Remix.run Logo
quantummagic 5 hours ago

As they say, the demand for racism far outstrips the supply. It's hard to spend all day outraged if you rely on reality to supply enough fodder.

InsideOutSanta 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

This is not the right thing to take away from this. This isn't about one group of people wanting to be angry. It's about creating engagement (for corporations) and creating division in general (for entities intent on harming liberal societies).

In fact, your comment is part of the problem. You are one of the people who want to be outraged. In your case, outraged at people who think racism is a problem. So you attack one group of people, not realizing that you are making the issue worse by further escalating and blaming actual people, rather than realizing that the problem is systemic.

We have social networks like Facebook that require people to be angry, because anger generates engagement, and engagement generates views, and views generate ad impressions. We have outside actors who benefit from division, so they also fuel that fire by creating bot accounts that post inciting content. This has nothing to do with racism or people on one side. One second, these outside actors post a fake incident of a racist cop to fire up one side, and the next, they post a fake incident about schools with litter boxes for kids who identify as pets to fire up the other side.

Until you realize that this is the root of the problem, that the whole system is built to make people angry at each other, you are only contributing to the anger and division.

blfr 14 minutes ago | parent [-]

I agree with grandparent and think you have cause and effect backwards: people really do want to be outraged so Facebook and the like provide rage bait. Sometimes through algos tuning themselves to that need, sometimes deliberately.

But Facebook cannot "require" people do be angry. Facebook can barely even "require" people to log in, only those locked into Messenger ecosystem.

I don't use Facebook but I do use TikTok, and Twitter, and YouTube. It's very easy to filter rage bait out of your timeline. I get very little of it, mark it "uninterested"/mute/"don't recommend channel" and the timeline dutifully obeys. My timelines are full of popsci, golden retrievers, sketches, recordings of local trams (nevermind), and when AI makes an appearance it's the narrative kind[1] which I admit I like or old jokes recycled with AI.

The root of the problem is in us. Not on Facebook. Even if it exploits it. Surfers don't cause waves.

[1] https://www.tiktok.com/@gossip.goblin

InsideOutSanta 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> people really do want to be outraged

No, they do not. Nobody[1] wants to be angry. Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks to themselves, "today is going to be a good day because I'm going to be angry."

But given the correct input, everyone feels that they must be angry, that it is morally required to be angry. And this anger then requires them to seek out further information about the thing that made them angry. Not because they desire to be angry, but because they feel that there is something happening in the world that is wrong and that they must fight.

[1]: for approximate values of "nobody"

RGamma a few seconds ago | parent | prev [-]

[delayed]

neilv 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I hadn't heard that saying.

Many people seek being outraged. Many people seek to have awareness of truth. Many people seek getting help for problems. These are not mutually exclusive.

Just because someone fakes an incident of racism doesn't mean racism isn't still commonplace.

In various forms, with various levels of harm, and with various levels of evidence available.

(Example of low evidence: a paper trail isn't left when a black person doesn't get a job for "culture fit" gut feel reasons.)

Also, faked evidence can be done for a variety of reasons, including by someone who intends for the faking to be discovered, with the goal of discrediting the position that the fake initially seemed to support.

(Famous alleged example, in second paragraph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#... )

self_awareness 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Did you just justify generating racist videos as a good thing?

nkmnz 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Is a video documenting racist behavior a racist or an anti-racist video? Is faking a video documenting racist behavior (that never happened) a racist or an anti-racist video? Is the act of faking a video documenting racist behavior (that never happened) or anti-racist behavior?

garretraziel 4 minutes ago | parent [-]

It doesn’t have to be either for it to be morally bad.

mxkopy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Think they did the exact opposite

> Also, faked evidence can be done for a variety of reasons, including by someone who intends for the faking to be discovered

self_awareness 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Well yes, that's what he wrote, but that's like saying: stealing can be done for variety of reasons, including by someone who intends the theft to be discovered? Killing can be done for variety of reasons, including by someone who intends the killing to be discovered?

I read it as "producing racist videos can sometimes be used in good faith"?

Nevermark an hour ago | parent | next [-]

There is significant differences between how the information world and the physical world operate.

Creating all kinds of meta-levels of falsity is a real thing, with multiple lines of objective (if nefarious) motivation, in the information arena.

But even physical crimes can have meta information purposes. Putin for instance is fond of instigating crimes in a way that his fingerprints will inevitably be found, because that is an effective form of intimidation and power projection.

an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
mxkopy an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I think they’re just saying we should interpret this video in a way that’s consistent with known historical facts. On one hand, it’s not depicting events that are strictly untrue, so we shouldn’t discredit it. On the other hand, since the video itself is literally fake, when we discredit it we shouldn’t accidentally also discredit the events it’s depicting.

self_awareness 26 minutes ago | parent [-]

Are you saying that if there is 1 instance of a true event, then fake videos done in a similar way as this true event is rational and needed?

thinkingemote an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

How about this question: Can generating an anti-racist video be justified as a good thing?

I think many here would say "yes!" to this question, so can saying "no" be justified by an anti-racist?

Generally I prefer questions that do not lead to thoughts being terminated. Seek to keep a discussion not stop it.

On the subject of this thread, these questions are quite old and are related to propaganda: is it okay to use propaganda if we are the Good Guys, if, by doing so, it weakens our people to be more susceptible to propaganda from the Bad Guys. Every single one of our nations and governments think yes, it's good to use propaganda.

Because that's explicitly what happened during the rise of Nazi Germany; the USA had an official national programme of propaganda awareness and manipulation resistance which had to be shut down because the country needed to use propaganda on their own citizens and the enemy during WW2.

So back to the first question, its not the content (whether it's racist or not) it's the effect: would producing fake content reach a desired policy goal?

Philosophically it's truth vs lie, can we lie to do good? Theologically in the majority of religions, this has been answered: lying can never do good.

hn_throwaway_99 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I like that saying. You can see it all the time on Reddit where, not even counting AI generated content, you see rage bait that is (re)posted literally years after the fact. It's like "yeah, OK this guy sucks, but why are you reposting this 5 years after it went viral?"

blks 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You sure about that? I think actions of the US administration together with ICE and police work provide quite enough

silisili 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Rage sells. Not long after EBT changes, there were a rash of videos of people playing the person people against welfare imagine in their head. Women, usually black, speaking improperly about how the taxpayers need to take care of their kids.

Not sure how I feel about that, to be honest. On one hand I admire the hustle for clicks. On the other, too many people fell for it and probably never knew it was a grift, making all recipients look bad. I only happened upon them researching a bit after my own mom called me raging about it and sent me the link.

watwut an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Wut? If you listen to what real people say, racism is quite common has all the power right now.

actionfromafar 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's why this administration is working hard to fill the demand.

verisimi 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Political!

Refreeze5224 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

theteapot 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm noticing more of these race baiting comments on YC too lately. AI?

ycombinator_acc 3 hours ago | parent [-]

No, that’s a common cope.

Not AI. Not bots. Not Indians or Pakistanis. Not Kremlin or Hasbara agents. All the above might comprise a small percentage of it, but the vast majority of the rage bait and rage bait support we’ve seen over the past year+ on the Internet (including here) is just westerners being (allowed and encouraged by each other to be) racist toward non-whites in various ways.

theteapot 42 minutes ago | parent [-]

How's your day been?