Why YouTube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, & Reddit Need to Stand Against Intersectional Extremism Note: This is my best crack at Steelmanning Censorship as a broad concept, based on lively conversation with friends in SF. While the conclusion/subtitle is not my personal default position, many of the individual arguments are, which is why I find this argument’s structure persuasive. A different argument might be more effective on a different audience. I welcome disagreements and challenges to the content, as well as points in favor and refinements of the argument. Obviously this is always going to be a Culture War-type topic, but I hope to shine an illuminating light on it without igniting an inferno. If you hate reading or just want the short version, the
One of the proofs that your blank-slate framework is the moral underpinning of our current SOPs is that, in practically every single instance, perpetrators always, always, always have a series of highly objectionable, locally well-known prior incidents. Up until the exact moment of wrongdoing, we believe people can change, and I don't think anyone would really ask for a different policy - I don't think I could. I remember SuperFreakonomics disclosed a quantitative variable existed that suggested a probability of committing terrorism, and even as a kid I was horrified to think that someone might show up to arrest you based on a probability. That was a few years after 9/11 and a nearby shooting! Maybe this is actually the room blank-slatism leaves for individualism, "We believe you can exercise enough individualism to get with the program!" - but I suspect that the education/studies/etc. will suggest that with the right intervention, all can be redeemed.
Your Dark Knight thread made a similar point, but the combination of institutional solutions coupled to an ideal (blank slatism in this case) results is a lot of "work" imperfectly handled through methods less formal than dad's shotgun. The closest thing we have to pre-emptive arrests are cruel remarks and gallows-humor jokes hidden in notoriously uncensored groupchats or comedy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZfRpAGhLps) . People go to Twitter well before they go to the police.
And, after that last sentence, you've got me thinking censorship is good. Thanks for the read!
Of course! You're welcome. I promise that I also thought censorship was good while writing at least 70% of the paragraphs in this piece!
I think the way to integrate the [ideal] political philosophy of Blank Slatism with the harsh realities of "probability of transgression" frameworks is to have relatively severe consequences for violating laws (& social norms), and then rapidly escalate those already-severe consequences. This of course goes deeply against the grain of current trends, which unify [Blank Slatism], [Sacred Life], and [Rehabilitative Justice] into a Triforce of values that sort of just...inevitably result in eliminating preventative action by both institutions and individuals and increasing legal transgressions.
To your point re: "people go to Twitter", and as I noted in my book review of Machiavelli, a people will pursue extra-judicial means when legal means are insufficient for rendering justice.
Obviously there is no solution for the zero-to-one-hundred mass victimizing event, beyond censorship and prozac.
I'm also just very chuffed you read the whole Batman thread and connected it to this piece! Cheers!
One of the proofs that your blank-slate framework is the moral underpinning of our current SOPs is that, in practically every single instance, perpetrators always, always, always have a series of highly objectionable, locally well-known prior incidents. Up until the exact moment of wrongdoing, we believe people can change, and I don't think anyone would really ask for a different policy - I don't think I could. I remember SuperFreakonomics disclosed a quantitative variable existed that suggested a probability of committing terrorism, and even as a kid I was horrified to think that someone might show up to arrest you based on a probability. That was a few years after 9/11 and a nearby shooting! Maybe this is actually the room blank-slatism leaves for individualism, "We believe you can exercise enough individualism to get with the program!" - but I suspect that the education/studies/etc. will suggest that with the right intervention, all can be redeemed.
Your Dark Knight thread made a similar point, but the combination of institutional solutions coupled to an ideal (blank slatism in this case) results is a lot of "work" imperfectly handled through methods less formal than dad's shotgun. The closest thing we have to pre-emptive arrests are cruel remarks and gallows-humor jokes hidden in notoriously uncensored groupchats or comedy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZfRpAGhLps) . People go to Twitter well before they go to the police.
And, after that last sentence, you've got me thinking censorship is good. Thanks for the read!
Of course! You're welcome. I promise that I also thought censorship was good while writing at least 70% of the paragraphs in this piece!
I think the way to integrate the [ideal] political philosophy of Blank Slatism with the harsh realities of "probability of transgression" frameworks is to have relatively severe consequences for violating laws (& social norms), and then rapidly escalate those already-severe consequences. This of course goes deeply against the grain of current trends, which unify [Blank Slatism], [Sacred Life], and [Rehabilitative Justice] into a Triforce of values that sort of just...inevitably result in eliminating preventative action by both institutions and individuals and increasing legal transgressions.
To your point re: "people go to Twitter", and as I noted in my book review of Machiavelli, a people will pursue extra-judicial means when legal means are insufficient for rendering justice.
Obviously there is no solution for the zero-to-one-hundred mass victimizing event, beyond censorship and prozac.
I'm also just very chuffed you read the whole Batman thread and connected it to this piece! Cheers!