Unsurprisingly, It turns out that both of them still have their extreme crack-pots and Parler is no exception; which is just another one of them, so nothing new here on the subject of 'randos' and 'crackpots'.
Of course, I won't argue against your deletion of the accounts.
I don't think that is representative of users of Parler. I would agree with you if you said Gab.
This may surprise you but the vast vast majority people are joking about the likes of the lizard people. It is a bit of fun because of how ridiculous the idea is.
> Let these people go there and convince each other of their fringe conspiracy theories. Freedom of association and all that. If they will stop polluting normal places with their crackpottery we're all better off.
From "Anatomy of the State" by Murray Rothbard pages 27 and 28:
> It is also important for the State to inculcate in its subjects an aversion to any “conspiracy theory of history;” for a search for “conspiracies” means a search for motives and an attribution of responsibility for historical misdeeds. If, however, any tyranny imposed by the State, or venality, or aggressive war, was caused not by the State rulers but by mysterious and arcane “social forces,” or by the imperfect state of the world or, if in some way, everyone was responsible (“We Are All Murderers,” proclaims one slogan), then there is no point to the people becoming indignant or rising up against such misdeeds. Furthermore, an attack on “conspiracy theories” means that the subjects will become more gullible in believing the “general welfare” reasons that are always put forth by the State for engaging in any of its des-potic actions. A “conspiracy theory” can unsettle the system by causing the public to doubt the State’s ideological propaganda.
When large news organisations that are owned by the rich or the state are telling you that they need to "stop mis-information and conspiracy theories" on platforms where anyone can post anything that means some of those theories might not be as soo fringe as you like to make out.
Exactly. Today's social media is a humourless place. No-one can take a joke, or perhaps even see one.
Online it's not so easy to walk away, so I prefer that you have alligator man conversations with other alligator man enthusiasts.
Except most of the so called "conspiracy theorists" don't talk about that stuff at all. They normally talk about how "this information Y is being supressed from the public because this will undermind the governments policy on X".
People always bring up the crazy the stuff to discredit the other things that could be legitiment. It must be some form of strawmanning.
> Online it's not so easy to walk away, so I prefer that you have alligator man conversations with other alligator man enthusiasts.
I don't have alligator man conversations at all. I just don't strawman the other side position to feel morally superior like you appear to be doing.
And ultimately, that's it. But be my guest: go be informed about subtle government interference by the guys who are convinced that Democrats are injecting old people with SARS-CoV-2 so they can steal their identities to vote.
And obviously the 'you' is a "generic you"¹. It doesn't mean you specifically, dude. Substitute with "one" m.m. if you find it confusing. It's not an insult targeted at you. It is an insult targeted at the loons that seem to populate every one of these "free speech" sites: voat, gab, whatever.
I put conspircy theorists in quotes because the news organisations label people as such when they look away from an official narrative. This is known as dissent. If you are an American your country is founded on dissent.
That why I gave you the the Rothbard quote (not a conspiracy theorist btw but an Anarcho Capitalist) because it specifically talks about how dissenters are dismissed. You are doing exactly that. You should be very worried when large media organisations and news are talking about "fact checking" and "stopping mis-information". What they are really saying is that they wish to silence dissenters.
Like I don't actually need someone to tell me Qanon dudes are crazy. I just have to listen to the Qanon dudes themselves. Of course they are convinced they are dissenters exposing the corruption in Big Pizza. Heroes, I'm sure.
That's the funny part. You keep bringing up this Big Media Telling You Who Is Real thing like Big Brother is in charge when I kinda don't really need Big Brother. When this guy comes walking up to me saying that Joe Biden has a secret sex dungeon where he keeps children he abuses that he farms using mutant tadpoles, I kinda really don't need CNN to tell me anything about this guy.
Yet you are repeating exactly the same things as they do in the same manner by focusing on the crazy people.
I have said many times in this thread that are always those that are on the fridge and they do not represent the whole.
Dismissing all dissent (which is what you are doing) as crazy people is wholly disingenous.
> Like I don't actually need someone to tell me Qanon dudes are crazy. I just have to listen to the Qanon dudes themselves. Of course they are convinced they are dissenters exposing the corruption in Big Pizza. Heroes, I'm sure.
Again you keep on strawmanning by saying that everyone is a crazy and ignoring the very prescient point about dissent. It is very tiresome when people engage like you do.
> That's the funny part. You keep bringing up this Big Media Telling You Who Is Real thing like Big Brother is in charge when I kinda don't really need Big Brother.
Then why are you repeating what they say point for point? Odd that.
> When this guy comes walking up to me saying that Joe Biden has a secret sex dungeon where he keeps children he abuses that he farms using mutant tadpoles
I am 100% certain this event didn't happen. So you are basing your stance on a falsehood. That must be fallacious.
For the obvious reason that if you go read voat and gab that's, um, literally what those dudes are saying. Like, I didn't make up the shit about pizzas, man. Sometimes some things are just fact.
I'm sure it must be very convincing that I am in cahoots with CNN weather because we both think it's a sunny day in San Francisco today. Or maybe Big Calendar and I are conspiring to decide that today is Nov 15, a Saturday. After all, we're saying the same thing. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!
And who cares if you don't believe any of this. It doesn't really matter. The SNR is everything. One guy here or there is a speck of dust on the vinyl.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go attend to my master. His nictitating membrane is giving him some trouble this morning. And I've got to learn from him what day we're going to decide tomorrow is.
> For the obvious reason that if you go read voat and gab that's, um, literally what those dudes are saying. Like, I didn't make up the shit about pizzas, man. Sometimes some things are just fact.
I've been on Gab in the past and while there were some that said that stuff like that, most weren't.
> Like, I didn't make up the shit about pizzas, man.
Again keep on bringing up the crazy stuff while ignoring the stuff that is plausible. That is very disingenous.
> I'm sure it must be very convincing that I am in cahoots with CNN weather because we both think it's a sunny day in San Francisco today. Or maybe Big Calendar and I are conspiring to decide that today is Nov 15, a Saturday. After all, we're saying the same thing. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!
I never that you were in cahoots with a news media. I said that you were repeating the same lines in the same manner. It is obvious that you are just repeating what they've said and then pretending on here that you are not.
> Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go attend to my master. His nictitating membrane is giving him some trouble this morning. And I've got to learn from him what day we're going to decide tomorrow is.
Can't engage in an honest manner at all can you. It is all very tiresome.
I also remember seeing a ton of racism against whites and (ironically) anti-semitic comments and conspiracies that would be alarmingly praised (likes and retweets) which I assume weren't really taken down if they were able to get thousands of impressions.
I like places like stack and HN because you're able to usually escape it... but its hard to find any social network that pretty much doesn't turn into an echo chamber of one side or the other.
I'd love to see what part of twitter would be merely a different flavor to "Jews are secretly lizard people manipulating the elections". There's an important difference between the mere existence of an echo chamber and the contents of the chamber. Let's not "both sides" this when comparing to anti-semitism.
BLM UK got in a lot of trouble for saying that discussion of antisemitism was being stifled in British politics, and it looks like they still have their twitter account. Nick Cannon looks like he still has his twitter account as well, though his comments were made on air iirc.
> I've largely stopped using twitter due to the incessant politics, pretty much what you described above but just in a different flavor
I'm not saying there aren't crazy takes in many corners of Twitter, but OP made a very far reaching claim here that I can't imagine holding water from my experience. The examples you bring up seem pretty fringe at best and not representative of common activity on Twitter.
ahah, just a little funny because it literally is ironically "Jewish people keep us down because reasons" - admittedly, I don't know too much because I didn't get into it but its still just as absurd.
If you want just a taste, look at how much "support" Nick Cannon has on twitter.
I just typed on twitter "nick cannon fired" and like the 3rd tweet down: https://twitter.com/UGHKYNZ/status/1290516640925442048
Someone complaining he got fired for racism, then they literally just say "I hate white people"
this is the 5th tweet: https://twitter.com/answerasiaf/status/1295029696896409600
Thinks nick cannon got fired for "telling the truth" -- and what is that truth? Apparently it is "Jewish people, white people, Europeans" — “are a little less" and have a “deficiency” that historically caused them to act out of fear and commit acts of violence to survive."
It gets worse the more you go down the rabbit hole but I'd argue this is just as bad as the lizard people stuff because it is less outlandish, perhaps making it more "believable" for some.
If you really want, I can go through and find the tweets that had thousands of upvotes, defending the antisemitism and "discussing" how Jews control everything (especially sports and music).
>There's an important difference between the mere existence of an echo chamber and the contents of the chamber. Let's not "both sides" this when comparing to anti-semitism.
I can agree on this. The problem is the contents of the twitter echo chamber are pretty bad too and its only seems to have gotten worse.
Of course not using it is a good option but ultimately what you get from Twitter is what you put in.
Sure. It does depend on who you follow and if you choose to click on things so again it is my original sin to try to have productive conversations... so yes, if I choose to put myself in a bubble on twitter, I probably wouldn't see that stuff... but I tend to click on articles or discussions on any social media. I "try" to use it as intended.
Just look up "mayos" or "yts" or "white people" in the search bar and you'll instantly see racism.
Click any articles about start ups or business or billionaires that make their way to the "general population" of twitter and you'll see tons of hatred.
I just wanted you to have the information that there are certain ways to use the tool to get good SNR. If you decide that using the tool in those ways is not worth it to you, that would be reasonable as well and I won't try to convince you otherwise. If you already had that information, then it was just wasted effort on my part, which I'm willing to accept.
Nah I know I could get away with "unfollowing" certain people. I mean, eventually people will post new articles and I would click on them and be met with that vitriol. Mostly because I followed a lot of business related accounts and it seems like if any of those get picked up by the "general population" of twitter its open season on anyone that feels business/capitalism/startups aren't pure evil.
I do get your point though, it wasn't lost on me. I might give it another shot eventually.
So yeah, everyone is welcome to their parler too. I'm not signing up to find out.
And to be honest, I'm curious about what your definition of conservative is?
To me, there's only two way to define it. Either the old way, where conservative means you are a feudalist, monarchist, theocrat, oligarch, autocrat, statist, fascist, etc. Basically you want to go back to a pre-liberal establishment style of society, and are opposed to a liberal democracy.
In this definition, as you see, all these today are generally known as morally bad. Jew hating tin foil crackpot would fall under here, or any other form of A hates on B, since all prior forms of government are about having a ruling individual or class over others, thus a way for A to rule over B.
So in that definition, being conservative means being against liberal democracy, thus against democracy, reason, liberty and equality.
Or the new way, where conservative means liberal but not progressive. In this sense, you believe and value liberal democracy, thus democracy, reason, liberty and equality, but you are content with the implementation of government that we currently have to drive and uphold those liberal values. Therefore you oppose yourself to progressives who think that we're not doing a good enough job at implementing liberal values, in that you believe it is either too risky to change the current implementation or that the proposed changes would result in a worst realization of liberalism.
As you see, in the second categorization, you're still a liberal, so it doesn't make sense to speak about conservative vs liberal in that second one. And because in the US I see people put liberal and conservative at opposite ends, I tend to assume the first categorization. Which would imply that conservatives, to me, are a huge treat to democracy, reason, liberty and equality.
So I'm genuinely looking for clarity. Is there some miscommunication here? How do you categorize "conservative".
I ask because it is very confusing to me. You speak of nuance, and I want to understand that nuance, so would love an explanation.
By conservative here i meant really anyone who is not 100% onboard with democratic party doctrine, which is enough to be ostracized in SV today.
I listed a lot of known alternatives, you could value ultranationalism with strict traditional societal and economic rule like fascists do, or you could value white supremacy and rule over other races like nazis, or you could value biblical rule of Christian interpretation like theocrats, etc.
Now you seem to say, no it's none of the many alternatives I listed, okay, but what is it?
And yes, I actually can't imagine what else you could be than one of the many non-liberal alternative I listed.
> You simply cannot imagine that someone could be a non-liberal without being evil
That's because it is hard for me to think that someone who doesn't value democracy, doesn't value reason, doesn't value liberty, doesn't value equality, will be willing to accept that I live my life as I please, with a fair chance at opportunity, riches, power, and happyness. So it seems anyone without those value will be trying to have authority and rule over me one way or another, and not with my best interest at heart. It seems natural to consider evil someone whose likely to do you wrong.
> By conservative here i meant really anyone who is not 100% onboard with democratic party doctrine, which is enough to be ostracized in SV today
So by conservative, you mean a republican voter? Why not say republican party voter or something super clear and unambiguous then? Why does the article say "conservative" ? Is it not because republican are conservative? And now I'm back at my original confusion, what kind of conservative is the republican party? Liberal conservative? Or anti-liberal?
I find the narrative against liberalism dangerous. Liberalism is what the western democracies, including the US are based on, and it's what made them prosper and a great place to live. So am I suppose to believe there is a strong anti-liberal movement in the US? Pushing for a return to nazism, facism, monarchies, theocracies, oligarchies, feudalism, etc. ? If not, it only takes people to say, hey woa, hold on, you got.it all wrong, we're full on liberal, just conservative as in my second definition above. But the fact that even when I ask people don't say that, but seem to circle around and evade the question, makes me feel it might be the former.
I've been very transparent and upfront. I value democracy, reason, liberty and equality above all else. I have good reasons to do so, one of which is that its proved itself historically to create some of the most peaceful and prosperous societies. But I also have phylosophical reasons for it, such as believing that individually we're better off working collaboratively on equal footing with others, than in a constant battle of the fittest for supremacy. And as I brought up the individual, I believe that individual rights are very important to stability, and should be respected even against a majority, for the betterment of each individual and society as a whole.
I don't believe anyone is of lesser worth and value than me, that would go against liberal values to do so. It's quite the contrary in fact, I'm strongly against anyone who'd try to suggest A is lesser than B narratives, or A is more deserving than B narratives.
Now being against someone doesn't mean I believe they are lesser, but simply that they are a liability to what I value, thus a risk towards democracy, reason, liberty and equality. And I am prepared to hope to change their minds, or go to war for it, if it came to that. It would be quite unamerican not too:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" - United States Declaration of Independence
Edit: And just so there's no misunderstanding, I'm not talking about democrats or republicans. I'm talking about liberalism and democracy. I don't have any issue with any political party who'd simply disagree on how best to uphold liberalism and democracy in practice. But I will have issue with one who tries to destroy democracy, take away my liberty, increase inequality, and employ illogical and irrational justifications and strategies. And I'm not saying the republican party is trying to do so, but it's never been less clear to me if they are or not then now.
I've got better things to do with my time, like telling you how I don't have time to do that other thing.
This is always a good rule - when your theory is that half of the population are "crack pots", the issue might be you, not them.
Then they instructed me to tell you this so that it would cast ridicule on the notion of lizardmen overlords.
And they then instructed me to do that last one to sow confusion.