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[st albans fox]

11 hours ago, Daggers said:

Saw he’d allowed back antisemite Kanye West, and other bigots were being allowed back, so I’ve deleted my personal & business accounts. The world really needed another Gab and Parler.

Evidently he’s set up a committee to discuss it 

So no one allowed back just yet 

 

suspect it’s window dressing to protect him in either direction - from a legal pov to avoid countries like the EU attempting to shut it down or his own reputation if the call is to keep the bans, 

[marbles]

9 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Evidently he’s set up a committee to discuss it 

So no one allowed back just yet 

 

suspect it’s window dressing to protect him in either direction - from a legal pov to avoid countries like the EU attempting to shut it down or his own reputation if the call is to keep the bans, 

Dont let the truth get in the way of rash, uneducated decisions.

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, marbles said:

Dont let the truth get in the way of rash, uneducated decisions.

Yeah, best to wait and see what happens, really.

 

It would be nice if it *didn't* turn into another Parler, though.

[st albans fox]

5 minutes ago, marbles said:

Dont let the truth get in the way of rash, uneducated decisions.

There s a fundamental issue here which is counter to what we’ve always believed is ‘freedom’. 
 

The access of millions of people to false information which they are unable to recognise as such is potentially a huge problem. The easier it is to disseminate false information, the bigger the problems will be. Obviously there is stuff which is unlikely to do any harm to anyone. But there are some pretty bad people out there. 

[marbles]

1 minute ago, st albans fox said:

There s a fundamental issue here which is counter to what we’ve always believed is ‘freedom’. 
 

The access of millions of people to false information which they are unable to recognise as such is potentially a huge problem. The easier it is to disseminate false information, the bigger the problems will be. Obviously there is stuff which is unlikely to do any harm to anyone. But there are some pretty bad people out there. 

Who decides what’s false?  
Especially when it’s something subjective.

How many times through history has a known truth been later proven false?

 

I am all for stopping the spread of blatant misinformation - for example. What Alex Jones was spreading about the families of school shooting, and about the shootings themselves.

Then again, it must be so obvious that there is no argument.

I am against stopping someone’s interpretation of information that is open for interpretation.  For example.  Peoples feelings about the covid vaccination.

I am strongly against taking someone’s right to voicing their opinion, just because it differs from yours.

 

 

[Daggers]

33 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Evidently he’s set up a committee to discuss it 

So no one allowed back just yet 

 

suspect it’s window dressing to protect him in either direction - from a legal pov to avoid countries like the EU attempting to shut it down or his own reputation if the call is to keep the bans, 

Check it, one of his first tweets was to welcome his good friend Kanye back. 

[marbles]

19 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Yeah, best to wait and see what happens, really.

 

It would be nice if it *didn't* turn into another Parler, though.

All I can do is take Elon’s claims at face value.

He claims to be doing this so people with differing opinions can discuss them.  That may be the way Twitter was intended, but it certainly hasn’t been that way for a long time.

[marbles]

1 minute ago, Daggers said:

Check it, one of his first tweets was to welcome his good friend Kanye back. 

And you have a problem with this because…..

[st albans fox]

2 minutes ago, marbles said:

And you have a problem with this because…..

Maybe he’s Jewish and he doesn’t want someone turning up at his house in the middle of the night with a hammer …….

[st albans fox]

10 minutes ago, marbles said:

Who decides what’s false?  
Especially when it’s something subjective.

How many times through history has a known truth been later proven false?

 

I am all for stopping the spread of blatant misinformation - for example. What Alex Jones was spreading about the families of school shooting, and about the shootings themselves.

Then again, it must be so obvious that there is no argument.

I am against stopping someone’s interpretation of information that is open for interpretation.  For example.  Peoples feelings about the covid vaccination.

I am strongly against taking someone’s right to voicing their opinion, just because it differs from yours.

The downsides are way deeper than the upsides are high …..

[marbles]

1 minute ago, st albans fox said:

Maybe he’s Jewish and he doesn’t want someone turning up at his house in the middle of the night with a hammer …….

I thought that may be the reason, so I ask - why not the protest against Mel Gibson ?  He’s on Twitter.  Had a very famous anti-Jewish rant.  What’s the difference ?  

[marbles]

2 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

The downsides are way deeper than the upsides are high …..

Again, who decides what info should be out there?  Should we ask China or N Korea to manage it for us, because that’s the direction it would be headed.

[st albans fox]

5 minutes ago, marbles said:

I thought that may be the reason, so I ask - why not the protest against Mel Gibson ?  He’s on Twitter.  Had a very famous anti-Jewish rant.  What’s the difference ?  

I’m not comfortable with Gibson - I. Also not familiar with his whole career. Did he row back on what he said or did he double down?  

[st albans fox]

7 minutes ago, marbles said:

Again, who decides what info should be out there?  Should we ask China or N Korea to manage it for us, because that’s the direction it would be headed.

Of course that is the crux - would you prefer that to be an individual liberalist or the state?  At least we get to vote on our government every four or five years (plus mid terms in your case).  
 

given that the state is ultimately responsible for my safety, I’d prefer them to judge (in tandem with the law of course). 

 

it’s certainly not an easy call.  And there should remain plenty of space for investigative journalism to highlight bad calls.

 

your right to say what you want (within the law) has to be juxtaposed against trying to protect those who are unable to distinguish fact from suggestion/ discussion.
 

you can have a discussion about the earth being flat. some of those involved may drift towards acceptance of the theory but will come back to sanity and scientific evidence in the end, but there will be a v low percentage  who will take something on board at some point and then be unable to get back to the actual facts.  The size of a medium like Twitter means that this extremely low percentage is potentially a lot of people. 

[leicsmac]

45 minutes ago, marbles said:

Who decides what’s false?  
Especially when it’s something subjective.

How many times through history has a known truth been later proven false?

 

I am all for stopping the spread of blatant misinformation - for example. What Alex Jones was spreading about the families of school shooting, and about the shootings themselves.

Then again, it must be so obvious that there is no argument.

I am against stopping someone’s interpretation of information that is open for interpretation.  For example.  Peoples feelings about the covid vaccination.

I am strongly against taking someone’s right to voicing their opinion, just because it differs from yours.

 

 

Unfortunately, there are quite a few things that are so obvious that there really should be no argument, yet there is anyhow. And in those cases, the argument can be costly. You talk about one of them in this post, the Covid vaccine.

 

Matters of scientific record reached by consensus, like the Covid vaccine and that of increasing global average temperature, are as close to truth as we're going to get. Of course, we could engage in some epistemological masturbation about how truth is always subjective, even on matters of science (which is a fair debate), but that seems rather like fiddling while Rome burns.

 

Scientific misinformation, when acted upon, has a real cost, both materially and in human life and suffering. I dread to think how many people suffered and died because they believed what some crank said about the Covid vaccine and didn't take it. I dread even more how many will suffer in the future because enough people are either apathetic or antipathetic towards increasing global temperatures and therefore elect governments who choose to do nothing (or not enough) about it.

 

Such things need to be addressed to reduce the very real cost they have. It's certainly a difficult issue to deal with without significantly inhibiting freedoms, but the status quo has an unacceptable cost, both present and future.

 

NB. I said it on another thread but I'll repeat it here (because it's relevant); those arguing for freedom and against authoritarianism (a noble aim) are, right now, at least sometimes pushing for an outcome where that dreadful authoritarianism has the greatest chance of occurring, viz. a drastically changed and unstable world that is then reacted to by "cracking down".

 

Edit: Of course, one might make the argument that freedom is worth that cost and that "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants". To which I would reply (paraphrase): "ask the dead if freedom matters. Their silence is your answer." Possibly the ideal solution lies somewhere in between.

Edited 29 October 2022 by leicsmac

[WigstonWanderer]

1 hour ago, marbles said:

Who decides what’s false?  
Especially when it’s something subjective.

How many times through history has a known truth been later proven false?

 

I am all for stopping the spread of blatant misinformation - for example. What Alex Jones was spreading about the families of school shooting, and about the shootings themselves.

Then again, it must be so obvious that there is no argument.

I am against stopping someone’s interpretation of information that is open for interpretation.  For example.  Peoples feelings about the covid vaccination.

I am strongly against taking someone’s right to voicing their opinion, just because it differs from yours.

 

 

Would you say that the result of the last US presidential election is subjective?

[Dunge]

30 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Unfortunately, there are quite a few things that are so obvious that there really should be no argument, yet there is anyhow. And in those cases, the argument can be costly. You talk about one of them in this post, the Covid vaccine.

 

Matters of scientific record reached by consensus, like the Covid vaccine and that of increasing global average temperature, are as close to truth as we're going to get. Of course, we could engage in some epistemological masturbation about how truth is always subjective, even on matters of science (which is a fair debate), but that seems rather like fiddling while Rome burns.

 

Scientific misinformation, when acted upon, has a real cost, both materially and in human life and suffering. I dread to think how many people suffered and died because they believed what some crank said about the Covid vaccine and didn't take it. I dread even more how many will suffer in the future because enough people are either apathetic or antipathetic towards increasing global temperatures and therefore elect governments who choose to do nothing (or not enough) about it.

 

Such things need to be addressed to reduce the very real cost they have. It's certainly a difficult issue to deal with without significantly inhibiting freedoms, but the status quo has an unacceptable cost, both present and future.

 

NB. I said it on another thread but I'll repeat it here (because it's relevant); those arguing for freedom and against authoritarianism (a noble aim) are, right now, at least sometimes pushing for an outcome where that dreadful authoritarianism has the greatest chance of occurring, viz. a drastically changed and unstable world that is then reacted to by "cracking down".

 

Edit: Of course, one might make the argument that freedom is worth that cost and that "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants". To which I would reply (paraphrase): "ask the dead if freedom matters. Their silence is your answer." Possibly the ideal solution lies somewhere in between.

Flat Earthers are the fascinating case study to me.

 

I’m very much someone who goes with a scientific consensus. For instance, the Covid virus wasn’t anything you could see, lockdowns and vaccines were things where there were papers available, but scientific studies can still feel inaccessible and can feel detached from society at large. People are asked to put their trust in government and mainstream science when there are others arguing the opposite.

Climate change is then similar, where there is growing empirical evidence, but there are always nay-sayers talking plots and conspiracies, and those who argue against or around action. It can be difficult to push through that wall of abstraction to fully sign up to something that’s difficult and scary, and I get that.

 

But Flat Earth has literally no benefit. Believing the Earth is flat gives you no benefit. It neither proves nor un-disproves God. It goes against some pretty tangible tests that have been done - and dismissed - by the Flat Earth community. Yet that community exists. People who are just, plainly, straight-up wrong for no apparent advantage. Perhaps there’s some sort of joy in being contrarian, but that’s besides the point: They don’t care that they’re demonstrably wrong; they go on believing regardless.

 

And so I then think - what hope do you have of convincing such people in matters of Climate change or Covid, where the evidence is more difficult and tough things and lifestyle changes are being asked of them? What chance is there of these people willingly relinquishing their freedoms for something that’s more difficult to believe than that the Earth is actually (approximately) spherical?

 

None of this is to say that the likes of @leicsmac shouldn’t try, but an indication of the uphill struggle he can face to do so. It would be nice to think he could be backed up in a basic way by platforms like Twitter, rather than it being an absolute for “independent” thought. (Which doesn’t actually exist anyway. I suspect if half of its users started to speculate whether Musk was a pedo then he’d put new rules in place pretty sharpish.)

[leicsmac]

32 minutes ago, Dunge said:

Flat Earthers are the fascinating case study to me.

 

I’m very much someone who goes with a scientific consensus. For instance, the Covid virus wasn’t anything you could see, lockdowns and vaccines were things where there were papers available, but scientific studies can still feel inaccessible and can feel detached from society at large. People are asked to put their trust in government and mainstream science when there are others arguing the opposite.

Climate change is then similar, where there is growing empirical evidence, but there are always nay-sayers talking plots and conspiracies, and those who argue against or around action. It can be difficult to push through that wall of abstraction to fully sign up to something that’s difficult and scary, and I get that.

 

But Flat Earth has literally no benefit. Believing the Earth is flat gives you no benefit. It neither proves nor un-disproves God. It goes against some pretty tangible tests that have been done - and dismissed - by the Flat Earth community. Yet that community exists. People who are just, plainly, straight-up wrong for no apparent advantage. Perhaps there’s some sort of joy in being contrarian, but that’s besides the point: They don’t care that they’re demonstrably wrong; they go on believing regardless.

 

And so I then think - what hope do you have of convincing such people in matters of Climate change or Covid, where the evidence is more difficult and tough things and lifestyle changes are being asked of them? What chance is there of these people willingly relinquishing their freedoms for something that’s more difficult to believe than that the Earth is actually (approximately) spherical?

 

None of this is to say that the likes of @leicsmac shouldn’t try, but an indication of the uphill struggle he can face to do so. It would be nice to think he could be backed up in a basic way by platforms like Twitter, rather than it being an absolute for “independent” thought. (Which doesn’t actually exist anyway. I suspect if half of its users started to speculate whether Musk was a pedo then he’d put new rules in place pretty sharpish.)

You're right about all of this, especially the difficulty involved.

 

Thankfully, however, it's not everyone that I need to convince, just enough people so that in a democratic society decisions will be made along those lines. Unfortunately, attaining that plurality, or transforming it into political action, is also very tricky.

 

When I address scientific misinformation here and out in other public fora it's mostly not because I intend to change the mind of the person giving it (though that is a nice bonus), it's to demonstrate to anyone else who is looking at the conversation and who might be swayed by that misinformation otherwise.

 

But yes, having a little help from the powers that be with such science communication would be nice.

[I am Rod Hull]

7 hours ago, leicsmac said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63434960

 

The political is becoming ever more personal.

Do you think it was a politically motivated attack?

[I am Rod Hull]

14 hours ago, Daggers said:

Saw he’d allowed back antisemite Kanye West, and other bigots were being allowed back, so I’ve deleted my personal & business accounts. The world really needed another Gab and Parler.

Hope you`ve cut ties with the Labour party as well, for you know... antisemitism 

[marbles]

1 hour ago, WigstonWanderer said:

Would you say that the result of the last US presidential election is subjective?

Sorry for the delayed response, but these good discussions only see to happen when I’m at work

 

Anyway, to answer your question - I do not think it was subjective.  I think Trump lost.

But since you brought it up, how do you feel about the fact that Hillary has made, and continued to make the claims that Trump stole the election?  
Is that not the same thing?

[Dunge]

6 minutes ago, I am Rod Hull said:

Do you think it was a politically motivated attack?

Well, I mean… you tell us. Why did you do it?

[marbles]

3 minutes ago, I am Rod Hull said:

Hope you`ve cut ties with the Labour party as well, for you know... antisemitism 

 

2 hours ago, st albans fox said:

I’m not comfortable with Gibson - I. Also not familiar with his whole career. Did he row back on what he said or did he double down?  

Truth is, I don’t know.

I only brought him up as a way to try and engage @Daggers

Unfortunately as I suspected, he is a perfect example of the issue I have with Twitter.  If someone says something he doesn’t agree with, he simply blocks them.  No engagement.  No discussion.  No growth.

[marbles]

36 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

You're right about all of this, especially the difficulty involved.

 

Thankfully, however, it's not everyone that I need to convince, just enough people so that in a democratic society decisions will be made along those lines. Unfortunately, attaining that plurality, or transforming it into political action, is also very tricky.

 

When I address scientific misinformation here and out in other public fora it's mostly not because I intend to change the mind of the person giving it (though that is a nice bonus), it's to demonstrate to anyone else who is looking at the conversation and who might be swayed by that misinformation otherwise.

 

But yes, having a little help from the powers that be with such science communication would be nice.

Interesting answer.

If I go back to what you said earlier - if someone doesn’t believe in Environmental Issues, but are silenced.  How will you know or be able to engage and educate them?

They will go on with their beliefs, spreading them in some dark corner of the internet, with no rebuttal from you. 
THAT is why free speech is important!

 

If you think silencing those who are incorrect will change their minds, you are sadly mistaken.  It will enforce their ideals and they will be able to spread it, unchecked.

[leicsmac]

12 minutes ago, I am Rod Hull said:

Do you think it was a politically motivated attack?

A bloke breaking into the residence of the Speaker of the House, asking for her by name and evidently wishing to do her serious bodily harm?

 

If it isn't political, it's very personal - or both. I can't think of other reasons.