"First is that it's a tool whose sole purpose is to shut down discourse. And we need discourse precisely because there are bad ideas out there. Bad ideas don't disappear when they aren't heard at universities. The get buried underground in cesspools like 4chan where they grow, unchallenged, until the reappear in the manifestos of people …
"First is that it's a tool whose sole purpose is to shut down discourse. And we need discourse precisely because there are bad ideas out there. Bad ideas don't disappear when they aren't heard at universities. The get buried underground in cesspools like 4chan where they grow, unchallenged, until the reappear in the manifestos of people like Peyton Gendron.
Second is that it shuts down discourse through bullying. Even if it *were* only right wing people who were silenced by this I'd have an issue with it. But it absolutely isn't. I receive messages every week from people thanking me for speaking up because they're too afraid to do so for fear of losing their job or the abuse they'd face."
You're contradicting yourself, Steve. First you say that the discourse is shut down and then that it continues on the alt-right forums.
You're a good man, Steve, an idealistic man, a compassionate man. But when you speak of discourse having potential for effect you cross over from idealistic to starry-eyed.
Example. Many, many, many times I've read from right wingers that the Democrats are the true racists, citing Sen. Byrd and other history preceding the Civil Rights Act. . Someone leaps in (it was me a few times) to point out that Byrd recanted his earlier Klansmanship and that with the CRA and the Southern Strategy most of the Dixiecrats became Republicans; the liberal wing of the GOP evaporated.
Within an hour some winger, often the same one, posts all over again that the Democrats are the true racists, often pasting the same post.
How much of your life do you want to devote to engaging with such nonchalantly dishonest people? I have no more time for it. I don't want to engage with them. I don't need the stress, and it's futile.
I've been online since the Compuserve days, since dialups; I've argued with wingers for decades. In all that time I have seen exactly two (2) abandon their allegiance to cruelty and falsehood. That is, for all intents and purposes, none. For me to say as I did at the opening of my previous post that conservatives or alt-right or whatever can be presumed to be lying .... maybe that isn't true in ev-ry sin-gle in-stance, but it sure is a statistically defensible presumption.
"You're contradicting yourself, Steve. First you say that the discourse is shut down and then that it continues on the alt-right forums."
No, there's no contradiction. What happens on places like 4chan simply isn't discourse, it's indoctrination. It's one sided, agenda-driven lies, with nobody even slightly interested in anything but boosting their confirmation bias. That's how they produce ideas like QAnon and Pizzagate and Peyton Gendron's manifesto. Because their nonsense goes unchallenged. The same as on places like Tumblr (though mostly less dangerous to anybody but themselves).
Discourse happens in the mainstream. It has to. Because you need the smartest people from each side of an ideological position to put forward their best arguments without constraint. This, naturally has the largest impact on overall thinking on an issue.
Discourse affects journalists, it affects teachers, it affects politicians, and they affect everything else. And the more open the better. See China and Russia and North Korea, for the impact that stifling the open and honest exchange of ideas has. The quality of a society's thinking is a product of the quality of its discourse. Do you think this is a starry-eyed viewpoint? It genuinely doesn't seem so to me.
Some people, obviously, are beyond hope. In a world where all ideas are debated with perfect freedom and openness, there will still be extremists. There will still be people who knowingly lie and others who are dumb enough to believe them. There will still be people who simply don't care about anybody but themselves. I try to change the minds of people like these, or sometimes just expose the flaws in their arguments for other people, but you're right. I don't spend a lot of time on them. Dishonest people, even when they realise they're wrong, won't acknowledge it.
I'm not saying that open discourse will create a utopia. I'm saying that its our best method for getting as close as human beings can manage.
"First is that it's a tool whose sole purpose is to shut down discourse. And we need discourse precisely because there are bad ideas out there. Bad ideas don't disappear when they aren't heard at universities. The get buried underground in cesspools like 4chan where they grow, unchallenged, until the reappear in the manifestos of people like Peyton Gendron.
Second is that it shuts down discourse through bullying. Even if it *were* only right wing people who were silenced by this I'd have an issue with it. But it absolutely isn't. I receive messages every week from people thanking me for speaking up because they're too afraid to do so for fear of losing their job or the abuse they'd face."
You're contradicting yourself, Steve. First you say that the discourse is shut down and then that it continues on the alt-right forums.
You're a good man, Steve, an idealistic man, a compassionate man. But when you speak of discourse having potential for effect you cross over from idealistic to starry-eyed.
Example. Many, many, many times I've read from right wingers that the Democrats are the true racists, citing Sen. Byrd and other history preceding the Civil Rights Act. . Someone leaps in (it was me a few times) to point out that Byrd recanted his earlier Klansmanship and that with the CRA and the Southern Strategy most of the Dixiecrats became Republicans; the liberal wing of the GOP evaporated.
Within an hour some winger, often the same one, posts all over again that the Democrats are the true racists, often pasting the same post.
How much of your life do you want to devote to engaging with such nonchalantly dishonest people? I have no more time for it. I don't want to engage with them. I don't need the stress, and it's futile.
I've been online since the Compuserve days, since dialups; I've argued with wingers for decades. In all that time I have seen exactly two (2) abandon their allegiance to cruelty and falsehood. That is, for all intents and purposes, none. For me to say as I did at the opening of my previous post that conservatives or alt-right or whatever can be presumed to be lying .... maybe that isn't true in ev-ry sin-gle in-stance, but it sure is a statistically defensible presumption.
"You're contradicting yourself, Steve. First you say that the discourse is shut down and then that it continues on the alt-right forums."
No, there's no contradiction. What happens on places like 4chan simply isn't discourse, it's indoctrination. It's one sided, agenda-driven lies, with nobody even slightly interested in anything but boosting their confirmation bias. That's how they produce ideas like QAnon and Pizzagate and Peyton Gendron's manifesto. Because their nonsense goes unchallenged. The same as on places like Tumblr (though mostly less dangerous to anybody but themselves).
Discourse happens in the mainstream. It has to. Because you need the smartest people from each side of an ideological position to put forward their best arguments without constraint. This, naturally has the largest impact on overall thinking on an issue.
Discourse affects journalists, it affects teachers, it affects politicians, and they affect everything else. And the more open the better. See China and Russia and North Korea, for the impact that stifling the open and honest exchange of ideas has. The quality of a society's thinking is a product of the quality of its discourse. Do you think this is a starry-eyed viewpoint? It genuinely doesn't seem so to me.
Some people, obviously, are beyond hope. In a world where all ideas are debated with perfect freedom and openness, there will still be extremists. There will still be people who knowingly lie and others who are dumb enough to believe them. There will still be people who simply don't care about anybody but themselves. I try to change the minds of people like these, or sometimes just expose the flaws in their arguments for other people, but you're right. I don't spend a lot of time on them. Dishonest people, even when they realise they're wrong, won't acknowledge it.
I'm not saying that open discourse will create a utopia. I'm saying that its our best method for getting as close as human beings can manage.