D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[Ruin Explorer]

A Hippocratic try to do no harm and work toward the good approach might be an advisable path in general.

That's not going to work unless all the social media companies adopt a fundamentally different approach.

Right now, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Insta, etc. all rely primarily on advertising, and all rely on "recommending" things to you which "increase your engagement". People who would have come across a disreputable and extreme idea before only if they searched it out, and found it in a dank corner of the internet (or in a seedy small-press publication pre-internet) are now having the same sort of material shoved in their face by highly-branded social media companies.

That is directly at odds with "do no harm". It's impossible to have a "do no harm" approach and rely on "increasing engagement", particularly with an ad-supported model.

 

[Aldarc]

You didn't bold the parenthetical.

And? I could bold the parenthetical and I would still have made the same point. While there may be the appearance of winning, as a society we are also not beyond snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Yeah, sure, the last few years have been challenging. That's kind of the point, isn't it? If you give up on principles when things are challenging, or when you mimic the tactics of the people you despise when the tables are turned ... then what does that say about you?

I have neither advocated giving up on principles nor mimicking the tactics of bigots. So in short, I would prefer that we keep to the point rather than trying to pivot to making unnessarily personal insinuations about anyone or their character.

I think that the point that @Aldarc is making, is that there is plenty of implicitly racist (and misogynistic/transphobic) material dressed as more thoughtful critique available in the public square. It is often presented as criticism of diversity quotas, or a general beef with "wokeness."

I'm thinking in particular - with reference to our shared nerdy interests - broadcasters such as Nerdrotic, Geeks & Gamers, the Critical Drinker etc. The fact of the matter is that pandering to the "anti-woke" crowd gets lots of clicks and is easy money - I think that in many cases, producers of this material are actually pretty cynical, and realize that they can make $$ complaining about the fact that there will be Black actors appearing in Amazon's TLOTR (or whatever).

I've recently been watching a channel called "History Debunked" on YouTube - it's racist garbage, and I certainly don't recommend it, but I think in general it's sometimes important to swim in the sh*t in order to smell just how pervasive this reactionary material is. These echo chambers resonate with each other, and the algorithms self-sustain and perpetuate. This is precisely how people get sucked into the Alt-Right rabbit hole without realizing it.

I do, however, recommend watching the Alt-Right Playbook by Innuendo Studios on YouTube that looks into and breaks down alt-right tactics and how radicalization transpires, particularly via online spaces.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

We have increased rights and visibility for transgender people- such that NBA players can openly discuss a transgender child. This type of progress, so quickly, in amazing and wonderful.

Yeah, that's nice for the US, but we've seen the opposite in the UK, by the same mechanisms, because different voices were privileged by those mechanisms. Transgender people have slightly more rights than they did a decade ago, but about 1/10th as many as was intended even 5 years ago, because social media popularized an extreme anti-transgender viewpoint and promoted it to the right people, who happen, unfortunately, to be the right age to be a significant part of the "in power" demographic (i.e. 45-65, well-educated, wealthier). They're still a minority, but that's enough. (This isn't even a left/right issue here, note - it's basically an below-45 vs. 45-65 one with the 65+ people being all over the place on it).

So if you think it always turns out right? Nah. At least not in the short or medium term. Things can improve, but they can also get worse, by the same mechanisms, and the public mostly thinking one thing doesn't mean, due to the complex mechanisms involved, necessarily translate to that thing being made to be the case.

(We can see the latter very clearly in the UK today - the vast, overwhelming majority of the public supports legally mandatory masks, supports lockdowns (despite hating them), supports restrictions in general, even now - but the ruling party, because of the lag between public feeling and actual voting, does not reflect that opinion.)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I have neither advocated giving up on principles nor mimicking the tactics of bigots. So in short, I would prefer that we keep to the point rather than trying to pivot to making unnessarily personal insinuations about anyone or their character.

That wasn't "you" (as in Aldarc) that was the rhetorical you. As in us. But this is too familiar.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That wasn't "you" (as in Aldarc) that was the rhetorical you. As in us. But this is too familiar.

I swear the word "one" is the answer to this linguistic problem. Nobody takes "one" as meaning them in particular.

 

[Filthy Lucre]

No. Not at all. What I am saying is that people think that there is some magic about the First Amendment (which applied to state action). That's great, and all, and I am a huge supporter of that.

But the FA did not arise in a vacuum; it arose from principles of free speech. Those principles are worth defending regardless of state action (or lack thereof). Simply parroting the First Amendment standard, especially on a board that attracts an international audience, is a poor substitute for reasoned discourse.

It would be similar to someone saying something isn't fair, and getting the "But DUE PROCESS requires DA GUMMINT!" response. Yeah, great. Not what was being discussed. But thanks for the insight.

Ah - I see, I misunderstood you. You're saying that free speech, (and due process), as concepts unto themselves are to be upheld in principle, not just as protections against the government.

You're saying protecting free speech, in general, is a good. Huzzah.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So if you think it always turns out right? Nah. At least not in the short or medium term. Things can improve, but they can also get worse, by the same mechanisms, and the public mostly thinking one thing doesn't mean, due to the complex mechanisms involved, necessarily translate to that thing being made to be the case.

That's why we keep fighting. As for "always turn out right," well, I don't know, do I? The views I have right now will probably, in some way I don't even know, be anathema to some future generation.

The thing is ... I don't trust others to determine what is good and what isn't in terms of information. I truly have to believe that "good things" will win out over the long haul- and it's not always pretty, and it's not always satisfactory, and the long haul might be very long.

It's an unsatisfactory theory to live life by, but I don't have a better one.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I swear the word "one" is the answer to this linguistic problem. Nobody takes "one" as meaning them in particular.

I don't think it was the linguistic choice.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's why we keep fighting. As for "always turn out right," well, I don't know, do I? The views I have right now will probably, in some way I don't even know, be anathema to some future generation.

The thing is ... I don't trust others to determine what is good and what isn't in terms of information. I truly have to believe that "good things" will win out over the long haul- and it's not always pretty, and it's not always satisfactory, and the long haul might be very long.

It's an unsatisfactory theory to live life by, but I don't have a better one.

I just think it's important to recognise that free speech, as a principle, implies some sort of vague equality of speech, and that is impossible in the social media area, when algorithms are deciding who sees what.

I think we probably need to ban algorithms making any kind of decisions on that, or at least force them to be publicly transparent. Obviously much of the social media and advertising industry is going to be opposed to that, but either that happens or we are going into an extra-dystopian future.

@Thomas Shey - True re: speech not being just down to the government, but I think the issue is less that speech is banned, and more that it's amplified and anything that causes more "engagement" is amplified more. And the government can do the most harm - again as we're seeing right now in the UK, because it can override private companies. So it remains the primary concern.

 

[Umbran]

Thanks, though, for your reasoned response that really added to the conversation.

Snark, applied mostly for its emotional impact, in the middle of a call for reasoned discourse.