas
| doesn't work then why in exactly these kinds of articles do
| people bemoan it as dangerous?
|
| Because the unintended consequences are harmful to bystanders.
| Probably more harmful than to the intended targets, since
| they're already socially ostracized for their openly bigoted
| views. Take, for example, the recent upswing in deplatforming.
| Most of the statistical data seems to suggest that the masses
| have become more afraid to speak openly, but it doesn't seem to
| have actually stopped extreme racists from saying racist
| things.
| XorNot wrote:
| Which statistics?
| panny wrote:
| >If you cannot censor away opinions, if suppression of ideas
| doesn't work then why in exactly these kinds of articles do
| people bemoan it as dangerous?
|
| I've read a screenshot of some anonymous post that goes like:
|
| "There's a general phenomenon I've noticed on the internet. Any
| forum with free speech and little to no moderation becomes
| right wing. Leftist ideas cannot exist without censorship and
| moderation."
|
| Which I think misreads the situation slightly. When sites
| censor people, it pushes those censored to other sites.
| Concentrates them. When all sites censoring have a left bias,
| both the censored and uncensored areas become echo chambers.
| Censorship then is segregation, but instead of having water
| fountains for blacks and whites, you have websites for lefts
| and rights. The only reason sites like gab and parler exist is
| because twitter censors.
|
| If you really believe in equal rights and desegregation, you
| would not censor people based on their diversity of opinions.
| If you really believe diversity is our strength, then you
| tolerate diverse opinions, even if you find some of the
| opinions repugnant.
|
| As the article points out, it's not a question of "should" you
| censor. It's a question of "can" you censor. Clearly censorship
| fails in the worst possible way. It further radicalizes both
| sides. If you read both /r/politics and patriots.win, it's like
| both groups live in two entirely separate worlds. When you
| isolate populations their evolutions take separate paths.
|
| And that's how it is ultimately dangerous. Censorship leaves
| you with two groups of radicals with no common ground. At some
| point, those two groups meet and that's when bad things happen.
| watwut wrote:
| > "There's a general phenomenon I've noticed on the internet.
| Any forum with free speech and little to no moderation
| becomes right wing. Leftist ideas cannot exist without
| censorship and moderation."
|
| I suspect that "right wing" here is euphemism for more of
| sexism and racism. Because I can tell you that moderate
| conservative, economic conservative and for that matter
| libertarian forums all have moderation too. They cant exist
| without moderation and censorship either.
|
| What happens however is that without moderation people will
| use harassment, trolling, both including massive sexist and
| racist statements to push away people who disagree with them.
| And people who dont want to be subjects of those leave. So
| you end up with people who are fine with trolling, racism and
| sexism and the end result is biased toward right wing. You
| know who will be harassed the most? Anyone perceived as
| feminist or sjw.
|
| The actual extreme left, which I guess would be defined more
| as a marxism or communists, is relatively small in numbers.
| They are also pretty often sexists and racists too, so I
| dunno how it crosses with that.
| Frost1x wrote:
| >"There's a general phenomenon I've noticed on the internet.
| Any forum with free speech and little to no moderation
| becomes right wing. Leftist ideas cannot exist without
| censorship and moderation."
|
| I've noticed similar and I'm not entirely sure it's right
| wing but more of extremism of ideas in general. Essentially,
| the "loudest" people (or ideas) win the conversation without
| moderation.
|
| I'd say this has more to do with group think and populism. If
| there is any moderation it's going to steer the ground in a
| specific direction of populism. The more aggressively shared
| an idea is, the more successful it tends to be. It's not a
| linear relationship, but ideas tend to pick up steam (the
| flat Earth phenomenon blows my mind to this day). Extremists
| seem to be the ones most willing to verbalize and share these
| ideas that make them "loud." There's probably some overlap
| here on how effective propoganda is through repetition. Just
| look at how ads tend to focus on spreading an idea through
| repetition and seem to work.
|
| Sometimes modern "right wing" ideas are difficult to discern
| from other extremists because the spectrum has slid and much
| of the modern right wing is extremist. To be fair, we have a
| lot of left wing extremists verging on being bananas as well.
| I know plenty of conservatives who feel fairly
| disenfranchised by the current right wing we've been seeing.
| I don't agree with many of their ideas but they make good
| points and have civil discussions about their different
| opinions and perspectives.
| clairity wrote:
| > "If you cannot censor away opinions, if suppression of ideas
| doesn't work..."
|
| > "I may agree that most censorship is wrong but it does work."
|
| that's at least falling for an availability bias. we have a
| extraordinarily tiny, highly-fragmented, and highly-idealized
| view into history. the more reasonable null hypothesis would be
| to assume folks had a range of _opinions_ on any given topic,
| but their _behaviors_ were modulated through social norms and
| coercion.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| That's exactly my point. I don't think censorship changes
| people's minds immediately. But over time, the absence of an
| idea creates a status quo bias. People born into a society
| where certain ideas are circulated less are less likely to
| encounter and adopt them.
|
| People change their behavior based on what is acceptable not
| just based upon what they believe. If using a racial slur
| will get a person written up at work, they have an incentive
| to hold back when the instinct arises to use it. The absence
| of racial slurs at work will make new workers less likely to
| use them as people often copy the environment they inhabit
| for the sake of cohesion.
| chordalkeyboard wrote:
| > suppression of ideas doesn't work then why in exactly these
| kinds of articles do people bemoan it as dangerous?
|
| Because then these bad ideas fester in dark places and emerge
| as an entrenched ideology that is more difficult or impossible
| to respond to before they have resulted in adverse outcomes.
|
| > I may agree that most censorship is wrong but it does work.
| It worked for centuries to help maintain systems of inequality.
|
| It seems you've answered your own question then. Censorship is
| bad because it sustains systems of inequality.
|
| > It worked for centuries to maintain familial control and
| enforce sexual monoculture in many countries. Information
| control works so well, it prevents people from even
| understanding themselves or what they really want in the face
| of ideologically imposed values.
|
| You are attributing effects to censorship when material
| circumstances and ideology contributed in large amounts. Its
| much easier to destroy ideas by burning books when all the
| books are manufactured by skilled craftsman using their hands.
|
| > We are steeped in a culture of Hollywood telling us what the
| lessons of history are about. One of the off repeated "hopeful"
| messages we are fed is that you can't kill an idea but my
| reading of history has led me to the other conclusion entirely.
| That controlling the conversation, its constraints and
| determining the status quo are profoundly powerful tools.
|
| You can't kill an idea but you can delay it or make people too
| terrified to spread it openly.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Of course you can do it in theory. The question is, whether you
| can do it today and whether those attempts will turn out more
| dangerous than helpful. IT achievements allows for extremely
| easy exchange of the information throughout the world. You can
| easily circumvent many kinds of blocking. You have E2E
| conversations available to masses, so you can't effectively
| censor anything centrally.
|
| Whether that's good or bad is for history to decide. Recently I
| saw some guy watching video about terrorists executing some
| prisoner. He got it via whatsapp. That video was pro-terrorist,
| they obviously are trying to recruit more people by spreading
| their propaganda. Of course I would prefer such kinds of
| conversations to be silenced. The thing is, it can't be
| silenced. Russia tried to block Telegram, they poured lots of
| IT resources, they used DPI and other methods but they did not
| succeed and did lots of collateral damage in the process by
| blocking innocent websites.
|
| I think that genie is out of the bottle already and we have to
| learn how to live with it. IMO governments right now are trying
| another method: they put lots of disinformation, hoping that
| average folk won't find out which one is true. Not blocking
| specific information, but making it hard to find and
| distinguish truth from false. That works for me, I already
| stopped to trust most of the information on the web.
| oblio wrote:
| China?
| watwut wrote:
| > Of course you can do it in theory.
|
| It worked practically in practice in history. It works also
| practically in countries like Saudi Arabia. Once in a while
| censorship does not manage to stop all opposition, which is
| why once in a while revolutions and such succeed.
|
| But practically speaking, censorship works. That does not
| makes it right thing to do or something, which would be
| different claim.
|
| Just because people manage to say censored things here and
| there just means it cant stop completely all such claims and
| materials. But it does minimize who will run into them, how
| many of them will be available and so on.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| > Of course you can do it in theory. The question is, whether
| you can do it today and whether those attempts will turn out
| more dangerous than helpful.
|
| Allow me to restate my position more precisely. I believe the
| supresion of information has worked in the past. And based on
| this I will need very compelling evidence to convince me that
| we live in a special time when it is impossible and no longer
| is effective.
|
| I'm happy to be wrong but am skeptical when people begin
| claiming their circumstances are special in history.
| edrxty wrote:
| And further, while you maybe can make an argument that it
| wasn't possible ten years ago, we're headed in a _very_
| centralized direction at this point. There are basically
| three places where broad populations can engage in
| discourse /recruit/radicalize and there may be fewer in
| another ten years.
| smaryjerry wrote:
| The article itself makes the arguments for this. One, hate
| speech just rebrands. Two, the assumption that what you
| want censored is what will get censored is false,
| especially if you feel you are the marginalized group
| already. So what censorship is effective? Pushing existing
| already popular ideas that are widely held already. This
| makes censorship basically useless, and more so creates
| problems for anyone who doesn't strictly believe I the most
| popular ideas. Flat earth is a perfect example of an idea
| that doesn't get censored and doesn't need to be because
| culture already accepts it is wrong. The truth is almost
| all ideas don't need censorship for the same reason flat
| earth doesn't. We already make violence and calls to
| violence illegal which is the generally accepted tipping
| point of interfering with someone's life. Censoring views
| that some may lead to violence is starting to get into a
| gray area, and censoring views that are just "hate" goes
| well beyond gray to pure opinion of the person interpreting
| and we don't want to give tech companies the ability to
| deem their interpretation of what we say as "hate" when it
| has no basis.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| > The article itself makes the arguments for this. One,
| hate speech just rebrands. Two, the assumption that what
| you want censored is what will get censored is false,
|
| I don't believe either point is true. For example, the
| concerted efforts to silence, defame and de-platform
| socialists in 1950s America were highly effect.
| yanderekko wrote:
| >If you cannot censor away opinions, if suppression of ideas
| doesn't work then why in exactly these kinds of articles do
| people bemoan it as dangerous?
|
| Because the process itself involves heaping lots of social
| costs on people in the _attempt_ to hurt their narratives, and
| that normally we would consider this bad? I mean, if we concede
| that literally throwing people in prison is ineffective then
| shouldn 't the argument for _not_ throwing people in prison be
| obvious?
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| > Because the process itself involves heaping lots of social
| costs on people
|
| I'm open to that argument. But I think this writer is really
| trying to have it both ways. They literally say, censorship
| doesn't work and we shouldn't do it because we are the ones
| who will be censored. It just seems like a kitchen sink
| argument. Either it is dangerous to society because it works
| or it is dangerous to a few because it is unjustly punitive.
|
| I am not fully in agreement with what is happening right now
| because I believe it is fundamentally immoral to force
| someone into a society where they must provide for themselves
| and then to take away their means of provision.
|
| But I also see our society as deeply censoros before this and
| a lot of people who are very upset now were fully willing to
| ignore that as long as it didn't broach opinions they value.
| Two wrongs don't make a right but it does leave me a little
| suspicious of how genuine they are and how magnanimous they
| will be when the pendulum of discourse swings back in their
| favor.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >If you cannot censor away opinions, if suppression of ideas
| doesn't work then why in exactly these kinds of articles do
| people bemoan it as dangerous?
|
| Because instead of treating the disease (terrible dehumanizing
| ideologies) it treats the symptom (them talking about it).
|
| Instead of a fire, it creates a bomb.
|
| >It worked for centuries to maintain familial control and
| enforce sexual monoculture in many countries. Information
| control works so well, it prevents people from even
| understanding themselves or what they really want in the face
| of ideologically imposed values.
|
| It worked before the Internet.
|
| >controlling the conversation, its constraints and determining
| the status quo are profoundly powerful tools.
|
| In the short term. Determining the status quo isn't up to
| censors. It's up to society. And while censors have some power,
| they're not omniscient, so they _always_ get circumvented
| eventually.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| > In the short term. Determining the status quo isn't up to
| censors.
|
| I don't agree. Before WWII, America had a very small standing
| army. It was practically an American value that the country
| demilitarized after each war. But from 1900 through WWI and
| especially through WWII there was a deliberate effort by the
| government and elites to change that. In just 40 years
| America went from barely militarized to having a large and
| expensive standing force that was viewed as a bedrock of
| American virtues.
|
| Similar things happened throughout history regarding
| sanitation, citizenship, traffic laws and more. I believe the
| information ecosystem has a tremendous impact on people's
| beliefs and values.
| mnouquet wrote:
| There was an old adage saying that you should not do upon other
| what you wouldn't want to be done to you. Remember that being gay
| was in the crosshairs ? By bullying perceived right-wing ideas,
| you only expose yourself to a pendulum swing.
|
| Never forgive, never forget.
|
| ps: I have been harassed, bullied, I will not surrender my guns
| to the [old] new bullies, NEVER.
| sagichmal wrote:
| Eliminate? No.
|
| Reduce to the point of practical irrelevance? Yep.
|
| Deplatforming works.
| freebuju wrote:
| Deplatforming solves _a_ problem. And only temporarily in the
| abundance of VPN & encrypted technologies. IMO it makes things
| even worse since these groups will congregate in secret much
| further away from the public eye where they can perpetuate
| unbalanced and unhealthy ideas.
| XorNot wrote:
| If it made things "worse" they why are they not already doing
| those things?
|
| These groups want to be on public platforms because their
| goal is to radicalize people. Or do you think that it was a
| mistake to kick ISIS and other radical Islam groups off
| Twitter too?
| freebuju wrote:
| > If it made things "worse" they why are they not already
| doing those things?
|
| What do you mean by your statement "not doing those
| things"?
|
| I hope you know talking about doing something,,, actually
| doing something,,, and getting caught in the act of doing
| the "something" are ALL different situations in themselves.
|
| How on earth is equating ISIS members to Gab or even Parler
| users even remotely the same? It either means you are not
| aware of the real issue at hand or you seem to have a
| personal biasness against different political views to
| yourself.
|
| My point is, Twitter accounts or not, normal (please double
| bold this word as you read this) people who hold different
| unpopular views should have the space and freedom to speak
| their minds.
|
| Unfortunately freedom of speech is a black and white
| affair. If twitter as a platform doesn't allow their users
| to legally exercise this right, they might as well come out
| and freely state they are partisan and include this in
| their policy. Rather than pretend to be something they are
| not.
|
| Note: Terrorism is criminalized and well-defined within
| most state laws. My argument is not in defence of this.
| GVIrish wrote:
| > IMO it makes things even worse since these groups will
| congregate in secret much further away from the public eye
| where they can perpetuate unbalanced and unhealthy ideas.
|
| That result makes it more difficult for law enforcement to
| follow their movements, but it also has the effect of making
| it more difficult to recruit new members and spread their
| ideas.
|
| The whole reason social media has been so powerful in
| spreading ideas, good and bad, is because it reduces
| communication friction and effort while promoting
| discoverability. If extremists have to move to Signal and
| Telegram, it makes them less discoverable, and requires more
| effort on the part of their members. Over time that makes it
| less likely they'll be able to grow or maintain their
| numbers.
| [deleted]
| freebuju wrote:
| > That result makes it more difficult for law enforcement
| to follow their movements
|
| The easiest enemy to go after is an exposed one. The 2nd is
| a weak one.
|
| > extremists have to move to Signal and Telegram, it makes
| them less discoverable
|
| Extremist groups do not need to be discoverable. They just
| need to plant enough conviction into the minds of
| susceptible and willing hosts. I assure you, not so much
| energy is required to convert in this case. Certainly not
| more than religious ones.
|
| Though I need to clarify. When extremism crosses the border
| of advocating for mass violence. It gains a new universally
| unambiguous term: terrorism.
| bad_username wrote:
| The minute your platform becomes malevolent, and begins to
| "work" against your values, will you not regret granting it the
| power of moderating the social discourse?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| What power? When in the history of the internet has a
| website's owner been unable to edit or remove the text that's
| published on their own site?
| elastolin wrote:
| What if we starting deplatforming Jews or reducing Jewish
| influence to the point of pratical irrelevance? Would that be
| okay?
| bitdizzy wrote:
| No, obviously it would not be okay. What point are you trying
| to make?
| elastolin wrote:
| So, deplatforming (silencing) a group is okay, but doing
| the same for other group is not okay based on some
| arbitrary criteria.
| alacombe wrote:
| Only "works" because those community becomes underground and
| more radicalized.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| It works....in the short term...within a very narrow scope.
|
| And then suddenly, for no reason at all, someone incredibly
| well aligned with everyone you deplatformed rises to power.
| oblio wrote:
| They don't rise to power if the political system is sane. In
| many countries without First Past the Post systems, an
| extremist rises in popularity. Then when the final vote
| comes, it is revealed that most people are moderate and the
| crazy does not get into power.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Is there a sane political system?
|
| FPTP is dogshit, agreed. But does even ranked choice voting
| result in a sane system? I'm not implying it can't. I
| honestly just don't know.
| oblio wrote:
| No system is completely sane but some are better than
| others at keeping out the loonies :-)
|
| European ones are decent.
| ZebusJesus wrote:
| Gate speech laws are kinda like vaccines. They don't stop it but
| they sure do keep it from spreading to everyone. End of the day A
| Nazi doesn't have anything to say and doesn't deserve the
| protections to be able to say it. They fact that we can decent
| this is what makes us humans or else it's just computers applying
| filters
| mint2 wrote:
| Not directed at this comment, one of the minority like it. But
| These hacker news posts where the majority of comments treat
| private companies like Twitter and Facebook censoring neonazi
| propaganda as if they are censoring unions or advocates of
| universal health care make me really dismayed at hacker news.
| It's like they say there are really no way humans are capable
| of distinguishing between literal white nationalist extremist
| views and people advocating for universal health care. It
| really makes me question the user base of hacker news
| bloaf wrote:
| I have some unprofessional sociological suspicions, so I will lay
| them out as assertions with this caveat serving as the blanket
| qualifier.
|
| First, some observations:
|
| 1. Research has found that the probability of conspiratorial
| thinking is _quadratic_ with respect to political extremism in
| either direction.
|
| 2. Dangerous political movements are predicated on an "us v.
| them" mentality, almost _by definition of dangerous_. What makes
| a group dangerous is precisely the fact that they are willing to
| harm people in concrete ways, and willingness to harm requires a
| targeted "them".
|
| 3. Distributed censorship and other forms of persecution _are
| actually_ conspiracies with an inherent "us" and "them." The
| more groups (media companies, government, etc) censor similar
| ideas in similar ways for similar reasons, the more apt appears
| the description "they conspired against those ideas."
|
| Therefore: the problem with censorship is that it _makes the
| conspiracy theorists right._ Censorship is also an
| acknowledgement that the censor and censored are in fact
| different and opposing groups. No longer can the censor say
| "come on guys, we're all on the same team here," they have ceded
| that high ground.
|
| Both of these effects can actually help extremist groups attract
| new people. As they say _Plures efficimur, quitiens metimur a
| vobis: semen est sanguis Christianorum_ : the blood of the
| martyrs is the seed of the Church.
|
| _HOWEVER_
|
| All of this analysis is a kind of "perfect sphere on a friction-
| less plane" view of the market of ideas. We must not fall into
| the trap of thinking that if we removed all censorship, the
| market of ideas would be _efficient._ If censorship is an effort
| to artificially devalue some ideas, there is also the
| countervailing force of amplification which artificially
| inflates.
|
| The problem is that money has always (and technology has
| recently) enabled people to distort the market of ideas through
| amplification. There _are actually_ bad actors (e.g. Russia) who
| actively amplify ideas beneficial to their interests by putting
| engineered talking points into fake social media accounts.
|
| I do not believe it is possible to fight such a strategy on the
| same terms. Amplifying contrary ideas simply increases
| polarization. Attempting to re-level the playing field via
| censorship has the problems I listed earlier.
| wnoise wrote:
| > 1. Research has found that the probability of conspiratorial
| thinking is quadratic with respect to political extremism in
| either direction.
|
| Extremism has no natural quantification. This statement is
| nonsense.
| fhood wrote:
| I don't what the research is in question, but I absolutely
| think that political extremism, particularly in the context
| of two party systems, can quantified in at least a semi-
| meaningful way.
|
| Create a list of policies. Poll a large equally split group
| of registered voters from either party. Assign each policy an
| extremism index based on some combination of the amount of
| cross party support, and the percentage of total support for
| each.
|
| Now you can use that list to make a reasonable assessment of
| political extremism based on which of the policies an
| individual supports.
| wnoise wrote:
| You might be able to order it, sure. Translating that into
| magnitudes is entirely subjective.
| fhood wrote:
| Why wouldn't the magnitude be a direct consequence of the
| two factors I already mentioned? Crossparty support and
| percentage of total?
| wnoise wrote:
| Why would it?
|
| It does if and only if that's what you reduce extremism
| down to.
|
| There's enough there to assert a quadratic relationship
| (in a given regime) with _their particular
| phenomenological measurement_ of extremism.
|
| In the physical sciences we can often get away with
| ignoring the difference between what a measurement
| procedure outputs, and what it is measuring. But this
| only because we have high degrees of repeatability, and
| concordance with other ways of measurement. Neither has
| been shown to apply here.
|
| The reporting of this is made worse by the use of a
| common term, rather than the diagnostic tool. Yes, there
| are common meanings of "energy", "momentum", and so
| forth, but people understand that they mean very specific
| technical definitions when a physicist uses them.
| bloaf wrote:
| You can take that up with the authors:
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271714033_Political.
| ..
| ZebusJesus wrote:
| One side of extremism want to kill people the other doesn't this
| is pretty simple
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post unsubstantive flamewar comments to HN. They
| make even a wretched flamewar like this entire thread go into a
| deeper circle of hell.
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26432675.
| throwaway53453 wrote:
| Unironically, which one is that then? Because as far as I can
| tell, both are armed and battering each other.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| > right-wing extremists have killed 329 victims in the last
| 25 years, while antifa members haven't killed any
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/right-wing-extremists-
| kill-3...
| throwaway53453 wrote:
| > while antifa members haven't killed any
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_of_Aaron_Danielson_a
| n...
|
| Yesterday:
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/imez-
| wrigh...
|
| Edit:
|
| This just in!
| https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1370281113239891969
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEWsJ8SvlMY
|
| Antifa are clearly one of the most violent organisations
| active today. Borderline terrorists (= "action or threat
| designed to influence the government or intimidate the
| public").
| AshWolfy wrote:
| Youre right, the article is old, antifa has killed a
| single person, its only 300 times more murders from the
| right than antifa now. of course also ignoring that
| antifa medics were attempting to provide medical aid to
| danielson when the right pushed them away
|
| As for those other 2, the first has nothing to do with
| antifa, the second is a trash fire where no one was hurt
|
| I also like how your response to statistics is individual
| stories
| albedoa wrote:
| Careful, we might begin to suspect that you did not ask
| your question unironically or in good faith.
| throwaway53453 wrote:
| No, I think there's clearly a large cohort of angry and
| armed Trumpers also looking for a fight. Just visit
| Facebook. But the ratio of 300:0 for right:left violence
| is clearly wrong.
| [deleted]
| foolofatom wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_shooting_of_Dallas_polic
| e...
| foolofatom wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_David_Dorn
| XorNot wrote:
| So, what is extreme left to you?
|
| Which groups, existent groups, are they?
|
| This whole line of discussion seems to consist of some rich false
| equivalency being mediated by presuming the existence of
| equivalent opposing forces and then making them appear equal in
| size and threat by not talking about _who_ they actually are.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26432675.
| clusterfish wrote:
| They're the same racists on the left and the right extremes.
|
| It's just, we had decades of wars and (justified) propaganda
| that thoroughly discredited fascism and their style of racism
| so it's easy to see how the right extremes is bad.
|
| What the extreme left is doing on the other hand is a more
| modern variation of racism and totalitarianism. It's ostensibly
| driven by noble concepts like social justice but in reality
| devolves into racial discrimination, dogmatism and tribalism as
| is seen on far right, just with a different dogma and different
| racial preferences.
|
| Maybe you find that particular dogma more agreeable, or maybe
| the ends justify the means for you, I dunno.
|
| But if you genuinely look at the discussion on Twitter or
| Reddit and you don't see extreme left views upvoted as often as
| extreme right I don't really know what to tell you. I guess
| people on the far right don't recognize their own crowd as an
| extreme either, it's just normal and common sense to them too,
| dismissing any rough edges with the same excuses.
|
| You want specific examples? Try being public about not fully
| supporting BLM. Not the literal slogan itself, but parts of
| everything else the movement and their leaders come with. See
| if anyone catches the nuance of your opinions as you're branded
| a racist for not falling in line. You don't even need to say
| anything racist, even a modicum of doubt in the dogma is seen
| as dogwhistling your obviously racist views.
|
| Do you see a lot of sexism or racial slurs / offenses in what
| you personally read on the internet? I don't, but the parts
| that I frequent what I see are mostly leftist racism and
| sexism, blaming white people for what other white people did,
| generalizing straight white men as privileged, "sounds about
| white"... No, none of that rings a bell, or none of that sounds
| bad or important because <reasons>? Try switching white to
| black and see how that holds up. Feeling righteous and having
| noble reasons for racism and sexism doesn't make it right.
| That's how all racism is justified and never in history has it
| been the right way to go about treating people.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| Ever try listening to NPR in recent years? It is really
| approaching the point of self parody. I would say that at
| least 80% of NPR "stories" have an explicitly stated racial
| angle and probably greater than 90% have a gender or race
| angle. It is literally almost the only thing NPR commentary
| and analysis segments talk about these days. Yes racism is
| bad. No it is not reasonable that every single segment is
| about how supposedly blacks, transgender blacks, illegal
| immigrants, etc, are victims. Even in coronavirus coverage it
| is all about race and a particular race at that. There is
| very little mention of anti-Asian hate crimes (often by
| blacks) almost no mention of interesting race facts, like the
| fact that Filipino American nurses were far more likely to
| die of Covid than other ethnic groups. Instead arcane
| stories, like African Americans in general are afraid of
| vaccines and that is okay because of the Tuskeegee
| experiments 50-60 years ago are aired.
|
| Again racism is bad. But when CNN or NPR is spending a huge,
| gigantic amount of their airtime covering racial issues every
| single day it is a little perplexing. It would make sense if
| the goal was to manufacture racial tension as distraction
| from real issues. Maybe it is. If you constantly focus on the
| outrage of the day you can ignore the slow boiled frog of
| rising economic inequality over the past 20 years.
|
| I am seriously interested in a study that quantified the
| number of NPR news analysis stories that contain explicit
| commentary on race in 2020. I bet it is over 80% meanwhile
| the black share of the population is around 12%. Seems to me
| it would make sense to have the number of stories more
| proportional to that.
| eplanit wrote:
| Thank you for noting this, as I have found NPR to now be
| unbearable. I listened to it for over 30 years, and for the
| longest time it was one of my main sources. Now, like you
| say, they're like self-parody -- but not funny.
|
| Clearly, they've chosen to see the world, and therefore
| report _every_ story, through a narrow set of prisms: race,
| ethnicity, gender [identity], sexual orientation, and
| class. I still tune in to them from time to time to check,
| and now I play a game: how long before I hear a reference
| to one of the above perspectives. In general, it's less
| than 2 minutes, and often less than 1. It's as though
| they're beating a drum, or like a mantra.
|
| I hope that quality journalism returns someday.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| Of the 30 stories currently featured on the NPR website, 1
| is about race
| morpheos137 wrote:
| In the title. However, I am sure, having listened to NPR
| almost every day, that most of those stories contain an
| explicit "racial analysis" segment. It is also possible
| that the written content is less race obsessed than what
| airs on the radio. I know when I am listening to NPR
| driving to work I hear racially focused stories back to
| back every single day as if there was absolutely nothing
| else interesting to talk about.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| If you had evidence you would have already presented it,
| i looked through a couple of articles and nothing about
| race. im not going to waste more time to confirm what i
| already know
| morpheos137 wrote:
| While I also do not have time to do an analysis right
| now, and as I mentioned radio content may be different
| from web content, the number of upvotes my initial
| comment calling out NPR got suggests my opinion is not
| unusual.
| ttt0 wrote:
| Remember when NPR deliberately took a video out of
| context to portray peaceful protesters attacking a random
| car as if the driver was some sort of white supremacist
| who tried to hit them on purpose?
|
| https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/22/npr-falsely-calls-
| victi...
| AshWolfy wrote:
| They used that photo on an unrelated story, the photo had
| nothing to do with the story. nice try though. Just admit
| you were wrong, its ok
| recursive wrote:
| But that's exactly what's being said. The photo has
| nothing to do with the story. NPR admitted as much.
| https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1274809408262938624
|
| But your tone suggests that you disagree with something.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| The implication was that npr was smearing this woman,
| rather than the editors being lazy. All in service to the
| argument that npr focuses on race, despite there being no
| evidence
| Natsu wrote:
| Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.
| ttt0 wrote:
| So I can write an article about rapists, put a completely
| unrelated picture of your face with your full name on it,
| and that's not a smear? That's essentially what happened
| ttt0 wrote:
| https://archive.is/ilHur
|
| > One person was hit by a car in downtown Louisville,
| Kentucky, early on June 17 as protesters held an anti-
| racism demonstration at Jefferson Square, police said.
|
| The story might be unrelated, but they knew exactly where
| it came from.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| citation needed
| ttt0 wrote:
| In the archive.
|
| > One person was hit by a car in downtown Louisville,
| Kentucky, early on June 17 as protesters held an anti-
| racism demonstration at Jefferson Square, police said.
| evan_ wrote:
| > I am seriously interested in a study that quantified the
| number of NPR news analysis stories that contain explicit
| commentary on race in 2020. I bet it is over 80% meanwhile
| the black share of the population is around 12%. Seems to
| me it would make sense to have the number of stories more
| proportional to that.
|
| What is the connection in your thinking between the
| proportion of stories that analyze race and the percent of
| black people in the US?
| morpheos137 wrote:
| Almost all NPR stories that analyse race concern "black
| or brown" people. Why do you think that a
| disproportionate amount of content should be generated
| focusing on one issue? If my premise is correct, that
| more than 12% of NPR content contains racial analysis, I
| don't feel that the burden is on me to explain why I
| think this is an unjustified proportion. There are other
| interesting things to talk about in the world and time is
| limited. That's why. Why should one issue pre-empt others
| day in and day out?
| evan_ wrote:
| Why does the news spend so much time on sports coverage?
| Only like 0.0001% of the population play sports
| professionally.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| Well sports news is entertainment. There are specialised
| sports reporters and sports segments. Sports fans don't
| usually burn down city blocks when their team loses.
| Maybe identity politics outrage news is also serving a
| market demand. However it should be clear if the news is
| not proactive and tethered to underlying reality, i.e. if
| police are not actually racist as portrayed by CNN then
| the net social effect of such fake news is clearly
| negative. I don't think there is a such thing as fake
| sports news. There is clearly fake business news. When
| the media promotes ideas like ubiquitous AI and self
| driving cars it leads to malinvestment.
| recursive wrote:
| They do a lot more political coverage, and the number of
| professional politicians is probably similar.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Thinking it is an unjustified proportion seems
| exceedingly racist on your part. The equivalency between
| proportion of attention paid to harmed groups and size of
| the group, especially for groups as large as ~12%, is
| inherently quite an extreme racist stance to take.
|
| I'm sure you wouldn't agree, but that's exactly the
| problem. As long as we've got people acting like NPR's
| current amount of coverage including racial angles is
| somehow "unjustified" then we clearly need to terraform
| more and more racial angle of content into the discussion
| to educate that racist ignorance out of existence.
|
| The same is true for sexism and poverty as well.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| In a world where resources including time are scarce
| there is something to be gained from allocating time
| toward beneficial activities. I got to stop interacting
| with this thread now to practice what I preach.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| That's a pretty sickening way to justify racism and
| justify turning a blind eye toward helping harmed groups.
| I hope nobody ever treats your problems that way so you
| don't have to experience the side-effects of the attitude
| you're inflicting on others.
| justaman wrote:
| I listen most every morning. It has absolutely become this.
| "Fresh Air" in particular more often than not has a
| racial/gender slant to it.
|
| The radio is different from the website.
| runarberg wrote:
| > It's ostensibly driven by noble concepts like social
| justice but in reality devolves into racial discrimination,
| dogmatism and tribalism
|
| I'm sorry but I simply don't think this is true. You are
| stretching to reach a false equivalence:
|
| _Tribalism_ : It depends on your criteria, it is hard to
| find any group of people that doesn't engage in some form of
| tribalism. It is part of known human cognitive bias to favor
| in-group members over out-group. However, I say this is still
| false equivalence since fascists actively pray on this bias,
| while normally leftist groups tend to raise awareness and
| fight against this bias. I've personally attended leftists
| workshops with the goal of eliminating tribalism from the
| group's actions.
|
| _Dogmatism_ : Yes you will find anti-capitalist dogma in
| leftist circles. They would argue that capitalism is the
| ultimate dogma though. Perhaps that is dogmatist thinking to
| do that? Anyway, I think it is a stretch to equate strong
| believes in socialism, anarchism, anti-discrimination and
| social justice on the left with the strong believes of racial
| superiority, capitalism, and the need for strong leaders on
| the far right. You would have to argue that any believe is
| dogma if you want this to be equivalent.
|
| _Racial discrimination_ : Now here is a real long stretch.
| Being racist will have you kicked out of leftist groups.
| (barring some nas-bols) racism is not tolerated. You might be
| thinking about _discrimination against white people_ , if so
| there are sibling comments explaining why you are wrong. Or
| if you are thinking that some groups are excluded from
| certain activities because of privileged, it is more about
| giving victims a safe space to talk, privileged groups are
| not excluded from the movement as a whole (unless they fail
| to recognize their privilege and prefer to bask in it).
|
| Now there is a subgroup of leftists called Maoists and
| National Bolsheviks that do engage in dogmatism and racism.
| However they are usually not welcome in most leftist groups,
| and I do believe they are very few in numbers (I've never
| encountered one in the wild). I'll end with an example in the
| wild where a (true) leftist youtuber calls out a Maoist
| youtuber for being reactionary. Very much demonstrating that
| this kind of behavior is not welcome.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8OsvahWWzw
| flyingfences wrote:
| > Racial discrimination: Now here is a real long stretch...
| You might be thinking about discrimination against white
| people
|
| It's not racial discrimination unless it's grown on the
| Right; otherwise, it's just "sparkling discrimination on
| the basis of race".
| runarberg wrote:
| Wow! A few sentences later I link to a leftist accusing a
| Maoist leftist for being reactionary and discriminatory.
| I even mention the fact that Maoists and National
| Bolsheviks (which are very much racists while leftists)
| exist in the very first sentence of the paragraph.
|
| However, these are not the norm. They are a very small
| minority and most leftist groups will not tolerate them.
| flyingfences wrote:
| I don't care what "a leftist" has accused another leftist
| of...
|
| I'm taking issue with the fact that you are saying that
| "discrimination against white people" is not "racial
| discrimination" with the implication that it's somehow
| better.
| runarberg wrote:
| What!? I say that? Are you pointing to the fact that I
| refer to sibling comments in how the equivalence is
| wrong? And that is somehow me implying that
| "discrimination against white people somehow better"?
|
| Please, get over your self.
| flyingfences wrote:
| > the equivalence is wrong
|
| That is saying that racism against whites is somehow
| different from other racism, with the implication that it
| is not as bad.
| runarberg wrote:
| The equivalence is wrong because generally people on the
| far left are not racists towards any race.
| dang wrote:
| Please stop using HN for ideological battle. It's not
| what this site is for, and when a flamewar degenerates
| into a tedious, petty spat like this, the thread stopped
| being interesting a long time ago.
|
| We ban accounts that do personal attacks, so please don't
| do that either.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| ctdonath wrote:
| Yup. Try saying, with genuine honest neutrality, "all lives
| matter", "it's ok to be white", or "capitalism doesn't care
| about race/gender" and see what happens.
| DanHulton wrote:
| Because there is no "genuine honest neutrality" behind
| those phrases. They're shibboleths. They're commonly
| understood slogans, used to indicate what side you're on
| (or at least what side you're opposed to) while SOUNDING
| innocent. The people who know, will KNOW what you mean when
| you say them.
|
| (And in the incredibly unlikely situation where you'd
| somehow been exposed to enough of the discourse to come up
| with these phrases on their own, but NOT so much that you
| hadn't heard them yet, they're still terrible concepts that
| have been roundly denounced on their own merits. For just
| one example: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAsrVFXD3Ju/?utm_s
| ource=ig_embed...)
| peytn wrote:
| My mother could not be any less exposed to the
| "discourse," and yet she has spoken variants of the first
| two phrases to me. I believe they may just be common
| sentiments in the Deep South.
| lighttannotwite wrote:
| > they're still terrible concepts that have been roundly
| denounced on their own merits
|
| Hol' up, "it is ok to be white," is a terrible concept
| denounced on its own merits? Lol ok
|
| It's a good thing that under Critical Theory, since race
| is a social construction (that's why Black is supposed to
| be capitalized, because it refers to the construction,
| not the color) there's no reason besides being "roundly
| denounced" (which will happen eventually to you anyway if
| you're an untermensch White) that you can't be
| transracial.
|
| I'm not White, I'm a light tan person. Get off my lawn
| with your racist Theory.
| mindcandy wrote:
| You are falling into the trap that was explicitly set up
| by trolls. If it was not well known to be explicitly set
| up by trolls, "it is ok to be white" would be a fine,
| boring statement.
|
| But, it has been established that chan trolls came
| together to figure out a slogan that they could use to
| stir up heated arguments exactly like you are making.
| They settled on "it is ok to be white" and started using
| it to troll people into saying things that can be
| interpreted as hating white people. Then the arguments
| based on misunderstanding start and trolls laugh at you
| while they feed on your outrage and frustration.
| ttt0 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure he's not the one who's falling into a
| trap here, precisely for the reasons you mentioned.
| leetcrew wrote:
| the fact that it's so effective says more about society
| than the trolls though. if you squint hard enough, it's
| almost like the reactions provoked when you say "anti-
| white racism doesn't exist" without further explanation.
| it's true under the modern definition, but sometimes hard
| to take in good faith.
| throwaway53453 wrote:
| God help the mixed race people who have it from both the
| left and right...
| ttt0 wrote:
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9352639/Bi-
| racial-h...
| runarberg wrote:
| The left does not hate white people. It is reactionary
| rhetoric that is trying to raise a false equivalence. The
| left hates _white supremacy_ and _white privilege_. If
| you are a white person that basks in your privilege, the
| left doesn't hate you because of the color of your skin,
| but because of how you act as a result of it.
| cassalian wrote:
| There are people on the left that assume that if you have
| white skin, then you must act a certain way, and that way
| of acting is wrong. This is based solely on the person's
| race, no individual characteristics need be considered.
|
| If you disagree, then please explain what happened here
| with coke: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/366132
| "Coca-Cola Asks Its Workers to Be 'Less White' to Fight
| Racism"
| runarberg wrote:
| Which people on the left? Coca-Cola is very much a
| capitalist institution and you have to stretch real hard
| to think of them as left-wing.
| cassalian wrote:
| edit: Misread the article and grabbed the first name I
| saw. This edit fixes the reference:
|
| "The seminar entitled 'Facing Racism' , given by Robin
| DiAngelo , was presented through LinkedIn Education
| publicly, although not free of charge. The company
| admitted that, in effect, it invited its workers to take
| the course, but they clarify that it was not mandator"
|
| I would assume that Robin DiAngelo would be on the left.
| runarberg wrote:
| Five minutes of digging and I found out that this news
| article is actually just reporting on a tweet[1] by
| #DrKarlynB[2] which I found out is an organizational
| psychologists who hates critical race theory. Of her
| retweets she primarily retweets republicans, and the
| comment section of her tweets often contains pro-trump
| rhetoric.
|
| For all I know the slides she presents from Robin
| DiAngelo's lecture were taken out of context. I think
| this is a pretty poor example. Can you do better?
|
| 1:
| https://twitter.com/DrKarlynB/status/1362774562769879044
|
| 2: https://twitter.com/DrKarlynB
| cassalian wrote:
| The coco-cola incident made national news, I imagine
| there are better articles out there; I simply grabbed the
| first one on google - I should have sought out a better
| one to link to.
|
| However, from the article, you can see several of the
| slides that are presented. I find it hard to believe that
| there's some other context than race being referred to in
| these slides. Do you have reason to believe that the
| "white" in the slides is referring to something other
| than race? And if not, could you provide a possible
| greater context that doesn't place these slides under the
| guise of making broad generalizations about a group of
| people based on their identity? I am trying to think of
| one myself; however, I am failing to do so.
|
| Here's a more bland article on the incident:
| https://www.fox5dc.com/news/coca-cola-staff-told-in-
| online-t...
| runarberg wrote:
| One (of many) plausible scenarios:
|
| Robin DiAngelo is talking about empathy. She asks people
| to put them self in the sues of a minority, knowing how
| boring it is, she puts the words _"Try to be less white"_
| on the slide in an attempt to humor.
|
| Another possibility:
|
| She has been working up the argument that whiteness is a
| social construct, and in this context, "being white" is
| the same as "being socially constructed to perceive your
| self as superior". In that context asking people "to be
| less white" is not a judgement on the color of the skin.
|
| It may be something entirely different though, point is
| it is not hard to come up with a context where these
| slides are not criticizing the color of people's skin.
| cassalian wrote:
| > It may be something entirely different though, point is
| it is not hard to come up with a context where these
| slides are not criticizing the color of people's skin.
|
| I agree that your above scenarios could change the
| context.
|
| However, given that I perceived the slides in a different
| manner, and several others did as well (if no one
| perceived this to mean white people, then there would
| have been no news). Would you agree that using "white" to
| mean something other than the race in a seminar titled
| 'Facing Racism' is less likely than 'white' being used to
| refer to race? If not, would you agree that the Robin's
| usage of 'white' was poorly thought out, considering that
| people ended up with the conclusion that she was
| referring to race?
|
| I do believe that Robin was referring to 'white' in terms
| of race; however, I'm willing to explore the possibility
| that this wasn't the case.
|
| In the event that my assumption is correct - that Robin
| is referring to race - would you then agree that Robin is
| a member of the left who believes that white culture
| should be viewed negatively based on the content of the
| slides within the seminar?
| ttt0 wrote:
| Every white person has a white privilege and thus is
| racist and benefits from white supremacy. Same
| difference. The left doesn't hate white people, they just
| hate 90% of them.
|
| Colorblindness (aka. not being racist by the old
| definition) is considered white supremacy.
|
| "There's only one human race" is white supremacy.
|
| "All Lives Matter" is white supremacy.
|
| "Cultural appropriation" is white supremacy.
|
| Being an "ally" is white supremacy.
|
| Meritocracy is white supremacy.
|
| Celebrating Columbus Day is white supremacy.
|
| Being attracted to people of your own race is white
| supremacy.
|
| Questioning the white privilege theory in the first place
| is white supremacy.
|
| ...and many more.
|
| source: https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1267529522
| 041282563
| throwaway53453 wrote:
| There's no such thing as white privilege. Only
| socioeconomic privilege.
| leetcrew wrote:
| and people have explained this to me while drinking out
| of a mug that says "white tears". it's hard not to take
| that as a motte-and-bailey.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Those Coke indoctrination slides say "Try to be less
| white." Not "Try not to be a white supremacist," but just
| ... being less white. The sign "It's OK to be white"
| ought to have _zero_ reaction if what you said is true,
| but somehow it causes rather a lot of reaction.
|
| The "privilege" concept is original sin, and you can't
| even be absolved of it.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I grew up reasonably familiar with devout Christian
| culture, and one of the things they were absolutely
| convinced of is that society was filled with anti-
| Christian shibboleths. When someone said "let's build a
| tolerant society" or "climate change is an important
| problem", those might sound like neutral descriptors, but
| they knew not to be deceived. Obviously, in their view,
| nobody actually cares about tolerance or climate change -
| those phrases are just slogans people use to signal their
| allegiance to the anti-Christian agenda.
|
| I'm sure you can see the problem there, and I would
| encourage you to think about whether you've fallen down a
| similar hole.
| jawarner wrote:
| Siege mentality is real. I'm not sure I see the
| connection in this case to the racial issues. "All Lives
| Matter" is clearly a reaction to "Black Lives Matter."
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Respectfully, it seems clear because you're living under
| a siege mentality. "All Lives Matter" is a short phrase
| composed of common English words - some people do use it
| as a slogan to oppose the BLM movement, but others use it
| as a compact expression of the idea that every human's
| life has value. When Jennifer Lopez tweeted
| "#AllLivesMatter #LoveMakeTheWorldGoRound" over a picture
| of herself holding hands with Lin-Manuel Miranda and
| rainbow flags waving in the foreground, is it really
| plausible that she was declaring her allegiance to anti-
| BLM groups?
| jawarner wrote:
| You don't believe that recent popular usage of ALM is
| related to BLM?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| No. Again, it seems impossible to believe that JLo (and
| Hilary Clinton, and Fetty Wap, and...) said All Lives
| Matter as a covert signal they don't like the BLM
| movement. I'm sure some people somewhere have said it to
| troll, but I think the concern over the phrase is mostly
| a moral panic.
| monkeypizza wrote:
| If you define away neutrality, there is no neutrality,
| yes. But does everyone agree with your definition?
|
| This seems more like a "you're with us or against us"
| trick.
|
| "I care about protecting all children" is still neutral,
| right? But if someone popularized "ICAPBC", by your
| argument "ICAPAC" would innately become a shibboleth?
| Something doesn't seem right here, where neutral
| positions automatically get converted to dog-whistles
| without any proof.
| jawarner wrote:
| What is neutrality in this scenario? BLM is about
| protesting anti-black racial injustice in the criminal
| justice system. Is neutral ground that there is no
| injustice? That it doesn't matter?
|
| Yes, there was violence at a small fraction of protests,
| and it's fair to have pushback on that. That seems a
| separate issue than rejecting BLM on the face of it with
| an expression like ALM.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Neutral ground is that injustice is wrong, _no matter who
| it happens to_. It 's wrong when it happens to blacks,
| it's wrong when it happens to Asians, it's wrong when it
| happens to Hispanics, and it's wrong when it happens to
| whites. _That 's_ neutral.
|
| From there, you look around and you see that blacks and
| Hispanics seem to have injustice happening to them in
| ways that don't often happen to whites. (Not sure about
| Asians; but my perception is that they may experience
| injustice, but less of it than blacks.) And then, coming
| from a position that all injustice matters, when you seen
| injustice happening _more_ to specific groups, you say "
| _That_ injustice matters. " Not that it's the only
| injustice that matters, or that other injustice doesn't,
| but that specific injustice seems to happen a lot, and
| it's not OK. We need to do something about it.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| "The lives of people to whom injustice happens due to
| extra-judicial murders by the police, who are
| predominantly black matter and should be considered"
| doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
|
| In contrast "Black Lives Matter" describes the issue
| exactly, succinctly and pithily. As a bonus it outs the
| people who want to remain willfully ignorant about it.
| jawarner wrote:
| I see your example of a neutral stance, and it's true,
| and racially neutral. It's also not relevant to the
| conversation around BLM, which focuses on anti-black
| injustice. I take issue with that ALM is used to subvert
| BLM; why else would the phrase exist and popularize at
| this time and context? Therefore, ALM is not an assertion
| of the neutral stance you propose, but instead a
| rejection of the reality or importance of race-specific
| injustice.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > They're commonly understood slogans, used to indicate
| what side you're on (or at least what side you're opposed
| to) while SOUNDING innocent.
|
| This confusion was created the other side's choice of
| name, whether purposely or not.
|
| You start off with a phrase like Black Lives Matter. This
| is clearly a political slogan designed to provoke
| opponents into taking the negation of it, i.e. into
| claiming that black lives don't matter.
|
| The problem with it is that it's too clever by half,
| because it gives opponents the ability to claim the
| middle. All Lives Matter.
|
| And it's a two party system so now both the center and
| the right are standing under the banner of the neutral
| slogan. Now BLM declares that ALM are really just a bunch
| of secret racists because otherwise they have to eat the
| rhetorical self-own.
|
| But this is just an attempt to reassert the politically-
| motivated original framing, i.e. that anyone who
| disagrees with any BLM political position -- even if the
| disagreement comes from the center -- is saying they
| think black lives don't matter. Which is not necessarily
| the case.
| [deleted]
| runarberg wrote:
| _"All lives matter"_ is not a neutral slogan when it is
| said in the context of the death penalty, nor is it
| neutral when spoken as a response to _"Black lives
| matter"_. It is only neutral when spoken out side of any
| political context.
| sir_bearington wrote:
| This kind of reaction is what phrases like "it's okay to
| be white" and "all lives matter" are meant to elicit.
| It's exactly what trolls want you to do. The other 90% of
| the population is appalled. Is it _not_ okay to be white?
| Do some lives _not_ matter?
|
| You're being played.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| There are people _explicitly_ saying that no, it 's not
| OK to be white - that if you're white you are
| automatically racist, and automatically guilty for what
| happened in the past. _White Fragility_ is an example.
|
| "It's OK to be white" isn't just a dogwhistle. (It may be
| that, but it isn't _just_ that.) It 's an explicit
| rejection of that kind of "all whites are guilty racists"
| baloney.
| mindcandy wrote:
| That's what makes it such an effective troll. If it was
| simply obviously bad from all conceivable contexts it
| wouldn't work. But, you are still being trolled. And, you
| are playing right into their game. They are getting you
| to sing their slogan and laughing at you the whole time.
|
| Yes, there are some people out there in social media who
| have taken to hating white people for being white. That's
| not OK. Call it out. But, don't dance for the trolls in
| the process.
| ds206 wrote:
| I thought we were talking about the people who have taken
| to hating white people for being white?
|
| But you said they were trolls? And we should call it out?
| Isn't that what the poster above you was doing?
|
| Talking in circles, in circles...
| mindcandy wrote:
| You've mixed up the groups.
|
| There's the group of anti-white haters who need to be
| called out. There's the vast majority of people who don't
| want any form of racial hatred. And, then there's the
| white supremacist trolls (and just plain trolls) who want
| to trick the vast majority of people into fighting
| themselves and in the process make it look like anti-
| white hatred is much, much more common than it really is.
|
| "It's OK to be white" is a troll campaign that is
| actively being used to bait people into fighting each
| other and to have both sides come out thinking the other
| is far more racist than they really are.
| monkeypizza wrote:
| I'd be curious what you think of "Ghettoside" - a book
| from the left that examines the claims implied by your
| linked comic about the nature of the suffering we are
| trying to prevent:
| https://www.vox.com/2016/8/26/12631962/ghettoside-jill-
| leovy...
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| All three of these phrases are political slogans. They are
| inherently associated with a set of political views,
| because they exist specifically to oppose another set of
| views and slogans.
|
| It's unreasonable to echo a political slogan in public and
| then complain that people don't assume your neutrality. You
| cannot say "it's okay to be white" and expect others to
| consider it neutral, in much the same way that you can't
| say "blood and soil".
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's the other way around: these phrases are neutral
| observations and reasonable opinions, perhaps reasonable
| reactions to insanity of well-known political slogans -
| importantly, it's something a random person can come up
| independently, without reading the exact words first. But
| at some point, these phrases rapidly become politicized,
| and this catches a lot of people off guard.
|
| You voice your thoughts, fully expecting the audience to
| consider it neutral, but it so happens that your words
| pattern-match to a phrase that became a political slogan
| somewhen in the last few months, and boom, your audience
| hates you. You just stepped on a political landmine[0].
|
| It seems to me than in the past 5-10 years, social
| discourse became littered with such political landmines,
| and at this rate, it's _very hard_ to keep up with the
| list of phrases that can blow up in your face.
|
| --
|
| [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25968760
| watwut wrote:
| There was no "all lives matter" until there was "black
| lives matter" and people wanted to say they don't like
| the message.
|
| It is quite dishonest to claim that this phrase is
| neutral and not a political slogan.
| jstrong wrote:
| > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
| are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
| with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
| Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
| sokoloff wrote:
| Textually, that can be read as a fancied-up version of
| "all lives matter". Semantically at the time, it most
| certainly did not have an everyday lived reality that all
| people were equal.
|
| At the time, women couldn't vote, Black people could be
| owned, and all people could be indentured servants, which
| significantly undermines the "Thomas Jefferson said 'All
| Lives Matter' almost 250 years ago" argument.
| kbelder wrote:
| What happened is that people heard the phrase "black
| lives matter", and were uncomfortable with the racial
| specificity. They wanted to _clarify_ it with the true
| fundamental principle.
|
| Why do black lives matter? Because: All lives matter.
|
| That is a non-racist perspective, and it was attacked
| viciously because it undercuts a propaganda effort.
| penetraitor69 wrote:
| > They wanted to _clarify_ it with the true fundamental
| principle.
|
| I don't think that's an honest portrayal of the actual
| actions that took place or their motivations. In the
| context of _disproportionate_ black deaths,
| mischaracterizing focusing on that specific issue:
|
| 1) does not inspire any positive change itself,
|
| 2) _prevents_ positive change by demonizing those who
| _are_ bringing awareness to and proposing solutions to
| the problem.
|
| Rarely do you see the "all lives matter" crowd calling
| for increased police accountability; in fact, given their
| close association with _Blue_ Lives Matter, I believe
| those who throw the slogan around tend to fight for quite
| the opposite.
| [deleted]
| peytn wrote:
| It's a restatement of the first and most widely-known
| principle of the Unitarian Universalist Association [1].
| I think that is why it resonates with many people.
|
| Those people are then caught off-guard when they use the
| phrase and find themselves labeled "racist."
|
| I just don't see how the vilification of a specific
| phrasing of a common sentiment moves us forward. To me it
| feels like playing power games with words.
|
| [1]: https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-
| believe/principles/1st
| drdec wrote:
| I think you are forgetting what it was like when the
| "black lives matter" slogan was first becoming popular.
| If hadn't already been exposed to it, it was very easy to
| respond "incorrectly".
|
| For example, here's a case of a Democratic governor,
| running for president, getting caught by this:
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/18/politics/martin-omalley-
| all-l...
|
| And here is Hillary Clinton, falling into the same trap:
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/24/41
| 711...
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| That's only true in the sense that every phrase can be a
| "neutral observation" if you choose to ignore the context
| in which it is used and the associations it has.
|
| It's the same concept as dogwhistling at its core. Like
| the terms "urban", or "big government", or "states'
| rights", or "law and order". Completely "neutral phrases"
| that are often used to communicate a hidden message with
| plausible deniability. I mean after all, who could
| disagree that "all lives matter" - it's obvious isn't it?
|
| I don't really accept it's all that hard to be aware of
| the implications of the language you use to communicate.
| I suppose you might theoretically step on a "landmine",
| but I'll tell you what - I am virtually certain that
| nobody who has said "it's okay to be white" to their
| audience has accidentally stumbled upon a neutral phrase
| with good intentions.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Like the terms "urban", or "big government", or "states'
| rights", or "law and order". Completely "neutral phrases"
| that are often used to communicate a hidden message with
| plausible deniability.
|
| These are terms used earnestly in neutral ways by
| academics, professionals and bureaucrats from all over
| the political spectrum. Does anyone seriously thing the
| NHTSA or some sociology professor is dog whistling when
| they use words like "urban environments" or "law and
| order"?
|
| Yes, you can communicate a hidden message with them but
| you can communicate a hidden message with damn near any
| words in the english language if you want to.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The other side of this is that opponents always try to
| create negative associations for whatever they oppose.
|
| So then someone whose politics favors authoritarianism
| and centralization will propose some federal power grab,
| opponents will make arguments favoring local control and
| the authoritarians will try to tar them with slavery and
| Jim Crow even if the subject is unrelated, e.g. whether
| the FDA should be overruling the states on whether or not
| to ban a thing in their state.
|
| It's essentially an attempt to prevent anyone from taking
| the neutral position by making an accusation of guilt by
| association. Nazis are bad, Nazis built roads, therefore
| roads are bad.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| "All lives matter" is a totally meaningless phrase outside
| the context of "black lives matter".
|
| The only reason to say "all lives matter" is to trivialize
| the phrase "black lives matter". It may appeal to
| neutrality, but the context is far from neutral.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| Has any rigorous study shown that blacks are more likely
| to die in police encounters after adjusting for income
| level and crime rate of where the encounter takes place?
|
| If so please provide a cite or link.
|
| Although out of thousands of cops in the USA I am sure
| there are some genuine racists the notion that in 2020
| cops would be killing blacks intentionally at a higher
| rate seems ridiculous. 99.999% of cops want to have an
| easy shift, get a donut or two, write a couple tickets,
| watch the years go by, retire early and collect a
| pension. Plenty of poor and middle class whites have been
| killed by abusive individual cops over the years and yet
| the reaction is not tribalism, rioting or generalising
| the actions of few bad cops to the police force as a
| whole. I agree America has massive problem with overly
| militarised police but this is not a racial issue. It
| stems from the drug war and the ease with which criminals
| can get high powered weapons in America. See North
| Hollywood Shootout.
|
| See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver
| runarberg wrote:
| > after adjusting for income level and crime rate of
| where the encounter takes place
|
| Please stop with this racist skewing of statistics. There
| are thousands of factors involved. A bad faith person
| will always be able to stack them up in a way that favors
| their cause. Experts in criminology pretty much agree
| that racial justice is a problem in urban and sub urban
| USA, including police violence. The only reason to
| disagree and to skew the statistics in your favor is to
| entertain racist believes.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Please stop with this racist skewing of statistics.
| There are thousands of factors involved.
|
| But that's the whole point. If black people are
| disproportionately shot by police because police are
| racist, that's a problem with police. If it's because
| "thousands of factors" cause black people to have
| disproportionately more _encounters_ with police, but the
| police themselves are acting with neutrality, then it 's
| a problem somewhere else and you can't fix it through
| police reform.
|
| The answer is fundamental if you actually want to solve
| the problem. But not evaluating it is convenient if you
| just want to keep using it as a political bludgeon
| forever, because by not even looking in the right places
| for a solution, the problem is never solved and you can
| run for office on it over and over.
| runarberg wrote:
| I am not an expert on criminology. I only have a layman
| understanding of psychology from university so I can not
| tell you how the experts have reached a consensus on
| racial justice in urban USA is skewed against black
| people (but I bet there are other people on HN that can;
| if they are willing to spend the effort; which I doubt,
| since I am almost over this already).
|
| But my layman understanding of psychology is enough to
| recognize how experts deal with large number factors in
| social models. You don't just pick and choose (in fact
| that is what I'm accusing racists of doing). There is a
| large body of literature that experts consults. In an
| average social psychology study you find something like
| citations to 30-60 different works to back up something
| as trivial as a study on the stress relation effects of
| living in proximity to high noise pollution. It is
| anything but convenient. To the contrary, it is a ton of
| work. I'm sure expert criminologists have spent years
| doing nothing but familiarizing them self with the
| literature so they can best judge how do deal with
| different factors in their models. And if they do mess up
| (which I'm sure they do) the self correcting nature of
| the scientific method will make sure that the worlds
| knows how their models were erroneous, and subsequent
| models will take this extra knowledge into effect.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| >Experts in criminology pretty much agree that racial
| justice is a problem in urban and sub urban USA,
| including police violence.
|
| Because if they don't they are racist. Right?
|
| To me racial justice means that you are not treated
| differently simply because of your race. In 2021 in
| America there is no evidence that people are treated
| differently just because of their race. There is plenty
| of evidence that people living in high crime areas,
| engaging in suspicious activities like passing
| counterfeit money while high on meth and fentanyl are
| treated differently from your average joe regardless of
| skin colour.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| So morpheos137 asks for statistics, you provide none, but
| accuse him/her of racist skewing of statistics. Um...
| pretty sure _you 're_ the one with the agenda here.
| runarberg wrote:
| I am not a criminologists, whichever statistics I provide
| will be of as poor quality as theirs.
| heterodoxxed wrote:
| The reason we just had the largest civil rights protests
| in American history this summer has as much or more to do
| with the everyday experience with the police as it does
| the extraordinary events such as deaths. Deaths were the
| spark, not the fuel.
|
| The grinding oppression of every day life in terms of
| policing has been shown in study after study. It is
| disproportionately felt by black people, mostly men, but
| it has been steadily expanding to all demographics for
| decades now.
|
| | _Plenty of poor and middle class whites_
|
| Yeah and a lot of poor and middle class white people were
| out supporting the protests because of their own
| experiences too.
|
| Daniel Shaver's death is not argument against BLM's
| goals, it's an argument in favor of them.
| penetraitor69 wrote:
| > Daniel Shaver's death is not argument against BLM's
| goals, it's an argument in favor of them.
|
| Exactly. I've seen far more outrage about the death of a
| _white_ man from those who say _black_ lives matter than
| from those saying _all_ lives matter.
| heterodoxxed wrote:
| Mhm. December 10, 2017. Two days after the video was
| released. #BLM Activists Call Attention
| To Graphic Video Of Daniel Shaver's Death At The Hands Of
| Arizona Police Black Lives Matter is against police
| brutality of all forms and against all people.
|
| https://blavity.com/blm-activists-call-attention-to-
| graphic-...
|
| Shaver isn't the only non-Black victim of police violence
| that BLM has been involved in supporting either. While
| their focus has always been Black people, they have never
| operated in an exclusive way at all.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| So what would be the problem with changing the name of
| the movement to ALM all lives matter and making the focus
| against police militarisation rather than some divisive
| narrative of racism?
| maedla wrote:
| Imagine you are at a dinner party and haven't eaten for a
| couple days. The guests don't realize this and are
| delaying dinner to chat, play games, what have you. Then
| finally someone says "hey morpehos137 is starving" and a
| large group of the guests dismiss this and say "We are
| all hungry" and continue to go about their business.
| [deleted]
| heterodoxxed wrote:
| The vast majority of Americans understand that Black
| Lives Matter is an inclusive statement, not an exclusive
| one.
|
| Those who make hay out of the name and have ignored the
| movement itself for almost a decade now are a small,
| ineffective minority.
|
| The largest civil rights protest movement in American
| history doesn't need to spend its time focus-grouping and
| hand-wringing about people like that.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > The vast majority of Americans understand that Black
| Lives Matter is an inclusive statement, not an exclusive
| one.
|
| Do they? I'm not sure what leads you to think that. I
| have no evidence other than anecdote, but from what I
| see, I'm not sure that your claim is true.
| splistud wrote:
| No, the vast majority of Americans do not believe that at
| all
| heterodoxxed wrote:
| After 10 years of a movement that culminated in protests
| in 2000 cities in all 50 states and 5 territories that
| had supermajority support in polls, the people who are
| still ignorant enough, feigned or otherwise, to say BLM
| means Black Lives _Only_ Matter are numerically and
| politically insignificant.
|
| No movement has ever changed anything by seeking to get
| 100% of everyone on board, least of all those most
| uninformed, hostile, and acting in bad faith.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| You clearly know they are dogwhistles. Just like saying
| sieg heil doesnt inherently mean anything racist, but
| everyone knows what you mean when you say it.
| api wrote:
| All three of these are reasonable statements if you remove
| all contemporary social context. Nobody does that, and the
| people who use these slogans know that. They're using the
| difference between abstract context-free understanding and
| contextual understanding as a gaslighting technique, making
| obviously political statements and then pretending there is
| no context and hiding behind "but that's a reasonable
| statement!"
|
| Consider, alternately, these three statements:
|
| "The social contract applies equally to all instances of
| human life."
|
| "We should eliminate shame in connection with anyone's
| race, heritage, or other aspects of their origin over which
| they have no control."
|
| "There is nothing inherent in markets that perpetuates
| racial prejudice."
|
| These mean about the same thing but are formulated in a way
| that avoids this kind of gaslighting doublespeak. It's not
| hard to do. I doubt those statements would offend anyone.
|
| I assume anyone saying "all lives matter" is racist
| precisely because it is so damn easy to say the same thing
| neutrally.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| This game is fun:
|
| > "The social contract applies equally to all instances
| of human life."
|
| Clearly you're making an argument against abortion.
|
| > "We should eliminate shame in connection with anyone's
| race, heritage, or other aspects of their origin over
| which they have no control."
|
| Pedophiles make this argument to justify their urges.
|
| > "There is nothing inherent in markets that perpetuates
| racial prejudice."
|
| This one might as well be All Lives Matter. It's the
| common retort against claims of algorithmic racial bias
| and was used historically in the South to oppose
| government-mandated desegregation.
|
| These are the claims you're using as examples of
| neutrality, until somebody puts them in a frame where
| they're not.
|
| You can do that with everything because even an actually
| neutral claim is an opposition to a non-neutral claim by
| someone else, and therefore has political implications.
| years3500 wrote:
| A quick search of 'Marion Gerald Hood Emory University
| rejection letter' will show how even in 1959, blacks were
| treated like scum.
|
| There are ways to get an idea of the reality of black
| people. For those who are ok with videos, here are some
| good but enjoyable ones. You may use 'NewPipe' from fdroid
| or the youtube-dl command line utility to download them:
|
| [1] How to pretend systemic racism does not exist? (with
| eng subtitles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ciwjHVHYg
|
| [2] Let's talk about what it's like to be a black person in
| the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD8mWq0Hdcw
|
| [3] Let's talk about being armed and black.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL_IX8yX_JU
|
| [4] How cops are trained to shoot you in your home.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuzQrbio2Qw
|
| Other resources include James Baldwin's books and
| documentaries. His 'The Fire Next Time' is just 120 pages
| [5].
|
| 'The Price of the Ticket' and 'I Am Not Your Negro' are
| good documentaries [6][7].
|
| [5] https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Next-Time-James-
| Baldwin/dp/06797...
|
| [6] https://www.amazon.com/James-Baldwin-Price-
| Ticket/dp/B01M25W...
|
| [7] https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Not-Your-
| Negro/dp/B01MR52U7T
|
| [8] Also the 1965 Baldwin and Buckley debate on the theme
| "Has the American dream been achieved at the expense of the
| American negro?" >
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxLUbKebYvc
|
| English subtitle download:
| https://amara.org/en/videos/dGI1henIPVYS/en/1338731/
| runarberg wrote:
| If you move this comment one level up it sounds like a
| clear distinction from the racist right. Making it clear
| that GP was engaging in a false equivalence. One might say:
| In a _different context_ this comment is accidentally
| leftist.
|
| You see the context in which you say things matter. If you
| should _"all lives matter"_ in response to the death
| penalty, I bet you'd be met with a ton of leftist support.
| However if you say it in response to _"black lives matter"_
| it is pretty clear that you disagree.
| js8 wrote:
| You didn't really answer GP's question, can you be a little
| more specific about which groups and individuals you perceive
| as left-extremist?
|
| I mean, people write a lot of crap on the Internet. It seems
| to me that you chose to perceive these people as leftist,
| rather than them proving it by participating in some kind of
| leftist organization or at least producing some left-leaning
| writing.
| anm89 wrote:
| I say this as someone who doesn't identify with the right or
| really care about any of these politics at all.
|
| Go google of a picture of the Minneapolis police department
| engulfed in flames shooting out 50 feet over the top. That was
| certainly a strongly predominantly left driven action.
| XorNot wrote:
| The Minneapolis police department was set on fire by a
| "Boogaloo Boi".
|
| ... Ivan Harrison Hunter, a Texas rightwing extremist,
| bragged about helping to set the fire then was seen shooting
| 13 rounds at the building ...
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/23/texas-
| boogaloo...
| ttt0 wrote:
| Boogaloos are far-right only in the sense that they're
| libertarians afaik.
|
| > Video shot that night shows a person later identified as
| Hunter firing 13 rounds from a semiautomatic assault-style
| rifle on the 3rd precinct police station while people
| believed to be looters were inside. He then high-fived
| another person and shouted, "Justice for Floyd!" according
| to the complaint.
|
| Doesn't seem like a person who you picture when you think
| about a "right-wing extremist".
| meheleventyone wrote:
| It's a similar problem to the whole anti-fa thing. Both
| have groups organizing around a common idea. Opposition
| to fascism for anti-fascists and trying to bring about a
| second civil war for the Boogaloo Bois. Neither are a
| strict group that exists with a coherent ideology you can
| point to. Instead they are a name given to lots of
| groups.
|
| With trying to incite a second civil war comes a lot of
| baggage associated with white supremacy and their dreams
| of the same thing along racial lines. So whilst not all
| groups are out and out racist a lot of them are just due
| to the people attracted to the idea. In particular when
| looking at people who are trying to incite a civil war
| upping the ante by shooting guns and setting buildings on
| fire we should be suspicious that the slogans they yell
| might not be in the interests of the cause but in
| inciting the government to respond and escalate things.
| ttt0 wrote:
| > It's a similar problem to the whole anti-fa thing. Both
| have groups organizing around a common idea. [...]
| Neither are a strict group that exists with a coherent
| ideology you can point to. Instead they are a name given
| to lots of groups.
|
| And the same goes for the loosely defined 'fascists', I
| guess?
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Yes of course. Fascist is a name given to lots of groups
| that subscribe to a broadly fascist ideology. Same as
| Marxist or conservative or liberal. This isn't rocket
| science.
| [deleted]
| anm89 wrote:
| There are about 500 people in those pictures. The fact that
| a right wing person got arrested means nothing. The George
| Floyd protests weren't right wing.
| leereeves wrote:
| No one person was responsible for that fire or those riots.
| Even your source doesn't claim so, it only accuses him of "
| _helping_ to set the fire ".
|
| > "I set fire to that precinct with the Black community,"
| and, "My mom would call the FBI if she knew."
|
| > "I've burned police stations with Black Panthers in
| Minneapolis," he claimed in one message, and in another,
| "The BLM protesters in Minneapolis loved me."
| AshWolfy wrote:
| See but if you just say the left, you dont have to provide any
| evidence, you can say they believe anything without proving it
| dmingod666 wrote:
| My reading from the outside is, the left needs to realize (I'm
| sure it applies to the right equally as well) that scolding
| people into guilt is not a viable approach to affect action or to
| change perceptions when you're dealing with adults.
|
| Neither does boxing people into this, that and that category do
| any good. Like if all you want to do is dehumanize those guys so
| you can happily insult / hurt them without hurting your
| conscience, go ahead, that's choice.. you have different goals..
| but remember that instinct that wants you to scream at this-this-
| this type of person is a confrontational approach that deep down
| falls in the pattern of, eliminating the other tribe.. if you
| choose to do something about it and what you do is your
| responsibility and problem.
|
| I just think the solution should lie in : 1) dialog 2) laws
|
| I think beyond those 2 lie some really wrong answers..
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _My reading from the outside is, the left needs to realize (I
| 'm sure it applies to the right equally as well) that scolding
| people into guilt is not a viable approach to affect action or
| to change perceptions when you're dealing with adults._
|
| This seems manifestly false. A lot of adult behavior can be
| changed by scolding, a lot of society runs on scolding.
|
| I'm a pretty rational and strongly opinionated person. You
| won't change my opinions with scolding. But if someone says
| "don't talk so loud, you'll wake the baby", well, you can
| certainly change my behavior. But even more, a lot of people do
| not operate at anywhere near this the level of rationality and
| a wider area of their behavior can be changed by scolding.
| Which is to say the population of _fully adult humans_ is a lot
| less than the population of humans above the age of majority.
|
| And sure, you can't control everything with scolding, you can't
| replace the police and the army with scolding but scolding,
| peer (and non-peer) pressure, etc is a tool in the hands of all
| the different incarnation of "society".
| jfengel wrote:
| Certainly people get all angsty about being scolded. If it
| were being ignored, they wouldn't talk about it so much.
| himinlomax wrote:
| I make the distinction between anti-racism and anti-racist. If
| you're anti-racism, you want to reduce racism and that involves
| talking to people who are racist to fix the problem. If you're
| anti-racist, you just want to beat someone up and use racism as
| an excuse.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Not only would they disagree with you, but their strategy
| actually works. Leftists, "wokeness", and social justice
| wouldn't be the hot topics they've been if the strategy of
| leftists weren't effective.
|
| In terms of "adults", they are few and far between. There will
| always be biological adults, but so many adults are emotionally
| stunted that it's difficult for me to give them the title. Just
| as domestically raised cats are more child-like than cats that
| have spent their lives on the streets, the average life of an
| adult in the west is replete with comfort and novelty so as to
| keep them from building maturity and character. This makes them
| incredibly easy to be shamed into doing whatever is considered
| acceptable by the society they're in.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Not only would they disagree with you, but their strategy
| actually works. Leftists, "wokeness", and social justice
| wouldn't be the hot topics they've been if the strategy of
| leftists weren't effective.
|
| Is the goal of social justice movements just to be hot
| topics? Your statement makes it seem like success is measured
| by the amount of retweets or something. Clearly that can't be
| true, but if global fascism and ethnic nationalism is on the
| rise, what actual victories can this strategy claim to have
| won?
|
| In general I think there has been progress, but it's all come
| from other corners: economics, regulatory reforms, art, and
| so on. Other than getting attention, are there any specific
| things you're thinking of when you say this strategy has been
| effective?
| ralusek wrote:
| I think the current primary strategy is to destabilize
| Western liberalism. Every tenet of liberalism is actively
| under attack, and successfully so.
|
| Individualism? Long gone, the name of the game is
| collectivism and your identity groups are everything.
|
| Color blindness? It's officially considered to be an
| outdated, laughable mode of thinking. If your identity
| collective is paramount, how can you be blind to the
| parameter by which we should first be characterizing you
| by?
|
| Freedom of speech? Muh freeze peach. This is now a dog
| whistle value for hate speech. Freedom of speech just means
| freedom for the identity groups in oppressive positions.
|
| Rule of law? The application of the law should, of course,
| not be universal. It should be applied with context, with
| the context being...you guessed it...your identity group.
|
| Objectivity? Facts? Reason? Tools of the colonialists in
| order to snuff out alternative modes of thinking. Any claim
| at truth is simply done within the context of the identity
| group.
|
| If you don't think the left has succeeded in this
| objective, I don't know what planet you're living on. As a
| liberal, I can hardly communicate with any of my peers
| within the framework that has been foundational to Western
| civilization.
| penetraitor69 wrote:
| "Individualism" was never _really implemented_ as
| "western" value; it was only ever a catch-phrase to
| defend the status quo by insisting those at the top
| "earned the right" to be there.
|
| "Color blindness" likewise has mostly been used to argue
| that those on the bottom of society _deserve_ to be
| there; (again) preserving the status quo. I.E. shutting
| down discussion by labeling racism a "solved problem".
|
| "Freedom of speech" complaints most often come from those
| claiming to be "censored" because they are no longer
| being given a megaphone.
|
| "Rule of law" is used to prevent analysis _of those laws_
| by, among other things, demonizing any discussion of
| those laws ' motivations, or the cultural context in
| which they are enforced.
|
| "Objectivity, Facts, and Reason" are used as buzzwords,
| often by those who _know_ they aren 't actually on their
| side, because
|
| 1) _everyone_ knows they are good, and so claiming to
| already possess them is convincing rhetoric,
|
| 2) painting your opponents as "rejecting" them is _also_
| persuasive rhetoric, _especially to your uninformed
| audience._
|
| Claiming that people are _actually_ demonizing them is a
| mischaracterization.
| wnoise wrote:
| None of these were actually faithfully followed, and they
| were indeed used as excuses. But they used to be viewed
| as ideals to work toward. Now there are circles where
| they are _only_ seen as excuses, and they really have
| been demonized.
| penetraitor69 wrote:
| You could make that case, but I do think that they ceased
| to be "ideals to work toward" _before_ people started
| recognizing them as such. I.E. it was only _after_
| "colorblindness" advocates started using the term to shut
| down discussions of issues facing minorities that people
| started calling out "colorblind" rhetoric as
| disingenuous.
| hn_in_shambles wrote:
| Western liberal democracy is collapsing because the right
| wing reactionaries were right about diversity destroying
| society, but their mistake was attempting to focus on
| things like racial and religious diversity. Diversity of
| ideas is not sustainable.
|
| Now we can see multiple "factions" each with different
| ideas about the direction to take society with many of
| these ideas being excluding of or outright hostile to a
| different faction. So the solution? You have to kill them
| before they kill you (not in a literal sense, or at least
| not yet). Some of these factions will band with others
| (see right-libertarians typically siding with
| reactionaries and the progressive adoption of various
| leftist ideas) though it will be interesting to see what
| happens there when whichever group comes out on top.
| ravenstine wrote:
| > Is the goal of social justice movements just to be hot
| topics?
|
| I'm not sure I understand precisely what you're getting at
| but, for the record, anyone reading this should understand
| that I am not suggesting that hot topics are the goal of
| social justice.
|
| In fact, I wasn't even making a value judgement of left
| wing causes in general, but people seem to always take the
| word "leftists" as a pejorative. All I'm saying is that
| leftist political strategies have been successful in that,
| on any given day, I can tune in to any given medium and
| count on trans rights, BLM, UBI, social equity, anti-
| racism, and so forth being a topic of conversation. This
| wasn't nearly as true before the current wave of leftism
| gained steam.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > I am not suggesting that hot topics are the goal of
| social justice.
|
| "their strategy actually works." implies that their
| strategy accompishes their goals.
|
| "Leftists, "wokeness", and social justice wouldn't be the
| hot topics they've been if the strategy of leftists
| weren't effective." impies that hot topics are what their
| strategy accompished.
|
| The transitive property between "goals" == "what strategy
| accompished" == "hot topics" is at least pretty clearly
| implied there.
| drooby wrote:
| You might have to define "works".
|
| There was a raid on the capitol. Racial tension is at its
| highest point in decades. Domestic terrorism is on the rise.
| ravenstine wrote:
| I hesitate to respond to this because I've been scolded by
| dang whenever I make political comments about specific
| groups, so I'll have to speak very generically. I will say
| that political movements can be either ambivalent towards
| or in support of destabilization of the current regime,
| even if that means doing things that superficially appear
| to be counter to their goals, so long as their politics are
| normalized and even chosen by the information brokers.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| Their strategies may "work" in the short-term but I think
| short-term thinking is really damaging the long-term progress
| for the US political sphere. The reason the founders decided
| to emphatically form the "United States" is because we are
| stronger working together than as factions or tribes.
| artichokes wrote:
| > we are stronger working together than as factions or
| tribes.
|
| "We are stronger working together" is what a tribe is.
| clarkmoody wrote:
| Maybe they're trying to force a violent response from the
| right, so they can use the power of the state to crush them?
| k4c9x wrote:
| I don't think anyone really expects to convince racists,
| sexists, homophobic, rapey, violent, narcissist to change their
| ways. Ignoring them is obviously bad so there's nothing left to
| do but to try and make sure their, technically legal, but
| clearly nefarious, behavior doesn't go unnoticed at every
| opportunity.
| BenoitEssiambre wrote:
| While shaming and scolding might be overused, it's a legitimate
| tool in some cases. The problem is that a lot of sjw are
| punching down while telling themselves they are punching up
| because the person is white.
|
| How often did I end up in a room full of urban, university
| educated people looking down on the white rural common folks.
|
| The common people are not always common by choice. It's not
| necessarily by choice that they can't follow wonkish academic
| stories about the history of race to understand modern issues.
| It's not necessarily by choice that they can't see all the
| shades of gray of advanced morality and sort out complex issues
| about gender and race. These are the type of people that need
| to see a moral guide every week just to follow a simple
| morality where they can't process much beyond stereotypes.
|
| The best AIs out there are not able to simulate advanced
| empathy. It is highly complex and involves multilevel recursive
| counterfactual meta-cognitive logic (https://www.lesswrong.com/
| posts/K4eDzqS2rbcBDsCLZ/unrolling-...). Given the level of
| complexity, I don't expect everyone to be able to intuitively
| get it.
|
| A lot of people are intellectually underprivileged and too
| often, sjw like to scorn and mock them for their handicap.
|
| The way I see it, Trumpism is made of an evil right wing elite
| that has managed to capture a large swath of simple minded
| folks party because these simple folks were pushed away from
| more reasonable political affiliation.
|
| Populism doesn't have to be negative. The US constitution
| starts with We the People, not We the Scholars. Yes populism
| means unsophisticated views but these could be aligned with
| reasonable policy as much as right wing policy if the left
| didn't show so much contempt for the intellectually and morally
| disadvantaged. Democracy means you need unsophisticated people
| to vote with you to win elections.
| mint2 wrote:
| Do you know the history of jaywalking? Shaming works.
|
| But telling people they shouldn't insult and denigrate people
| for immutable physical characteristics is not shaming them, but
| if it is that's a weird aspect of the interaction to focus on.
| ThrustVectoring wrote:
| It absolutely does work. A little bit, at first, when you have
| broad consensus backing you - but it does work. People will
| begrudgingly change their behavior for relatively minor things,
| and the change in the use rate of racial epithets in public
| reflects that.
|
| The problem is that A) this process is more useful for
| advancing _within_ the ideological block than for advancing the
| ideology 's goals, and B) there's a "Laffer Curve" of sorts for
| paying "moral taxes" in following behavioral norms. The
| internal dynamics of a movement is going to set the level by
| true-believer dynamics where outrageously high demands are
| acceded to, while the general public is going to respond to
| that level of demand of "well, if you think I'm a bad person
| for saying 'Latino" instead of 'Latinx', that's your problem".
| ryandrake wrote:
| > It absolutely does work. A little bit, at first, when you
| have broad consensus backing you - but it does work. People
| will begrudgingly change their behavior for relatively minor
| things, and the change in the use rate of racial epithets in
| public reflects that.
|
| The only change is that you now have a bunch of people who
| are afraid to use a handful of naughty words in public
| because they might lose their job over it. You haven't
| changed any minds or hearts, you've just moved the
| conversations into private rooms. You can't end racism by
| just shaming people for using the n-word. It's arguably just
| as bad now as it was during the Civil Rights era, but you
| can't easily see it anymore because it's mostly kept within
| "friendly" company.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _The only change is that you now have a bunch of people
| who are afraid to use a handful of naughty words in public
| because they might lose their job over it._
|
| That's not the "only change". If were, that's still a
| feature, not a bug. It means that real consequences are
| possible, and that those possible consequences are widely
| understood.
|
| One is never going to change the mind and heart of a deeply
| racist person, but one can help bend the overall curve of
| intolerance over time.
| ryandrake wrote:
| How do you know that you're actually "bending the curve"
| and not just driving it underground?
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Let's see...
|
| My grandparents used the N word freely.
|
| My parents used the C word on occasion when they were
| younger and grew out of it.
|
| I don't use either, and neither do my kids.
|
| Generations don't exist in bubbles. They are shaped and
| influenced by popular society just as much as their local
| communities.
|
| 30 years ago, the AIDS epidemic was a punchline.
|
| 17 years ago, you couldn't be openly gay in the military
| and the majority of people in the US supported it.
|
| Now, most people are in favor of gay marriage and a
| sizeable percentage are fine with trans rights.
|
| The best part about bigots is that they are mortal.
| jfengel wrote:
| They're mortal, but that's cold comfort when they're
| oppressing you now.
|
| And they cling to power. The party that opposed gay
| marriage now controls 67% of the voting power on the
| court that legalized it. If that case came up again
| today, it would almost certainly go the other way. And
| they may, in fact, find ways to re-litigate it.
|
| Even when the majority of that party switched to be in
| favor if it, they continue to vote for leadership who
| opposed it. Laws against trans rights are being enshrined
| in law literally as we speak, and it will take a very
| long time to scrub them off the books.
|
| They're mortal, but I take no joy in that. They have
| disproportionate power, and as it dims, they use it
| harder and harder.
| clusterfish wrote:
| I think the extremes, both left and right, have realized that
| their greatest enemy is not the other extreme, but the masses
| in between.
|
| A group that has the numbers, with mild views that can dilute
| your message with reasonable doubt, challenge certain aspects
| of your extreme yet be broadly acceptable to a much wider
| audience including those tending towards your side - that's
| poision for an extremist.
|
| Therefore, their solution to that is tribalism, polarization,
| and shaming for any hint of non-compliance with the extreme's
| dogma.
|
| End result is that the vast majority of moderate people do not
| participate in debates on sensitive topics, leaving the field
| open for polarizing demagoguery. All that's left is to make
| more topics sensitive to get an advantage there too, and that's
| progressing very well too.
| Floegipoky wrote:
| "I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the
| Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is
| not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but
| the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to
| justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of
| tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice;
| who constantly says: 'I agree with you in the goal you seek,
| but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action'; who
| paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for
| another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of
| time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more
| convenient season.'" - Dr. King, 1963
| runarberg wrote:
| this might be false equivalence. People far on the left
| (except from some nas-bols; which I've never encountered in
| the wild) call them selfs anti-facists. It is clear who their
| greatest enemy is. In fact far left groups (like food not
| bombs, etc.) often engage in social programs called mutual
| aid where the goal is to spread propaganda through helping
| the masses.
| busterarm wrote:
| > spread propaganda through helping the masses.
|
| 1%'er motorcycle clubs, mafia organizations and radical
| religious cults are notorious for doing this as well.
| runarberg wrote:
| Again fails equivalence. Mutual aid is not causing
| anybody harm. In fact it is not mutual aid _by
| definition_ if it does cause harm.
| lazyeye wrote:
| Im sure the foot soldiers of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot had
| that exact same purity of thought, the exact same
| infallible self-belief and the exact same absolute
| certainty they were on the right side of history.
| runarberg wrote:
| Maoists and National Bolsheviks are a really small
| minority inside leftist circles, you will have to look
| for a long time before you encounter one in the wild. And
| when you do, and if you are a leftist, you will most
| likely shun them. Racism is usually not tolerated by the
| left.
| busterarm wrote:
| Varg is pretty much a textbook NazBol. Thing is people
| won't stop tripping over each other to label him far-
| right/Nazi before hearing anything he says. Pretty likely
| this is happening to most other of their ilk as well.
|
| In the five years or so I spent hanging out with
| Socialist Party USA folks, I met loads of Maoists,
| including a former party chairman. There were a lot who
| were Trotskyists out in the open and Maoists if you got
| them drunk enough to talk freely.
| runarberg wrote:
| At the risk of entertaining the _no true Scotsman_ :
|
| A leftist that doesn't empathize with the masses, is not a
| true leftist.
| leereeves wrote:
| Unfortunately it can be difficult to tell who empathizes
| with the masses and who is just pretending to in pursuit
| of power.
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| The two aren't mutually exclusive. Power is simply the
| capacity to influence the behavior of others, and in a
| democracy, it is leveraged to get anything done.
| tehjoker wrote:
| In the US today, you're a real dumb dumb if you try to
| attain power via a left platform. A handful of people did
| it (AOC, Omar, Taleib) but by far if you want a
| successful career you take a mainstream R or D position
| and just try to outdo everyone else in culture war takes.
| I'll point out that "the squad" is social democratic in
| nature, they aren't as far left as you can go by far.
|
| A left position calls for redistribution of wealth and
| transfer of control of the means of production, which
| gets you attacked from nearly all establishment sides.
| leereeves wrote:
| The establishment isn't what it once was.
|
| Obama turned out to be an establishment President (with
| bailouts, not prosecutions, for the architects of the
| housing bubble and crash) but he ran as an anti-
| establishment candidate.
|
| Then, despite obviously being part of the establishment,
| Hillary tried to do the same, arguing that she as a woman
| she clearly wasn't part of the establishment ("Sen.
| Sanders is the only person who I think would characterize
| me, a woman running to be the first woman president, as
| exemplifying the establishment.")
|
| She lost to Trump, who - despite being a billionaire
| white male - constantly attacked and was attacked by the
| establishment, in particular as a "populist", someone
| chosen by the people, not the establishment.
|
| And until the DNC united behind Biden, Bernie was giving
| him a serious challenge, and Biden was relying on his
| anti-establishment rep with his "black firewall".
|
| Meanwhile, Bloomberg was painted as the clueless
| establishment candidate and laughed out of the race.
|
| A young politician (left or right) studying recent events
| would be smart to run away from the establishment, just
| as so many elder politicians have (while perhaps seeking
| establishment support in secret, and hoping not to be
| caught).
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| This is strongly undercut by "the DNC (i.e. the
| establishment) united behind Biden" who is currently
| POTUS instead of Bernie or Trump.
| leereeves wrote:
| But facing enormous pressure from a younger generation
| that seems to be far to the left of Biden and was not
| happy with either Biden or Harris, but voted against
| Trump rather than for Biden.
|
| And even with all Trump's failings as a person, it was a
| close election between the unpopular populist and the
| likeable establishment compromise. Is that evidence of
| establishment strength?
| glogla wrote:
| Thats hard since sometimes the masses are fighting
| against being helped (because that would be socialism)
| while languishing in poverty.
|
| Do they really have the right to commit suicide by
| policy, taking us with them via climate change?
|
| It is realy hard to empathize with those.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > the masses are fighting against being helped
|
| If you are looking for a clearler symptom that you don't
| empathize with them, there isn't any.
|
| What is not a moral failing, by the way. But check your
| "Left" label, because it's probably wrong.
| glogla wrote:
| You can be Left without empathizing with people who want
| you dead. That's a pretty straightforward application of
| Paradox of Tolerance.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It's entirely your choice who you empathize with. If you
| don't act over your indifference, it doesn't harm
| anybody. It's impossible to empathize with everybody.
|
| The criticism people are raising is about a kind of
| hypocrisy, even when lying is entirely to oneself.
| runarberg wrote:
| I know a certain Jesus Christ who would disagree with
| you. In seriousness though, visiting poor rural American
| during Trump is a really numbing experience. You see the
| people there flagging Trump signs everywhere while living
| in dirt poor conditions. It is hard not to emphasize with
| them even though they are calling for everything you are
| fighting against.
|
| After all, the establishment has failed those people. The
| democratic party has severely failed them. Democracy it
| self has failed them. I know that really capitalism has
| failed them and they would find better answers under
| socialism then under Trump (after all Trump has failed
| them as well). But you must still understand where this
| is coming from. That is you must empathize with them,
| even though their views are wrong.
| ralusek wrote:
| There is no consistent conception of the masses to the
| left. Traditionally, there is the labor class and the
| capital class. In the modern left, oppressors and
| oppressed are typically determined by identity group, but
| the game is the same. To win the game of leftism, you
| better pray that you're in the "masses."
| runarberg wrote:
| True. A Marxist will have a different conception of the
| masses from an anarchist (even though the intersection is
| usually pretty large). But I fail to see what that has to
| do with anything. There is no _game of leftism_. The goal
| is to free people from the tyranny of capitalism and
| fascism (marxists might emphasize the former while
| anarchists the latter).
|
| Leftists generally accept rich folks sympathetic to the
| cause, even though they technically don't belong to the
| masses. For example Marxists and anarchists alike
| generally accept Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy as
| leftists (even though the latter was born into great
| wealth), and leftists generally accept Dan Price
| (#DanPriceSeattle on twitter) even though he is a boss
| (i.e. not off the masses).
| Noos wrote:
| It is not to free people, it is to free the abstract idea
| of people. This is how leftists are as tyrannical as
| everyone. They have a romantic idea of the poor which is
| not tied to their actual existence or wants, and act on
| it. Too often, it is just a way to morally justify their
| own wants or desires. Any evil can be justified if it
| helps a faceless mass of people.
| runarberg wrote:
| > romantic idea of the poor
|
| It is actually quite fun to read Dostoevsky's Idiot with
| that in mind that Dostoevsky might have written Prince
| Myshkin (the Idiot) with Leo Tolstoy in mind. Dostoevsky
| was very much not a man of means, whereas Tolstoy
| literally came from a line of nobility. To Dostoevsky,
| Tolstoy's talk of the impoverished must have sounded like
| he had no idea what he was talking about.
|
| That being said, I do think that romanticism of the poor
| is a really old school mentality, maybe some boomers
| sometimes still engage in it, but I doubt that you'll
| find contemporary leftists engaging in it. Today's left
| is much more AOC and Greta Thunberg complaining about how
| shitty life is for the poor (with a substantial retweet
| history each backing up poor people calling for it).
| ralusek wrote:
| There is no game of leftism? The game is for the
| oppressed class to take power from the oppressor class.
| Who fits into which of those classes is a contentious
| issue, though as I said, more frequently predicated on
| identity than anything else.
|
| Also, to be free of the "tyranny of capitalism and
| fascism," I hope that those are two different categories.
| Capitalism and fascism are near polar opposites.
|
| It's also important to understand that leftism
| necessarily ushers in tyranny. It is impossible, not just
| in practice, but in theory, for leftism to be implemented
| without an authoritarian state. If you attempt to get
| around this constraint, it will only be by you failing to
| describe a state whose outcomes will fall within the
| objectives of leftism, or by describing an authoritarian
| state by any other name (syndicates, guilds, unions).
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| Calling yourself anti-fascist does not make you immune to
| totalitarianism, tribalism and othering any more than, to
| borrow an analogy, writing "cool" on a box makes it a
| freezer.
|
| edit: Oy! The downvote is not for disagreeing!
| dang wrote:
| Downvoting for disagreement is ok on HN; always has been.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314
|
| What's not ok is going on about downvotes. It never does
| any good, and it makes for boring reading.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| Funny, the Berlin Wall was called antifascist -
| Antifaschistischer Schutzwall
| caslon wrote:
| The winning approach is obviously in waiting for the other side
| to die off; the left is currently the majority, and the right
| is, on average, old.
|
| In this regard, it's absolutely a "viable approach": By making
| it low-status to be right-wing, or even by not carrying right-
| wing views on popular private platforms, it makes the right-
| wing destined to lose out somewhere along the line simply due
| to the youth not wanting to associate with them.
|
| It's a waiting game above anything, and on a long enough scale
| it looks like the winner is clear here, for better or worse.
| bena wrote:
| The weird problem with this strategy is that there's a number
| of people who become more conservative, for whatever reason,
| as they get older.
|
| The generation that comprised the hippies are now in their
| 80s. Mitch McConnell would have been in that generation.
|
| So while the current crop of conservatives are dying off,
| they are being replaced by new members.
| caslon wrote:
| It's not enough to make up the gap, though. Further,
| hippies rarely voted, and weren't the majority or even
| close to the majority of their generation.
| wnoise wrote:
| It's typically because they get wealthier as they get
| older. I'm not expecting millennials and gen-X to get more
| conservative. Zoomers, maybe.
| chmod600 wrote:
| What does "winning" even mean for the left? The people who
| choose leftism will win against everyone else for the reasons
| you say, but like all political victories, winning is
| (comparatively) the easy part. Keeping your values intact and
| governing a successful society is the hard part.
|
| The Left seems to have given up on liberalism in persuit of
| victory. They are in the process of giving up on
| progressivism. What remains?
| caslon wrote:
| What's good about liberalism?
|
| They seem more progressive than ever; an open socialist
| nearly won their primary last year.
| justaman wrote:
| Liberalism and progressiveism are not the same thing.
| caslon wrote:
| > The Left seems to have given up on liberalism in
| persuit of victory. They are in the process of giving up
| on progressivism.
|
| This is a direct quote from the post I am replying to. I
| know liberalism and progressiveness aren't the same
| thing. I am stating that they're getting more
| progressive, and I don't see why liberalism declining is
| a bad thing.
| chmod600 wrote:
| Socialism, liberalism, and progressivism are all
| different ideas.
|
| Leftism tries to combine these ideas into a coherent
| political ideology. Liberalism (the part about individual
| rights) is a check on the abuses of socialism, and
| progressivism is supposed to make it all work (experts in
| control making good decisions).
|
| I'm not a Leftist, but I can acknowledge that it's a
| coherent ideology.
|
| When you take Leftism and take away liberalism and
| progressivism, you are left with rebels that have no
| solution to anything. Like BLM and antifa which are
| always recruiting to attack a mysterious "system" rather
| than making serious proposals. (It's always easier to get
| people to agree on a problem than a solution.) If they
| were to win, it would look more like Venezuela or Cuba
| than Denmark or Sweden.
| caslon wrote:
| I know that liberalism and progressiveness are different
| things. Liberalism isn't tied to progressiveness, but
| progressiveness is inherently tied to economic justice.
| Socialism is certainly a progressive stance.
|
| Liberalism can be dropped with no real loss.
|
| What's wrong with Cuba? It seems like it's doing pretty
| well; it has more or less the longest-lasting government
| in South America, largely because it dropped liberalism.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| When you elevate yourself above a group of people there is no
| option for dialog, because engaging in dialog would mean that
| you view those people as equals.
| jude- wrote:
| > I just think the solution should lie in : 1) dialog 2) laws
|
| If they're not willing to be reasonable (like, you don't get to
| "dialog" about whether or not genocide is appropriate), then
| the best and most moral course of action could very well be to
| stop them from recruiting your friends.
|
| In the context of tech, this is the essence of deplatforming.
| Twitter and Facebook _cannot_ censor, since they are not
| governments. However, as private entities, they can decide not
| to let you use their service. That 's their private property
| rights in action.
| jude- wrote:
| Wow, so many downvotes for saying that debating genocide is
| never okay. There's truly nothing to debate -- it's _always_
| wrong, and we would do well to kick out users who would say
| otherwise, lest they start organizing.
|
| Seriously, wtf is wrong with you?
| saalweachter wrote:
| One of my all-time favorite metaphors on the internet:
|
| "I really don't understand how bipartisanship is ever going
| to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying
| to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date,
| and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would
| be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a
| way to split the difference there and find a meal you will
| both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship
| is going to work the next few years."
| bena wrote:
| Don't pay it any mind. There is a certain class of posts
| where certain opinions and moods of HN become apparent.
| clairity wrote:
| > "My reading from the outside is, the left needs to realize
| (I'm sure it applies to the right equally as well)..."
|
| > "Neither does boxing people into this, that and that category
| do any good."
|
| a good first start is to follow the latter maxim when
| discussing the former issue, particularly when it comes to
| issues of power and influence. you're already lost when you
| speak in terms of left and right. those are distractions from
| the real coercions impinging on our freedoms daily, from the
| desire to stagnate and wield (more) power. you need to pierce
| that construct, disregard it entirely, to understand and orient
| your resistance and dissatisfaction toward the rightful source.
|
| two people chosen randomly are going to be vastly more similar
| than different, no matter where on the artificially-constructed
| political spectrum they are. this is how we know it's
| constructed and not real.
|
| the left-right dichotomy, like all dichotomies, collapses our
| thinking into detrimental zero-sum tribalism pointing us
| against each other rather toward the real source of conflict,
| _power-wielders_ , creating an artificial, seemingly-
| insurmountable gulf, that fractures the populace and shields
| power further from the will of the people (that's _us_ ).
|
| a power structure can do awesome things, and sometimes we need
| it to do those awesome (positive) things temporarily, but
| stagnated, amassed power can do a lot of awesome, negatively-
| externalizing, and self-serving things not in the interest of
| the many (especially the future many).
|
| the way to think about power is as flows, not stores, and
| especially not as individuals, which is where our primitive
| brains betray us constantly. to harness power, we must allow it
| to temporarily coalesce when and where it will do good, and
| dissapate steadily so as not to stagnate, and corrupt, in any
| one set of hands.
| titzer wrote:
| Every society exerts social pressure in the form of norms and
| shaming. People are only sensitive to the shaming they won't
| accept, which always seems to come from the people they
| disagree with, and they are completely blind to the shaming
| that goes on in their in-group.
| [deleted]
| colllectorof wrote:
| _> Every society exerts social pressure in the form of norms
| and shaming._
|
| HN crowd has a definite knack for packing heaps of erroneous
| thinking (or perhaps deliberate gaslighting) into compact
| sentences like these.
|
| Deplatforming is a tactic. One specifically designed to exert
| pressure in a direction not supported by the societal
| consensus. And yet in nearly every thread about it here,
| there are highly upvoted comments that pretend deplatforming
| is a mechanism for _enforcing_ societal consensus.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't add supercilious dissing on top of the
| flamewar this thread has already degenerated into.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Lammy wrote:
| It's very rude to say people are "pretending" just because
| you don't agree with their beliefs.
| VSerge wrote:
| Here's a deplatforming example that is very much in line
| with societal consensus: when Daech was recruiting
| teenagers and young adults from Europe, there was a
| constant struggle, by both platforms and law enforcement,
| to systematically de-platform the accounts pushing their
| propaganda.
|
| It is likely that had this propaganda been allowed to run
| unchecked, there would have been even more people recruited
| by Daech to go fight in Syria (or get married off), and to
| attack random civilians in the name of this ideology. Most
| attacks, if not all, were perpetrated by people who had in
| large part radicalized online, away from extremist mosques
| where they might have been more easily detected.
|
| That being said, I don't believe censorship or de-
| platforming should ever be used outside of preventing the
| spread of propaganda that results in actual attacks on
| people. Anything short of this is just talk.
| Retric wrote:
| Yea, a recent example of environmental shaming that worked
| was the reduction of littering from cars. Roadside cleanup
| helped, but tossing stuff out of car windows used to be
| significantly more common.
|
| What's notable is no organization benefited from littering so
| there is little pushback on the subject, just millions of
| people behaving slightly differently.
| potta_coffee wrote:
| The tickets for littering are huge.
| freen wrote:
| And exceedingly rare.
| Retric wrote:
| Laws rarely change so you can track the impact of various
| campaigns over time. Over time they have significantly
| changed people's behavior.
|
| So sure in some states the fines are huge, but New
| Mexico's $50 fine is a minimal risk.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| I believe the "Don't mess with Texas" advertising
| campaign was actually significantly more helpful than the
| ticket cost. If you think about it, people usually only
| know about the cost if they get fined but people know
| that it is frowned upon to litter through an advertising
| campaign.
|
| After all, the people in and around your car can judge
| and shame you while you can only get a ticket if there's
| a cop around.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Interesting thought, it would seem to follow that those less
| effected by social shaming might find themselves at a
| evolutionary advantage over those that are greatly effected.
| For example those who ignore prohibitions on premarital sex
| may have more children overall.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Except that society has a mechanism for for enforcing
| social norms: laws. Premarital sex might seem like an
| evolutionary advantage, unless you live in a society that
| murders you for such activities.
|
| You are right though, which is why high-status in a society
| are "allowed" to break social norms with no consequence.
| throwaway316943 wrote:
| You can pass all the laws you want but if they aren't
| backed up by a general consensus in the society they will
| be defied at every turn.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Counter-point: authoritarian regimes.
|
| The general consensus in such countries is that the laws
| are terrible and oppressive, the the brutal enforcement
| largely ensures compliance.
| koonsolo wrote:
| Reminds me of some test I read in a book (can't remember which
| one).
|
| A teacher asks some student to stand up and raise his hands
| before him. The teacher stands in front of him and does the
| same, touching the students hands. Then the teacher starts
| pushing, and the student uses force to stay in place. Then the
| teacher uses more force, and so does the student.
|
| Finally the teacher asks: "Whay are you pushing me?". "Because
| you were pushing me!"
|
| This is exactly what is happening here. You cannot expect
| people to give in once you start pushing.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > ... You cannot expect people to give in once you start
| pushing.
|
| On the contrary, Chinese martial arts (as well as physical
| exercise more generally, as with Tai chi chu'an) use the
| pushing hands exercise to teach how to skillfully yield and
| redirect the other party's power. It's viewed as foundational
| to the entire discipline.
| progre wrote:
| Martial arts is not politics, and the western mindset is to
| respond with equal or greater force. In fact the military
| doctrine is to respond with disproportional force. Yielding
| may be the smarter thing to do, but that's would be seen as
| weak in most of the world (including, I suspect, China).
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| There's a common idea I see sometimes in discussions about
| weapons of war - would it be good if everyone only made
| defensive technologies? Say no to fighters and bombers, but
| yes to surface-to-air missiles? Say no to guns, but yes to
| anti-ballistic protection?
|
| But to this, the answer is: every defensive technology can be
| used as an offensive weapon. I can pack my SAM turrent on a
| truck and drive all the way to your city, and start shooting
| down your airliners, and you won't be able to do anything
| about it, because whatever guns you scavenge from a museum
| mean nothing to my anti-ballistic vest.
|
| This is what I think of when I see people who purposefully
| inject themselves into communities, feign offense and call
| society for help. Using means of protection as weapons.
| nitrogen wrote:
| _This is exactly what is happening here. You cannot expect
| people to give in once you start pushing._
|
| There was an episode of STTNG that had a profound effect on
| me as a kid as a metaphor for confrontation, where the crew
| of a destroyed ship kept saying "more power to the shields"
| when the "shields" were actually causing the problem.
| hef19898 wrote:
| So in that case, the party with authority and power asked the
| other to do something. Then the powerful party started
| pushing and then complained about counter pressure. Sounds
| familiar.
| hef19898 wrote:
| You cannot tolerate intolerance. And of the two sides, only one
| is actively trying to restrict the freedom of people based on
| skin, religion and sex. Only one side is arguing for violence
| against weaker people, like fugitives and migrants. And it is
| this side that hides behind free speech.
|
| The author is getting a couple of things completely wrong about
| both France and Germany. The FN managed to get into the second
| round of Frances presidential election only to clearly loose
| that round. In the following parliamentary elections, FN lost
| as well. Whether or not the FN will end being a major factor
| will be shown by the next elections. If anything, the more
| aggressive approach seems to have softened the FN and make it
| more mainstream acceptable.
|
| In Germany, we went without a major right wing party from 1945
| to the rise of the AfD. And the AfD is, until now, more of a
| nuisance than a threat. That could change with the next
| elections, so. The reason we managed to go without a party like
| that for decades are the laws we have.
|
| These laws were created based on lessons of WW2 and the Nazis
| rise to power. That they work less well in the 21st century,
| with social media, shoulder really surprise anyobe.
|
| I'd also add, that the Covid restrictions, and the seemingly
| incompetent governments, are the main driver behind the right
| rise in popularity. And not some failure to fight hate speech.
| louwrentius wrote:
| You seem to get down-voted but I agree with your view and I
| think is is funny that the free-speech-absolutists downvote /
| to take your speech away.
|
| To be intolerant against intolerance is at the heart of any
| stable, decent, livable society. I don't understand the view
| of the free-speech-absolutists because it is so obvious that
| it doesn't work.
|
| In Europe - or least in The Netherlands - saying
| discriminatory thing can get you fined or in jail and that is
| how it should be if you care about your society.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > To be intolerant against intolerance is at the heart of
| any stable, decent, livable society.
|
| I agree; in the name of preserving social order, SJWs
| should all be thrown in jails.
|
| Just kidding... but that's what the article is talking
| about. You can make strict laws (or social norms) against
| "intolerance", and someone else will be happy you handed
| them a powerful weapon they can use against you.
|
| Do your political opponents seem intolerant to you? Let me
| tell you a secret: the feeling is probably mutual. You
| prefer to focus on those parts where they are less tolerant
| than you, and ignore the ones where it is the other way
| round. They do the same.
| louwrentius wrote:
| The funny thing is that free speech doesn't exist.
| Nowhere do you get free speech. There are always limits.
| Even in the USA.
|
| Let me tell you also a secret. It is not about political
| opponents disagreeing over their views. That is not the
| intolerance I refer to. You make it a sad word game.
|
| It's the intolerance of discrimination, of hatred of
| (groups) of people. We in The Netherlands have laws
| against discriminatory speech and hate speech.
|
| Last time I checked, SJW mostly are against stuff like
| discrimination. They are no threat. This is not a 'both
| sides' situation.
| hef19898 wrote:
| If almost 80 years of havinthese laws in basically every
| European democracy doesn't proof that these laws aren't
| miss used, I don't know what can.
|
| And no, denying people service, jobs and social security
| based on color, religion sex or whatnot is not the same
| as fighting for people to have these rights. Because the
| former takes away rights, while the latter grants rights
| without anybody else loosing anything.
| louwrentius wrote:
| Thank you, that is exactly the point.
| curiousgeorgio wrote:
| > And of the two sides, only one is actively trying to
| restrict the freedom of people based on skin, religion and
| sex. Only one side is arguing for violence against weaker
| people, like fugitives and migrants.
|
| I sincerely don't think either of the two sides is advocating
| for those things (ignoring a very few extremists - on both
| sides - with malicious intent, who don't represent the
| majority).
|
| I do see those issues mentioned a lot in the public debate,
| but mostly in the context of straw man arguments repeated as
| a sort of battle cry, and to denigrate "the other side".
|
| It was a whole lot easier to push McCarthyism than it ever
| was to convincingly prove you weren't a communist.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The AfD called to shoot migrants at the EU border. They
| retreated to the "only one person's personal opinion" after
| a harsh backlash.
|
| QAnon representatives are calling for the murder of
| Democrats. The same group advocates for brutal treatment of
| migrants, restrictions of freedom of choice for women,
| direct violence against muslims.
|
| I don't see any of this on the left side of the political
| spectrum. Also, when someone in a group voices radical
| opinions and calls for violence it represents the groups
| view when said group is not distancing itself from these
| views. Because if the group doesn't, the one person is just
| the group trying to find out how far they can go.
| curiousgeorgio wrote:
| I appreciate you proving my point about extremist
| outliers, the ones who don't represent the majority _of
| either side_ , yet receive all the media attention (and
| association with whichever side is currently being
| vilified).
|
| > when someone in a group voices radical opinions and
| calls for violence it represents the groups view when
| said group is not distancing itself from these views
|
| When "the other side" has an interest in associating you
| with extremists and refuses to listen to you repeatedly
| denounce the actions of those extremists, there's nothing
| you can do to convince them otherwise. Again, the
| demagoguery and parallels to the McCarthy era are
| troubling.
| hef19898 wrote:
| On case of the AfD it is rather Mccarthy's old outfit
| deciding to treat his new one as a threat. The
| Verfassungsschutz, the German federal interior secret
| service, decided to watch the whole party as threat for
| democracy. The Verfassungsschutz was headed by a certain
| Mr. Maassen who is now touting right wing conspiracies i
| social media. The minister responsible for the agency
| once prouded himself of deporting 69 Afghans on his 69s
| birthday. Ajd they are treating the AfD as a right wing
| extremist group now. Should tell you something. Or not.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > I don't see any of this on the left side of the
| political spectrum.
|
| So, like, when someone tweets "kill all men", no one on
| the left says: relax, it was obviously _just a joke_!
|
| Also, Valerie Solanas and Donna Hylton never existed, or
| at least were never considered heroes by the left.
| throwaway53453 wrote:
| You don't see far left communists setting up autonomous
| zones and executing Trump supporters who come near?
| hef19898 wrote:
| No, I don't. And please stop spreading outright lies. And
| posting inflammatory comments, a look at the guidelines
| wouldn't hurt neither.
| throwaway53453 wrote:
| What are the CHAZ and new George Floyd autonomous zones
| then?
|
| How are people declaring themselves an independent
| 'commune' __not_ communist?
|
| How many people died in and around of those zones?
|
| Maybe my comment was inflammatory, but there is evidence
| for the underlying point I'm making.
| [deleted]
| anothernewdude wrote:
| The first is actually the fabric that modern society relies
| upon.
|
| The second is what you are doing in your post.
| analog31 wrote:
| How politically correct does the left need to be? Especially
| after the "deplorables" gaffe, the left has bent over backwards
| to avoid appearing to be condescending towards rank and file
| right-wingers.
|
| And it's ultimately hopeless. No matter how hard we try,
| someone on the left will scold. Oops.
| rebuilder wrote:
| I'm sympathetic to this argument in many ways. For one, extremist
| movements tend to thrive on oppression - being censored "proves"
| the system is rigged against them.
|
| But the argument in this article is very flawed. For one, yes,
| Germany has a far right movement. The real question is, how
| influential would it be without all the legislation to suppress
| it?
|
| Social norms matter, and legislation can reinforce those norms.
| It's important to pick the right battles, however. Laws can be
| used to create pressures against becoming e.g. a white
| supremacist as long as the majority of the population opposes
| that ideology. OTOH, try using laws to make people go vegan, and
| it's not going to go very well in the current situation.
| Pyramus wrote:
| > The real question is, how influential would it be without all
| the legislation to suppress it?
|
| I had exactly the same thought. The argument is deeply flawed.
|
| > Social norms matter, and legislation can reinforce those
| norms.
|
| Brexit is a great example for this phenomenon. Directly after
| the vote, xenophobia and homophobia increased significantly in
| the UK. It need not written into legislation, the signal of a
| common understanding is enough to change behaviour.
| devwastaken wrote:
| Much of the assumptions of the article are the opposite of the
| titles conclusion.
|
| Racism and hate did not go away. People were much less capable of
| organizing it and normalizing it's behavior before the internet.
| You actually had to go vast distances to get people together
| before. Now, it's a facebook group or 'conservative social media'
| platform away.
|
| With the dawn of anonymity began the demonstration of human
| nature when it does not receive local social pressures. A
| completely new and unique prototype of communications that bypass
| our evolutionary social ques.
|
| Without identity, pressure from peers, and authority, humans are
| left with the freedom to choose any way they want to conduct
| themselves.
|
| Sadly, humans chose to conduct themselves poorly. A result a 2nd
| grader could also predict. Instead of caring about the truth they
| care about superiority. Instead of honesty they care about being
| on a team.
|
| We can censor people. Governments can absolutely create a great
| firewall where only approved businesses are licensed and given
| access by ISP's to receive incoming socket connection requests.
| ISP's prevent this all the time due to multi layer NAT. ISP's can
| lock down ports and prevent two subscribers from communicating
| without a server that is explicitly allowed on their IP range to
| do so.
|
| Certainly, we could. But anonymity has benefits. People can
| discuss important matters without that social threat. People
| cannot seek a recourse when they are offended, cannot censor
| information, etc.
|
| Ghost in the Shell had a very interesting scenario in which
| people would VR dive into a group chat to discuss controversial
| events - and it all went mostly professional and fact seeking.
| This prediction is so far away from what we actually have now -
| actual fabrication of facts and cults that surround them. People
| entirely uninterested in reasoning or being reasoned with. Just a
| room full of people reinforcing each other without any basis in
| fact.
|
| Also the author disagreeing "hate crimes" being a thing: the
| reason for hate crimes is that individuals would organize to
| intimidate the lives of others that belong to specific ethnic
| groups. People have a right to be free from that, and it's
| absolutely the purpose of government to uphold that right.
| Organized crime has always received special laws targeting it to
| deter it.
| supernovae wrote:
| Censorship is the battleground, not the issue. The problem isn't
| censorship per se, it's the weaponization of it. Claiming you can
| or can't do something is merely projecting how one frames the
| debate. This issue still stands and the entire argument is moot.
| [deleted]
| motohagiography wrote:
| I no longer think there is a sincere effort to reduce extremism.
|
| When you view what platforms and governments are doing through
| the lens of their thinking they can create just enough managed
| extremism to use as a pretext for both crackdowns and further
| leverage, they are in fact succeeding magnificently.
|
| The question isn't whether they will succeed at creating or
| suppressing extremism, but whether democratic governance will
| survive the hell they are about to unleash. When it all happens,
| remember to act surprised.
| randcraw wrote:
| There's advantage to promoting the imminent danger of an enemy
| in order to motivate voters to support your efforts to protect
| them from it. If the military doesn't have a big enemy, who
| needs a big military?
|
| Pretty much every candidate for high office I can remember has
| run on a platform of fighting SOMETHING (nazis, communists,
| terrorists, socialists, crime, etc). Extremism is good for
| business, if your business is self-promotion.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| I keep coming back to whether people in general still think open
| mindedness is a virtue. By open mindedness, I mean open to new
| experience, open to new ideas, open to new people. Practicing
| openness means observing and hearing and then evaluating for
| yourself whether you want to assimilate the experience or idea
| into your life.
|
| Open mindedness also means being open to new information, even if
| it contradicts a basis for what you already believe or practice.
| If we are not open to contradiction, we can never recognize when
| we are _wrong_ about what we believe. Being wrong about what we
| believe leads to doom for societies.
|
| Hate is expressed in many ways, some nuanced, some not. But I
| have confidence that I can witness it, identify it, and
| categorize for myself. Allowing others to control what I am
| exposed to means I am no longer in control of what I know and
| believe. We've seen this creeping definition of hate over the
| last so many years. It's modulated to the point that I don't know
| what people mean any longer when they claim 'racism' for example,
| yet they prevent me from seeing or reading examples, even so I
| can just identify it and judge for myself.
|
| Freedom means determining for yourself what is and is not hate.
| Having it hidden from you takes that freedom away.
|
| It is our responsibility as free persons to learn how to observe
| and judge what should and should not be part of our lives.
| Collectively, we will keep hate at bay simply by recognizing it
| _for ourselves_ and not assimilating it into our lives.
| bhupy wrote:
| In addition, in my experience I've found the discussion to be
| centered around the freedom to express one's self, but free
| speech is also very much about the freedom of the _recipient_
| to seek out and listen to whatever speech they want.
| JPKab wrote:
| You are describing a core concept called liberalism.
|
| As a liberal myself, we've become increasingly unwelcome in the
| United States' only viable left of center political party.
|
| We've allowed regressive, illiberal religious fanatics to take
| over our party. Just like the Republicans allowed regressive,
| illiberal religious fanatics to take over their party in the
| 80s. In both cases, they were considered useful idiots to be
| appeased while the adults in the room winked and nodded at each
| other. In both cases, the game theory quickly devolves into
| pandering to them, and increasingly alienating segments of the
| population. The wokies have increasingly demanded Mao-like
| public concessions from elites, and have been universally
| successful in getting it. This echoes what the evangelicals
| were able to demand and solicit from GOP members in the
| 80s-today.
|
| The worst part about this is that the coalition of regressives
| on the left is so fractious, because they are all so obsessed
| with immutable characteristic driven identity. Any time an
| argument or policy that helps one identity group is proposed,
| another identity group complains they aren't getting the
| attention THEY need. Because it's such a fractious coalition,
| elites within the party apparatus and their allies in the press
| desperately try to spin certain elements of reality. An example
| of this is the startlingly weird coverage of the violent
| attacks against vulnerable Asian Americans in US cities. The
| fact that they are perpetrated exclusively by young black men
| is deliberately obfuscated, with significant efforts to
| conflate the attacks with a narrative of ascendant "white
| supremacists".
|
| This video is from a mainstream, respected news outlet. It's
| utterly shocking in it's blatant obfuscation of facts to serve
| a narrative bias: https://youtu.be/1lyVzQsXLl4
|
| Meanwhile, the opposition to the fractious regressive left, are
| feeding off of this. They are recruiting, and are gaining moral
| license to justify violence. This is extremely dangerous. These
| right wing extremists, who they are increasingly awakening at
| an alarming rate, is far more cohesive as a group. Antifa are
| mainly annoying, and when they use violent tactics, can be
| mildly dangerous. But they are weak, untrained, and unorganized
| compared to their right wing counterparts. In the US, they can
| easily acquire weapons, but the expertise to use them is not
| easy to come by.
|
| Liberals like you and me need to stand up, and boldly and
| loudly and aggressively speak out against any and all forms of
| regressive, illiberal leftism. If we don't, 2022 is going to be
| an absolute bloodbath electorally, but far worse is the
| increasing opposite reaction these lunatics will solicit from
| the right. Trump's voters aren't going to just go away because
| the tech companies have banned them. This article clearly
| points that out.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| I've been fairly silent about all this the past few years.
| It's interesting because I come from the perspective of
| economic left (libertarian communism/socialism) and seeing
| the people around me fall pray to this obsession with
| identity hasn't been easy. More recently I've starting
| speaking out about it more, because it's getting to the point
| where it's effectively McCarthy-era.
|
| I do have some thoughts on your post though.
|
| > The wokies have increasingly demanded Mao-like public
| concessions from elites
|
| Ultra-wokies are _created_ by elites as a divisive mechanism
| of the working classes. There aren 't workers anymore: there
| are oppressed black workers and privileged white workers.
| Round one: fight!
|
| CRT and post-truth (whether on the cultural left or cultural
| right) are an arm of the ruling class itself. It's hard for
| people to realize they're being grifted when they can't even
| have a conversation without being scolded for breaking some
| constantly-shifting amorphous blob of contradicting rules.
|
| > Trump's voters aren't going to just go away because the
| tech companies have banned them.
|
| Agreed. They'll start to discover decentralization and p2p
| systems eventually, then they won't be able to be controlled
| at all. The cultural left (and I say "cultural" because the
| _economic_ left is alive and well and still exists alongside
| this late identity craze) is making an error: you don 't want
| to stamp out 100% of wrongthink, just 80% of it! If you try
| to do more, you risk entire networks forming ouside of your
| control. And this is what will happen, and they will lose ALL
| of their control.
|
| This in itself might be a good thing. Although Trump's cult
| of personality might be damaging to the nation, they might
| end up forming communications infrastructures resistant to
| censorship, which might ultimately be a net-benefit to
| humanity.
| wnoise wrote:
| An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and
| unguarded.
| xuhu wrote:
| More like a country that accepts visas.
| turkey99 wrote:
| Analogy that Americans won't understand, "You can't stop firearms
| deaths by banning guns."
| yanderekko wrote:
| I'm not a fan of cancel culture but this isn't a great argument
| against it. The question isn't whether cancellation can achieve
| complete eliminationist objectives, but whether it can prove
| useful at the margins in terms of achieving your political goals.
| I think the answer is likely "yes to some extent", although
| people are predictably biased to over or underestimate the
| overall effectiveness depending on whether they see censorship
| working for or against their causes or net.
|
| My main pushback to cancel culture stuff is something of a
| "paradox of the paradox of tolerance" critique - that people are
| trying to use it as a cudgel to pretextually silence views that
| are well within the Overton window and that rather than this
| leading to the Overton window shifting (the desired effect) it
| will lead to pillarization, wherein multiple non-overlapping
| Overton windows will vie for cultural/political supremacy in ways
| that will not only lead (and have already lead) to very ugly
| conflicts, but involve massive amounts of time/energy being
| wasted on hot-button issues that in the grand scheme of things
| are just not very important.
| shirakawasuna wrote:
| An analysis of what is efficacious for opposing "extremism" is
| pointless without also looking at the cause(s) of that
| "extremism" or being able to identify natural experiments.
|
| Natural experiments: looking at Germany and noticing that there
| are still lots of Nazis doesn't mean those interventions were not
| effective, as you don't know what would've happened using other
| regimes (or just doing nothing). You haven't tested the most
| basic alternative hypothesis that would confound using this data
| in this way.
|
| Causes: this is a big can of worms, particularly on a forum where
| "politics" is frowned upon, which really means that anything non-
| normative that could cause significant disagreement is frowned
| upon. But unless you can identify driving forces of, e.g., Nazis
| and their recruitment, talking about effective interventions is
| premature and reductive.
| jcuenod wrote:
| Banning hate speech (even if it's whack-a-mole) also protects the
| victims.
|
| 1. It says that society (with the power to make laws) has your
| back. 2. It does what it can to prevent the environment from
| being toxic (obviously with limitations raised in the article).
| freebuju wrote:
| I would also consider these people who have these extremist
| ideas victims.
|
| Society has never had your back. In so many other areas
| including this one. What we have is interest groups as people
| within society. And these groups will always have different and
| sometimes directly opposing ideas.
|
| Thinking that society or even the law has your back is an error
| in logic.
|
| Again, about toxic social spaces. There is much reason to place
| Twitter & Facebook as toxic just as much as Parler was.
| Platforms aren't necessarily toxic, people are. And to be
| frank, this is a media consumption choice. If you
| unintentionally visit Gab today and feel the majority of the
| content does not align with your values and beliefs. Close the
| tab and visit another platform. Freedom of speech needs to
| encouraged in any modern society and should be protected as a
| human right. Anyone who tries to influence your thinking by
| diluting this, is seeking to control and weaken your mind for
| their own gain.
| Zardoz84 wrote:
| You can't dialog with fascist.
| ttt0 wrote:
| A clear case of projection and most likely also a straw man.
|
| How else are you supposed to respond to a comment like this?
| koonsolo wrote:
| I partly agree with you. You cannot convince a person with an
| extreme view (see flat earthers for example).
|
| But I do believe you need to give reasonable responses to
| extreme views, to prevent others from becoming extreme. Calling
| someone "fascist" is in that sense never constructive.
|
| Reasonable views are hard to argue with.
| XorNot wrote:
| Jean-Paul Sartre, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-
| Paul_Sartre
|
| "Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of
| the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks
| are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing
| themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use
| words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-
| Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with
| discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit
| the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in
| acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound
| argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them
| too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily
| indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is
| past."
| throwawaygulf wrote:
| Marxists can't open dialog.
| roninhacker wrote:
| Yes, apparently not.
| brigandish wrote:
| It's an irony that the kind of free speech you appear to
| support (and please correct me if I'm wrong) existed in fascist
| states like Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, because, as Chomsky
| points out here[1] "Goebbels was in favour of freedom of speech
| for views he liked".
|
| I'd suggest you might try the other path, as Chomsky also
| suggests:
|
| > "If you're in favour of freedom of speech that means you're
| in favour of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise.
| Otherwise you're not in favour of freedom of speech.
|
| > There's two positions you can have on freedom of speech, and
| you can decide which position you want."
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/4-oV42OMQoE?t=408
| smsm42 wrote:
| If you want a definite proof you're wrong, read this:
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kkk-klu-kl...
|
| This is the story of Daryl Davis, a black man who convinced 200
| KKK members (yes, real violent racists, not just people who
| disagreed with you on tax rates) to change their ways. If a
| black man can do it by talking to KKK members, maybe it's after
| all possible for you to dialogue with your neighbor about tax
| rates?
| Hitton wrote:
| Protip: Don't start the conversation about tax rates by
| calling your neighbour "fascist" or "commie".
| ericd wrote:
| The vast, vast majority of people who disagree with the left
| are not fascists.
|
| The urge to label them fascists and make them seem monstrous
| and unworthy of engagement is the impulse leads to civil war.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| I think the GP was referring to the left/DNC.
|
| Not only will they not listen to reason, they burned our
| downtowns, just like Mussolini's fascists, or the Russian Red
| Terror, around WW2.
|
| Make no mistake, the left/DNC are Marxists and fascists.
|
| We are in an ideological civil war, and have been since 2012.
| Anybody who's studied history already knows this.
| cheschire wrote:
| I agree, but I would suggest you use the same logic about
| labelling anyone in any part of the political spectrum then.
| Using terms such as "the left" might seem less antagonistic
| than calling someone a "fascist" yet come across just as
| harshly when read / heard by someone who hears "the left"
| preached in the 2 minutes hate of their preferred news
| source.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| Yeah but nobody here said "you can't talk with leftists,
| they're all extremists and closed-minded."
|
| edit: At least nobody I've seen yet. People are probably
| gonna say it (this goes for any "it" as conversation length
| grows), but I'd expect it to be downvoted.
| cheschire wrote:
| Indeed the assertion can be construed as part of the
| label itself. What I'm saying is that just because a
| person uses a label without additional assertions, there
| are many blanks filled in by the reader / listener based
| on their own daily inputs.
|
| So regardless of the HN crowd's restraint when using
| labels, the labels themselves can carry unintended
| implications.
| XorNot wrote:
| People have been real happy to say "extreme left and
| extreme right" and yet mysteriously seem to have no idea
| who the extreme left actually is.
|
| Fascist is not just "extreme right" it's a specific
| political ideology or goal. The extreme left is therefore
| ???
|
| Because while the US certainly has a small following of
| communists like how every country has a small following
| of everything, they're certainly not the group which
| attempted to seize the Capitol building on January 6.
| [deleted]
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Nevermind that Daryl Davis has literally converted over 200 KKK
| members: https://www.rt.com/viral/371340-meet-black-man-kkk/
|
| THAT is how you beat fascism. Not censorship.
|
| Lazy programmers trying censor via bits and bytes are never
| going to accomplish in a million years what Mr. Davis _already
| has._
| yongjik wrote:
| And Jack Churchill captured Nazi outposts with a longbow and
| a broadsword, but if allies armed every soldier with longbows
| and broadswords, something tells me that we'd be under Nazi
| occupation to this day.
|
| Some great things are done by great people, but they don't
| necessarily scale well.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| This misses the point (that the author of OPs post nailed).
| It doesn't matter that it doesn't scale. It works, and
| censorship doesn't.
|
| Do you want a (difficult) method that works (personal
| involvement and direct conversation), or a simple, easy,
| lazy one (deplatforming/cancel/censorship) that doesn't?
| yongjik wrote:
| Censorship comes with its own problems, but if your
| position is that it flat out doesn't work, you'd need a
| more convincing argument.
|
| Nazi censored. Stalin censored. Xi censors. Seems hard to
| explain if censorship doesn't work.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Sure it worked. Using a nuclear warhead works to solve
| your ant infestation, too.
|
| We want something that works _and_ that doesn 't have the
| nasty side-effects. Nazi, Stalin, and Xi's tactics aren't
| the answer we're looking for.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >Nazi censored. Stalin censored. Xi censors. Seems hard
| to explain if censorship doesn't work.
|
| Nazis also _killed the speakers_. Stalin _killed the
| speakers_. Xi _kills the speakers_.
|
| Citing mass genociders as "censorship works" is
| hilariously bad evidence of censorship working when
| terminating the speaker most definitely works.
| caslon wrote:
| 200 people isn't very much. Twitter has 192 million users.
| Assuming (extremely generously given that twitter is on the
| Internet and has a userbase that skews younger) that twitter
| matches America's partisan divide, it probably has around 90
| million users.
|
| It seems unlikely that _at least_ a thousand people out of 90
| million aren 't gullible enough to be swayed by hellbanning.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Show me proof that twitter censorship has converted even
| ONE racist/nazi and I'll entertain this notion.
|
| "it seeming unlikely" hardly compares to a man with 200
| trophies to prove his method works.
| caslon wrote:
| Hellbanning has a history of working well for
| deradicalization of online communities that were a lot
| worse than twitter is; Jeff Atwood has a good post giving
| a brief look at the history of it:
| https://blog.codinghorror.com/suspension-ban-or-hellban/
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| That's not proof that any one actual person was
| deradicalized, which was the metric.
|
| Mr. Davis has 200 examples. I'm only asking for one. His
| method works. The deplatformers' citation of their own
| platforms only proves that they control their own
| platforms, not that any extremist view was changed.
| caslon wrote:
| That does show that people were deradicalized; read the
| Metafilter thread linked.
| dexterdog wrote:
| That's exactly something a fascist will say about someone who
| he disagrees with but it's incapable of debating.
| lamp987 wrote:
| step 1: declare people you dont like fascists
|
| step 2: declare that you cant debate fascism
|
| step 3: ...
|
| step 4: censorship and violent supression time
| SiVal wrote:
| You know, you can call those who disagree with you "fascists"
| while being the actual fascist who doesn't tolerate any dialog.
| pii wrote:
| I know you are but what am i
| peepohpoopah wrote:
| You can dialog with fascists, monarchists, communists, anarcho-
| sydicalists, theocrats, trans-human techno utopianists, and
| those who welcome our insect overlords.
|
| You can't tweet at them though.
| dmingod666 wrote:
| 1) What metric do you use to define fascists?
|
| 2) How do you determine that a specific person you're dealing
| with can be specifically categorized into that bucket?
|
| 3) Are you calling them that name because it accurately defines
| that person's identity and behavior or is it because this tag
| is a really easy tag to slap onto people so you can deal with
| them very easily without having to think too much..
|
| Like if I call someone a simp, beyond me insulting him and
| conveying I don't like him, it doesn't really mean anything..
|
| not like he's going to become one (whatever that would mean)
| because I called him that..
| dang wrote:
| Please do not post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to
| HN. This thread is terrible enough without being pushed deeper
| into hell like this.
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26432620.
| laurent92 wrote:
| Science. Science is an excellent framework. This is where what
| you call "fascists" try to lead you all the time. We revert to
| science because leftist don't recognize our lived experiences
| don't seem to matter to you (e.g. a daughter raped by people
| who should have been already in prison, was liberated out of
| ideology, and said he had no good intention in our country), so
| we come back to statistics to try to sort the emotions out of
| rational thinking. It is as if leftists didn't recognize our
| emotion towards the rape victim, so we come back to factual
| things.
|
| Science is an excellent framework, leftists are very good at it
| when it's about criticizing the opponent, and we are very good
| at it when we want to criticize the PC of the moment. Now we
| need to converge.
|
| Please don't despair. Please don't give up discussing and
| trying to sort out truth from pollution.
| Griffinsauce wrote:
| Railing against the word "fascist" by attacking "leftists" is
| not a very effective approach, especially if you truly seek
| unity. (which HN guidelines force me to have to assume here)
| refurb wrote:
| If you encounter a fascist in the morning, you encountered a
| fascist. If you run into fascists all day long, you're probably
| the fascist.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| I mean, it is said that you are the average of the five
| people you know best, so this is probably correct.
| pii wrote:
| Wow, all these Mussolini fans. Who knew?
| smsm42 wrote:
| There are usually two steps here:
|
| 1. Declare people who disagree with you fascists 2. Declare
| that it's impossible to dialogue with fascists
|
| Then it all becomes very easy.
| ulucs wrote:
| We should unironically taboo the words fascist (unless
| referring to 30's Italy), nazi (unless referring to third
| reich), communist (unless they propose a People's Republic)
| and socialist (not really referring to anything, but the word
| has become an ad hom at this point) to have any kind of
| healthy political debate. It is cowardly to hide behind those
| words and not say what you _actually_ mean
| XorNot wrote:
| There are literally Nazi flags flying at rallies of Nazi's
| in America. They have literally killed people.
|
| If it looks like a Nazi, espouses Nazi beliefs, and says
| it's a Nazi, it's a god damn Nazi.
| k4c9x wrote:
| No, it's:
|
| 1. Declare people that want a fascists form of government
| fascists
|
| 2. there is no 2.
|
| It's not word play, it's just facts.
| smsm42 wrote:
| Not sure what you mean by "fascists form of government"?
| Something like Italy in 1924-1945? I don't think there's
| any political power that advocates anything like that, and
| I am sure that at least 99.999% of daily use of terms
| "fascist" and similar ones are not directed at people who
| advocate appointing Il Duce and advocating government after
| Mussolini's example.
| ncallaway wrote:
| Well there was just an attempt by the ex president to
| overturn the results of an election and install himself
| as the president contrary to the expressed will of the
| people.
|
| Maybe that's what they meant by "fascist form of
| government"?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Technically, that would be a coup (more specifically and
| auto-coup). That's bad enough. The fear is that it would
| lead to a dictatorship, which is worse. Whether it's
| fascism or not would depend on the specific policies of
| that illegitimately-installed government.
|
| So, if "that's what they mean", they're mis-using the
| term.
| ttt0 wrote:
| You mean like corporatism? I don't think I ever saw anyone
| arguing for that besides left-wingers. Not explicitly at
| least.
|
| Or do you mean fascist as a slur, ie. anything I don't
| like?
| albedoa wrote:
| Are those really the only two meanings of fascism you can
| think of.
| lamp987 wrote:
| Corporatism isnt argued for by leftists. Far left
| especially generally strongly opposes class
| collaboration. So much so that Stalin declared Social
| democrats "social fascists" (see wiki article, its quite
| funny how retarded it is).
| numpad0 wrote:
| Maybe that's true. But you can program and neutralize would-be
| fascists with upvotes and downvotes. Like seriously literally.
| glogla wrote:
| Jean-Paul Sartre has a good quote on this - he framed it around
| anti-semitism but it covers othes as well, it might as well
| been written about QAnon or COVID deniers:
|
| Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the
| absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are
| frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves,
| for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words
| responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have
| the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for,
| by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of
| their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since
| they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate
| and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will
| abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that
| the time for argument is past.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Today they complain about being cancelled before going
| silent.
|
| Very good quote.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >Today they complain about others who were silenced before
| they themselves are silenced.
|
| FTFY!
|
| Which ironically runs right into the famous poem:
|
| >First they came for the Communists >And I did not speak
| out >Because I was not a Communist
|
| >Then they came for the Socialists >And I did not speak out
| >Because I was not a Socialist
|
| >Then they came for the trade unionists >And I did not
| speak out >Because I was not a trade unionist
|
| >Then they came for the Jews >And I did not speak out
| >Because I was not a Jew
|
| >Then they came for me >And there was no one left >To speak
| out for me
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
| hef19898 wrote:
| I am not sure what you opinion is. The poem you quoted is
| _aimed_ at true, real, historically existing Nazis. So it
| is less applicable at people with somewhat similar views
| complaining about being called out. Calling them out and
| confronting them is _exactly_ what the poem advocates
| for.
|
| The same goes for your post about tolerance towards
| intolerance. And then you complain about anti-white
| racism, which is not a thing.
|
| Care to elaborate?
| throwaway53453 wrote:
| The right are not the ones cancelling people. It's better
| to have everyone fighting like hell than one side
| censored into oblivion.
| glogla wrote:
| They are the ones storming the Capitol, though.
| lukebitts wrote:
| > The right are not the ones cancelling people
|
| The right is the one failling at cancelling people, but
| they try just as much as the left
| saalweachter wrote:
| Tell that to the "RINOs". :-P
| safothegreat wrote:
| Look, we need to factor in that humans are social creatures. And
| that our ideas secure themselves through the help of validity
| from others. Hate speech that occurred on Reddit in a community
| was validated and encouraged that eventually lead to a man
| carrying out a terrorist attack in Toronto.
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjwdk3/man-accused-of-toront...
| bubble_net wrote:
| It's embarrassing to admit, but with my ban today from
| /r/science, I'm now banned from three major subreddits, with the
| other two being /r/politics and /r/worldnews.
|
| While I'm highly opinionated, I've always followed these
| subreddits' rules because I do believe rules are important for
| functional forums. These subreddits are also not some niche forum
| catering to a select group; they're major forums around topics of
| very general interest, so they really should have very high
| tolerance for unorthodox viewpoints.
|
| All the bans I received were entirely politically/ideologically
| motivated.
|
| In /r/politics I was permanently banned for saying something like
| 'I don't think little girls should be forced to share change
| rooms with little boys who identify as girls'.
|
| For that I was accused of transphobia and permanently banned. The
| mod who imposed the ban wouldn't even quote the offending
| statement or try to explain what was transphobic about it. In
| private messages, they just stuck to their guns and stonewalled
| me on my requests for elaboration.
|
| The /r/science ban was due to a comment I posted which contained
| a harsh criticism of the authors of a posted article. These
| authors were not forum members, so there was no subreddit rule
| violation, as far as I'm aware. I strongly suspect the real
| motivation for the ban was that in the comment, I also criticized
| the study's premise, that observing "racial blind ideology", was
| by definition, "anti-Black".
|
| This is the article in question:
|
| https://academictimes.com/belief-in-white-jesus-linked-to-ra...
|
| I really think there is a significant amount of extremism coming
| from the establishment nowadays, and the attempts to silence
| opposing viewpoints is a symptom of that.
| victorfonseca wrote:
| It's fascinating when someone who is in a position of power and
| never suffers from hate speech develops his mind. People who
| suffer from hate speech know and understand cristal clear what
| they want to ban from our society. But others, which are not
| feeling it at the skin level, are just "hate," a natural part of
| the human being.
| bad_username wrote:
| Please do not automatically jump to assumptions that people who
| you disagree with are in position of power or never encounter
| hate. This kind of sweeping generalization is what fuels
| racism, sexism and other kinds of "identitarianism", it stifles
| thought and prevents nuanced discussion.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Somehow I doubt that opinions about people who hold racist
| beliefs is what fuels those people, and not, well, _racism_.
| omgwtfbbq wrote:
| Might be useful to think of Extremist views and conspiracy
| theories as Mind Viruses. Currently we have no way to fight the
| disease or inoculate people against them other than preventing
| the ideas getting into their heads in the first place.
| Justsignedup wrote:
| Everyone seems to be attacking the arguments from the same angle
| and I feel it is wrong:
|
| There are a few arguments going on:
|
| - Is the left and the right really the same 2 extremes?
|
| - Should we enable radicals on the platforms because free speech?
|
| - Should we treat everyone with respect?
|
| The problem is that what we really have is a few crowds:
|
| (1) "They took our guns" people. Single issue, at the expense of
| all others. This unfortunately includes "the climate crisis is a
| hoax" and "COVID is a hoax" and "Vaccines are evil" crowd.
|
| (2) Ensure human rights to all people of the country crowd. This
| is more of a social argument that conflicts highly with people
| who scapegoat. This is effectively the anti-scapegoat crowd,
| usually considered the "left".
|
| (3) Social equality crowd (usually is a subset of (2)). This is
| all about people who are looking at patterns in society that
| elevate one group at the expense of another. This isn't rich vs
| poor, but rather for example looking at how school funding is set
| up to make sure certain community have terrible school and thus a
| perpetuating cycle of crime and poverty.
|
| The problem is that the (1) crowd is being used to elect
| politicians who basically give no shit about society, and only
| focus on making the rich richer at the expense of everything
| else. I mean fucking pandemic and corporate bailouts, while most
| businesses collapse. These politicians vote directly against the
| (1) crowd, and everyone else, but push division.
|
| We're no longer actually debating economic policies. We're
| debating racism and voting based on that. I am not happy with the
| democratic party in the US. They are pretty terrible. But the
| other side is literal Nazis.
|
| The problem with "embracing" and fixing the (1) crowd is that a
| large number of people opposing (1) are directly harmed by (1).
| Very hard to forgive when the causes of the deaths of your family
| are asking for hugs caz "sorry I realized I am wrong". Many are
| not willing to do that. How do you ask someone to give up their
| trauma and find it in their hearts to forgive the other side? It
| can happen, but it is not "simple".
| captainredbeard wrote:
| Do you live in the US? The way you phrased that makes me wonder
| and the Republicans are not anywhere near unified enough (or
| draconian enough) to be Nazis. As a reminder, the Nazis
| interred people based on race and exterminated them. The
| Republicans are just jerks.
| [deleted]
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| The censorship we are talking about is not censorship: it's
| moderation.
|
| Every forum worth using has moderation. The problem today is that
| most people aren't using user-moderated forums. Instead, they are
| using corporate-moderated social networks.
| alacombe wrote:
| "moderation" _is_ censorship.
| soared wrote:
| Incorrect. If I spam a link to my personal blog on hn the
| moderator or community will flag/kill them. That is not
| censorship.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| If you make a post full of cat photos on an auto-mechanic
| forum and it's removed as off-topic, that's moderation, not
| censorship.
|
| If you make a post talking about how Ford engines are
| terrible on that same forum and it's removed, that is much
| closer to censorship.
| randcraw wrote:
| Agreed. All social activities that willingly injure others
| can't be stopped; they can only be suppressed.
|
| Murder, theft, cigar smoking in enclosed spaces... you name it,
| the only way to counteract malignant behaviors is to punish
| transgressors in order to obstruct the activity to the extent
| that a) we prevent it from growing, and b) we can tolerate the
| persistence of the activity at some diminished level of
| intensity.
|
| Free speech requires us to strike a balance, like fighting
| crime. Driving hate speech underground successfully hides it
| from public view so that folks who don't want to swim in that
| cesspool can avoid it, the same way we hide porn from eyes who
| want to escape it. And the fact is, ever smarter tech methods
| _can_ do this increasingly well, despite what Facebook claims.
| [deleted]
| swayvil wrote:
| Is there something better than censorship?
|
| I mean, if you just gotta control that information. Gatekeeping
| at main choke-point. Censorship. Seems like the hamhanded option.
|
| I like a voting system. Information rated and filtered according
| to trusted peers.
|
| I guess that's the same as HN's voting, but you'd be voting on
| the voters too.
|
| And of course we could also vote in more sophisticated ways than
| simply good-bad. But that might get laborious.
| nindalf wrote:
| I'm surprised to see people agreeing with this hypothesis ...
| while commenting on HN. I'm a huge fan of the site rules
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and the way
| they are applied by the moderation team. But that said, HN has
| the most heavy handed censorship of any site I frequent. Read all
| the rules from start to finish and ask yourself if you'd be ok
| following these rules in every Internet forum.
|
| "Strong moderation" and "heavy censorship" are the same thing,
| just dependent on whether you agree with the moderation or not.
| If you disagree, please show me a site without moderation that
| still has high quality discussion.
| skybrian wrote:
| I like well-moderated sites like Hacker News, but this isn't
| going to do anything to prevent extremists from communicating
| using other forums.
|
| What are you going to do, shut down all group chats that
| doesn't conform to your standards? It's a much harder problem
| than creating a site that has good moderation.
| nindalf wrote:
| The goal isn't to drive extremism to extinction, it's to make
| it niche so the mainstream doesn't get infected with it.
| skybrian wrote:
| Too late.
|
| I mean, sure, it's nice if it isn't in your face all the
| time. I'm glad Google's SafeSearch exists. But keeping
| people who are actually curious from finding things is much
| harder than that, and there are a lot of curious teenagers.
| Spivak wrote:
| I genuinely don't understand how a forum of people who
| would almost certainly self-identify as internet-natives
| don't understand the concept of mainstreaming. We invented
| all this language do talk about and describe how ideas work
| and spread in the information age but decided to just
| pretend it doesn't exist anymore. When did programmers
| become so... binary?
|
| Like it's so frustrating to talk about issues like this on
| HN because huge swaths of the US part of crowd see
| themselves as very distant from the "gods & guns" crowd but
| then fall into the same patterns of thinking that hate and
| extremism are just part of this world and that the free
| market (of ideas) will solve everything with proper
| education and personal responsibility. That any solution
| that isn't perfect or has a downside for them personally is
| worthless because they're so insulated from the actual harm
| being done.
|
| That's all fine and good in a world where everyone is
| acting in good faith, truthfully, and that propaganda, and
| emotional manipulation don't exist. But the internet isn't
| some some big Socratic circle.
|
| The people in the comments here haven't had their online
| life improved by a huge subreddit ban, forumn takedown, or
| twitterspehere implosion after having exactly zero power to
| do anything other than endure the abuse and hope to not
| catch their eye and it shows.
| elastolin wrote:
| >show me a site without moderation that still has high quality
| discussion 4chan
| monocasa wrote:
| 4chan is moderated.
| akvadrako wrote:
| HN doesn't have very strong moderation. The things people got
| kicked off twitter and Facebook for saying would be allowed
| here, at least if they were on topic and phrased politely.
| nindalf wrote:
| > HN doesn't have very strong moderation
|
| FWIW, I agree. But the people who are shadow banned for
| trivial offences would probably be writing replies to your
| comment about this ... if they knew they were shadow banned
| that is. And we wouldn't be able to read it either way, so
| it's a moot point. Just one data point, but one of my friends
| has been shadow banned from HN for years and he never even
| knew that he was. Say what you will about twitter and
| Facebook, but at least they're up front about bans.
| akvadrako wrote:
| Didn't he notice that nobody would reply to his comments?
| Or is the shadow banning quite advanced?
| nindalf wrote:
| He tried commenting a few times, found that no one
| replied. I guess that discouraged him from commenting so
| he stopped.
| uniqueid wrote:
| He claims Weimar Germany is an example of failed hate speech
| laws, but that's a weird claim, since they didn't enforce them
| (certainly not against Nazis).
|
| Then he has an impassioned section where he claims the hate
| speech laws from '45 failed. The laws that date back to
| denazification! But he writes them off, with an exclamation mark,
| as an utter failure since _some_ people in Germany, 75 years
| later support the far right. That rather moves the goal posts.
| gampleman wrote:
| Today Scotland passed the wildly controversial hate crime bill.
| Thankfully the bill was amended several times which gutted many
| of the more extreme provisions. But I can tell you for a fact
| that people I know have been seriously preparing to go
| underground - they perceived this bill as such a serious threat
| to their freedom of speech and religious liberty that some where
| preparing to purchase property in remote locations to enable
| clandestine meetings, others started reading on encryption, etc.
|
| Not one said "oh well, time to change my basic wordlview, since
| it might soon be illegal".
| soared wrote:
| I don't think passing a law intends to change individual
| peoples' worldview. I wasn't able to find an article with a my
| example of things that would be prosecuted after the bill was
| passed that could be controversial, only hand-wavey claims.
| justbored123 wrote:
| According to the authors logic, we should stop censoring fraud,
| false advertisement, child grooming, defamation, doxxing, false
| testimony, etc. because "it doesn't work" and "erodes free
| speech". This is clearly nonsense. It works, and it should be
| done, the only question as with all laws is were the line should
| be.
|
| We restrict freedom in general when it hurts other people
| (slavery, rape, killing, trespassing,etc) and we don't go around
| crying about slippery slopes and lack of freedom for it.
|
| Clear examples of good censoring of free speech are the courts
| decision in the Alex Jones - Sandy Hook case and the Washington
| Post paying reparations to Nathan Phillips (the child mocking the
| native American). In both cases their "free speech" caused damage
| to people and the court decided that they didn't were protect
| under the free speech laws.
| [deleted]
| a_bonobo wrote:
| >Federal prosecutors and the Ministry of the Interior regularly
| move against organizations deemed far-right or hate groups.
|
| On the contrary, the Verfassungschutz and other federal
| organisations built to work against enemies of the state
| _support_ the enemies of the state! And that is where the 'vast
| and varied far-right network' comes from, it's supported by tax
| money.
|
| The Verfassungsschutz is a special intelligence agency observing
| enemies of democray, which includes neonazis and the like. This
| agency uses 'V-Maenner', which is a network of _paid_ informers
| within these structures.
|
| In 2013, every fourth criminally active neonazi V-mann was
| receiving state payments:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20130405050440/http://www.tagess...
|
| When the NSU murdered people in Germany, V-mann informants used
| the money paid for them by the state to support the group
| (https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2018-02/nsu-a...
| ).
|
| Early 2000 Germany tried to outlaw the NPD, the then-biggest far-
| right political party. The outlaw process failed because the
| Verfassungschutz had too many of its members in the party's rank,
| so the judges could not say which party activities were anti-
| democratic, or what was the government's own doing ('fehlende
| Staatsferne' - not enough distance from the state).
|
| Because the state taxes itself a measly 10% on these payments we
| have a rough idea on how much they pay - Tino Brandt, one of the
| NPD's party functionaries in Thuringia, received 200,000 DM over
| 6 years until 2001. In the same state alone (remember, Germany
| has 16 states) in the same time the government paid out 1.5
| million DM.
|
| The last head of the agency, Hans-Georg Maassen, is now retired
| after it became apparent that he was ignoring evidence. He has
| since opened a Twitter account where he's spouting Fox News-level
| far right nonsense. This was the head of the agency 2012 to 2018.
|
| The OP's whole argument falls down if you consider that the
| German state is saying they're fighting Nazis but then they go
| and fund them very well with tax-money. It would be much easier
| to fight Nazis if they wouldn't get millions in funding.
| sprayk wrote:
| > The OP's whole argument falls down if you consider that the
| German state is saying they're fighting Nazis but then they go
| and fund them very well with tax-money. It would be much easier
| to fight Nazis if they wouldn't get millions in funding.
|
| How does this do anything but _support_ the OP 's argument? OP
| argues that hate speech laws are futile because those in power
| get to decide what is hate speech and how it is enforced and it
| is always possible for the wrong people to be in power. Has-
| Geog Maassen and the overall failure you highlighted seems like
| a perfect example of this seeming inevitability in practice.
| justbored123 wrote:
| According to the authors logic, we should stop censoring child
| grooming, fraud, false advertisement, defamation, doxxing, false
| testimony, etc. because "it doesn't work" and "erodes free
| speech". This is clearly nonsense. It works, and it should be
| done, the only question as with all laws is were the line should
| be.
|
| We restrict freedom in general when it hurts other people
| (slavery, rape, killing, trespassing,etc) and we don't go around
| crying about slippery slopes and lack of freedom for it.
|
| Clear examples of good censoring of free speech are the courts
| decision in the Alex Jones - Sandy Hook case and the Washington
| Post paying reparations to Nathan Phillips (the child mocking the
| native American). In both cases their "free speech" caused damage
| to people and the court decided that they weren't protect under
| the free speech laws.
| refurb wrote:
| But Alex Jones - Sandy Hook case wasn't censorship (he was free
| to say what he said), he was sued for defamation. We already
| have laws on that and all the other stuff you mention child
| grooming, fraud, false advertisement, doxxing, false testimony,
| etc.
|
| The point is - we have laws for speech that enters the criminal
| realm.
| ephimetheus wrote:
| So how is Volksverhetzung, which is defined by law, any
| different?
| refurb wrote:
| That's a speech law, thus it would be a circular argument
| (I.e. your speech violated a speech law).
| justbored123 wrote:
| You are completely missing the point. Because those laws
| exist, the argument for "free speech" and against censorship
| is ignorant. We don't have free speech and never had and
| never will, no country on earth has, because it's ridiculous
| to the point of been childish. Speech is not free, it has
| limits, like everything else.
|
| And about Alex Jones, the case proves beyond reasonable doubt
| that he should had been censored to prevent the damage and
| that is my point. His speech has real life serious
| consequences that hurt people even if he didn't do it
| personally and he didn't intended to happen.
| refurb wrote:
| No, you're looking at it in too black and white a way. It's
| not a decision between "no limits to speech at all" and
| "any limit is fine because free speech doesn't exist".
|
| The line, at least in the US, is that all speech is free
| unless it "incites imminent criminal behavior". And no, the
| criminal behavior doesn't include criminal speech (that's
| just circular logic).
|
| Yes, the line the US draws favors free speech far more than
| almost any other country. And that's a part of the ethos of
| our country. Other countries are free to do whatever they
| want.
|
| And no, Alex Jones shouldn't have been censored (by the
| government). We don't allow the government to arbitrarily
| deny citizens rights unless they have been given a fair
| trial. In his case, a judge decided his speech fell into
| the realm of defamation and thus his victim was due
| restitution.
|
| And that's how it should work. We don't need "speech
| police" and we don't need to create new laws to further
| remove people's rights. If someone oversteps the bounds of
| free speech then a judge can decide what to do, not
| Facebook.
| XorNot wrote:
| The line in the US is that you are free from retaliation
| by the government.
|
| Private business and private individuals are free to set
| whatever rules they like about your behavior in their
| establishments.
|
| They're also allowed to just not listen or want to repeat
| it.
|
| If someone shoves a bunch of pamphlets in my hands, I'm
| allowed to dump them in the trash.
| [deleted]
| zapdrive wrote:
| What the left also needs is a realization that some of its
| beliefs are akin to extremism. And some of the left inspired
| policies have really really hurt and isolated a significant
| population. The left needs to soften it's stand on such issues.
| hef19898 wrote:
| So, making sure people can live their lives, without being
| discriminated and abused, is extremism? What you are saying is
| that people with more liberal and left leaning views should
| just forget about it and roll with the right, unless the right
| feels hurt.
|
| It would help, if you would the issues the left should soften
| up on.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| What the right also needs is a realization that some of its
| beliefs are akin to extremism. And some of the right inspired
| policies have really really hurt and isolated a significant
| population. The right needs to soften it's stand on such
| issues.
|
| It's such a generic statement that it's meaningless and could
| apply to any group of opinions.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Doesn't mean it's wrong... The racists on the right _know_
| they 're racists. They admit it. The racists I've encountered
| on the left are the racism-of-low-expectations kind with a
| dash of openly-racist-against-white-people, and then they go
| and act morally superior to people who aren't racist against
| any race. The sanctimony is grating.
| f154hfds wrote:
| Disclaimer: I don't watch this channel, can't vouch for
| other vids.
|
| The youtube algorithm suggested this to me the other day,
| posting it here because it's pretty relevant.
|
| When Wokes and Racists actually agree on everything:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg
| bena wrote:
| Maybe you should sample some of the other content to get
| a feel of who this guy is before promoting his work based
| solely on the fact that you agree with an opinion you
| have.
|
| Because if someone has mostly bad opinions, you have to
| wonder if he managed to have just one good one or if this
| is a bad opinion too.
| Spinnaker_ wrote:
| I've watched a lot of his stuff and even seen him perform
| stand up. He has made a career in calling out the
| hypocrisies of the left, usually in an absurd way. Behind
| the ridiculous presentations are usually fairly well
| thought out points.
|
| Occasionally he takes on the far right as well. The
| problem being that it's just too easy and boring to do
| that.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > Because if someone has mostly bad opinions, you have to
| wonder if he managed to have just one good one or if this
| is a bad opinion too.
|
| You are arguing for ignoring the content of an opinion,
| and only evaluating it only by the association of people
| who agree or don't agree with it?
|
| So, tribalism as the only acceptable form of reasoning?
| f154hfds wrote:
| My assumption when I write comments on HN is that readers
| can make opinions for themselves. Perhaps that's a bad
| assumption? I don't have to agree with an article to post
| it on HN, why should I have to agree with everything a
| youtube channel produces to post one of their videos? I
| doubt I would be able to post almost anything as I have
| opinions about a variety of subjects, it's very unlikely
| I will align with anyone on all of them.
|
| How about you watch the video and let me know what's
| objectionable about it specifically?
| bena wrote:
| What's objectionable?
|
| After 5 seconds, it does the exact thing which I expected
| it to after only looking at the titles of his other
| videos. Grossly misrepresenting positions to make them
| look similar enough to "both sides" the issue so he can
| present himself as an "enlightened centrist" but really
| is looking to quiet people who would call him out on his
| problematic opinions.
|
| It's a lot like your "assumption". You're trying to
| present your position as a "gee golly jeez, I'm just
| asking questions" being sort of overly, even comically
| naive about content you wish others to consume.
|
| You're also asking people to be able to refute the entire
| video or not voice their objections. To ignore the
| context of the channel. Blah blah blah. The entire "foot
| in the door" approach to radicalization.
|
| I personally don't believe your claim that you don't
| watch the channel. Otherwise, why even post a disclaimer?
| The only reason to post a disclaimer is because you kind
| of know what to expect from his channel. Either because
| the video itself is telling (it is) or you know what the
| rest of the content of the video would show (not great).
|
| So please, stop with the disingenuous positions. A good
| number of people here are savvy enough to see through it.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| Except it doesnt even resemble what the left believes
|
| this is a good breakdown
| https://youtu.be/m0ZDHgD9084?t=950
| jimbokun wrote:
| This guy just plays further into the tropes that the
| original video was mocking.
| f154hfds wrote:
| Thanks for the reasoned alternative perspective. He
| misses the whole point of the video though, which is:
|
| Emphasizing race as the most important determinant of an
| individual is regressive, not progressive.
|
| It's possible for a reactionary agenda to fall prey to
| the errors of its foe, and that's exactly what's
| happening with anti-racism today.
|
| The only way to move forward is to tackle racism with
| explicitly non-racist policies, not anti-racist ones.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| Thats true, which is why most of the left has adopted
| intersectionality, which says an individual is the sum
| total of their experiences, rather than this or that
| identity
| drewcoo wrote:
| The statement is not untrue but it is selectively used here
| to imply that it only applies to one party. And that is
| wrong.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Really? Where?
|
| Usually I've seen forms like this
|
| "I strongly believe in (basic description of X)"
|
| "You know that's X, right?!"
|
| "I'm not X"
|
| "Alright, would you say you believe in (wikipedias first
| paragraph on X)?"
|
| "Oh yes! You really understand!"
|
| "You know I just lifted that from wikipedia article on X"
|
| "Let me hear it again. Ok, that's not exactly right."
| Etc...
|
| Try it yourself next time, it's pretty remarkable. They're
| not acting in bad faith or trying to deceive.
|
| It's like an addict who believes they smoke cigarettes not
| because they have an addiction but because they enjoy the
| taste.
|
| Most people want to believe they've made the right
| decisions (https://grist.org/article/80-percent-of-humans-
| are-delusiona...). They think racism is wrong so therefore
| their beliefs can't be racist.
| tired-dev wrote:
| Exactly. Racists will generally justify themselves as
| "not racist" by giving claiming something to the tune of
| "I'm not _prejudiced,_ I just agree with the numbers! ",
| while appealing to some out-of-context statistic to try
| and act like those disagreeing with them are "denying
| science" by acknowledging that there's more nuance to the
| issue.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > The racists on the right know they're racists. They admit
| it.
|
| Not necessarily.
|
| Even Richard Spencer, proud Hitler-saluting Neo-Nazi,
| essentially the founder of the "alt-right", denies being
| racist.
|
| People know that racism is bad, but a lot of racists will
| deny being racist while very explicitly saying they don't
| want to live next to a black person or will call the police
| just because they saw a black man walking through the
| neighborhood.
| bena wrote:
| I've heard it said that the two things the alt-right
| hates the most:
|
| 1. Being called a racist. 2. Black people.
| kodah wrote:
| That's not really true. He's definitely claimed to be
| some flavor of racist on that documentary on Netflix.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I don't remember where I saw it, and I'm struggling to
| find it now, but there was some interview where he
| explicitly claims to not be racist and claims to not hate
| black people, and even claims to not be a white
| supremacist, but that he merely believes that the races
| shouldn't mix and that America should be a white ethno-
| state.
|
| He knows that racism is not socially acceptable, so he
| makes bad faith claims of not being racist while
| expressing obviously racist views. And the problem is, it
| works. It doesn't take much searching to find racists
| that don't think they're racist. The fact that people
| don't think Donald Trump is racist, despite a long list
| of racist remarks and actions [0], is proof of that.
|
| And of course, later, Milo Yiannopoulos later released an
| audio recording of an explicitly racist rant. [1]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_
| Trump
|
| [1] https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/11/4/20947833/ric
| hard-sp...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Don't they deny being racist, sexist or whatever more often
| than not when called out? It sure seems so.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| I'm not even sure if you're talking about the racist left
| or the racist right and that is mildly amusing.
|
| I don't know a lot (any?) racist right folks, but I know
| a shitload of racist left and they ALL publicly,
| verbally, in writing, rail against racism in one breath,
| and then shit on white people in the next.
|
| I acknowledge that this is anecdotal, but still...
| hef19898 wrote:
| There is no racism against white people in the, what,
| northern hemisphere. And never was. In that part of the
| world, racism _comes_ from the white population and is
| _aimed_ at others.
|
| Calling white racists out definitely isn't racism.
| Huwyt_Nashi030 wrote:
| Thankyou for your service, accelerationist.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| Racism is literally defined as discrimination against any
| singular group based on race or ethnic group.
| Discrimination, irrespective of its origin on the left or
| right wing of the spectrum, should be treated
| identically. Implicit and explicit racial discrimination
| is omnipresent on both sides of the spectrum. This is
| evidenced by literally pulling up any of the popular
| social justice warrior channels on YouTube; you then
| immediately come in contact with it. It is farcical for
| anyone to push through a narrative that doesn't
| acknowledge this fact.
|
| "White male" has become a demeaning putdown by many
| enthusiastic liberals, which is evidence enough.
|
| Enough.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Racism is about institutions, power structures, and
| epistemology, it's not about youtube channels.
|
| An internet rando blabbing to their cellphone camera
| isn't what makes median black family wealth 1/8th that of
| their white counterparts
| (https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-
| notes/disp...).
|
| It's institutions and power structures which creates
| that.
|
| For example, speculative home values in whiter
| neighborhoods lead to higher home prices and thus higher
| property taxes and thus better funded schools and so the
| racist-system continues.
|
| Nobody is explicitly being racist there. Speculating in
| the white neighborhood is genuinely a better investment
| yield. Just like with investing in Javanese over Sudanese
| neighborhoods in Indonesia or Croat over Serb towns in
| Croatia.
|
| The human created systems, the cultural milieu and its
| structures, they lead to racist outcomes. It's all
| artificial. That's why passing works (https://en.m.wikipe
| dia.org/wiki/Passing_(racial_identity)).
|
| Realizing it's mostly cultural just like it is with say
| the Hmong and Lao people, where you can just change the
| clothes, grooming and mannerisms and our minds
| recategorize, that's the radical leap for people. There's
| physical differences but they're more imagined than real
| and can often be short-circuited. Our collective minds
| have an invisible override switch.
|
| When _people_ are being racist, they have an epistemology
| that the different outcomes is a natural result of racial
| hierarchies. They use these human created systems _as
| their empirical evidence_ and not realize this logic is a
| self-reinforcing system.
|
| It's like when police departments disproportionally
| patrol and focus on one group, find more things in that
| group and use it as evidence that their suspicions were
| well-founded. At different times the supposed more
| criminal groups have been everything from the roma,
| suffragists, gays, 7th day adventists, rock and roll
| fans, jewish people, Chinese immigrants, jehovah's
| witnesses, Catholics, italians... It's all arbitrary. The
| closed logic loop it perpetuates, that's racism.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| Median black family wealth is 1/8th of white family
| wealth. Sure, true. What's the median family wealth of
| African immigrant families and descendants?
|
| You know the answer - they're actually at least as well
| off as the average white. So, what can we learn from
| that?
| hef19898 wrote:
| "White male"? So we are now rolling in sexism and racism
| to defend the, historically, most powerful group of
| people on the planet and their hurt feelings about having
| to give some of their privileges, whether or not they
| really have? Ok, I guess.
|
| Also, please note I said in the northern hemisphere.
| Assuming most of us here are living there. Could be
| different in, say, Africa or Asia. But even there it is
| not even close to the "white farmer genocide" shit that
| is still being spread.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| My race and ethnicity has nothing to do with whether or
| not I am actively oppressing others. Whether these are
| correlated right now is irrelevant to how we should be
| behaving in a modern day, postmodern civil society.
|
| Not sure the rest of your post makes any sense. I don't
| consider myself a racist or a sexist and I find it
| appalling that I am unable to comment on ongoing social
| issues without being called a "white male" or being told
| that my opinions are invalid because my lack of melanin
| seems to imply I am part of an elite group of oppressors.
| This is insulting and lacks any intellectual merit.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I didn't call you racist or sexist. And you brought up
| "white male" in your post I replied to.
|
| Historically speaking, there was bo group more privileged
| than white, European males. Being one myself, I don't see
| anything wrong with simply acknowledging that simple
| fact.
| covid5throw wrote:
| Maybe because white men went out and did things? Your
| idea of privilege didn't just fall in our lap, it came
| after thousands of years of studying nature, warfare,
| conquering, etc. It also wasn't guaranteed, what would
| have happened if Persia conquered Greece?
| Hitton wrote:
| Do you realize that whole Asia and majority of Africa is
| in northern hemisphere?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Yes. So? How much anti white (male) racism is happening
| in these regions?
| kristopolous wrote:
| Here's three, you need an account to see them.
|
| https://gab.com/tags/whitepower
|
| https://gab.com/tags/jews
|
| https://gab.com/tags/blacks
|
| Just scroll. They also have literal Nazi groups such as
| https://gab.com/groups/248 that are genuinely and
| sincerely advocating for nazism.
| smaryjerry wrote:
| I think literally actively searching for something mostly
| hidden is very different from it being public. A few
| fringe social media posts are what you are linking to
| with few likes and shares, versus large media or tech
| companies with a reach in not only millions but hundreds
| of millions of views openly publishing articles blaming
| whites for everything under the sun.
| edrxty wrote:
| Examples? I'm not really sure what you're aiming at here. I
| don't know of any documented cases where too much
| environmentalism or healthcare really hurt significant
| populations.
| roenxi wrote:
| The right supports environmentalism and healthcare. They
| disagree with specific leftist plans.
|
| The official right wing position towards the left is "your
| outcome would be lovely, but it isn't worth the excessive
| cost to getting there".
|
| There isn't a sizeable lobby who is "against
| environmentalism", for example. There is a huge lobby who
| just doesn't see how a comfortable living standard can be
| achieved without fossil fuels.
| edrxty wrote:
| Beyond being objectively untrue, this doesn't even come
| close to attempting to answer the question.
| [deleted]
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| > The right supports environmentalism and healthcare. They
| disagree with specific leftist plans.
|
| Can you give me one right-leaning healthcare or
| environmental "plan" that anybody in congress is pushing
| that will cover every American 100% for healthcare, drugs,
| mental health, dental, etc?
|
| Single-payer is the best plan I've seen because it
| negotiates rates for drugs in bulk - one price for all of
| America and the government can choose different companies
| if they won't play ball but it's a huge ass market so
| they'll play ball.
|
| Likewise for the environment - the right tends to deny
| climate change is even happening, so how do they support
| environmentalism?
|
| Why do the right also think it's okay to spend 700 billion
| per year on the military (that's more than the next ten
| countries combined, China for example only spends 200
| billion), and the DOD is the only government agency never
| to pass a fiscal audit. If they're worried about "costs"
| then maybe they should start with the defense budget.
|
| > There isn't a sizeable lobby who is "against
| environmentalism", for example. There is a huge lobby who
| just doesn't see how a comfortable living standard can be
| achieved without fossil fuels.
|
| How comfortable a standard of living will we have when we
| have wars over water, and species of animals becoming
| extinct at ever faster rates (including the very species we
| eat and rely on for food)?
| sintaxi wrote:
| There is no policy that is better for the environment
| than stopping deficit spending and balancing budgets -
| its just not branded as an environmental policy.
| roenxi wrote:
| > Likewise for the environment - the right tends to deny
| climate change is even happening, so how do they support
| environmentalism?
|
| That answers itself - if someone doesn't believe in a
| threat, it doesn't make sense to invest in stopping it.
|
| > Can you give me one right-leaning healthcare or
| environmental "plan" that anybody in congress is pushing
| that will cover every American 100% for healthcare,
| drugs, mental health, dental, etc?
|
| If there were exactly 2 choices, maybe there'd be a point
| there. But there is a spectrum of choices and no possible
| future where everyone has enough healthcare. None of the
| plans on the left or the right are pushing for the
| extreme scenario of 100% of the economy is devoted to
| healthcare.
|
| The right wing would prefer the arbitrary standard trades
| off a little less against the economy, the left a little
| more. Both those positions are pro-healthcare, and both
| are arbitrary. You're welcome to your opinion on where
| the line should be drawn, but someone drawing the line
| differently isn't anti-healthcare.
|
| > Why do the right also think it's okay to spend 700
| billion per year on the military...
|
| US's high military spending basically only goes up. If
| the left wanted to reign that in, they've had their
| chances and not taken them. It is a tragedy.
| tgb wrote:
| > That answers itself - if someone doesn't believe in a
| threat, it doesn't make sense to invest in stopping it.
|
| But _you 're_ the one claiming they're not anti-
| environmentalism! This is literally what anti-
| environmentalism _is_ [1]. You might claim that they 're
| not anti- _environment_ though: I doubt anyone would
| actually choose to destroy the environment if it had no
| other effect. (Other than the small minority that 's in
| it just to own-the-libs.)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-environmentalism
| roenxi wrote:
| Fair enough, but if you want to argue that then I can go
| back to the point I joined the thread and provide
| examples of even small amounts of environmentalism
| causing hurt to specific populations.
|
| All the resistance to the actual policies is people
| observing that they will have markedly lower quality of
| life and that the overall strategy of environmentalism is
| explicitly to dismantle big chunks of the west's way of
| life. That is why there is substantial organised
| resistance to the environmental policies the left wants,
| and why the resistance is more sustained. It is very
| damaging policy. That is why it is so unpopular. The
| people it is damaging aren't going to bear any
| consequences otherwise.
| cloverich wrote:
| > The official right wing position towards the left is
| "your outcome would be lovely, but it isn't worth the
| excessive cost to getting there".
|
| Which makes even less sense, because the right since Regan
| have nearly continuously run up the deficit.
|
| > The right supports environmentalism
|
| You cannot simultaneously deny climate change and support
| the environment. They are mutually exclusive.
| roenxi wrote:
| > They are mutually exclusive.
|
| They aren't. Eg, Germany has an energy policy shaped by
| an acceptance of global warming and their electricity
| grid is a hot mess compared to France that has better
| outcomes on pretty much every axis including emissions if
| you care about that. The French policy was shaped by
| military concerns about energy security.
|
| And air/water/etc quality in the major US cities were off
| the charts good compared to the major Chinese cities, for
| a long period if not currently, and it has nothing to do
| with climate change.
|
| Plus, the obvious way for the US to get knocked down to
| the #3 emissions producer from #2 is for India to
| industrialise, lifting the living standards of a billion
| people. I'd bet the actual environmental outcomes in
| India would improve if they burned fossil fuels like the
| US and China, then they'd tighten up environmental
| standards like the west has. In that instance that is a
| direct conflict between believing in climate change and
| actual observed environmental outcomes. There isn't
| really a question in hindsight that India should have
| done the same things as China in the 80s/90s and built up
| their coal fired power plants. That would have left them
| in a better position to tackle environmental issues
| today.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| Yes im sure the insurance companies and fossil fuel
| companies who have spent millions of think tanks and
| studies and election were just concerned about living
| standards.
| AshWolfy wrote:
| any examples?
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into generic ideological
| battle. The thread is crappy already, and it gets noticeably
| worse after swerving in directions like this.
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26432620.
| pii wrote:
| I think we should negotiate with Hitler too. He's not such a bad
| guy, eh? I don't like parts of his philosophy, but i'm sure if we
| DIALOG with him, he'll come around to our side, right? Or maybe
| concede a bit of ground with a compromise, right?
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| You know, I thought for about five minutes on how to reply to
| this.
|
| But instead I'll just say, I now know why Godwin's Law exists.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell like
| this.
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26432620.
| jackjeff wrote:
| I know the article spends its time describing how anti hate
| speech laws in Western Europe are not working. But frankly
| they're not enforced. I think this is why they don't work.
|
| I see censorship has putting dirt under the carpet. People will
| try again. There's no accountability. Social media censorship
| would ban flashing boobs with the same enthusiasm as Nazi
| propaganda. The latter is not a breach of terms and condition,
| it's literally illegal over here, in the same way punching
| someone in the street would be.
|
| Why not put these people in court? I understand it won't entirely
| eliminate right wing ideology, but at least it sends a clear
| message that racist, homophobic, and threat to use violence are
| illegal.
|
| If you look at right wing parties in France and Germany, their
| speech is a lot more nuanced. They can't go about and say things
| like "all Mexicans are rapists" (a Trump quote) because it would
| lend them in jail or worse to be stripped of the right to run for
| elections. So it works!
|
| The only problem is that it is not enforced for anyone else.
| People can go about and write things like that on social media
| and face no consequences whatsoever. At worst, their accounts
| will be disabled.
|
| Edit. Typos
| Clubber wrote:
| >"all Mexicans are rapists" (a Trump quote)
|
| Except he didn't actually say that. It's actually Tim Kaine
| misquoting Trump, so technically it's a Kaine quote.
|
| https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/aug/08/tim-kaine/...
|
| By enforcement, I assume you mean arrest and jail people for
| speech. It will probably work for a while, as it does it more
| dictatorial countries. At least until the cities start burning
| down.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| > a Trump quote
|
| Not so much. You weaken your argument with such blatant
| falsehoods.
| chevill wrote:
| >They can't go about and say things like "all Mexicans are
| rapists" (a Trump quote) because it would lend them in jail
|
| First of all. I intensely dislike Donald Trump and I'm glad
| he's gone. I hope its for good. That being said that's not a
| quote from him. Its an unnecessary and dishonest embellishment
| of what he actually said. Unnecessary because what he said is
| bad enough to make the same point.
|
| Finally, if a person simply said the exact quote you listed,
| and the result is that they were imprisoned, the most offensive
| thing in this story would be the government that thinks someone
| saying something nasty and untrue alone is enough to warrant
| time in jail.
| ulucs wrote:
| > "all Mexicans are rapists" (a Trump quote)
|
| How can any sane person claim this without even giving a
| source?
| elastolin wrote:
| That's not a Trump quote.
| ulucs wrote:
| claim (that) this (is a Trump quote) without even giving a
| source?
| lanecwagner wrote:
| This clip from cobra kai really made me rethink censorship for
| some reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8VGzyy5FTY
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| For an essay that focuses on empiricism to answer questions, this
| one is sorely missing counterfactuals. We have:
|
| > Luckily we have international precedent to help us answer those
| questions. Do they support the idea that hate speech law stops
| hate, far-right extremism, fascism?
|
| and then the study of Germany and France, which both have the
| laws, and where the situation is relatively bad. But without an
| attempto to compare the situation in countries with relevant laws
| to those which don't have them, how can we attribute the result
| to those laws?
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| Deplatforming works. Simply because of their revenue stream.
| molbioguy wrote:
| When it comes to "unpopular" ideas and peoples, fear and moral
| superiority justifies:
|
| censorship -> incarceration -> extermination
|
| The path is plausible and logical if each previous step fails.
| And heck, the ends (protecting people from hate) justify the
| means, so why fret over it? I mean, what could go wrong?
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