The "artificially generated speech" is really interesting. There's no reason why it can't happen on the other side of of the bell curve. Global right wing movements are a good example.
> In reality, there’s a lot of other stuff going on in the MPI—stuff like tribalism and virtue signaling and media manipulation and the cudgel of cultural taboo and other fun things in the pit of hell we’ll be descending into together later in the series. But we’re keeping things simple for now...
Yup, and it also fails to take into account inherent group interests. One example would be that homosexuals have an inherent group interest in having others accept homosexuality.
It isn't enough for an idea to be "more wise" or "more correct" or whatever for it go from a fringe idea to a mainstream one. Someone needs to have some reason to bother pushing the idea. Any idea with a dedicated group pushing it is more likely to go from the fringe to the mainstream.
Depending on how dedicated that group is, and what kind of resources they have to push the idea, there is no reason to believe that some idea being "more wise" or "more correct" is even necessary for it to go from the fringe to the mainstream.
A society’s mind is its marketplace of ideas, and the freer, more open, and more active that marketplace is, the sharper and clearer the giant mind is and the faster the pace of societal growth.
This is a good takeaway; even though the fringes of any discussion are generally filled with bad ideas, enabling people to have the discussion is paramount in finding the ideas that turn out to be "diamonds". It also permits us to gauge the quality of ideas that are not good allows us to consider why they are not. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
I'm an overweight gay male probably on the autism spectrum with learning disabilities, I don't really like effectively being lectured on my privilege.
You'll never change the conversation if you don't engage with it - its perfectly fine to step away from time to time, but unplugging and living in your own reality serves no one.
Read further down though! He gets to the self-cleaning of the marketplace through "Gauntlets" – that unpopular opinions will be attacked, but if there's truth to them and they stand, they'll eventually be accepted and become mainstream (ex: "smoking causes cancer" from 1940 -> 1960)
The cigarette story is a story of the MPI doing its job. It’s a story of a needle of truth rising up from a haystack on the fringes of the big brain’s consciousness and piercing its way through a century-long barrage of gauntlet attacks until it had conquered the Thought Pile mountain and become the mainstream, status quo viewpoint.
This would be true if we were rational thinkers. We're not. There's a huge influence of emotions and irrationality on our thought processes, and the oh-so-glorious "marketplace of ideas" is thoroughly exploited by the people who capitalize on that, instead of actual good ideas.
As the obvious example: Germany in the 1920's had a really free and open marketplace of ideas, but also a lot of shitty ideas that resonated on an emotional level. In the 1930's those chickens^W ideas built the coop which they came home to roost in during the 1940's.
I don't think society as a whole has a good answer here yet (despite our large and sharp giant mind). There's universal agreement that some restrictions on free speech matter - yes, even the US has some. There's less agreement on how much. There's also not a lot of agreement if that's all it takes - I mean, Germany has taken a pretty aggressive stance on one particular kind of speech, and yet they see a recent rise in stances that sure look a lot like Nazis with subtle cosmetic changes.
Applying econ101 to that problem is a truly sophomoric approach, but it's not helpful in analyzing the actual phenomena.
The question is, does rational thought win in the long run in the marketplace of ideas, despite emotional thought also benefiting from the marketplace? I believe it does. That's why human rights move forwards overall, not backwards.
I'll refer to Steven Pinker's excellent books for much deeper details on this.
You ignore the cost of "organically" figuring out the good from the bad. This is the same problem with free market economics. There are many ways of discovering the correct price/cost/idea.
On one extreme, you have those who say that we should let people figure it out on their own without any kind of inhibition. But that kind of method comes at the greatest cost because essentially it's nothing but brute-forcing the solution, except human life is at stake and will be lost multiple times before the correct solution is found.
It is pretty obvious that there is a more optimal method, than just letting laymen, with no knowledge on the subject matter, just try to walk blindly into the solution.
I would say, that is maybe one of the meanings of what it means to be civilized; to figure out ever more optimal methods to search for solutions in all areas of life.
I don't think I'm ignoring the cost. Rather, I'm thinking that it's the mechanism most likely to arrive at a correct conclusion. Think of scientific method, by comparison... it's slow, inefficient, and expensive, but it's more likely to be correct than common sense is, and certainly more likely to be correct than faith or ideology.
Leaving it to "experts", and shushing the rabble, makes you vulnerable to the experts. At which point, you want experts you agree with and don't want those you disagree with, based on your lack of expertise. This is just a triumph of authoritarianism and ideology. Which, if it turns out to be correct, is awesome. But what if it's wrong?
This is where Dunning-Krueger shows up uninvited...
Restrictions on speech are usually less about arriving at a correct conclusion, and more on serving those in power. See Ag-gag laws, China and Russia, the since overturned criminalization of inciting people to resist the draft in the US (that gave us the "fire in a crowded theater" quote), the un-American Activities Committee, and all manner of state-sponsored propaganda.
To ask "will they get it right?" is misleading - they won't even try.
But yes, that's the big question - does rational thought win in the long run? We don't know. And there are indications that some of the "fringe" thoughts that are irrational and harmful have the potential to collapse the marketplace of ideas before they get sorted into the mainstream. (In which case, we, at best, get to start from scratch)
You can look at the collapse of progress in the dark ages. You can look at how dangerously close the world was to a different outcome in WW2. You can look at authoritarianism to day and ask the question "if most of the world swung that way, how would we ever escape that grasp"
And even if it does win in the long run, is there some way we can bias the marketplace away from fringe ideas? Should we? What qualifies as fringe?
All of these are important questions. None of these can be addressed by pretending free expression is really econ101. (Just because we call it a marketplace doesn't really make it one)
The article makes it very clear how the marketplace itself biases against fringe ideas, and the path fringe ideas must take to become mainstream. That was the whole point of it!
As for the critique of Pinker... by focusing on the past few decades, rather than the past few millennia (as Pinker does), it greatly misses the point on many things. If you've read Pinker, you'll see how. If you're just reading critiques of Pinker, well. I have my gripes with him too, but that article is just strawman arguments for the most part.
Interesting paper but t feels a little like a "paradox of the heap" argument[1]. A human has 9e10 neurons[2], while a rabbit only has 5e8, and there are only 3e8 Americans. I don't see a problem arguing that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon arising in networks of at least 1e10 nodes, or in networks that have certain recurrent structures regardless of network size, or that "consciousness" is a qualitative concept measured on a sliding scale so that a rabbit is 1/180th as conscious as a human. Though if someone wanted to argue that the United States as a whole exhibits about the same level of consciousness as a rabbit, I don't think I would argue with them... but, having known several pet rabbits, it would feel to me that we are saying the same thing, which is that neither exhibits a meaningful level of consciousness at all.
I’m probably missing the point of your comment by coming to the defense of pet rabbits but...they are actually quite intelligent! They can be litter box trained and really have a lot going on if you don’t keep them locked in a hutch 24/7.
There's a real "Whig view of history" going on here, which seems to center on the idea that society gradually moves from wrong ideas towards right ones. And that truth not only sticks but expands, so all you have to do is proclaim the Truth to enough people and it will move the window of acceptable ideas towards progress.
What this doesn't cover is the "history of bad ideas", and their virality. It's not enough to look at just America. For a full picture you'd have to look at Nazi Germany, Rwanda, etc. There are certain ideas which are popular, persistent, false, and dangerous; a classic example is the "blood libel", or the "protocols of the elders of Zion" hoax.
> "In 1959, almost every reasonable person in the U.S. thought interracial marriage was an immoral thing. Today, we see this as a failure of wisdom."
The thing is, this wasn't a position of blank ignorance; it was an ideology. It was something people had to be taught, and an idea that had to be fought. And there's no reason why it couldn't come back again if enough clever people promoted that idea.
As a European observer of the general discourse in "popular speech platforms" of the "American Brain", I am baffled by the narrow breadth of topics that get discussed most of the time. Enormous heat is generated from discussions on gay marriage, gun laws, abortion laws and minority rights. Identity politics at full throttle. It feels very shallow and unintellectual. You are forced to identify as a member of some group, and then you become a social justice warrior of that group. It all feels like a very wrong way to approach politics on a national level.
With respect to gun laws, you identify loosely either as a "Texan farmer who needs guns to protect his farm", or a "student who might become a victim of a crazy classmate", or maybe a gun producer who profits from the sales of guns.
The whole political and societal discourse then starts revolving around satisfying the individual interests of these groups, instead of looking at things integrally from a systematic point of view. If you optimise the system from above, you may even avoid the need of having those groups of people in the first place.
Politicians and the people that run our mass media have a vested interest in the status quo, so they are happy to keep the hoi polloi talking about a narrow set of topics. If we start addressing the greater injustices in our society, the gatekeepers of political discourse might find themselves on the outside looking in.
As an American, I would say you've basically got it right (IMO). What is most troublesome to me is how easily and consistently these dynamics are exploited.
And I'm not just referring to the disinformation campaigns of the previous presidential election cycle. I'm referring to the longer term trend of "wedge issues" that have been used to distract and divide.
For example, You can take a group of people who might be fairly homogenous in terms of, say, opposition to the U.S. military "adventures" around the world, but are very easily divide and distract them with abortion, guns, etc., thereby preserving the status quo with respect to the military issue.
Sure it's wrong; that's how the clique on top remains on top. It works similarly to a forced card or misdirection of attention in a magic trick. You keep the little people angry with each other; calling each other names, denouncing each other over issues the powerful don't really care about. So nothing changes.
You're allowed to have "choice" in any of these heated micro-issues, but the national security surveillance state, the rule of the oligarchy, cheap labor, cultural atomization, the petrodollar and empire and eternal war are beyond question. I don't see anything changing short of an actual "fall of soviet union" style revolution or dissolution of the country.
All politics is identity politics. You can spot the people who function from a position of privilege politically, because they're the ones who think that "identity politics" is what other people are doing. Privilege is just a consequence of identity.
I'll bite - how is arguing for or against software patents, identity politics? What about arguing for right to repair? Or trying to abolish anti-circumvention laws?
Which political privilege do I have, that prevents me from seeing these as identity politics?
Go read the parent to my comment again. I was responding to that parent, not to this detailed question of yours.
To answer your question... it doesn't. It isn't a catch-all explanation for every single policy detail. That does not invalidate the generalization, however.
I think the post you originally replied to was fully aware all the topics they mentioned were identity politics in the US. I understood their complaint as:
1) Almost only issues that are identity politics get discussed in the US.
2) Issues that aren't inherently identity politics (e.g. environmentalism or healthcare) get re-cast as such.
To refine my statement... in a representative democracy, our choice of candidates for representatives is purely identity politics. Better?
This doesn't get into details of issues. Our candidates that match our identities have their political inclinations that we probably agree with most of the time, due to our mutual identity.
way too long of an article and obvious to anyone who knows about politics and political discourse over the past few decades. the window shifts. views that were not controversial become controversial, and the other way around.
>But dictators aren’t the only ones who use mute buttons. Given all of the obvious benefits of free speech, when a culture or a movement or an individual citizen seems threatened by free speech, the first question you should ask is: “Why? What are they so scared of?” Free speech is a tool that helps us see what’s true versus false and right versus wrong—so if you believe truth and virtue are on your side, a vibrant, open discourse is your best friend. And if someone is trying to repress free speech—that tells us something important.
this does not seem to apply to social networks and YouTube. tons of ppl and content creators have been censored or terminated for making certain content and remarks outside of the overton window.
This is chapter six of a much, much longer article; (which is not yet all published). Make sure you read it with that understanding, this is not intended to be read in isolation.
59 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadI believe the Ancient Greeks hated these mind control techniques. But in modern society, we are told it's a good thing.
I'm not sure what is good about being tricked to buy average products at expensive prices. Samsung/Apple are my two examples in the tech world.
Sure, but look who is telling you that.
What you're hinting at is discussed further in Manifacturing Consent, might be interesting to you if you have not heard of it yet[0][1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrBQEAM3rE
> In reality, there’s a lot of other stuff going on in the MPI—stuff like tribalism and virtue signaling and media manipulation and the cudgel of cultural taboo and other fun things in the pit of hell we’ll be descending into together later in the series. But we’re keeping things simple for now...
It isn't enough for an idea to be "more wise" or "more correct" or whatever for it go from a fringe idea to a mainstream one. Someone needs to have some reason to bother pushing the idea. Any idea with a dedicated group pushing it is more likely to go from the fringe to the mainstream.
Depending on how dedicated that group is, and what kind of resources they have to push the idea, there is no reason to believe that some idea being "more wise" or "more correct" is even necessary for it to go from the fringe to the mainstream.
This is a good takeaway; even though the fringes of any discussion are generally filled with bad ideas, enabling people to have the discussion is paramount in finding the ideas that turn out to be "diamonds". It also permits us to gauge the quality of ideas that are not good allows us to consider why they are not. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Ignoring a bad idea does not make it go away.
Look up spoon theory for a practical explanation.
You'll never change the conversation if you don't engage with it - its perfectly fine to step away from time to time, but unplugging and living in your own reality serves no one.
If you're saying that people who feel a need to block threatening voices shouldn't do so, who's lecturing, exactly?
The cigarette story is a story of the MPI doing its job. It’s a story of a needle of truth rising up from a haystack on the fringes of the big brain’s consciousness and piercing its way through a century-long barrage of gauntlet attacks until it had conquered the Thought Pile mountain and become the mainstream, status quo viewpoint.
As the obvious example: Germany in the 1920's had a really free and open marketplace of ideas, but also a lot of shitty ideas that resonated on an emotional level. In the 1930's those chickens^W ideas built the coop which they came home to roost in during the 1940's.
I don't think society as a whole has a good answer here yet (despite our large and sharp giant mind). There's universal agreement that some restrictions on free speech matter - yes, even the US has some. There's less agreement on how much. There's also not a lot of agreement if that's all it takes - I mean, Germany has taken a pretty aggressive stance on one particular kind of speech, and yet they see a recent rise in stances that sure look a lot like Nazis with subtle cosmetic changes.
Applying econ101 to that problem is a truly sophomoric approach, but it's not helpful in analyzing the actual phenomena.
I'll refer to Steven Pinker's excellent books for much deeper details on this.
Leaving it to "experts", and shushing the rabble, makes you vulnerable to the experts. At which point, you want experts you agree with and don't want those you disagree with, based on your lack of expertise. This is just a triumph of authoritarianism and ideology. Which, if it turns out to be correct, is awesome. But what if it's wrong?
This is where Dunning-Krueger shows up uninvited...
To ask "will they get it right?" is misleading - they won't even try.
But yes, that's the big question - does rational thought win in the long run? We don't know. And there are indications that some of the "fringe" thoughts that are irrational and harmful have the potential to collapse the marketplace of ideas before they get sorted into the mainstream. (In which case, we, at best, get to start from scratch)
You can look at the collapse of progress in the dark ages. You can look at how dangerously close the world was to a different outcome in WW2. You can look at authoritarianism to day and ask the question "if most of the world swung that way, how would we ever escape that grasp"
And even if it does win in the long run, is there some way we can bias the marketplace away from fringe ideas? Should we? What qualifies as fringe?
All of these are important questions. None of these can be addressed by pretending free expression is really econ101. (Just because we call it a marketplace doesn't really make it one)
As for the critique of Pinker... by focusing on the past few decades, rather than the past few millennia (as Pinker does), it greatly misses the point on many things. If you've read Pinker, you'll see how. If you're just reading critiques of Pinker, well. I have my gripes with him too, but that article is just strawman arguments for the most part.
"If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious"
https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconscious...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n...
I want to ask,
When 'did' the 'usage' of a 'tool'
'became a weapon' ? Cui bono ?
BTT (-;
What this doesn't cover is the "history of bad ideas", and their virality. It's not enough to look at just America. For a full picture you'd have to look at Nazi Germany, Rwanda, etc. There are certain ideas which are popular, persistent, false, and dangerous; a classic example is the "blood libel", or the "protocols of the elders of Zion" hoax.
> "In 1959, almost every reasonable person in the U.S. thought interracial marriage was an immoral thing. Today, we see this as a failure of wisdom."
The thing is, this wasn't a position of blank ignorance; it was an ideology. It was something people had to be taught, and an idea that had to be fought. And there's no reason why it couldn't come back again if enough clever people promoted that idea.
The whole political and societal discourse then starts revolving around satisfying the individual interests of these groups, instead of looking at things integrally from a systematic point of view. If you optimise the system from above, you may even avoid the need of having those groups of people in the first place.
And I'm not just referring to the disinformation campaigns of the previous presidential election cycle. I'm referring to the longer term trend of "wedge issues" that have been used to distract and divide.
For example, You can take a group of people who might be fairly homogenous in terms of, say, opposition to the U.S. military "adventures" around the world, but are very easily divide and distract them with abortion, guns, etc., thereby preserving the status quo with respect to the military issue.
You're allowed to have "choice" in any of these heated micro-issues, but the national security surveillance state, the rule of the oligarchy, cheap labor, cultural atomization, the petrodollar and empire and eternal war are beyond question. I don't see anything changing short of an actual "fall of soviet union" style revolution or dissolution of the country.
Which political privilege do I have, that prevents me from seeing these as identity politics?
To answer your question... it doesn't. It isn't a catch-all explanation for every single policy detail. That does not invalidate the generalization, however.
1) Almost only issues that are identity politics get discussed in the US.
2) Issues that aren't inherently identity politics (e.g. environmentalism or healthcare) get re-cast as such.
This doesn't get into details of issues. Our candidates that match our identities have their political inclinations that we probably agree with most of the time, due to our mutual identity.
>But dictators aren’t the only ones who use mute buttons. Given all of the obvious benefits of free speech, when a culture or a movement or an individual citizen seems threatened by free speech, the first question you should ask is: “Why? What are they so scared of?” Free speech is a tool that helps us see what’s true versus false and right versus wrong—so if you believe truth and virtue are on your side, a vibrant, open discourse is your best friend. And if someone is trying to repress free speech—that tells us something important.
this does not seem to apply to social networks and YouTube. tons of ppl and content creators have been censored or terminated for making certain content and remarks outside of the overton window.
https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/08/story-of-us.html