What's actually being censored: misinformation or the truth?

[mr_engineer]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Some ideas are dangerous.

For example? 

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's not just that ideas are shared, it's that bad actors spread discord, misinformation, and exploit free speech.

This is more of a problem for the elite than it is for the people. The part about 'discord' threatens their position, the part about 'misinformation' threatens their power to hand down 'the absolute truth' without question. These are personal issues that get in the way of doing their job with integrity and it corrupts them in this way. 

Edited November 28, 2022 by mr_engineer

[Danioover9000]

@mr_engineer

33 minutes ago, mr_engineer said:

If the people in power are corrupt, moderation fails to accomplish this goal. Miserably. Ideas get censored. Discourse becomes impossible. People get emotional over ideas. Echo-chambers form and people become more and more separated, intellectually. 

Good for low-consciousness, low-brow marketers. As they get to position products to people stuck in certain rabbit-holes. This is the actual reason why they don't want the echo-chambers to integrate and resolve stuff! The 'hate-speech' talk is a smokescreen for it. 

   Ye, the internet is like a fractal magnifying glass that allows every ideology to proliferate in each piece of fractal. This is why we need a governing body for the internet world, just like in the real world, to moderate and regulate free speech and other freedoms in the web, because every human is a tyrant in a democratic society, and historically authoritarian regimes and dictators were the norm for the most part in tbe past that is and should be moderated out of our system at some point.

   So, are you including Reptilian elitists now?

Edited November 28, 2022 by Danioover9000

[Leo Gura]

24 minutes ago, mr_engineer said:

For example?

Kanye West's anti-semetic rants.

Right-wingers smearing gays as "groomers" and pedophiles.

QAnon.

Anti-vaxx disinformation.

Climate change denial covertly funded by oil companies.

Trump tweeting for a rally to storm the Capitol and deny election results.

Tweets that deliberately mislead black voters about when and where to vote.

You can use free speech to destroy legitmate governments, scam people out of billions, or incite terrorism. So this is not casual matter. You don't appreciate how serious this is. A company can lose a billion dollars just by someone tweeting false information. For example someone can tweet that McDonalds spit in their cheeseburger, and McDonalds will lose $10 billion overnight. Or someone could tweet a false rape accusation just to destroy a politican's reputation.

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This is more of a problem for the elite than it is for the people. The part about 'discord' threatens their position, the part about 'misinformation' threatens their power to hand down 'the absolute truth' without question. These are personal issues that get in the way of doing their job with integrity and it corrupts them in this way. 

It's a problem for everyone when Russian spy agencies manipulate US public opinion via Twitter in order to subvert democracy.

What you refer to so dismissively as "elites" are often people how were legitmately democractically elected or are the most compentent people at their jobs.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Leo Gura

[mr_engineer]

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Kanye West's anti-semetic rants.

Right-wingers smearing gays as "groomers" and pedophiles.

These are ideas about a group of people that are just triggering to everyone else. The people cancelling him should self-reflect on why they're getting triggered over this. 

Ideas about a group of people are very different from personally attacking people. If someone shares a study of how white people are intellectually superior to black people, it is racist, sure, but it's not personally attacking a black person or calling them a nig***. The latter should be moderated, the former should be a legitimate point of discussion. That is the solution to racism, really. 

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

QAnon

Your issue with QAnon is only that it supports Trump, really. And if you hate Trump, that's your problem. 

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Anti-vaxx disinformation.

The point of science is that it's meant to be questioned. Science should be able to integrate differing points of view, not censor it. 

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Trump tweeting for a rally to storm the Capitol and deny election results.

I agree with deplatforming Trump for tweeting for a rally to storm the Capitol. But, if he thinks that his opponents cheated in the elections, he should be able to discuss that in a democracy. 

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's a problem for everyone when Russian spy agencies manipulate US public opinion via Twitter in order to subvert democracy.

Do you really have such little respect for common people, that they don't have a brain to think for themselves as to what they want to believe, or they don't have legitimate reasons to believe what they believe?! 

All the information that people could possibly want is out there. Now, if this is what people choose to believe, that's their choice. In a democracy, at least. Now, if we're not living in a democracy, then yeah. In that case, the law of the land is that the elite gets to decide what the people believe. 

Edit - On this point, I know you're going to make a point about percentage of college-educated people. Then, the solution to that is to lower the cost of education. Not to repress the uneducated! 

Edited November 28, 2022 by mr_engineer

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, mr_engineer said:

These are ideas about a group of people that are just triggering to everyone else. The people cancelling him should self-reflect on why they're getting triggered over this. 

Ideas about a group of people are very different from personally attacking people. If someone shares a study of how white people are intellectually superior to black people, it is racist, sure, but it's not personally attacking a black person or calling them a nig***. The latter should be moderated, the former should be a legitimate point of discussion. That is the solution to racism, really. 

No. After Kanye's rant, the Jewish meseum in LA was flooded with dead threats.

Violence against minorities, gays, trans, Jews, and Asians has all skyrocketed since 2016.

Hate crimes and mass shooters write manifestos says that their attacks were inspired by ideology they heard on Fox News, Alex Jones, or 4chan.

Smearing gays as groomers and pedophiles causes people to die.

You are not thinking about these issues seriously enough. You are treating this as mere philosophy or online word games.

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Your issue with QAnon is only that it supports Trump, really. And if you hate Trump, that's your problem. 

No. I posted a video on my blog a few months ago of a news story where a father killed his whole family because he thought they were part of the QAnon conspiracy.

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The point of science is that it's meant to be questioned. Science should be able to integrate differing points of view, not censor it.

Anti-vaxx disinfo is precisely not science. Science is not powerful enough to combat rampant disinfo campaigns. That is not the job of scientists.

Quote

Do you really have such little respect for common people, that they don't have a brain to think for themselves as to what they want to believe, or they don't have legitimate reasons to believe what they believe?! 

I have no respect for common people's intelligence. Common people are morons who can be turned into Nazis by bad actors if given the chance. Just look at what Trump has done with MAGA.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Bad_anarchist]

@Leo Gura 

Oh shit, your reply came right after my post and I was so confused, I thought I had been mistaken for a absolutists, lol. 

[mr_engineer]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No. After Kanye's rant, the Jewish meseum in LA was flooded with dead threats.

Violence against minorities, gays, trans, Jews, and Asians has all skyrocketed since 2016.

Hate crimes and mass shooters write manifestos says that their attacks were inspired by ideology they heard on Fox News, Alex Jones, or 4chan.

Smearing gays as groomers and pedophiles causes people to die.

You are not thinking about these issues seriously enough. You are treating this as mere philosophy or online word games. 

No. I posted a video on my blog a few months ago of a news story where a father killed his whole family because he thought they were part of the QAnon conspiracy.

Fine, these were a few idiots who got triggered into doing bad things. 

But, do keep in mind that these ideological positions are triggers. They're not the actual root-cause of these crimes. If you deplatform the triggers, they will find other ways of cropping up. 

They are able to effectively trigger people because they are meeting a legitimate psychological need for people. And no, it's not just a 'channel for their violent tendencies', as some psycho-analyst on Vice or Reuters will tell you. They're giving people answers to questions. Questions towards the authorities that the authorities aren't answering. 

This is a symptom of hundreds of years of ineffective governance. Nowadays, people are just finding ways to act on the negativity that's created. And the elite is going to have to solve this problem at the root, or they're in trouble. 

Democracy, ironically, does not have an effective way of cracking down on the elites when they do these huge scams, killing and scamming millions of people. But, they're able to crack down on people just raising their hand and asking a question. Just wow. This is what I mean when I say 'ineffective governance'. 

12 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Anti-vaxx disinfo is precisely not science. Science is not powerful enough to combat rampant disinfo campaigns. That is not the job of scientists.

It's not disinfo just because it's anti-vaxx. 

I could very easy call pro-vaxx information pro-vaxx 'disinfo'. That just benefits the vaccine-companies. Good luck getting through that one! 

It's very simple - pro-vaxx information is for people who want the vax, anti-vaxx information is for people who don't want it. Why can't we just get along, without censoring each other?! Why can't we agree to disagree on this one?! 

And, most importantly - why are the vaccinated people so scared of getting COVID from the unvaccinated?! Isn't that the job of the vax - to protect you?! 

15 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I have no respect for common people's intelligence. Common people are morons who can be turned into Nazis by bad actors if given the chance. Just look at what Trump has done with MAGA.

This kinda contradicts your point about Infinite Intelligence that you can access whenever you want. 

[Joel3102]

@Leo Gura There are real costs to free speech. But you don’t seem to appreciate the value of free speech either. I think it’s cool that in the US you can speak your mind, unlike in many European countries you can actually get arrested for speech as they don’t have the same protections.

Also when you censor too much you further fuel the conspiracy theories.

[Bad_anarchist]

@Joel3102 

Please tell me where in Europe you will get arrested for speech?

Edited November 28, 2022 by Bad_anarchist

[Leo Gura]

21 minutes ago, mr_engineer said:

Fine, these were a few idiots who got triggered into doing bad things.

No, not just a few idiots. 

Quote

But, do keep in mind that these ideological positions are triggers. They're not the actual root-cause of these crimes. If you deplatform the triggers, they will find other ways of cropping up. 

They are able to effectively trigger people because they are meeting a legitimate psychological need for people. And no, it's not just a 'channel for their violent tendencies', as some psycho-analyst on Vice or Reuters will tell you. They're giving people answers to questions. Questions towards the authorities that the authorities aren't answering.

Dude, you really need to study some history to see how often demagogues have hijacked the masses into behaving in heinous ways, leading to war, genocide, rape, torture, slavery, bloody revolutions, etc.

19 minutes ago, Joel3102 said:

@Leo Gura There are real costs to free speech. But you don’t seem to appreciate the value of free speech either. I think it’s cool that in the US you can speak your mind, unlike in many European countries you can actually get arrested for speech as they don’t have the same protections.

I appreciate free speech if only because I say some very radical shit for a living.

If there is any proof that free speech is alive and well it's that my content is allowed to exist.

But free speech only works when it is done in good faith by people with integrity.

Yes, if you're a Nazi you may get arrested in Europe. I wonder why?

The Europe and Canada examples actually undermine your point because those countries do not have 1st Amendment protections yet they are more developed and people there are happier than in the US. How come Canada manages just fine without a 1st Amendment if the 1st Amendment is so important? Why is Canadian society not some Orwellian hellscape?

Or perhaps giving Nazis endless legal protections is not so important for building a healthy society?

Edited November 28, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

14 minutes ago, mr_engineer said:

This kinda contradicts your point about Infinite Intelligence that you can access whenever you want. 

There is no contradiction.

Intelligence is accessible, but no one dares to do the work to access it.

[mr_engineer]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Dude, you really need to study some history to see how often demagogues have fooled the masses into behaving in heinous ways, leading to war, genocide, rape, torture, slavery, etc.

I'm not debating the existence of the problem. I'm debating the choice of solution-technique. 

This is a collective issue. But, banning individuals is not the solution to this problem. It may have been, in the past. But, in today's democracies, it's not going to cut it. Especially with the internet, where when you ban one person, everyone else is informed about your decision to ban them. It's no longer something you can do in secret anymore. 

We need more innovation in conflict-resolution techniques. And, we need to treat a collective issue in a collective way. I.e. we need to address them at the root-level. And yeah, some of these decisions will be questioned by the people who put these authority-figures in power. 

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, mr_engineer said:

I'm not debating the existence of the problem. I'm debating the choice of solution-technique. 

This is a collective issue. But, banning individuals is not the solution to this problem. It may have been, in the past. But, in today's democracies, it's not going to cut it. Especially with the internet, where when you ban one person, everyone else is informed about your decision to ban them. It's no longer something you can do in secret anymore. 

We need more innovation in conflict-resolution techniques. And, we need to treat a collective issue in a collective way. I.e. we need to address them at the root-level. And yeah, some of these decisions will be questioned by the people who put these authority-figures in power. 

I agree that Musk personally deciding who to ban or unban is not the solution. There need to be community rules which are then enforced as evenly as possible with an appeals commission.

This is the proper way.

Basically, government must set consistent rules across all major social platforms for acceptable and unacceptable behavior. And then it needs to force Twitter and everyone else to objectively enforce the rules. And have an appeals process.

That's how all this is solved. Government exists precisely to solve such problems. We have rules that prohibit people from jerking off in public. And those rules are then enforced by police. That's how this works.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Joel3102]

16 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The Europe and Canada examples actually undermine your point because those countries do not have 1st Amendment protections yet they are more developed and people there are happier than in the US. How come Canada manages just fine without a 1st Amendment if the 1st Amendment is so important? Why is Canadian society not some Orwellian hellscape?

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2022/9/13/arrest-of-uk-anti-royals-raises-questions-about-freedom-of-speech
 

 

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, Joel3102 said:

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2022/9/13/arrest-of-uk-anti-royals-raises-questions-about-freedom-of-speech

That is a problem. Police can go too far.

There is never going to be a clean solution to the policing of speech. It will always be hairy, grey, and messy, with over and under enforcement. Just as is the case with the policing of crime. You never have perfectly fair laws and you never have perfect enforcement of them.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Leo Gura

[mr_engineer]

24 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

There is no contradiction.

Intelligence is accessible, but no one dares to do the work to access it.

Or, when you have an elite pushing for closed-mindedness, doing the work to access infinite intelligence becomes very hard. And it's disincentivized. Why?! Because people won't do it, so why bother leaving the door open for them?! This is a catch-22. 

This is my main issue with the promotion of echo-chambers that happens when you ban people. 

Edited November 28, 2022 by mr_engineer

[Leo Gura]

No one on any major platform is banning intelligent spiritual or philosophical discussion. Just notice that.

What they are banning is mostly trolling, bigotry, and very bad ideas spoken by very ignorant actors for personal gain.

JP did not get banned from Twitter for speaking some philosophically brilliant truth. He got banned for simply being an asshole to a trans person. If JP wanted to make a substantive critique of trans issues, he was free to do so. But instead he devolved into personal attacks and being an ass. And so was legitimately banned.

But then he whines as if this is a free speech issue. It isn't. You don't have a right to have your jerkness broadcast to the world.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Leo Gura

[mr_engineer]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No one on any major platform is banning intelligent spiritual or philsophical discussion.

What they are banning is mostly trolling, bigotry, and very bad ideas.

The major platforms are banning the application/embodiment of intelligent spiritual ideas. Which requires people to open their mind to other perspectives than the one the platforms are pushing. 

They are creating echo-chambers. Do you agree with me on that or not? Echo-chambers are anti-spiritual, by definition. 

Edited November 28, 2022 by mr_engineer

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, mr_engineer said:

They are creating echo-chambers. Do you agree with me on that or not? 

Not really.

The echo-chambers that exist on social media are not due to bannings, they are due to how algorithms take people down ideological rabbitholes and keep serving up the same content endlessly, resulting in brainwashing.

But YT or Twitter as a whole are not echochambers. You can find an infinite diversity of perspectives on them if you cared to.

Just because Nazis and racists are banned does not result in an echochamber.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Leo Gura

[mr_engineer]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Not really.

The echo-chambers that exist on social media are not due to bannings, they are due to how algorithms take people down ideological rabbitholes and keep serving up the same content endlessly, resulting in brainwashing.

But YT or Twitter as a whole are not echochambers. You can find an infinite diversity of perspectives on them if you cared to.

When you say that 'some ideas are dangerous', the ultimate long-term consequence of that is the formation of an echo-chamber. Of, say, woke ideology. 

My problem isn't with woke ideology. It's with the echo-chamber. And this is a band-aid on the very real wounds of racism, sexism, homophobia, disagreements on war, on the scientific-method, etc.