
How can we fight online shaming campaigns? - arundelo
http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2221
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jensen123
I think the most dangerous people in the world are self-righteous idealists
who wants to do good. They often end up causing lots of harm. Although, I do
see that idealism can be good in some situations.

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iwwr
People are starting to realize social media is not that friendly. Every
statement made in public gets recorded and attached to your real identity
forever. Kids who say stupid shit get that held against them forever from
employers, associates or even random stalkers. All for the need of some
targeted advertising. Hopefully, the generation coming after that would learn
and be more privacy-aware.

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DanBC
> Kids who say stupid shit get that held against them forever from employers,

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22083032](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
england-22083032)

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Elrac
South Korea, as I understand it, has this principle of ensuring that the
author of anything Internet can be personally identified.

This kind of accountability might help even the odds between what is otherwise
a named individual vs. an anonymous mob. I honestly don't know if it's a good
idea or not, though.

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cbd1984
That makes it very hard for some minority groups to talk freely. Trans people
are a big example but even gays can be at risk. And then there are whistle
blowers.

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hga
And speaking of "minority groups", at least on the net, what about
conservatives?

Echoing my other comment about the totalitarian and most especially Stalinist
nature of this arena, Brendan Eich was purged from Mozilla for holding the
same position on gay marriage as Obama, "CEO" of the entire nation, officially
did until May 9th, 2012, although in fairness to Obama, he said he changed his
mind as opposed to always being at war with Eastasia.

The Left has captured a whole bunch of fields like science where "No Irish or
(open) Conservatives" applies, so to still be able to engage in the public
sphere anonymity is required.

And fortunately anonymity is enshrined in our lowercase and uppercase
c/Constitutional order, e.g. _The Federalist Papers_. Compare to South Korea
where they're still in a not quite hot but definitely not cold war with their
northern Communist neighbor; I don't believe they can afford some of the civil
liberties we enjoy.

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dragonwriter
> And speaking of "minority groups", at least on the net, what about
> conservatives?

Conservatives aren't an underrepresented or disempowered group (the relevant
sense of "minority"), even on the net.

They are a group with disproportionate power (rooted in disproportionate
economic power, extending to political and social domains), many of whose
members have, or effect for propaganda purposes, an (unjustified) sense of
persecution.

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patzerhacker
>Conservatives aren't an underrepresented or disempowered group (the relevant
sense of "minority"), even on the net.

Regardless, silencing or demonizing any group is wrong.

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Elrac
> Regardless, silencing or demonizing any group is wrong.

I find this blanket generalization hard to accept.

There's a group of parents who try to cure their children's autism by making
them drink diluted chlorine bleach and giving them enemas of the same stuff.
They get their advice from a couple who make money from the sale of books,
supplements and services related to this horribly misguided and abusive
practice. Would it be wrong to try to silence the perpetrators?

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hga
Under what principle would you allow _silencing_ , removing the ability of
these people to speak, that includes them but not your favored tiny or not so
tiny groups?

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patzerhacker
I find it disconcerting that many self-identifying 'liberal' groups advocate
for the anti-liberal restrictions of speech codes. If you are not for free
expression, everybody's, not just the ones you agree with or approve of, then
you do not hold liberal views and are not a liberal.

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hga
That's because these people were never liberals. After they "used up" the word
progressive, they stole liberal from the "classical liberals", somewhat akin
to today's libertarians ... and now they've pretty much used up "liberal", and
many are recycling the word progressive.

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qq66
It seems like an individually game-theoretic optimization to the online
shaming problem is to abstain from discussing any controversial or potentially
controversial issue, offline or offline, at any time, for any reason.

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hga
Talk to anyone who's lived in a totalitarian, Stalinist regime, or read things
like _Nineteen Eighty Four_ and you'll find this is a very unhealthy thing to
do, mentally and emotionally. It's also strictly impossible, for things that
are safe today become unsafe tomorrow, because this is more about power and
broken people than anything rational.

Its also dyscivic. Much, _much_ uglier things will happen if you cede to one
faction the public sphere, the "soap box" in the sequence of "soap box, ballet
box, bullet box".

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z3t4
In the example she made fun of 1)black people 2) AIDS 3) White people. And
possible offended all religious people in the world. What can possible go
wrong? :P

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hga
Indeed, but does the punishment fit the "crime"? If not, how many orders of
magnitude is the latter off by?

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GFK_of_xmaspast
Hasn't Scott Aaronson himself gotten salty at people he disagrees with?

