Zompist Bboard Again

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 6:07 pm I mean, if every time somebody builds a barber shop it fills up with racists chatting about skull shape, the problem is us, not the person who built the barbershop. If your population wants to do racism, you can't have both free and open public fora for the uncensored exchange of ideas, and safety. You probably could if your population was less shit, but that would require generational investment in human resources like education, housing, health care, and employment, which most voters seem to legitimately find revolting.

This is the best summary of the problem I’ve seen in a while. But in addition to this, I think I subscribe to Scott Alexander’s ‘witch-hunt theory’:

Scott Alexander wrote: HL Mencken once said that “the trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”

There’s an unfortunate corollary to this, which is that if you try to create a libertarian paradise, you will attract three deeply virtuous people with a strong committment to the principle of universal freedom, plus millions of scoundrels. Declare that you’re going to stop holding witch hunts, and your coalition is certain to include more than its share of witches.

—https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/f ... lized-web/

That is to say, if you have a bunch of communities which exclude bad actors, and a few remaining ones which promote ‘free speech’, then the latter will end up with disproportionately many bad actors. This exacerbates the problem you mention.

Scott Alexander said the same thing in another article, with (I think) slightly better phrasing.

Scott Alexander wrote: If you’re against witch-hunts, and you promise to found your own little utopian community where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong.

—https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/n ... -struggle/

Every time I hear Left-leaning people talk about "removing harmful content", I can't help but think "Are we the baddies?".

Ryusenshi wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 6:58 am Scott Alexander said the same thing in another article, with (I think) slightly better phrasing.

Scott Alexander wrote: If you’re against witch-hunts, and you promise to found your own little utopian community where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong.

—https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/n ... -struggle/

Yes, thank you! I felt sure I’d seen it phrased better elsewhere.

I'm not sure about the real world analogy. The Internet brings a certain anonymity and safety from consequence. It's not the only factor, of course (I've seen people spout racist bullshit on LinkedIn, under their real name and that of their employer...), but it's a factor.

Plus there's the whole trolling thing. Who knows what social media trolls really think? (Who knows if they think at all?) Being as edgy, racist and unpleasant as possible brings some benefits on social media that you don't usually get in real life.

In a rare example of cross-cultural exchange, British politicians seem to have spent the last year playing Calvinball, while their American contemporaries in Washington are playing a spirited game of Mornington Crescent.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 4:28 pm I'm not sure about the real world analogy. The Internet brings a certain anonymity and safety from consequence. It's not the only factor, of course (I've seen people spout racist bullshit on LinkedIn, under their real name and that of their employer...), but it's a factor.

Plus there's the whole trolling thing. Who knows what social media trolls really think? (Who knows if they think at all?) Being as edgy, racist and unpleasant as possible brings some benefits on social media that you don't usually get in real life.

I agree. Except for maybe in bars after a couple of glasses too many, in my experience people try to avoid antagonizing other people face-to face.
OTOH, that often means that they don't object against obvious nonsense or toxic opinions out of politeness, group dynamics, or because those things were said by high-status members of the group.

Interesting turn:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/penc ... y-medicare

OK, good luck and stay safe, everyone.

Just saw this on Twitter. I just can't even.

hwhatting wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 1:22 pm

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 4:28 pm I'm not sure about the real world analogy. The Internet brings a certain anonymity and safety from consequence. It's not the only factor, of course (I've seen people spout racist bullshit on LinkedIn, under their real name and that of their employer...), but it's a factor.

Plus there's the whole trolling thing. Who knows what social media trolls really think? (Who knows if they think at all?) Being as edgy, racist and unpleasant as possible brings some benefits on social media that you don't usually get in real life.

I agree. Except for maybe in bars after a couple of glasses too many, in my experience people try to avoid antagonizing other people face-to face.
OTOH, that often means that they don't object against obvious nonsense or toxic opinions out of politeness, group dynamics, or because those things were said by high-status members of the group.

I think that all of these statements are broadly true, with regard to how people behave on the Internet vs. face-to-face.

Ironically, when I first began interacting with the ZBB and other online communities more than twenty years ago and witnessed my first (relatively mild) flamewars, what struck me overwhelmingly at the time was the fact that the online environment provides a perfect opportunity for the exact opposite behavior: when you see something on the Internet that upsets you, you have the ability to stop, take a breath, think about your reaction, edit your (perhaps infuriated) initial response before sending it (or decide not to send it at all), etc., all without anyone seeing you (at least in the days before video chatting became more common). As I put it at the time, with apologies to the slogan for the movie Alien: "In cyberspace, no one can see you bite your tongue."

I think I did once witness something that might be described as a kind of attempted real-life trolling. I was sitting on a bus, minding my own business, and overheard a conversation between two nearby passengers. One of them, a woman, reported that she had talked to some guy from Italy a while earlier. That guy had told her that he had lived in Germany for a long time, but now wanted to go back to Italy, because he had gotten the impression that Germany was pretty much lost.

At that point, the woman raised her voice, got a lot louder than before, and angrily said something like "First living in Germany for a long time, benefiting from it, and then going back home when things get worse!" I think she even repeated it once or twice.

She was clearly waiting for someone to either contradict her or applaud her, but neither of these happened.

Glenn wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 5:52 pm Ironically, when I first began interacting with the ZBB and other online communities more than twenty years ago and witnessed my first (relatively mild) flamewars, what struck me overwhelmingly at the time was the fact that the online environment provides a perfect opportunity for the exact opposite behavior: when you see something on the Internet that upsets you, you have the ability to stop, take a breath, think about your reaction, edit your (perhaps infuriated) initial response before sending it (or decide not to send it at all), etc., all without anyone seeing you (at least in the days before video chatting became more common). As I put it at the time, with apologies to the slogan for the movie Alien: "In cyberspace, no one can see you bite your tongue."

I guess a lot of people even do that; they just don't get the attention the unfiltered trolls get.
Although on places that are moderated, like this, there is a reward for biting your tongue - constant flaming may get you banned.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 6:11 pm She was clearly waiting for someone to either contradict her or applaud her, but neither of these happened.

That's exactly what I was talking about wrt face-to-face situations - her trolling was not rewarded or amplified like it would have been online, but neither was her opinion challenged.

We truly live in the dumbest timeline:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64788677

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Feb 28, 2023 2:21 am We truly live in the dumbest timeline:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64788677

I think the panda suit was a clever move. The FBI will look -- at least in the eyes of some -- slightly ridiculous for arresting the panda.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Tue Feb 28, 2023 3:39 am I think the panda suit was a clever move. The FBI will look -- at least in the eyes of some -- slightly ridiculous for arresting the panda.

But pandas are clearly CCP spies!

New, rather long and sometimes a bit repetitive, somewhat pedantic blog post on one particular aspect of Democratic Party politics:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... democrats/

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 1:59 pm New, rather long and sometimes a bit repetitive, somewhat pedantic blog post on one particular aspect of Democratic Party politics:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... democrats/

I don't understand the moral panic about wealthy people supporting leftist causes. Engels was super wealthy.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 8:15 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 1:59 pm New, rather long and sometimes a bit repetitive, somewhat pedantic blog post on one particular aspect of Democratic Party politics:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... democrats/

I don't understand the moral panic about wealthy people supporting leftist causes. Engels was super wealthy.

It's hypocritical, don't you know. You can't be a proper left-winger unless you're permanently suffering in every single aspect of your life, otherwise you're an infiltrator from the bourgeoisie who can't possibly empathise with the downtrodden proletariat in any way. See also "champagne socialism".

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 8:15 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 1:59 pm New, rather long and sometimes a bit repetitive, somewhat pedantic blog post on one particular aspect of Democratic Party politics:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... democrats/

I don't understand the moral panic about wealthy people supporting leftist causes. Engels was super wealthy.

It doesn't bother me and to some extent it's to be expected. Politics require time, energy and resources.

What bothers me is that legislatures and political parties (at least at the top level) are not even close to being representative of the population they're supposed to, well, represent.
When there are only a handful of working-class people in the legislature, or just a handful of these -- as is the case in all representative democracies -- working-class issues will be ignored.
And then we don't have much of a representative democracy, do we?

I don't expect the legislature to be a perfect mirror of society -- but some effort in that direction would be nice.