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Re:Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are ... by anigbrowl on Friday August 10, 2018 @03:00PM (#17735917)
None of this is the slightest bit responsive to the point I made that some people;s response to losing an argument is to engage in violence. There's no law to enforce here, nobody suggested that Lane Davis should be arrested for the holding Nazi opinions. It's a simple observation that the solution to bad speech is not always more speech because people who are engaging in bad speech in bad faith often aren't interested in making progress through dialog.

That's why online trolls often make arguments that are empty of meaning but cling to a posture of superiority - they are not interested in winning an objective argument, but in having the appearance of controlling the conversation, so that if the honest interlocutor gets exasperated by the trollish arguments, the troll claims victory. Provocateurs at real life demonstrations engage in the same tactics. Supporters of authoritarian rulers revel in the discomfiture of their political opponents rather than any objective improvement in their own conditions.

Now, if you want to make general policy points and articulate your views that's fine, but if you're going to simply ignore your conversation partners and beat down straw man arguments of your own creation, why should anyone take your nostrums seriously?

Re:Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are ... by ddingus on Saturday August 11, 2018 @12:57PM (#17740451)
As a general policy, we could return basic critical thinking to primary education.

Mine included First Amendment issues along with the following:

Recognition of propaganda forms. Done in the context of ADS at first, then later political media.

Agency in conversation. How to weigh words. Being called an ass by a clown, for example. The most common, basic response is righteous indignation. However, a better response is, "meh", or laughter to better identify the laughable. This was done in the context of ordinary conflict and media reported events.

Bias. There is always bias in media. Objectivity is something expensive and it takes time and people working together to actualize. Is that bias honestly represented? Secondly, how does that bias color conclusions or advocacy present? This was done in the context of news media. Was it from labor point of view or business, other? (Economic) For social, similar questions were asked and material identified.

Today, for example, few Americans realize there is almost no reporting from the labor point of view. There used to be. What jas changed?

Reasoning, fallacies, etc... the basics like what one may find at critical thinking dot org sites today.

My own kids did not get any of that. I provided it.

Regulating speech based on ehat could happen, or blanket assumptions about people being feeble, or some other condition will not end well. I will leave it there.

Re:Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are ... by ddingus on Saturday August 11, 2018 @01:09PM (#17740517)
As for Lane, human work caries risks.

The control of speech needed to take that stabbing off the table is excessive.

Real conversations do involve real people who will do real things.

What I put here works.

I have done it with a gun pointed right at my chest, loaded, cocked.

That is no joke. And I could argue I had better tools to work with than the father did. Odds are favorable to me in that case too.

I have a solid set of intense experiences and some training in this area to draw on too. Did the father?

Maybe he should have those things. I would gladly fund them as part of my taxes. Money well spent. While at it, mandatory, blanket gun education would do a lot of good too, and in similar ways, for similar reasons, by way of similie here.

To me, bringing up one ugly fail amidst a sea of successes is counterproductive.

It is also rooted in fear of risks.

With people, speech, there are always risks.

Empowering people, doing more early human work will do more to break down those risks than taking a bludgeon to speech will.

Just one of a few reasons I felt it better to just step away.

We may just have to go through a draconian cycle here. I am not happy about that. And it will not play out like well meaning people think.

And I will be there at the peak to assist with the move back.