The Gathering Storm: The Future Doesn’t Include You

 

This will be a series of conversations having to do with worrying things on the horizon.

Silicon Valley is speaking. They are speaking loudly.

Youtube is now censoring based upon the opinion of extremists leftist groups who call everybody to the right of stalin is alt-right, rayciss, misogynist, etc.

Styx at one point made a video claiming to be a satanist and talks regularly about his spiritual travels in the occult. So he is concerned about religious conversation, he wants to argue against islam (and formerly christianity) and spread the word of paganism. But that will get you disinvited and maybe shadowbanned by AI.

Here is a popular physiologist who had his account locked without warning or explanation. So this isn’t an overstatement.

You might be saying, that this is only going to come for the really out there people come on. Remember Ben Shapiro is not far removed from the most alt of the alt right.

(seriously, this is from what i understand is Richard Spencer’s position about america, so…. do you think AI and some liberals already not and increasingly less sympathetic to Israel is going to be interested in your nuance)

Patreon has removed a few right of center activists for not violating their ToS, while making outright lies to justify it.

You can find the CEO’s explanation else where and Lauren’s response to his explanation. I am not going to link to him because his mendacity is over the top.

Conservatives are fighting the last war. The public forum of the future will be denied to you.

The problem with the typical argument is to go create something new; the problems with this is highlighted here: slatestarcodex

The important highlight of the conservative ghetto is perfectly written as:

The moral of the story is: if you’re against witch-hunts, and you promise to found your own little utopian community where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong.

To circle back to the beginning, he is being called a crypto-conservative because he doesn’t think the current situation or state of the left is healthy. So are other lefties like Tim Pool, David Rubin and Carl Benjamin (Sargon).

At some point “conservatives” are going to have to decide if “muh principlz” is a suicide pact. Down the road of separating the national information system is just going to further isolation and lead to violence. It isn’t just that conservative principles that will get pushed into the shadows, the violence in the streets is only going to get worse. Trump is the least of our problems.

But Zuckerburg said nice sounding things to Glenn Beck.

Seriously, this is the biggest problem facing the right today.  If we don’t like how I wrote it, I hope an editor picks it up plagiarizes me to the hilt and gets it out there.

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  1. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    Can conservatives fully take part in our democracy if people who seek your arguments cant find them?

    https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2017/08/02/google-manipulates-search-results-to-conceal-criticism-of-islam-and-jihad/

     

    • #31
  2. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    Mike H (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Mike H (View Comment):
    I’m still not clear about which normally valid principles we should be ready to violate when the time arises. I’m open to this being possible if someone will just help me out.

    If someone describes your normally valid principles as “muh principlez” then they are stupid and should be discarded.

    That may be so, but what better way to point that out than probing them with logic?

    I will clarify that I believe that a muh principle, is the over extension of limited concepts and principles which rely on a late game jenga tower of assumptions which may or may not still be standing, typically as a rhetorical feint to avoid having to take responsibility for difficult or uncomfortable trade offs.

    Self-awareness check:  I may have a tendancy to deal with the worst possible outcome as a form of misplaced moral obligation in the name of sophistic realism.  “The somebody has to do the difficult and unpleasant things.”

    • #32
  3. ToryWarWriter Coolidge
    ToryWarWriter
    @ToryWarWriter

    Well I do my bit by using Brave as my web browser.  It was created by the Firefox exec fired for supporting Prop 8 in  California.

    I encourage all Ricochotti to get it.

    • #33
  4. ToryWarWriter Coolidge
    ToryWarWriter
    @ToryWarWriter

    Also this Slate Star Codex is hilarious.

    A quote

    “I think it’s right to consider the situation asymmetrical. Yes, CNN leans liberal, but it’s not as liberal as FOX is conservative, and it’s not as open about it – it has a pretense of neutrality that FOX doesn’t, and although we can disagree about how realistic that pretense is I think few people would disagree that the pretense is there. Nor is there a liberal version of FOX that lacks that pretense of neutrality.”

    Has he never heard of MSNBC?  Or any news organization outside his country?

    • #34
  5. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    ToryWarWriter (View Comment):
    Also this Slate Star Codex is hilarious.

    A quote

    “I think it’s right to consider the situation asymmetrical. Yes, CNN leans liberal, but it’s not as liberal as FOX is conservative, and it’s not as open about it – it has a pretense of neutrality that FOX doesn’t, and although we can disagree about how realistic that pretense is I think few people would disagree that the pretense is there. Nor is there a liberal version of FOX that lacks that pretense of neutrality.”

    Has he never heard of MSNBC? Or any news organization outside his country?

    He does say this too:

    (though note that as a liberal, I would say this, and you should interpret it with the same grain of salt that you would any other “my side is better than yours” claim).

    • #35
  6. Archie Campbell Member
    Archie Campbell
    @ArchieCampbell

    One thing that just popped into my head is to wonder how much of this mirrors the “Fairness Doctrine” era of radio and T.V. It must’ve seemed back then that conservative voices would never be able to get their message out, but said doctrine was finally removed. Though in that case the bottleneck was the FCC, so there was only one entity to deal with.

    • #36
  7. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Steve C. (View Comment):
    .

    If you strike my account down, I will create more aliases than you can possibly imagine!

    So we meet again at last for the first time and the last time. Now I am the master?

    • #37
  8. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    ToryWarWriter (View Comment):
    Also this Slate Star Codex is hilarious.

    A quote

    “I think it’s right to consider the situation asymmetrical. Yes, CNN leans liberal, but it’s not as liberal as FOX is conservative, and it’s not as open about it – it has a pretense of neutrality that FOX doesn’t, and although we can disagree about how realistic that pretense is I think few people would disagree that the pretense is there. Nor is there a liberal version of FOX that lacks that pretense of neutrality.”

    Has he never heard of MSNBC? Or any news organization outside his country?

    Scott Alexander is hilarious. I often literally laugh when I’m reading him and I very rarely audibly laugh when reading.

    Yes, he’s being pulled by evidence and reason from a different starting point than we are, and he gives way too much difference to things like global warming and AI catastrophe, but he’s being pulled inexorably towards the truth and it’s hard not to greatly admire someone who does what he does as honestly and well as he does it. Keep reading him.

    • #38
  9. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Guruforhire (View Comment):

    Mike H (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Mike H (View Comment):
    I’m still not clear about which normally valid principles we should be ready to violate when the time arises. I’m open to this being possible if someone will just help me out.

    If someone describes your normally valid principles as “muh principlez” then they are stupid and should be discarded.

    That may be so, but what better way to point that out than probing them with logic?

    I will clarify that I believe that a muh principle, is the over extension of limited concepts and principles which rely on a late game jenga tower of assumptions which may or may not still be standing, typically as a rhetorical feint to avoid having to take responsibility for difficult or uncomfortable trade offs.

    Self-awareness check: I may have a tendancy to deal with the worst possible outcome as a form of misplaced moral obligation in the name of sophistic realism. “The somebody has to do the difficult and unpleasant things.”

    This is why I asked. Guru is one of the people I enjoy reading because he has defendable original thoughts that tend to be outside of the mainstream.

    If people have a naive set of principles, they can and do break down in extreme cases. (e.g. – you are permitted to point a gun at someone who refuses to help bail out a sinking rowboat.)

    Determining where that line is can be extremely tricky, because one can use it to justify violating anyone’s rights by claiming incorrectly to be in an emergency situation, but that’s not to say true emergency situations can’t possibly exist.

    • #39
  10. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    Guruforhire (View Comment):

    Mike H (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Mike H (View Comment):
    I’m still not clear about which normally valid principles we should be ready to violate when the time arises. I’m open to this being possible if someone will just help me out.

    If someone describes your normally valid principles as “muh principlez” then they are stupid and should be discarded.

    That may be so, but what better way to point that out than probing them with logic?

    I will clarify that I believe that a muh principle, is the over extension of limited concepts and principles which rely on a late game jenga tower of assumptions which may or may not still be standing, typically as a rhetorical feint to avoid having to take responsibility for difficult or uncomfortable trade offs.

    Self-awareness check: I may have a tendancy to deal with the worst possible outcome as a form of misplaced moral obligation in the name of sophistic realism. “The somebody has to do the difficult and unpleasant things.”

    “Muh principlez” is: You’re sitting in your paneled private club holding forth on how civil Our Side is while the AntiFa thugs are  setting your silk smoking jacket on fire. You let them because you’re too “principled” to have them thrown out. It just isn’t the done thing. You’re way too civilized for that. So you burn to death, but at least you never sank to their level. Good for you.

    • #40
  11. Chuck Enfield Inactive
    Chuck Enfield
    @ChuckEnfield

    Guruforhire (View Comment):
    Can conservatives fully take part in our democracy if people who seek your arguments cant find them?

    People who seek them will always be able to find them, but I’ll admit that that shouldn’t be the standard we strive for.

    • #41
  12. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    Moderator Note:

    Splash screen of video showed a profanity.

    We can’t make games about the very conservative problems of being freed from scarcity and vicariously purpose, apparently.  Conservatives being the people best positioned to help society with these questions.

    [Link to video embedded here.]

     

    I have a concept for a story about a missionary that is going around a cyber punk environment trying to get people who have given up to the cynical nihilism by hooking themselves up to an illicit 3d printed super crack intravenous drip and retreating into the secular equivalent of heaven until their bodies waste away.

    But because I believe that feminists are toxic people trying to convince everybody to be unhappy, I can’t have anything useful to say about the effects of post scarcity on the human condition?

    Nope not at all apparently.

    • #42
  13. Arizona Patriot Member
    Arizona Patriot
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Mike H (View Comment):
     

    I’m still not clear about which normally valid principles we should be ready to violate when the time arises. I’m open to this being possible if someone will just help me out.

    Just about all of them.  “Thou shalt not kill” is a pretty good principle.  But I make exceptions for war, self-defense, and executions.

    I think that the principle here is that, as a private business, YouTube has the right to block or erase anything that it pleases.  This is a pretty solid principle, based on the importance of private property.  As a proponent of the free market, I don’t like the idea of government interference with such property rights unless there’s a significant reason, like monopoly power.  Does YouTube have such monopoly power?  I’m not sure.  I think that this is a useful way to frame the debate.

    I don’t like the idea of some government agency regulating fairness.  An alternative could be a law giving a YouTube user a private right of action for improper removal of a video, subject to standards like obscenity and extreme offensiveness that would be assessed by a jury after the fact.  I’m not advocating this at present, just floating it as an idea.

    It would take some work to figure out precisely how to word such a standard.  The idea would be to maintain YouTube’s ability to ban horrid stuff like Islamist beheading videos, while otherwise allowing the free exchange of ideas, however offensive to some.

     

    • #43
  14. Arizona Patriot Member
    Arizona Patriot
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Valiuth (View Comment):

    Steve C. (View Comment):
    .

    If you strike my account down, I will create more aliases than you can possibly imagine!

    So we meet again at last for the first time and the last time. Now I am the master?

    Good one guys, but your Schwartz is still not as big as mine.

    • #44
  15. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    Arizona Patriot (View Comment):
    I don’t like the idea of some government agency regulating fairness. An alternative could be a law giving a YouTube user a private right of action for improper removal of a video, subject to standards like obscenity and extreme offensiveness that would be assessed by a jury after the fact. I’m not advocating this at present, just floating it as an idea.

    The dark horse regulation could be something like social media platforms shall be interoperable by 2022 or something like that.  Then we can actually have a social media market.

    • #45
  16. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Arizona Patriot (View Comment):
    I think that the principle here is that, as a private business, YouTube has the right to block or erase anything that it pleases

    But does it have a right to lie to its “customers” about what it’s blocking?

    • #46
  17. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Guruforhire (View Comment):

    Arizona Patriot (View Comment):
    I don’t like the idea of some government agency regulating fairness. An alternative could be a law giving a YouTube user a private right of action for improper removal of a video, subject to standards like obscenity and extreme offensiveness that would be assessed by a jury after the fact. I’m not advocating this at present, just floating it as an idea.

    The dark horse regulation could be something like social media platforms shall be interoperable by 2022 or something like that. Then we can actually have a social media market.

    That would be terrible.  They’re already too interoperable for the survival of free speech.

    • #47
  18. Chuck Enfield Inactive
    Chuck Enfield
    @ChuckEnfield

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Arizona Patriot (View Comment):
    I think that the principle here is that, as a private business, YouTube has the right to block or erase anything that it pleases

    But does it have a right to lie to its “customers” about what it’s blocking?

    As a matter of law it’s probably already illegal for YouTube to lie about such things.  First, Alphabet is publicly traded and investors can’t make informed choices if they lie about their business practices.  Then there’s the issue of fraud. As a layman I don’t think they’re defrauding their subscribers, but they might be defrauding advertisers and contributors.

    • #48
  19. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    RightAngles (View Comment):
    “Muh principlez” is: You’re sitting in your paneled private club holding forth on how civil Our Side is while the AntiFa thugs are setting your silk smoking jacket on fire. You let them because you’re too “principled” to have them thrown out. It just isn’t the done thing. You’re way too civilized for that. So you burn to death, but at least you never sank to their level. Good for you.

    That’s one interpretation. Another is: You’re sitting in a pew in your stone church with the nice stained-glass windows, holding forth about loving one’s enemy and the importance of non-violence, while the other side is throwing rocks through the nice windows. You let them because you’re too principled to march outside and shoot them all dead. It just isn’t the done thing. You’re way too religious for that. So you get hit on the head, but at least you never did what needed to be done and killed the lot of them. Good for you.

    If you don’t believe that all Antifa should be shot en masse, you must be holding to “muh principlez.” For that matter, if you don’t believe that the Left should be barred from participation in the Republic, then you have “muh principlez,” at least according to those who see the situation much more clearly than you do, and know that other people’s “principlez” are the barrier to effective action.

    The term means nothing. It’s just a way of expressing derision; the “muh” is there to indicate a dull-eyed mouth-breathing idiot.

    • #49
  20. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    RightAngles (View Comment):
    “Muh principlez” is: You’re sitting in your paneled private club holding forth on how civil Our Side is while the AntiFa thugs are setting your silk smoking jacket on fire. You let them because you’re too “principled” to have them thrown out. It just isn’t the done thing. You’re way too civilized for that. So you burn to death, but at least you never sank to their level. Good for you.

    That’s one interpretation. Another is: You’re sitting in a pew in your stone church with the nice stained-glass windows, holding forth about loving one’s enemy and the importance of non-violence, while the other side is throwing rocks through the nice windows. You let them because you’re too principled to march outside and shoot them all dead. It just isn’t the done thing. You’re way too religious for that. So you get hit on the head, but at least you never did what needed to be done and killed the lot of them. Good for you.

    If you don’t believe that all Antifa should be shot en masse, you must be holding to “muh principlez.” For that matter, if you don’t believe that the Left should be barred from participation in the Republic, then you have “muh principlez,” at least according to those who see the situation much more clearly than you do, and know that other people’s “principlez” are the barrier to effective action.

    The term means nothing. It’s just a way of expressing derision; the “muh” is there to indicate a dull-eyed mouth-breathing idiot.

    Yes, it is a way of expressing derision. I’m sure we all recognize that.

    • #50
  21. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Arizona Patriot (View Comment):

    Mike H (View Comment):

    I’m still not clear about which normally valid principles we should be ready to violate when the time arises. I’m open to this being possible if someone will just help me out.

    Just about all of them. “Thou shalt not kill” is a pretty good principle. But I make exceptions for war, self-defense, and executions.

    I essentially said as much in my last comment.

    I think that the principle here is that, as a private business, YouTube has the right to block or erase anything that it pleases. This is a pretty solid principle, based on the importance of private property. As a proponent of the free market, I don’t like the idea of government interference with such property rights unless there’s a significant reason, like monopoly power. Does YouTube have such monopoly power? I’m not sure. I think that this is a useful way to frame the debate.

    But “monopoly power” is mostly a myth. It’s extremely difficult and expensive to maintain a true monopoly. I’m not even sure utilities should be run like utilities.

    I don’t like the idea of some government agency regulating fairness. An alternative could be a law giving a YouTube user a private right of action for improper removal of a video, subject to standards like obscenity and extreme offensiveness that would be assessed by a jury after the fact. I’m not advocating this at present, just floating it as an idea.

    This is intriguing. It sounds like something content providers should demand in their contract in the first place.

    It would take some work to figure out precisely how to word such a standard. The idea would be to maintain YouTube’s ability to ban horrid stuff like Islamist beheading videos, while otherwise allowing the free exchange of ideas, however offensive to some.

    I think it would essentially be the Terms and Conditions goes both ways. YouTube doesn’t have unilateral say in what does and doesn’t violate it. If they don’t like the content they’re getting, they have to explicitly say what they aren’t allowing.

    • #51
  22. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    Valiuth (View Comment):

    Steve C. (View Comment):
    .

    If you strike my account down, I will create more aliases than you can possibly imagine!

    So we meet again at last for the first time and the last time. Now I am the master?

    ?

    • #52
  23. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    As a technical matter any company that markets a differentiated product is a monopoly.  Monopolies still run the risk of substitution.

    • #53
  24. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    I Walton (View Comment):
    Some clever well financed conservatives have to create better alternatives. Once we decide to regulate it with “fairness” it’s over. Only freedom under simple clear laws can manage the coming storms. Of course we can do some things. School choice can occur at the state level and may have to begin with right to work laws.

    There are no clever, well-financed conservatives.  The left has the money and the power.

    • #54
  25. Chris Campion Coolidge
    Chris Campion
    @ChrisCampion

    skipsul (View Comment):
    A question Scott Adams posed some months back, and which I repeated here, was this: should we regulate Twitter (and thus other large-enough social media platforms) as a public utility? Are they powerful enough and intrusive enough such that they rise to the level of monopolies that must be broken up?

    No.  Just because it’s shared does not make it a public good.  It’s voluntary participation and whatever benefits come from it aren’t universal.  You don’t need it to live like water or electricity.

    • #55
  26. ToryWarWriter Coolidge
    ToryWarWriter
    @ToryWarWriter

    People are throwing rocks at the church you dont go out and shoot them.

    No you call out the police and read them the riot act.  They then put down and arrest and if necessary shoot the rioters.  You protect civilization.

    When you dont the rioters kill and destroy it.  Look at the French Revolution.  The Terror was put down when Thermidor said enough.

    Thermidor had its own problems.  But it didnt involve whipping up the mob to murder political enemies.  And that is where the Antifa movement is going.  Antifa is the enemy of civilization.  And I happen to think this civilization is worth pretending.

    Dont doubt that if those people win, this site would be shut down and all the editors would be among those who got put up against a wall and shot.

    We literally are the counter revolutionaries.

    • #56
  27. Richard Finlay Inactive
    Richard Finlay
    @RichardFinlay

    ToryWarWriter (View Comment):
    And I happen to think this civilization is worth pretending.

    That’s deep, man; like, all civilization is just pretense! Y’know?

    • #57
  28. ToryWarWriter Coolidge
    ToryWarWriter
    @ToryWarWriter

    Thanks.  That’s what I get for writing before the first coffee.  Oh wait I gave up coffee for covefefe :P

    • #58
  29. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    ToryWarWriter (View Comment):
    Thanks. That’s what I get for writing before the first coffee. Oh wait I gave up coffee for covefefe ?

    good man.

    • #59
  30. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Chris Campion (View Comment):
    . It’s voluntary participation and whatever benefits come from it aren’t universal.

    It’s not so voluntary when i need to participate in order to get in on communications with my government.

    • #60
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