Remember when memes were lauded as a part of the millennial culture? Now when they are used for something you disagree with, it's seen as 'evil', 'wrong', or 'unethical'.
The problem is that the vast majority of voters are swayed by emotion, not fact.
These sorts of things are only going to get worse, because it is the only way to get people to vote your way. Even if you have a good idea and a sound plan, you need to dress it up in emotion-laced slop to get people to come out and vote for you.
It also doesn't help that the mainstream media, which is a very powerful force in the US when it comes to politics, is biased toward the Democratic party (as seen in the recent Wikileaks emails from the DNC). It means that to counteract this, you need to try another tactic, like posting on the Internet.
Even our leaders are swayed by emotion. Both Obama and Hillary have commented prematurely on important events ('Clockboy' and various police shootings) without having professionals and science weigh in on the actual facts of the events after a real investigation.
This is one of the main problems with our society today: anti-science winning out over facts and assuming someone is guilty before even attempting to see if they are innocent.
There was even a book on the New York best sellers list called 'Weapons of Math Destruction' claiming that math and statistics are somehow 'racist'. Think about that for a minute to let it sink in....Facts are now racist.
Social media has made it worse because instead of just having the mainstream media feed us hyperbole and rhetoric, anybody with a Twitter account can do it too.
It has now had some real-world consequences and resulted in many people getting hurt and even getting killed in riots over half-truths, hearsay, and rumors.
If you want shit posting to stop, we have to live in a society where it has to stop working so well. Maybe even holding people responsible for posting lies that lead to riots or death.
Edit: sigh. I always try to have intellectual conversations here on HN and am always disappointed. Most people here seem to just want to hear the current San Francisco narrative about the world and live only within that bubble. It's actually really sad.
> There was even a book on the New York best sellers list called 'Weapons of Math Destruction' claiming that math and statistics are somehow 'racist'. Think about that for a minute to let it sink in....Facts are now racist.
I don't know where you read that but you really, really, really need to learn about that book before repeating it, much less complaining about the lack of intellectual conversation.
Cathy O'Neil has a Ph.D in mathematics (https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=38230), worked as a quant, and most definitely is not claiming that math is racist. Rather, she's talking about how MISUSING math – and especially machine learning – can reinforce biases which were already present or introduced by sampling error. She's actually calling for greater mathematical understanding so people keep these things in mind and avoid them:
The problem is that the vast majority of voters are swayed by emotion, not fact.
These sorts of things are only going to get worse, because it is the only way to get people to vote your way. Even if you have a good idea and a sound plan, you need to dress it up in emotion-laced slop to get people to come out and vote for you.
It also doesn't help that the mainstream media, which is a very powerful force in the US when it comes to politics, is biased toward the Democratic party (as seen in the recent Wikileaks emails from the DNC). It means that to counteract this, you need to try another tactic, like posting on the Internet.
Even our leaders are swayed by emotion. Both Obama and Hillary have commented prematurely on important events ('Clockboy' and various police shootings) without having professionals and science weigh in on the actual facts of the events after a real investigation.
This is one of the main problems with our society today: anti-science winning out over facts and assuming someone is guilty before even attempting to see if they are innocent.
There was even a book on the New York best sellers list called 'Weapons of Math Destruction' claiming that math and statistics are somehow 'racist'. Think about that for a minute to let it sink in....Facts are now racist.
Social media has made it worse because instead of just having the mainstream media feed us hyperbole and rhetoric, anybody with a Twitter account can do it too.
It has now had some real-world consequences and resulted in many people getting hurt and even getting killed in riots over half-truths, hearsay, and rumors.
If you want shit posting to stop, we have to live in a society where it has to stop working so well. Maybe even holding people responsible for posting lies that lead to riots or death.
Edit: sigh. I always try to have intellectual conversations here on HN and am always disappointed. Most people here seem to just want to hear the current San Francisco narrative about the world and live only within that bubble. It's actually really sad.