Writers Say They Feel Censored by Surveillance

Re:Writers Say They Feel Censored by Surveillance by stcredzero on Monday January 05, 2015 @04:00PM (#8841117)

    1. People are self-censoring dissenting views in regular conversation outside of people they trust
    2. People are self-censoring dissenting views in written communication
    3. People are self-censoring their own minds as a result of #1 and #2
    4. Dissenting communications and dissenting thoughts are reduced in frequency, leading to a snowball effect as ideas are more and more suppressed

It's not just the government that is producing these effects. The "mainstreamed" culture of the present day Internet is distinctly anti-intellectual and produces precisely these effects. "Slacktivists" of all political leanings engage in programs of intimidation to silence those they disagree with, which is entirely antithetical to having a pluralistic society. I just had a "discussion" with someone who was incapable of distinguishing the meaning of "lies" and "lying" in the context of deliberately falsifying or omitting facts versus someone having an ideology one disagrees with. Yet this person regards themselves as a "thinker" and "intellectual." This sort of person seems to comprise the majority of people in the Bay Area.

I used to be able to hang out with nerds and I could reasonably assume that no one around would be so scientifically illiterate as to believe that a person thrown out an airlock would freeze solid in two seconds flat. Everyone would know what "frequency response" was and be able to apply the concept. Now, a lot of "nerds" will just pattern match that as an "audio-woo" word and shut their brains off, yet you can ask them about the Fourier Transforms they studied as an undergrad. It's like we're the version of Brasil Richard Feynman visited. <http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education> Most importantly, I could hang out with "nerds" and assume that the vast majority of those around actually knew how to think and apply logic and actually discuss things with people they didn't agree with. Somehow, we've arrived at a state where most people tell themselves they're thinking, but they're actually just parrotting their friends after crudely pattern-matching the conversation. How can I tell? Because it's now very difficult to agree (yes, agree) ideologically with someone but point out they've arrived at their conclusions erroneously. Almost no one actually listens to and really examines facts and logic. They just determine if it vaguely sounds "truthy" in a way that aligns with their politics.

(Worse still, lots of self-identifying "nerds" will use the above process in discussions involving physics!)

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Re:Writers Say They Feel Censored by Surveillance by gmarx on Monday January 05, 2015 @04:14PM (#8841208)

Love this post but I do not understand your example about frequency response. Are you an audiophile whose friends refuse to believe that one amplifier can sound better than another? or are you a guy whose friends mistakenly believe one amplifier can sound better than another? Or something else?

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Re:Writers Say They Feel Censored by Surveillance by stcredzero on Monday January 05, 2015 @04:34PM (#8841336)

> Love this post but I do not understand your example about frequency response. Are you an audiophile whose friends refuse to believe that one amplifier can sound better than another? or are you a guy whose friends mistakenly believe one amplifier can sound better than another? Or something else?

I'm a musician, avocationally. I have a pair of Etymotics earplugs that have much flatter frequency response than the foam ones. (Well relatively. Most frequency response graphs of things one puts in or over ones ears don't really look all that "flat." <http://www.etymotic.com/er20.html> No, I don't work for them or know them.) I wear these as a means to control volume in situations where I wouldn't otherwise be able to, but still need to hear things clearly, and they work. As a result, I've had occasion to answer questions about them in public places like conferences in the Bay Area, and I've noted a few condescending and smarmy responses, as well as a "I don't know what that is."

(EDIT: Seems like you're pattern-matching me a bit, based on "stuff you saw on the Internet." However very big changes in frequency response can make big, measurable and predictable differences, even in how well one can understand speech. I've had occasion to undo naive sound-person's adjustments to bring out bass and treble, but as most speech information is carried in the "midrange" frequencies, this makes announcers less comprehensible.)

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Re:Writers Say They Feel Censored by Surveillance by ScottBurson on Monday January 05, 2015 @06:19PM (#8841926)

Huh. Even iPods have selectable equalizer settings (presets only, alas, not fully adjustable, at least on my iPod Classic). I guess a lot of people aren't even curious enough to look.

(Fellow Etymotic user here)

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