The idea that bad people having a voice on social media causes other people to become bad people (often the argument as to why we must defederate from bad servers) is equivalent to:

Thinking violent video games cause people to become violent.

Thinking explicit song lyrics cause people to become criminals

Allowing people to be openly homosexual will cause others to become homosexual

Banning books

@freemo Being exposed to ideas can do harm.

Examples: people purporting to be leftist indulging in war propaganda. Happening right now in germany - they want war.

So, what is the distinguishing criteria, what do we need to stop?

I guess stopping the bad people is out, they do have figured it out enough to have sway.

Not accepting calls to hate might be an idea?

@admitsWrongIfProven You havent actually made the case that being exposed to ideas can do harm. Your example is a bad idea, sure, but you havent made the case that it was exposure to the idea that is the cause rather than the predisposition of the people to draw such conclusions on their own. It is very likely such ideas would largely have developed independently of exposure.

@freemo I might not have made the case, but if you want to, i can.
People are not in themselfs bad. We see no evidence people, as a whole, are hurting others. But we can see that there is some sway to hurt.
While people generally are clueless (i hold this as self-evident, source: look outside), herd behaviour can be observed in the wild.
The obvious threat right now is humanity extinguishing itself by climate collapse. No matter, people are engaging in any other matter they can, distracting themselfs.
So it might be helpful to not use any more resources than needed. But this is not the case, everything continues as normal.
The menance i talk about is sowing the seeds of hostility: right now, ukraine against russia ist the big topic.
There was no mention of nato hostility, there is no acknowledgement of anything the western countries might have done - a pure conviction that the enemy is bad, and that we are good.
So, if we had done everything right, would the climate collapse not be a thing of the "enemy" nations?
The constant nagging of our own propaganda organs is clouding our view. Being exposed to ideas can hurt, and upon us lays the burden to push back there and still reject the pushback (earned, but not helpful) of those "enemy" nations.
People suck.

@admitsWrongIfProven I do not think people are born bad, but I also dont think ideas turn people bad.. Actions and how people are treated do, combined with poor or biased reasoning skills about how they integrate these expiernces.

Most racist people, for example, seem to be racist from a young age, in which case it is done in an attempt to be accepted by their family, usually parents. When I see a person become racist later in life it is usually because of negative experiences they had or witnessed. What ive never seen is a person who was decidingly not racist go "Hey ya know what, bill told me black people are violent, I am going to hate black people now"

@freemo Uh yeah, mean stuff comes from mean people around while you're still impressionable, that much is clear.
What i mean to say here is that ideas from varied sources are not bad, ideas that are blasted on you time and time again by people controlling the narrative are bad. Like, imagine if some very few people owned all the news outlets, they could do horrible things. Could they not?

Follow

@admitsWrongIfProven the issue you are talking about though isnt "bad people being seen causes bad people"... what you are describing is engineering the information in its totality or near totality. Controlling the narrative, preventing the ability to get accurate information. Thats a different problem but we agree is problematic.

@freemo You are right... i thought about what i perceive as the biggest threat, and you did actually talk about something else.
The thing you mocked, we agree the people pushing that narrative are annoying and irrelevant to reasonable discourse.
It both makes me happy and frightened that you understood what i meant.

@admitsWrongIfProven People on the internet are too eager to disagree... I find if you try to listen people agree more often than they realize.

@freemo Except those that want total war. Had to issue my first block because of this - some really do want war. Frightening. Anyway, some music and off to bed, sleep well and may you experience peace. You and those that want war. I want peace even for those that hate.

The narrative that ideas are bad... don't concern yourself too much. If you acknowledge it, they win. Subvert, don't accept.

Sign in to participate in the conversation
Qoto Mastodon

QOTO: Question Others to Teach Ourselves
An inclusive, Academic Freedom, instance
All cultures welcome.
Hate speech and harassment strictly forbidden.