Example? Cos I'm not a fan of the rationalisation of the World Wars as "okay but it did advance technology a lot."
Hatred is what imbalances the status quo. In fact when hatred becomes the status quo, then we've lost the plot as humanity.
The Internet is a beautiful idea, but as an ever-evolving real world system, we can no longer afford to idealise it. We do have responsibility to steer it somehow, in order to battle entropy.
In the idealised Internet, free speech is truly free. But when we talk about the Internet now, is it really the one that we dream it to be? Most people on the Internet are actually spending their time in a small number of ecosystems, like Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube. Each of these has its own set of rules, which ultimately defines how we communicate and therefore the limitations. I daresay that currently they are fertile ground for hatred - and it's not entirely their fault, it's just how the nature of the systems work.
I guess I'm still fresh from watching Silicon Valley's latest episode, but the way I see it, there is no quick remedy to tackle hatred - we need an Internet 2.0 to give ourselves another chance to build a much more neutral and open net.
The internet is not a collection of action, rather, it is a collection of information.
If we do anything to restrict information, that very action restricts innovation and understanding.
> Most people on the Internet are actually spending their time in a small number of ecosystems, like Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube.
The very fact that most internet users spend their time on centralized networks lends itself as a perfect example of how controlled, but uncategorized information networks are detrimental to discussion. Imagine all of Reddit were on one subreddit. The lack of categorization would lead to an unruly, and useless platform for communication. The reason Reddit is so successful is that it promotes specific conversation about any topic, without restriction. The only way that is feasible is through categorization, via subreddits.
> we need an Internet 2.0
We need an "internet 2.0" to promote the ecosystem that existed with "internet 0.1". We need decentralization (like ZeroNet, IPFS, etc.) to promote free, categorized, distribution of information.
Hatred can be the status quo of the Internet. The Internet may just be a collection of information, but it is continually being shaped by user actions. The Internet is also increasingly taking a large part of our lives, to the point that what happens there also affects the "real" world. We effectively live in two worlds now which influence each other.
And like all systems, the Internet is subject to entropy, and to an extent, I agree with you: restricting information is harsh, a better design of the Internet that leads to better presentation of information is much more preferable.
But how this Internet 2.0 looks like, to be honest I have no idea. I see your point about categorisation but even Reddit can spill into other ecosystems which may have less categorisation, like a meme gone viral on Twitter. Most of these ecosystems are designed with a strong characteristic for virality built in - connectedness that is further enhanced by a sophisticated understanding of human psychology and targeted applications (e.g. personalisation.) (Dear lord that is mouthy.)
And that's the big question really. With super connectedness, and entropy, is it inevitable then that hatred eventually becomes the status quo?
That is exactly the problem. The most popular communication platforms on the internet are Facebook and Twitter. These platforms do not have enough categorization. Because of that fact, those who choose to get information through these platforms are vulnerable to fake news, targeted advertising, gossip, etc.
We need a decentralized internet to protect from censorship, but we also need decentralized platforms to categorize information (and communication) and thereby promote education and creation.
Internet 2.0 is something that I struggle with, there's just way too many factors to consider. On paper (or mind) a decentralised internet looks neat, but making it real is akin to putting a man on mars. Platforms, for one, are commercialised so that they can afford to be sustained. They are also designed to attract a very large active user base, which is again ultimately commercial but would the Internet have billions of users today if there was no YouTube, no Facebook?
But I guess the advantage of having Internet 1.0 is that there are many learnt lessons and many good ideas up for grabs. I would also like to see people more free in making decisions and less prone to instant gratification, rather than being stuck in the "hooked" cycles so fine-tuned by current platforms. But, sigh, that also means a more mature world. I know many who overlook Hacker News by virtue of its "old fashioned" UI...
Or ecosystems like Hacker News. Let's shut down Hacker News. No? Because you like it? Your subjective judgment should rule?
(Apologies if this comes across as a harsh tone - it's not meant at all.)
Hope that's clearer now.
How will it be different this time? I recall all the hype of the late 90s Internet, being a open, decentralized and democratized communications medium that will heal all wounds, and more importantly, treat censorship as damage and route around it ("International borders are mere speed bumps in the Information Superhighway").
Who the hell searches for priests by naming obscure microbes ?? And sadly this is hardly unique; i've been bombarded by UFOs, reptillian aliens and similar outlandish nonsense in search of factual science regularly. And its clearly not doing a reasonable job at predicting my interests at all, for those are not items I'd view.
Why google's imbecilic algorithms promote and push such extremist trash on the general populace is beyond me, degenerating many neutral search results page to worse than reading the yellow press, but this does sadly seem to be what's currently happening, and would reasonably lead many away from wonders that Internet could offer instead.
YouTube has too much content without enough effort to categorize that data. YouTube content limits to whatever is the most appealing to the widest audience. Naturally the extreme, and even the absurd are most at home there.
I think we can progress just fine without Mien Kampf or that particular brand of hate. If a similar book with similar content was to be published today, I see no harm in suppressing it and I can think of no harm that be pointed out without resorting to the slippery slope fallacy.
Would the world be a much worse place if the German authorities had censored Mien Kampf - I find such an argument difficult to swallow.
Definitely not. I did say they more often than not, hatred is the driving factor for positive change. I did not say "always".
> He was talking about hateful in terms of something like Mien Kampf.
Clearly the actions of the Nazi party or by Hitler were awful. Don't forget that Hitler was only a man. He had a hatred of the status quo, just like many of us do. His hatred was misguided and his actions were immoral, but they weren't from his perspective.
> If a similar book with similar content was to be published today, I see no harm in suppressing it
That is where you and I disagree. The harm in suppressing any information is that we chill the distribution of all information.
> Would the world be a much worse place if the German authorities had censored Mien Kampf
That is very unlikely. Mien Kampf was just a book. It was not Hitler, it was not a member of the Nazi party.
I would argue that Germany would have been a worse place, sooner. Censorship chills speech, not hatred, not action. Hitler would still be free to spread his ideas, the Nazi party would still come to power, and they would still go on to burn Germany, books and people alike.
If you want to prevent action that is based on hateful ideas, do it through education. Don't stifle wonder by breaking the very way it is shared.
Key word that ruins this sentence: "or".
The internet can be, and is, lent to propagation of both wonder and hatred.
If you want to avoid hatred, you don't get rid of it, you categorize it. Give hatred its own space separate from wonder, and wonder can flourish.
Hatred and wonder are, in fact, tightly related. More often than not, wonderful things are created out of hatred for the status-quo. Without hatred, how can we progress?
This is why the internet must be neutral and open, why free speech must be protected no matter how hateful or obscene people are. To do otherwise is to limit wonder.