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INFOSTRUT
March 16, 2018
March 25, 2018
A phrase I come back to often:
"critical information
infrastructure for democracy"...
http://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/16/were-all-going-to-need-safe-spaces/
There was a discussion at crookedtimber
started by Henry Farrell which used the
occasion of a Twitter dispute with There is arguably some reverse
Jonathan Chait to talk about the need to spin going on here. Henry Farrell
conduct triage on the clamor of voices is far too classy a person to
on the net: whine about being plonked,
but he is willing to parade how
"Even when people who want to argue classy he is by magnanimously
with you are entirely sincere, there discussing the right to plonk.
is a point at which you simply can't
pay attention to everyone who wants He also makes it clear that
to talk at you on Twitter and still he was rubbing Chait's nose
function. You need to make choices." in a gotcha of the type
"Forget what you said? Let
"We don't have any good intellectual me help with a quote."
basis that I know of for deciding
the appropriate ways to allocate It could be Henry was being
attention, since we've only started unfair to Chait, but then,
to have that problem in the very being fair to someone who
recent past. We also don't have good wants David Brooks' job is
tools for muting the kinds of speech not a high priority with me.
that have been weaponized to
undermine conversation, while The "how dare you take what
preserving the kinds of speech that I said seriously?" maneuver
conduct towards this." seems all too familiar.
Henry Farrell also remarked: Lee A. Arnold
remarked in passing:
"I used to be very strongly in
favor of anonymous free speech on "Hairsplitting with
the Internet; I've had to words is NOT how to
seriously rethink that" think."
I responded something like this: He might've been
chiding Henry there...
You could say "twas ever thus"
and the internet just adds
some new wrinkles: science,
scholarship and politics has Farrell's suggestion is that
always been about different the problem is worse now because
kinds of "trust networks"-- speech is getting cheaper.
all voices are not given equal
weight. As a practical matter I think it's a little more
we need filters to screen out subtle: our standards about who
the less promising-- we'll engage with have changed--
we relaxed some barriers, and
Myself, I think these filters now we're considering raising
need to leak: everyone needs them again.
to spend some small fraction
of their time looking for
truth in unlikely places. Of course, someone taking Jonathan
Chait pieces seriously is already
toiling in barren ground.
Like Henry Farrell, I've long since ANON_SALVAGE
given up on the utility of anonymous,
free accounts-- clearly you need to
know who the other person is for the
filters to work effectively.
Our present generation of "social network"
sites may pay lip-service to verified
identities, but the simple fact of the
matter is they really need the traffic to
sell eyeballs to advertisers: and so, There might be some
a typical ad-supported web site can't be other types of
relied on as critical information for-profit sites (e.g
infrastructure for democracy. the subscription model)
that are more workable.
Swarms of hired shills are clearly a problem
with the present-day web... actually they've I used to call them the
been a problem for quite some time. "Rover Boys" in, shall
we say, honor of Karl
Note that while everyone is excited about Rove:
the Russian invasion just now, it doesn't
get any nicer if the attack is coming from THE_ROVERS
a domestic source, like Hillary's hired
Brock-puppets during the 2016 primary. TEN_YEARS_LATER
But there's still another difficulty:
the left is attracted to the idea that
money is the root of all evil, but there BROCKPUPPETS
really are other sources of evil. A
brigade of volunteer fanatics can jam up
a conversation just as well-- maybe better.
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