| ▲ | brap 4 days ago |
| I mean, yes, but also… Not specifically related to this “child protection” thing, but you can’t deny that the free flow of information also leads to some pretty terrible things, driven by actors such as states, magnified x1000 by social media, and now also AI. Every platform these days is full to the brim with misinformation and propaganda (which ends up in mainstream media as well), deliberately making many of us hateful and sometimes violent. The free flow of information is undoubtedly being used for harm. I’m 100% for personal liberty and accountability, and admittedly I don’t have a solution for this. I do think the Elon Musk approach (“just let people decide for themselves”) is very naive at best. Again just to be clear this has nothing to do with the UK thing which I strongly disagree with. |
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| ▲ | somenameforme 4 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| The free flow of information isn't driving extremism, it's echo chambers. People have a tendency of surrounding themselves with only those who already agree with them on some topic, so that a heavily partisan position suddenly becomes 'moderate.' This is how you have people simultaneously claiming, for instance, that the US is becoming more liberal than ever, and that it's becoming more conservative than ever. You can also see this with the perception gap [1]. Those who are most involved in politics tend to be the paradoxically least knowledgeable about what 'the other side' thinks and believes. Typical contemporary examples would be republicans thinking democrats want to defund the police, or democrats thinking republicans are against immigration. When you have contrary ideas bouncing against each other, poor ideas are easily demonstrated to be such - and you get a more realistic view of what people 'on the other side' actually think and believe. It naturally tempers against radicalism. But when you start to control information, you get the opposite. This is made even worse by the sort of people that find themselves on a life trajectory to go work, let alone volunteer, for the 'Ministry of Truth'. They tend to be the exact sorts that want to create information bubbles and echo chambers. ---- In general I think the truth tends to trickle up, even if it might get a bit dirty on the way there. I'd appeal to places like the USSR on that. They not only directly controlled absolutely all published information, but strictly controlled migration in and out of the country, informers everywhere making people terrified of speaking their mind, and just generally had a rock solid grip on information. The result? People still knew they were all full of shit. There's a great series of jokes from the era here. [2] On of my favorites, "Why do we need two central newspapers, Truth (Pravda) and News (Izvestiya) if both are organs of the same Party? Because in Truth there is no news, and in News there is no truth." [1] - https://perceptiongap.us/ [2] - https://johndclare.net/Russ12_Jokes.htm |
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| ▲ | Ray20 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > The result? People still knew they were all full of shit. It's just that the purpose of all this totalitarian control wasn't so that people wouldn't know. It was so that people couldn't do anything about it even if they knew. The result was achieved, the measures you listed as examples worked effectively. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Was it? The USSR didn't even make it to its 70th birthday. The leaders of the next generation are brought up in the current. Gorbachev essentially destroyed the USSR, but that's probably in large part because his formative years where under Stalin. His first major foray into politics was as as a rather enthusiastic advocate of the de-Stalinization that happened after Stalin's death. So the leader of a system was somebody who lived under, suffered under, and likely loathed, even if secretly, that system. This is one of the many examples of the consequences of actions stretching out much further than many realize. A famous quote from Stalin is that, "I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy." His Machiavellian vision likely had him seeing himself as the savior of the USSR, when in reality his actions are almost certainly a key reason that it no longer exists today. | | |
| ▲ | Ray20 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > The USSR didn't even make it to its 70th birthday. Not because the will or the struggle of the people. Gorbachev began to abolish the aforementioned totalitarian measures, creating the opportunity for a party coup. If totalitarian control had not been weakened, nothing would have prevented the Soviet Union from existing to this day. > Gorbachev essentially destroyed the USSR No, he didn't do that. He loosened the totalitarian control, and that was it. Then other opportunistic leaders of the Communist Party took advantage of the situation and seized power, dividing up the resources of the huge country among themselves. And because the old regime was full of shit and everyone knew it, no one stood up for it. > his actions are almost certainly a key reason that it no longer exists today. Rather, his actions were the reason why the Soviet regime lasted so long. I mean, the unviability of the socialist project was a proven fact in 1918, long before the USSR was even called that. And everything that happened after that was simply an attempt to cling to power by totalitarian and terrorist methods, first by Lenin, then by Stalin. |
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| ▲ | MangoToupe 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don't suppose I really disagree with any of this, but I do want to highlight that there are really more than two sides on basically all issues. Traditional media did a terrible job of portraying this, typically lazily assuming that the parties form the opposite ends of the political spectrum and that people discontented with both parties naturally fall between them. This is the dynamic that implies one or two "wedge" issues dominate politics, and most things people likely want to discuss/improve/address aren't even on the table. Social media may stoke radicalism, but the underlying discontent was there before—politicians could just act like it was ridiculous. And yes, there are people—like you—who continue to act like there is "the other side" when the way people characterize themselves outside of partisan affiliation is much more nuanced and complex. Eg there are many, many Americans who are anti-war, but there is simply no anti-war vote on most ballots, nor certainly any anti-war party. In other words, manufacturing consent got us into this mess, social media just makes us anxiously aware of how bad mainstream media was at capturing the political sentiments of the people who live here. That includes, yes, radicals (violent bigots & ideologues), but this also includes realizing that many or most people have no idea what the party whose candidates they vote for actually stand for. I've put a lot of effort in surrounding myself with people very unlike myself in the last year for reasons, in-person, around real-life activities and scenarios, where politics is simply not relevant outside of stimulating conversation. What I've put together is that basically nobody in this country is both well-educated about politics and satisfied with either party. We've somehow created a two-legged monster that doesn't want to do, you know, the actual substantial end of democracy. Now, I discovered this in the real world, but social media has made it much easier to see if you relentlessly block all "both sides"/"other side" partisans and look directly to values, struggles, desires, etc. But, this does take discipline, and if you're trying to tune out, you're a prime candidate to be taken directly into outragetainment. | | |
| ▲ | account42 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > This is the dynamic that implies one or two "wedge" issues dominate politics No, that's the natural result of a representative democracy. You only get one vote so all nuance has to be boiled down to a single choice. | | |
| ▲ | MangoToupe 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Well, you've successfully argued against representative democracy. I suppose I still had some hope that we could reform our culture. |
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| ▲ | wat10000 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | “ democrats thinking republicans are against immigration.” Um, I don’t know if you’ve just returned from a long journey in the wilderness or something, but Republicans are definitely against immigration. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | When asked "On the whole, do you think immigration is a good thing or a bad thing for this country today?", 64% of Republicans state it is a good thing. [1] And note that that question has dubious phrasing since it simply says immigration. Change that to legal immigration and the number will probably be more in the 90% range. Notably this (64%) is higher than even the Democrat level up until about 2012, after the Occupy Wallstreet movement. [1] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigratio... | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | There’s a concept in economics called “revealed preferences.” The idea is that you might not say what you really want, or even know it, but your behavior reveals it. For example, somebody might say that they hate tiny airline seats and they’d gladly pay substantially extra for more legroom. But then they’ll be presented with a choice of an airline ticket with more legroom, or the exact same ticket but with less legroom for $3 less, and they’ll choose the latter. Their revealed preference is that they don’t actually value legroom very much, despite what they say. Likewise, if someone says that they support immigration, but you vote for and continue to support someone who opposes immigration to the point of carrying out heinous human rights abuses against legal immigrants, well, actions speak louder than words. I’m pretty sure this is the “virtue signaling” that people are always going on about. Supporting immigration is seen as a good thing, so people say they do. But when it comes down to actual concrete policy, they don’t. This used to be covered by the fig leaf of “we support legal immigration” but that’s gone now. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 4 days ago | parent [-] | | With due respect, think about what you're doing. You're now simply discarding any poll that doesn't conform to your own personal biases, and replacing those data with some rather extreme partisan talking points. This is the point about stepping out of bubbles. The people you see as 'the other side' do not think in any way, shape, or fashion like you believe that they might. For instance if you went up to an average Republican and said 'So what do you think about the human rights abuses being carried out against legal immigrants?' The overwhelming majority would have literally no clue what you're talking about. If you explained this incident or that, their response is going to be 'Well that's dumb. I hope they're doing something so this doesn't happen again.' It's like if you went up to the average Democrat and asked them what they think about having explicit LGB books made available to minors in schools? Again the overwhelming majority would have literally no clue what you're talking about. If you explained this incident or that, their response is going to be 'Well that's dumb. I hope they're doing something so this doesn't happen again.' The 'other side' these bubbles build up simply doesn't exist in reality. | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 4 days ago | parent [-] | | What "rather extreme partisan talking points" are those? Referring to the well-attested, widely-reported abuses of immigrants by this administration is not extremely partisan, it's just facts. I know Republicans. I talk to Republicans. They know about this stuff and they're fine with it. They know they're not supposed to be, so they deflect. They'll say what's happening to immigrants is no different from being arrested for a crime you didn't commit, then released. They'll insist that the victim was a terrible criminal regardless of the facts. What they don't do is express any reservations whatsoever about it. I suppose you might make an argument that this deflection indicates an overall approval of immigration since they need to find excuses to support the administration's anti-immigration actions. I would argue that if you claim to believe one thing, but you always find an excuse to defend actions against it, then you don't actually believe it. Polls are not magic opinion-finding systems. They report what people say. This demonstrably frequently diverges from what people actually do, think, and feel. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 3 days ago | parent [-] | | You swapped from 'heinous human rights abuses' to 'abuse' when challenged on a point being framed in a rather extreme and partisan fashion. And that's not to mock you or anything - it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Abuses are one thing, human rights abuses are another, and then human rights abuses so abnormally cruel that they deserve to be labeled as heinous? I mean are we talking about stuff like Unit 731 [1] here? I'm pretty sure we are not. Yet these echo chambers encourage people to use ever more hyperbolic and sensationalized language framing ever more actions as the most severe and consequential thing to ever happen, mostly just to rile people up (and get those votes in social media). This is why conversation, and free flow of information, from people of different worldviews is so critical for a functioning society and avoiding radicalism. And I have to say I'm still not certain what you're even talking about, whereas I assume you think literally every American knows exactly what you are trying to reference. But this is again an issue about bubbles, and what I was getting at with if you asked an average person about some trending talking point. On the overwhelming majority of issues, most people's response is going to be 'What are you even talking about?' [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 3 days ago | parent [-] | | It’s shorthand. You don’t have to repeat the full phrase every time. I’m talking about things like CECOT. No, it’s not Unit 731. I think being sent to a horrible prison in another country without a trial qualifies as “heinous.” Maybe you don’t. But that’s missing the point. The point is the support for these actions, not their precise description. You say people don’t know about this stuff. My experience is otherwise. Maybe you’re right. I don’t think so. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Expedited removal [1] is a part of immigration law dating back to Clinton. People who are in the country unlawfully do not have all of the same rights as citizens or legal non-citizens. And support (or opposition) for immigration in no way whatsoever implies a position on how to deal with people who are in the country illegally. For instance Hispanics are less supportive of immigration than average, but more supportive than average of allowing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. And I myself am quite supportive of immigration, but not at all a fan of path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. I even have very specific reasons for that, but my anecdotes are probably irrelevant here. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedited_removal | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Expedited removal does not require sending people to a hellhole third-world prison. Many of the people sent there were in the US legally. But thank you for illustrating the deflection I was talking about. This is how these conversations always go for me. First the ignorance, "I don't even know what you're referring to." Then the minimization, "it's not so bad," "you're being hyperbolic." Finally the justification, "this is nothing new," "they were all illegals anyway." | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm not deflecting anything. Rather you've brought us down a tangent that has literally nothing to do with the initial issue of whether or not one supports immigration. I'm more than happy to continue the discussion, but I'm not entirely sure what we're even debating at this point. So I suppose I'll just consider it a discussion, it's interesting in any case! The US does not get to dictate what happens to a person in a country once they're deported. That is up to the host country. El Salvador has been going through an extreme crackdown on gangs over the past several years sending them from one of the most dangerous countries in the world with one of the highest homicide rates in the world, to a country with a homicide rate a fraction of the US' and one of the 10 safest countries in the world! [1] The deal between the US and El Salvador for hosting prisoners was for a relatively small number of deportees who were vile enough that even their home countries refused to accept them back, leaving them in a state of limbo. And the deportees were overwhelmingly not in the country legally. The media made this claim based on people who were admitted to the country via the CBP One app. But those admittances were all rescinded in April. At that point users of the App were notified of the change, the app was updated to 'CBP Home' and updated to work as a tool to help people self deport in a way that would not imperil their chance of legally applying for a visa or citizenship to the US in the future. Those who chose to stay in the US beyond that point were doing so illegally, and were informed that they would be arrested, deported, and permanently prevented from ever legally entering the US. https://www.gallup.com/analytics/356996/gallup-global-safety... | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 3 days ago | parent [-] | | It's not a tangent. It's the worst example of the anti-immigrant actions being taken by this administration, and it's supported by its supporters. You think (or at least say) it's a tangent because you're deflecting. This is basically a No True Immigrant argument. I point out immigrants being abused, you come up with reasons why that doesn't count. I'm sure this would continue. I could talk about, say, a green card holder who gets arrested by ICE because of a decades-old marijuana offense and then after being held in bad conditions for several days is released into the middle of the night with no way to get in touch with anyone she knows, and you'll just say that they have a right to do this because of that marijuana offense, or this is standard treatment, or some other such faff. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Ah, but now you're finally revealing the core of your argument. You seem to be effectively insisting that somebody must equate illegal immigration and legal migration. Am I somehow straw manning you? Because if not this is of course rather silly, as the two have little in common besides moving. Legal immigration to the US is absurdly difficult and entails extensive vetting, qualification, and a lengthy process of 'proving' oneself. Illegal immigration requires breaking the law to enter a country, breaking the law to remain in that country, and then generally also continuing to break the law as you reside in the country. So with one you're getting the best of the best and with the other you're getting people who view the law as something to be followed when convenient. | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You're absolutely strawmanning me. Or do you equate deporting a green card holder with a decades-old marijuana conviction as being against illegal immigration? Do you think that suddenly revoking status from legal immigrants and then deporting them is only being against illegal immigrants because you revoked their status first? "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." You can't claim to only be against dishonest men when you do this sort of thing. I do think that this administration's actions against illegal immigrants have been so bad that everyone responsible should be imprisoned. But they are not only against illegal immigrants. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I don't follow your bubbles, so I am looking things up on the fly, but the only case I could find of somebody deported "for a decades-old marijuana" conviction was this [1] individual who "has a lengthy criminal record with convictions for distributing cocaine and marijuana, assault and disorderly conduct." And it turns out his deportation was not even ordered by this administration. It was ordered a decade ago after he was imprisoned for some crime while already on probation for yet another crime. Obviously you don't think people like this are desirable immigrants, so this likely gets back to the bubble issue. While it's possible I'm referencing the wrong case, I suspect the issue is more like that whatever bubble you consume did genuinely just frame this as 'Trump deports man for decades old marijuana conviction' when I think you can see that that is plainly false. But if anybody mentioned this in your bubble, they would certainly be rapidly silenced because rage is far more relevant than facts in these bubbles. And consider that the media you're consuming is driving you to think that not only are these actions "heinous" but even that the current administration should be imprisoned for what they're doing, and I expect you probably wish even worse - though may not be willing to say it. This is the exact radicalizing phenomena I was talking about at the very top of this thread. [1] - https://www.newsweek.com/vorasack-phommasith-green-card-revo... | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm referring to this: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ice-released-mass-mom-no... She wasn't deported, hooray! She was still held in bad conditions for over a week, denied necessary medical care, and then released far from home with no resources. Do you think this is acceptable treatment of a legal immigrant? Or do you believe that an old marijuana conviction is enough to consider her "illegal" and thus doesn't count as an action against legal immigrants? Or maybe it's just cherry-picked and not representative? Please explain how "the media [I'm] consuming is driving [me] to think that" sending people to CECOT without trial is heinous. (Note that the "without trial" part is an intensifier, but it would still be heinous even with one.) I'm pretty sure it's the conditions in CECOT and a belief in basic human rights that drives me to think that. Are you asserting that CECOT is actually fine and I'm getting a distorted picture of what it's like there? Are you asserting that my belief that it's heinous to imprison people in awful conditions would disappear if I had a more objective view? Do note that every time you justify one of these things, you're proving my point. You need to go for the ignorance angle if you want to argue that a vast majority of Republicans support immigration. Arguing that they are aware of what's happening but it just doesn't qualify as being against immigration is not going to work. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Ok, so your anecdote didn't actually happen. That could explain why I was having trouble finding it. Think about the fact that the rather relevant update of 'ok, she actually wasn't even deported' didn't make it into your bubble, and why that might be. And more generally, again look at what you're doing here. You're not really making any argument against the claim that e.g. Republicans support immigration. You're instead looking for some random anecdote that turned out poorly on the enforcement against illegal immigration. People in the hundreds of thousands have now been deported. If 99.9% of these cases are handled in the most amazingly professional and reasonable manner, that still means hundreds would not be. You're fishing for that 0.1% to try to frame that as being representative of the 99.9%. I think it's equally obvious that there probably are some issues at the fringe, there always are, as that that things are going perfectly smoothly and reasonably in the overwhelming majority of cases. As for CECOT, I've already answered this. The US does not deport El Salvadorans to CECOT. They deport them to their home country. What happens at that point is up to their home country. And El Salvador has cracked down hard on any sort of viable gang affiliation which has sent their country from one of the most dangerous in the world to one of the top 10 safest places in the world with a genuine government approval rating that is at 90%+. | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Think about the fact that the rather relevant update of 'ok, she actually wasn't even deported' didn't make it into your bubble, and why that might be. Your incredible condescension is not helping your argument any. I got the entire story at once. The only thing that saved her from being deported was the timely action of her husband and her lawyer to get the conviction vacated before that could actually happen. If the lawyer hadn't been quite as good, or the local court hadn't been quite as fast, she would have been deported like ICE wanted to. Do you find that acceptable? Do you think that doesn't qualify as being anti-immigration? A million fucking apologies for being imprecise with my description, jesus. > The US does not deport El Salvadorans to CECOT. Absolutely complete 100% horseshit. The administration deported them in full knowledge of where they were going to end up. They knew it, and you know they knew it. Saying they didn't deport people to CECOT is like saying that I didn't kill the guy, I just pushed him out the window, gravity and the pavement are what killed him. Civilized countries do not deport people when they're facing horrible human rights abuses on the other end. And what about all the Venezuelans who got deported to CECOT? Did their home country suddenly switch? Is Venezuela too dangerous and CECOT was better? Did the administration think El Salvador was a nice safe place for them to go, and were totally blindsided when they ended up in CECOT? Come on, man. You're either being ridiculously disingenuous in a bizarre attempt to make a point, or you're proving my point by doing exactly what I said these supposedly "pro-immigration" people do, making the absolute worst excuses to defend the clearly anti-immigration actions of this administration. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | Genuine apologies if my post came off condescending. I do work to stay above the usual emotive trash on internet debates and you've certainly been a perfectly good and respectful 'debate partner.' That said, you have to also see things from my perspective here. You repeatedly referenced this person as somebody who was deported for a marijuana conviction. And you are likely looking for the worst of the worst stories. And so for the worst of the worst to include things like somebody being briefly detained, let alone after lying to immigration officers, it is an anti-climax, to say the least. The reason the Venezuelans were deported to CECOT is because Venezuela refused to accept them. They needed to be deported but no country wanted them. So they ended up in CECOT with the US paying a tidy sum of money for that. They were eventually transferred from CECOT back to Venezuela in exchange for Venezuela releasing a number of political prisoners. Obviously there's some classified behind the scenes stuff going on beyond that, but it's a pretty good ending to the story there. And once again the treatment of illegal immigrants and being for or against legal immigration are two very different things. In those 0.1% of cases where something goes awry obviously I absolutely hope they improve their systems to do a better job. But, by and large, they seem to be doing a phenomenal job of dealing with a problem that never should have been allowed to reach its current magnitude. |
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| ▲ | a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | const_cast 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | There's two major problems here: 1. What republican constituency wants and what republican polices are do not align. For example, most Republicans support Donald Trump. Most do not know anything about Donald Trump's policies. Most will directly say they disagree with a policy, and yet they will still support Trump. If you tell them said policy is a Trump policy, they will either say that it's not true or say that they misspoke, and they do agree with it. For example, practically all of Project 2025 has been well underway. Prior to the election, it was clear that republican constituents DID NOT support Project 2025. However, if you simply say Project 2025 policies without using the word "Project 2025", then they do support it. 2. Republicans and conservatives at large will just lie if they believe you are willing to make a moral judgment on them. For example, if you ever go on Hinge or Tinder or whatever dating app you choose, Republican voters will almost all be "apolitical" or "not interested in politics". They will not mention who they voted for and they will purposefully deceive potential partners so they can avoid what they feel is a moral judgement. Probably republican voters here felt the question was asked in a pointed or morally judgmental way, so I'm sure a good amount just lied and said they do support immigration. If you then poll how many voted for, say, Trump, who is explicitly anti-immigration (not anti-illegal immigration, anti-immigration) then your numbers will change. Now, this IS NOT to say that republican voters are stupid or liars. The republican party is, right now and for the past decade and then some, run by populist leaders. This is the direct result of populist messaging. There are also populist leftist leaders - they just do not currently exist in the US. |
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| ▲ | parineum 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's a lot less true than the "all democrats want to defund the police". Where all democrats certainly didn't want to defund the police immediately post-George Floyd but there were a large amount of democrats that wouldn't publicly say that when prompted to. On the other hand, you'll find plenty of Republicans today who would say that they think legal immigration is great. The main point is neither of those were ever true and the situation with Democrats was largely caused by the outsized influence of vocal minorities, not of actual sentiment. Similarly, there are plenty of Republicans who think that the current actions of ICE are over the line but won't speak up. |
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| ▲ | miki123211 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Knives help you cook delicious food, knives can also help you stab your partner to death. This doesn't mean knives should be banned (though, ironically enough, the UK believes otherwise). Different technologies are in different places on the "societal usefullness versus danger" spectrum. Nuclear weapons are obviously on the "really fricking dangerous" side, no country lets a civilian own them. Forks are obviously on the "useful" side, even though you can technically use one to gouge somebody's eye out. What's the right tradeoff for guns, printing presses, typewriters and social media companies is a matter of some debate. |
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| ▲ | Normal_gaussian 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Knives in the UK are age restricted for purchase. Anyone can carry a folding pocket knife with a blade less than 3" without needing a reason. Any other mechanism, fixed blade, or longer blade require a lawful reason to carry. This includes recreation (e.g. fishing, camping) work (e.g. joinery, cooking). There are a handful examples of overzealous officers misunderstanding and detaining for the wrong reasons, and plenty of examples of people who pretended to the media it was for innocent reasons until the court case showed otherwise. For your point about forks, I'll note that they are actually covered by the same law; as are all pointed objects. | |
| ▲ | iamacyborg 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > This doesn't mean knives should be banned (though, ironically enough, the UK believes otherwise). No it doesn’t. I can easily go to any number of local shops and buy a knife without any hassle. | | |
| ▲ | hdgvhicv 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | A large number of Americans believe all sorts of nonsense about the UK | | |
| ▲ | matwood 4 days ago | parent [-] | | The US is a big place and many Americans never travel anywhere else. Heck, a large number of Americans believe criminals are burning down LA. |
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| ▲ | pjc50 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | You do however have to undergo age verification, but under a much less intrusive process than online (a shop assistant looks at you and guesses, or looks at your ID and does not retain a copy). | | |
| ▲ | hdgvhicv 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Same as buying alcohol or a child ticket on the bus or an old age discount The Us has even higher limits - many things are banned to many adults. Alcohol, lottery tickets etc. | | |
| ▲ | filoleg 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > The Us has even higher limits - many things are banned to many adults. Alcohol, lottery tickets etc. Not trying to start an argument, because I could indeed be missing some crucial info here, but what kind of adults aren't allowed to purchase alcohol or lottery tickets in the US? The most scrutiny I ever got while attempting to purchase either alcohol or lottery tickets in the US was the establishment's employee glancing at my ID (and even that happens less than 1/5 of the time for me). | | |
| ▲ | hdgvhicv 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | In Arizona, 20 year olds aren’t allowed to buy powerball tickets. As far as IDing to confirm age, I haven’t been IDed in the U.K. since I was 2007. I was IDed in DC last year. | |
| ▲ | iamacyborg 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Much the same way that no one will stop you from buying a knife if you have ID in the UK. | | |
| ▲ | filoleg 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I mean, sure, I never disputed that (because I have zero idea how difficult it is to buy a knife in the UK, and I’ve never even said anything about knives). My question was about the stricter limits on purchasing alcohol or lottery tickets in the US (which were brought up in the comment I originally replied to), because that was the first time I heard about that. I was curious what those alluded-to limits were, and I still have zero idea. | | |
| ▲ | foldr 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Bars in the US routinely ID people who are obviously over the age of 21. And then they get weird about foreign passports because...well, because America, I guess. I've sometimes been refused entry despite being clearly over 21 and having my passport with me (or, absurdly, been asked to show another ID, as if a passport wasn't sufficient for buying a beer). Attitudes to IDing people for alcohol are much more pragmatic in the UK. | | |
| ▲ | hdgvhicv 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Generally if you look over 25 in the uk you don’t need ID to prove you are over 18. |
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| ▲ | iamacyborg 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | They're probably referring to the fact that you can buy alcohol at the age of 18 in the UK vs 21 in the US. It's also much more easily accessible, for example, we don't have dry counties or state-run liquor stores. |
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| ▲ | iamacyborg 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Right, which isn’t really any hassle at all. |
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| ▲ | hdgvhicv 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The U.K. doesn’t ban knives. It has an age limit to buy them, and bans carrying them in public without a lawful excuse. | | |
| ▲ | account42 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Ok so they only "ban" them not ban ban them. Nothing to see here, move along. | |
| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | iamacyborg 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | There's no evidence that we're moving that way other than fear-mongering from the US right. | | |
| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 3 days ago | parent [-] | | That's what people in the UK said 10 years ago about the state of today. Caption this comment and let's check back in 10 years. | | |
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| ▲ | monkey_monkey 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | And I bet you felt really accomplished and proud about yourself with that insult to a random person on the internet. The peak of your intellectual capabilities. You know what they say, people who have no value to add in a conversation, can only attack other people. | | |
| ▲ | monkey_monkey 4 days ago | parent [-] | | What insult? I quoted your hilarious profile bio, and then said you're parroting brainwashed tropes. I haven't insulted you...but you clearly feel offended, but as people like you tend to say "your feelings aren't my problem" | | |
| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | throw10920 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I haven't insulted you > The irony as you parrot brainwashed tropes. You clearly insulted them, and now you're lying by claiming that you didn't. Nobody is falling for it, as evidenced by the fact that your comment was killed by flags. > as people like you tend to say "your feelings aren't my problem" ...and now you're being bigoted and clearly breaking the HN guidelines. You should stop now. |
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| ▲ | nathan_compton 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Knives help you cook delicious food, knives can also help you stab your partner to death. This doesn't mean knives should be banned (though, ironically enough, the UK believes otherwise). This is a reasonable enough metaphor but we don't have to pretend to be idiots either and act like every single technology is totally neutral in its design. Knives are a good example, actually. Kitchen knives are totally adequate for killing people (I assume, I'm no expert) but they clearly have a design meant for something else. A nuclear weapon, to choose a stupidly obvious example, has no capability other than mass death. It seems reasonable to ask ourselves whether we want these two objects to be under the same regulatory regime. | | |
| ▲ | homebrewer 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > has no capability other than mass death A 30-kiloton nuclear explosion was used by the USSR to extinguish a large natural gas fire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urtabulak_gas_field They would be used for constructive purposes far more if not for mutual distrust between nuclear powers, and the public hysteria around anything associated with the word "nuclear": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosion | | |
| ▲ | nathan_compton 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | This is another version of "we don't need to pretend to be stupid." Yes, one could cook up all sorts of uses for the things called nuclear weapons, which we designed by people to kill other people. But we don't have to pretend to be stupid and assume nuclear weapons don't, I don't know, exist in a context of warfare which shapes their design and warrants actual thought about their use and regulation? | |
| ▲ | wat10000 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | And the massive amounts of harmful fallout, don’t forget that. | | |
| ▲ | account42 3 days ago | parent [-] | | There are also harmful downsides to the alternative methods used now. | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Alternative methods for doing what? Putting out gas well fires? |
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| ▲ | marliechiller 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I cant help but feel this analogy misses the mark. With the information people are consuming being guided by algorithms, its extremely hard for people to realise theyre being herded towards a specific viewpoint these days. It kind of reminds me of one of those mirror houses at the fairground - its extremely hard to get the correct signal in all the noise. You are what you consume and if everything you consume is of a misguided point of view, very quickly you're sliding towards being assimilated into that point of view. | |
| ▲ | norome 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I now believe that guiding technology use comes down to leadership. "with the exact same technological advances, on one side of the world we created modern america, while on the other side we created the soviet union" |
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| ▲ | andreasmetsala 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > I do think the Elon Musk approach (“just let people decide for themselves”) is very naive at best. I thought the Elon Musk approach was to control the algorithm and decide for his users what they see. Or just ban journalists he dislikes. |
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| ▲ | raffraffraff 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Except they can't choose for their kids, or at least, not easily. Google basically own the android ecosystem and they don't want to provide any controls that could be used to limit their ability to generate as revenue. Look at Chrome's extensions. Try blocking domains. Your only hope is to use the god-awful Google Family controls AND NextDNS AND an adblocking mobile browser. These days some parents are trying to get schools to ban phones, because individual parents can't, "or my little Tommy will be the only one without a phone". So you then have to worry about what other kids have access to. Porn in private WhatsApp channels etc. | | |
| ▲ | tomatocracy 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The biggest problem with giving kids phones is that it opens them up to potential non stop bullying over WhatsApp/iMessage/etc. And yet the online safety act doesn't even claim to try to "do something" about that (not that it would be possible anyway but that didn't stop them elsewhere). | |
| ▲ | iteria 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | As a parent who using family link, I don't find it bad or inadequate. What is bad about it. How is it unfit for purpose? My child literally has no access to anything I don't want her to. If I had a complaint, it's that tracking her media consumption on YouTube is a PITA. The whole "my kid will be left out" thing is so bizarre to me. So what? My kid is already banned from Roblox and that means of her whole circle, she's the only one who doesn't play and oh well. When I was a child it wasn't uncommon for a child to be without something their peer group had usually for money reasons. I don't see technology as any different. Kid has stuff their friends don't and vice versa. That's why I get mad about age restriction laws on the internet. I do want to introduce my child to some of these things in a supervised way so I can teach her about them. Something I can't do if it's literally illegal because other parents decided to shove a phone/tablet in their kid's face and walk away. I know way too many parents who never bother to use parental controls and learn that they're not actually will to live through their kid's whining about their restrictions. |
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| ▲ | heavyset_go 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Every platform these days is full to the brim with misinformation and propaganda (which ends up in mainstream media as well), deliberately making many of us hateful and sometimes violent. The free flow of information is undoubtedly being used for harm. I remember what it was like before the internet, and misinformation and propaganda were just as pervasive and perverse, except you couldn't be sure about it unless you read a book, did actual research or talked to an expert, and you sure as shit weren't going to change anyone's mind or at least be able to say "you're wrong and here's why" when you hear obvious bullshit. IMO, there was a big change in the nature of harmful misinformation once you could Google things like "did convenience store workers really celebrate on 9/11" when that particular urban myth spread in the aftermath of the attack. I do agree that the nature and vector of misinformation and propaganda are different. The ways in which we're wrong and dumb changed, but we were just as wrong and dumb before the internet, and we were statistically more hateful and violent then, too. |
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| ▲ | INTPenis 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Life itself leads to both good and bad things. But it's not worth making life worse by denying people freedom of communication and privacy. |
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| ▲ | account42 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > you can’t deny I can and I will. The free flow of information doesn't get people to do bad things, teaching people to blindly trust information from authorities does. |
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| ▲ | hnhg 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Look at the positives: now you are aware that every channel is full of misinformation and propaganda and treat it all as such. That gives you better media literacy than previous generations who tended to trust everything that was given to them "from above" - it enables us to be more intellectually mature and honest with ourselves about the nature and history of news media, even if you might not actually find that pleasant or convenient to deal with. |
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| ▲ | considerdevs 4 days ago | parent [-] | | True, awareness of misinformation is higher today. But, being aware that all channels are polluted with misinformation doesn’t automatically make someone better at distinguish the truth. Also older generation automatically are not buying everything they see https://www.mpg.de/24132917/0205-bild-online-misinformation-... Actually, having "misinfo everywhere" goggles can push people think that everything is propaganda or nothing can be trusted. This is also one way Russia and China is using its propaganda: give so much multi meaning information that normal governance information is also considered as something that cannot be trusted. Or atleast trying. | | |
| ▲ | hnhg 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I concede that but awareness is a better starting position for potential improvement rather than ignorance. I guess we are agreeing on the substance but I am taking an optimistic view rather than a pessimistic one. I accept that I might be very misguided. |
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| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | thdhhghgbhy 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "just let people decide for themselves” is not new, the idea goes way back to John Stuart Mill at least. The "marketplace of ideas". |
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| ▲ | tomatocracy 4 days ago | parent [-] | | It was also the prevailing attitude to speech in the UK until the past 10-15 years. |
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| ▲ | rustystump 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I dont buy the misinformation/propaganda argument as the past was far far worse on all fronts in that regard than today. Additionally, most platforms are highly censored and curated being the exact opposite of free flow of information. I think the let people decide for themselves is the best option as any alternative is by definition tyranny/control and why the parent quote is so spot on. |
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| ▲ | considerdevs 4 days ago | parent [-] | | You got a point, though I am not sure which things you are referring to. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi tried to have tight control in east Berlin but eventually failed. China is doing currently the full scale automated information gathering and control against Uighur Muslims. Not sure how China is using propaganda for the Chinese themselves. Also NSA uses mass surveillance already at the moment for foreigners and internal political opponents. But propaganda as a weapon is not a thing to underestimate. As investigated e.g. Jessika Aro https://www.igpub.com/putins-trolls/ and some might argue about the role of election interference for the Trump election and re-election as well. Even highly educated people are susceptible to propaganda eventhough they consider not https://www.mpg.de/24132917/0205-bild-online-misinformation-... So, if the leaders are dictators and hates people, it wont be good with or without new surveillance laws as there are already existing ways to do that. |
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| ▲ | mgaunard 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Let's not be overly dramatic. The main misinformation you see on the Internet is attention-grabbing women pretending to care about you and people trying to misrepresent mass-made white-label Chinese stuff as indie original designs. Few people spread hate other than to say our society is a disaster and we'd be better off with communism or anarchy which has been typical discourse of young men since the dawn of the modern age. In general I've found much higher quality of content on the Internet than elsewhere, with genuine testimonies, in-depth analyses, and a variety of opinions and experiences. Whenever I watch the news on TV I am appalled by how superficial and one-sided it is, sometimes misunderstanding the issue altogether, completely out of touch and misrepresenting reality. |
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| ▲ | _Algernon_ 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The issue with social media isn't the free flow of information but the amplification of certain information — the information that tends to make you angry. The amplification is the cause of echo chambers, spreading of misinformation and disinformation, etc. It makes possible what in essence is a distributed denial of service attack on the human brain. Sure, chain emails existed before, but they had a pretty low ceiling of how many it would reach. It didn't scale well. In other words, you should regulate the amplification mechanism ("algorithm"), not what information is allowed to be said. I think forcing platforms to go back to subscribe+reverse chronological feeds would be a pretty good start. |
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| ▲ | TheOtherHobbes 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Genuinely astounding how few commenters here understand that the outrage is deliberate and curated because outrage improves messaging persuasiveness. All of the corporate-owned social media platforms have censorship, curation, and selection policies which impose an editorial slant on what's boosted and what isn't. All of them. No exceptions. None of them offer anything resembling a free, open, flow of information. (Mastodon does, or at least tries to, but it has very little reach compared to others.) And all of them are poisoned by the output of huge well-funded bot farm networks posting harmful content. Whether it's anti-vax nonsense, climate change denial, inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric, divisive political rage bait of all kinds, or covert propaganda designed to look reasonable and pull people into a rabbit hole of fake activism and misinformation, all of these networks are acting as a public brainwashing service for political ends. There is no "marketplace of ideas." Nothing that happens on social media is truly organic and bottom-up. And this is not an accident. These are primarily influence, behaviour modification, and persuasion networks, tailored using personal profiling, but disguised as entertainment and social connection, and allowing just enough dissent from the official party lines to create a superficial veneer of free speech. This process is essentially unregulated. There used to be some FTC oversight, but there isn't any more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCL_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades |
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| ▲ | ang_cire 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > the free flow of information also leads to some pretty terrible things Being alive is a prerequisite to being able to suffer, die, etc. None of the things you listed are unique to free flows of information, in fact misinformation and propaganda are even worse in a closed loop of information. Look at North Korea, and tell me that they'd be worse off propaganda-wise if they had unfettered access to internet. > The free flow of information is undoubtedly being used for harm. No, the entities flooding social media have also flooded all the pre-internet, closed-loop media as well. Right-wing propaganda like Fox News, Alex Jones (first started his radio show in 1996), and literally the entire Cold War-era Red Scare propaganda, on radio and tv, all predated social media. And those were not free-flow channels, the information they put out was 100% controlled by the owners. |
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| ▲ | openmymind_net 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
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