I think it's easy for people to forget sometimes because the interface doesn't make it particularly obvious that much of social media is screaming from a soapbox in some of the world's largest agoras.
The interface makes it feel like you're having a polite conversation among like-minded folk. In reality, you're like one of those folks on a street corner with a megaphone and most of the time the rest of the world isn't listening to you. But they can tune you in anytime they want, and there can be consequences for holding a strong opinion incompatible with the strong opinion of other people you will be wanting to do business with.
... That of course includes this medium. Watch what you say today everyone, your future and current employers are reading Hacker News.
If there’s anything that this horrific event has taught me it’s to step away from social media political rabbit holes. These places amplify and feed upon themselves, and can lead you to a dark place where you’d glorify this kind of death.
After all this is exactly how to shooter himself ended up thinking he had to assassinate Kirk.
Far as reporting goes, theres two tracks. Either he was upset with charlie not being far right enough, or somehow he was influences by the far left.
There is an objective way to understand the fuzzy logic problem media provides, but that leads to one type of politic.
The problem is rational thinking is whats under attack. Particularly when it leads to future predictions. Thats the danger because you can create a self fulfilling prophecy.
The far right in every country is trying to spread isolationism to reduce the capacity of society to benefit the most people because economic slavery is the only way oligarchy survives.
I wonder what Kirk would have thought about these firings.
I had never heard of the man before, but now his quotes and fragments of quotes are being weaponized on all fronts, making it hard to see what he actually believed.
Kirk spent years trying to get professors fired and his organization maintained a "watchlist" of professors, who would regularly receive death threats and have people try to get them fired.
FIRE, not exactly a liberal organization, called out TPUSA as a primary cause of increasing threats to speakers and professors on campus in recent years.
This is much more reasonable than getting fired over questioning mass experimental gene therapy or smiling in a photo with a Native American, or making the "ok' hand sign. Or ...
Stephen King made the mistake of chiming in on X then having to apologize.
I never heard of Mr Kirk until the shooting so I don’t want to support his beliefs or dismiss them but I think we need to promote freedom of speech/expression. People say things we disagree with, things that are truly horrible, etc. At least in the United States, we should be a bit more tolerant when we disagree.
He was a victim here. Far-left news outlets like Vanity Fair and The Nation twisted the facts and made-up others. I don't really expect a 77-year-old celebrity to have the media literacy to separate fact from fiction, especially when these outlets have tailored their reporting to appeal to exactly his demographic.
Fascinating how the guardian can spin people celebrating one of the most destabilising acts of evil committed this year into a free speech issue. There's something very wrong with people when they celebrate cold blooded murderers like luigi miagione. Reddit is full of people almost openly gleeful about this and the Guardian chooses to take their side.
Brian Kilmeade called for the execution of homeless people on Fox news. Hopefully these same tone police/anti calls for violence people push to get him fired from Fox.
Since he is talking a literal fascist talking point (execute the undesirables) there is no way my right wing friends can support him talking for them, since they HATE to be associated with fascists/called fascists.
The people getting fired have shown themselves to be exactly the types of people Popper warned about in his Paradox of Tolerance: they "begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."
These vigilantes are just socially (and constitutionally!) doing what Popper said to do when faced with those that teach people to answer arguments with bullets: "We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."
Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. It's called being a decent human being. As we say in America, if there’s a terrorist at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 terrorists.
I’m starting to think cancel culture isn’t about regulating behavior or speech and is just about abusing power to punish people. Both sides have used it the last 25 years and both sides have complained about it as an abuse of power when they’ve been on the receiving end.
Perhaps we should focus more on learning and growing and healing than punishment?
Importantly, it isn't even both sides. Social media pushes people towards this sort of "this guy sucks lets hurt him" outcome. Bean Dad getting shit all over on tiktok is the same impulse. In my mind where we do see a difference is in the willingness of politicians within the GOP to advocate for significant legal consequences in these situations.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 59.6 ms ] threadThe interface makes it feel like you're having a polite conversation among like-minded folk. In reality, you're like one of those folks on a street corner with a megaphone and most of the time the rest of the world isn't listening to you. But they can tune you in anytime they want, and there can be consequences for holding a strong opinion incompatible with the strong opinion of other people you will be wanting to do business with.
... That of course includes this medium. Watch what you say today everyone, your future and current employers are reading Hacker News.
After all this is exactly how to shooter himself ended up thinking he had to assassinate Kirk.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/people-are-calling-o...
No reaction occurred when Melissa Hortman was killed to people doing the same thing as people are doing now with Kirk.
Edit: make things a little bit clearer, AFAIK, no one was fired due to their insensitive comments about her and her husband.
There is an objective way to understand the fuzzy logic problem media provides, but that leads to one type of politic.
The problem is rational thinking is whats under attack. Particularly when it leads to future predictions. Thats the danger because you can create a self fulfilling prophecy.
The far right in every country is trying to spread isolationism to reduce the capacity of society to benefit the most people because economic slavery is the only way oligarchy survives.
I had never heard of the man before, but now his quotes and fragments of quotes are being weaponized on all fronts, making it hard to see what he actually believed.
FIRE, not exactly a liberal organization, called out TPUSA as a primary cause of increasing threats to speakers and professors on campus in recent years.
PS: Take a deep breath before you reply. Don't let me ruin your day.
is it limited to people sharing a certain sentiment or common statement?
I never heard of Mr Kirk until the shooting so I don’t want to support his beliefs or dismiss them but I think we need to promote freedom of speech/expression. People say things we disagree with, things that are truly horrible, etc. At least in the United States, we should be a bit more tolerant when we disagree.
He was a victim here. Far-left news outlets like Vanity Fair and The Nation twisted the facts and made-up others. I don't really expect a 77-year-old celebrity to have the media literacy to separate fact from fiction, especially when these outlets have tailored their reporting to appeal to exactly his demographic.
Since he is talking a literal fascist talking point (execute the undesirables) there is no way my right wing friends can support him talking for them, since they HATE to be associated with fascists/called fascists.
The people getting fired have shown themselves to be exactly the types of people Popper warned about in his Paradox of Tolerance: they "begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."
These vigilantes are just socially (and constitutionally!) doing what Popper said to do when faced with those that teach people to answer arguments with bullets: "We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."
Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. It's called being a decent human being. As we say in America, if there’s a terrorist at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 terrorists.
Perhaps we should focus more on learning and growing and healing than punishment?