RE: Alex Jones and Infowars gets 'disappeared' - are we headed in the right direction?
October 19, 2018 at 3:54 pm
(This post was last modified: October 19, 2018 at 4:16 pm by Dr H.)
(October 18, 2018 at 10:25 pm)epronovost Wrote: Then, you will have to realise that 30% of humanity has the time, the interest and the capacity to develop rahter good critical thinking skills, enough to counter disinformation. Another 30% will be capable of achieving a certain level of critical thinking, but won't reliably be capable of countering disinformation if they have been exposed to bullshit early in their lives or if it comes from a person close to them and then there is a last thirty percent who simply don't have the time, the interest or the natural aptitude to develop good critical thinking skills and will be easily manipulated by people and that's all that is needed to destroy the freedom of vulnerable minorities. If you let NAZI speak openly, loudly and reach a lot of people, no matter how much you try to counter them, there will be enough people who will swallow their bullshit to prevent marginalised minorities (especially if htey have a lengthy history of oppression in the area) from seeing their freedom and safety diminish. If one has to accept that some humans are dicks, others are simply dull. In my opinion, to keep a society free and equalitarian, you need people with good critical thinking skills, or at least as good as possible, but also a measures to prevent dangerous hateful speech from spreading as to avoid vulnerable groups to suffer for the freedom of some dude to be a monster toward his fellow man.
So... you propose that the people which someone (who?) decides are capable of critical thinking, become the ultimate arbiters of what information everyone else (the poor, ignorant peons) is allowed to view and consider?
Is that what we really want? A group of self-defined elites, telling everyone else what they should and shouldn't do -- what they should and shouldn't think, in fact -- "for their own good"?
Why am I having this odd sense of deja vu?

(October 18, 2018 at 11:35 pm)Minimalist Wrote:Quote:If you let NAZI speak openly, loudly and reach a lot of people, no matter how much you try to counter them, there will be enough people who will swallow their bullshit to prevent marginalised minorities (especially if htey have a lengthy history of oppression in the area) from seeing their freedom and safety diminish.
Yup. We know.
"I have a natural instinct for science."
--
Dr H
"So, I became an anarchist, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."
Dr H
"So, I became an anarchist, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."