[kwlug-disc] Trust in Musk.. or go to NextCloud

[Chris Frey]

On Fri, Nov 11, 2022 at 10:57:57PM -0500, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
> Which makes me question the whole premise of the utility of free speech,
> fact-checking or any of that from a purely pragmatic point of view:
> will it sway people?  Some maybe.
> But a significant portion has made up their mind and will not budge ...

I'll start at the bottom and work up as far as I can.

I'll posit that we don't have free speech right now, or rather, we don't
have equal free speech.  As I pointed out before, liberals don't get
banned on old twitter.  (Who knows what will happen on new twitter.)
Anyone who promoted the mainstream news had no fear of reprisals.
Those that contradicted the mainstream news and science got banned,
cancelled, and labelled.  Some could still "speak" but they had to find
their own platforms.

This does not help convince people.  When authorities ban people who
sound logical to a portion of the population, that population becomes
alienated right along with them.  Now it's not just the original
speakers who are suspect, but the government and twitter and the
mainstream news as well.  That population subset starts watching
for more anomalies with an ever-more vigilent eye.

It also splits the populace.  When people follow the martyrs to their new
platform, those followers can very easily abandon the old platform too.
Now, instead of the bump and grind of conflicting comments and links on
a single twitter platform, where everyone can run into a challenging idea,
you have left wing in one pool and right wing in another, and they never
talk to each other unless forced.

You ask, what's the use in free speech?   I say it's the only way to
convince people.  I don't think you can convince people from on high.
You have to meet them as equals, even if they believe what you consider
to be rubbish, they are equals, because they have the right to make up
their own mind.  It's rare you can browbeat people into belief.  And
once people are not allowed to say things, they begin to ask why.


> Fact checking, to me, does not mean authority.  It means the ability
> to dig for information, and show that information,  with citations,
> to confirm or deny a certain assertion. There is no Ministry of Truth.

Oh but there is.  Show me the official fact checkers who have a nuanced
view of ivermectin.  I wish that the mainstream fact checkers
had your view on digging for information and showing it.

(Note I asked for *nuanced*... I know ivermectin is a hot button topic.
I meant it as an example, not intended to derail the conversation.)

Fact checking has gotten so bad that it is clearly linked to "authority".
It is unclear which authority, but they all march in lockstep once you
notice.


> I was on a hobby group that is somewhat scientific. It was 2021 (we still
> had mandates, vaccines were slow to roll out, ...etc). The pandemic
> was mentioned, and someone posted a picture saying a friend/co-worker
> sent him, alleging that the pandemic is over in China,
> showing people on the Great Wall enjoying themselves.
> 
> I went to Google, then Images, clicked on the camera icon and entered the
> URL of the picture, only to find out that it was from 2017 or so.
> When I mentioned this in the group, that person was offended.
> He kept saying things like that I was "censoring him" ...etc.

Yep, this happens.  The right course of action is to say thank you
for the new data.  But tensions are cranked so tight these days that
it takes a big man to do that.



> What I have seen is that a significant segment of society cannot be
> convinced by facts, no matter what.
> 
> As an example, watch the video clip in here
> <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63593153>, where the BBC reporter
> interviews the Republican (MAGA) candidate for governor of Arizona,
> who may actually win that race. If elections cannot be trusted,
> then the next step is surely violence.
> 
> And she is not alone. There is a large slew of election deniers running for
> key offices where they may influence the results of future elections.

Unfortunately that video didn't play for me.  I thought it might be
DRM, but even my DRM enabled browser didn't work.  Sorry.

Let's play a hypothetical here.  Bear with me. :-)

What would it take to convince you that the 2020 election was stolen?
Are you open to facts?  Conversely, what would it take to convince
Kari Lake that the 2020 election was NOT stolen?

I remember that race, and I remember watching oddities happening
almost in real time.  Can I say for sure one way or another?  Nope.
Neither can you, since you didn't count the votes.  But what I do see
today is a mainstream effort to belittle and label people as "election
deniers".  Does that kind of mockery bring people into the fold?
Of course not.  It alienates them and causes them to entrench and fight
harder, because "the end is nigh."

Let's assume every aspect of the 2020 election was airtight, upright, and
honourable.  Even then, far from being a reason to mock the "deniers",
their doubt is a sign that something is very wrong in the nation.
It signals a time to ask questions.  Why do they doubt?  How can we
remove reasons to doubt?

If half the population in your country start thinking the ballot box is a
fraud, then BOTH sides better get moving and restore trust immediately.
Because you are right.  If elections cannot be trusted, violence isn't
far away.  But if that reform doesn't happen, and with haste, people
start asking why.  All they see is same old, same old.

What can bring people back into the fold?  I say, *more* free speech and
*more* open data, with bullet-proof election rules similar to the ones I
linked to in that Karl Denninger article, where anyone and everyone has as
much access as the system can possibly allow to verify and re-verify until
their hard drives burn out from overuse. :-)  The US does not have either
equal free speech nor open data, and so theories and rumours abound.
It's sadly tearing them apart.

- Chris