Or, you know, they actually have a point, and framing them as just another partisan is an uncharitable response. Which, ironically, is typical of partisans.
Neither the paper nor the original comment said the most partisan commenters are wrong. It found a strong correlation between how partisan a social media user is and how often they post.
You're being uncharitable by assuming the commenter is disagreeing that with the point that the Overton window has moved. Which, I've heard, is typical of partisans.
Honestly, the reactions I am seeing suggest exactly this issue. I personally like the guy and have some level of respect of the work he has done over the course of the years, but I see no need to automatically defend him from scrutiny.
This is the part that annoys the crap out of me in today's environment -- and if more people had more sense, it would annoy them too. Sufficiently radioactive accusation is enough to make person not available for public consumption. Like.. if he he guilty ( there is a good evidence suggesting that ), charge him and see where it lands.
Prevalence of a court of public opinion indicates a real problem with real courts.
Yes, first heard of Chomsky in computer science classes at university, then was totally amazed by reading a decade later Manufacturing Consent - the same guy! I thought. So, it's very sad for me to read all of this - fighting for East Timor while at the same time hanging out with the Elite and taking their money - preaching water and drinking wine and all of that - exactly the people written about in many of his texts.
Sincerely want to understand it, now that there's more comments it seems I'm not the only one but in minority. Currently most interesting dimension to me is how big part of HN is effectively against open access to information and supporting censorship but of course within this discussion context that's me misrepresenting those people who only want to save lives.
Suriously though, decent part of posters probably were around when WWW was effectively born. Tell me it was not addictive and not full of harmful content. I'm pretty happy it was not banned despite, unlike TV, providing personalized information that you were seeking.
You're quoting the NYT article. If you're going to criticize the Commission's language for being "vague and handwavy", you should quote the original source.
You’re saying there were no forum boards nor comment sections anywhere? And everyone self hosted every single piece of content they wished to send it into the world?
I'm not sure what you mean by 'metaphysical' here, but I get the impression that you're dismissively trivializing real psychological problems by using that word.
An improvement in material conditions does not straightforwardly make up for these problems. What if they cause the viewer to commit suicide, or be so distraught they can no longer continue to work? People who do this work tend not to be able to do it for very long.
You also seem to be evaluating this by taking the current order of things for granted, as if it were not possible for this kind of thing to not be necessary in the first place. Quite a stunted imagination.
_you_ don’t know what it means to be under material poverty.
Look up farmer suicides in India an you can understand how material poverty leads to even more suicides statistically.
These people don’t even have food to sustain. One of the biggest problems is that poor people in India have low IQ because they literally can’t afford food with vitamins.
Low IQ leads to irrational decisions, low productivity and they get equal vote so they vote in idiots that slow progress.
These jobs are the best deal for overall progress of India. Sure they have to struggle in the middle but at least they have good food on the plate. Some safety net to make long term decisions and vote for better leaders.
You wouldn’t get it. You would just show concern. But Indians have to deal with the problems.
I know what it means to be under material poverty in this hell of a country. Even so I think this is another poisoned chalice. We are where you export your garbage to, whether material or digital. I spit on your false charity.
_you_ don't seem to understand what I wrote, or are not attempting to genuinely respond to it. But you've demonstrated a certain thickheadedness, potentially willful, so I can't say I was expecting better.
They're suggesting that you listen to and address the points they made rather than simply rephrase your original viewpoint.
I'd suggest you try to understand that psychological problems are real and that you only get one brain. You may say "you don't understand poverty", but it equally sounds like you don't understand trauma and psychological issues. You only get one brain and life is about being happy. If you rise out of poverty, but you're less happy than you were, is that better? It sounds like it is for you as long as they stop voting for candidates you don't like. It's easy to not care about people's happiness if they don't vote for the candidates you like, right?
Can you address the point I made where farmers suicides happen because of material poverty?
If you saw that my main point was that metaphysical concerns of “trauma” and “psychological issues” are a non issue for people who don’t have food on their plate.
> If you rise out of poverty, but you're less happy than you were, is that better?
Who are you to suggest they are less happy than otherwise? They took that decision voluntarily. I’m also suggesting that it’s the best decision.
You seem to think you have a better alternative for those people. Pray tell me, what is it that you are suggesting? What would you have rather done if you were the poor mother in middle of nowhere India and you had 6 children with complete lack of material stability. You would have rejected it?
If it were me or my friends or family- I would have definitely taken the job or adviced my friends to take it.
Apologies for inserting myself into this exchange, but I'd like to point out something that both your primary interlocuter seem to be overlooking.
> They took that decision voluntarily
Doesn't really describe the experience of the woman in the original article. She took a job in "data classification" which was initially boring but benign. Then her job assignments changed to reviewing NSFW and NSFL content that she herself recognized as psychologically harmful, without a pay increase, or affordance for her discomfort. In fact, the altered nature of her job was callously dismissed: "it's still data classification"!
I could probably agree with you that there's a market-clearing price where reviewing disturbing material becomes a worthwhile sacrifice for some to take, or even an actual opportunity for people psychologically suited to the work, but an informed, freely-taken choice is not the situation described. That's the exploitation that I see in this story.
> Who are you to suggest they are less happy than otherwise?
Who are you to assume they always are? Once again, you're just dismissing the problems away.
> They took that decision voluntarily.
As if nobody in the history of the world took a deal that turned out to be bad for them. A voluntary choice does not inherently imply that the choice made them better off.
Regardless, you've completely ignored the last sentence of my original reply, but I'll try to spell it out for you. The neocolonialist objection does not boil down to, take these women's jobs away and make people in the corporation's home country do it. It is primarily a critique of the society that benefits from or depends on labor its own members consider unacceptable or beneath them. It is inherently exploitative by that society's own standards, and retaining such an economy is either unsustainable or incentivizes the perpetuation of the conditions which allow it to exploit. In other words, the US has a vested interest in making sure some people are always poor and desperate enough to do the jobs it doesn't want to do.
You’ve ignored my point on material poverty leading to suicides again. This means you can’t appreciate that Indians suffer mostly from people lack of money than anything else.
> As if nobody in the history of the world took a deal that turned out to be bad for them. A voluntary choice does not inherently imply that the choice made them better off
I’m suggesting that it’s the best decision for them. They’ve clearly taken the decision so they also think the same. I asked you for alternatives, or what you could have rather done but you’ve not answered. Maybe consider that it’s the best option for them?
> In other words, the US has a vested interest in making sure some people are always poor and desperate enough to do the jobs it doesn't want to do.
This shows clearly you have no idea what you are talking about. It’s mostly because of US that India has great IT jobs. It’s also because of products and services made in the US that we use in India that India enjoys some prosperity. Think of all the pharmaceutical innovations. Think of the internet, iPhones and everything. The USA has a massive part in reducing poverty in India.
What you are doing is clear: moral grandstanding without suggesting any clear alternative. It’s always nice to show easy empathy.
Your perspective is consistently too black and white. No one in this comment chain has once said that this should not be allowed. At most it's been said that paying poor people to take trauma is concerning. Your response has consistently been "How dare you say poor people shouldn't have these jobs? These jobs are great!". You're trying to make it black and you white, when it's neither.
If your argument was "These jobs probably will scar some people for life, and that's troubling, but I do think the overall gain in welfare will likely outweigh that", then no one reasonable would be arguing with you. As it is, you haven't bothered to include this nuance, or even once admit or consider that some people could be made worse off overall by these jobs, even if perhaps most aren't. It basically just sounds like you want to see fewer "low IQ" poor people and you aren't really bothered how they feel afterwards. I'll say again, exceedingly many people have all the things you said are required for happiness, and still aren't happy. And that is usually due to trauma, the very thing we're talking about.
> No one in this comment chain has once said that this should not be allowed. At most it's been said that paying poor people to take trauma is concerning
There's a commenter saying that they were forced to do it.
>Being able to force someone to do something is not justification for doing so. Further, it is ridiculous to try and label that as 'beneficial for everyone involved'. By the same token you can call outright slavery under threat of execution 'beneficial for everyone involved'. What tripe.
That's simply a logical conclusion from your own thought process. You keep saying that any job is okay if the person is desperate. i.e. it's okay to force people to do what you want if they've got no other choice
yeah no sorry. there's clearly a person who thinks this should not be done. the way to interpret what they said is that they are forced to take this option.
> No one in this comment chain has once said that this should not be allowed
this is incorrect.
I did say that its okay for people to be forced to do the job if no other option exists (with some caveats).
If you disagree, tell me how and be specific about it. What would you rather do in this case?
>What would you have rather done if you were the poor mother in middle of nowhere India and you had 6 children with complete lack of material stability. You would have rejected it?
There's a major inconsistency here. You're consistently claiming that other people don't understand poverty, and yet you essentially made the point that you're not poor ("those people have lower IQ"). So either you started off poor and then worked your way up via some route that's obviously not this job, or you haven't experienced it either, or you are actually poor and aren't doing this work. Which is it?
>Can you address the point I made where farmers suicides happen because of material poverty?
You haven't provided any evidence. If you can prove the suicide rate is higher for these farmers, you may have a point, but even then, the suicide rate does not necessarily have any bearing on the overall rate of happiness. It's possible that a bigger majority are happier farming, but a small minority are pushed more inexorably towards suicide. Perhaps that isn't true either. We simply don't know without evidence.
That's my basic point. You're making strong claims, but you quite clearly simply do not know and are deciding based on instinct and perhaps a vague desire to have your favoured political candidates get more votes. You haven't provided any justification whatsoever. "I think it's right", "maybe they commit suicide" and "they don't vote for people I prefer" are not justifications, they're guesses. As much as you may want me to ("Who are you to suggest they are less happy than otherwise?"). I have made no claims whatsoever, simply pointed out the lack of nuance using hypotheticals.
Having more money is very good. Psychological damage is very bad. Your point is that psychological damage doesn't matter and having more food is all that matters. Okay, so should you send your child off to fight for a warlord if it means they have more food? Please try to grasp that's there's nuance.
>If you saw that my main point was that metaphysical concerns of “trauma” and “psychological issues” are a non issue for people who don’t have food on their plate.
I've put this at the end because its beside the main point, but this sentence is just a barrel of conceptual misunderstandings. Trauma is a type of psychological issue, so "trauma and psychological issues" makes no sense without a prepended "other". Neither trauma nor psychological issues are metaphysical concerns. Metaphysical concerns are issues of first principles and deeper understandings of concepts. It's a branch of philosophy. If you don't believe me, Google it, or ask ChatGPT.
>There's a major inconsistency here. You're consistently claiming that other people don't understand poverty, and yet you essentially made the point that you're not poor ("those people have lower IQ"). So either you started off poor and then worked your way up via some route that's obviously not this job, or you haven't experienced it either, or you are actually poor and aren't doing this work. Which is it?
Have you considered that I have more knowledge of poverty, not because I have experienced it, but because I have spent time understanding it?
> You haven't provided any evidence. If you can prove the suicide rate is higher for these farmers, you may have a point, but even then, the suicide rate does not necessarily have any bearing on the overall rate of happiness. It's possible that a bigger majority are happier farming, but a small minority are pushed more inexorably towards suicide. Perhaps that isn't true either. We simply don't know without evidence.
You didn't understand the point I was trying to make.
Lets make it clear here: people are either unhappy because of material poverty like lack of money/food or because of higher level needs like love, safety and in this case - not watching abusive videos (so ridiculous that I even have to compare this).
Do you genuinely want to challenge me in claiming that people are more unhappy by watching abusive videos than because of material poverty? Really?
>Having more money is very good. Psychological damage is very bad. Your point is that psychological damage doesn't matter and having more food is all that matters. Okay, so should you send your child off to fight for a warlord if it means they have more food? Please try to grasp that's there's nuance.
Yes I would? The actual equivalent here is that the child does not have other means of earning and would go hungry. And that fighting for the warlord is overall good for the society. In that case its obvious. Are you this naive to not understand that this is _exactly_ why you have an army in your country? Why do you think people become soldiers? You are so naive and stick to moral grandstanding that you have not even grasped why people work.
I have asked you the third (I think) time now. What would you rather do if you were in the woman's situation? You have conveniently ignored it.
Pray tell me, what is the best choice for the woman to make? I have made it clear that I would have done the same thing. I actually think there's a reason why you ignored this question. By answering it, you would clearly admit that
1. this is the best choice she can take
2. this job has to be done by someone anyway so its net benefit to society
3. this means the overall story is a net positive for everyone and your moral grandstanding has no place here
>Have you considered that I have more knowledge of poverty, not because I have experienced it, but because I have spent time understanding it?
If this is true, you haven't shown any evidence of it.
>Lets make it clear here: people are either unhappy because of material poverty like lack of money/food or because of higher level needs like love, safety and in this case - not watching abusive videos (so ridiculous that I even have to compare this).
Again you're making a value judgment and not providing any evidence besides saying it's true. Happiness is far more complex than this, and exceedingly many people who do have all the things you just stated are still unhappy, and very very often that's due to trauma.
>Do you genuinely want to challenge me in claiming that people are more unhappy by watching abusive videos than because of material poverty? Really?
My friend, you are consistently failing to understand nuance. This isn't a contest, no one is "challenging" you. Maybe what you said here is true, maybe it isn't, let's discuss the "why"s and the justifications and the evidence, but all you seem to be able to do is say "this is true and it's true because I say it's true, and also maybe suicides but with no evidence".
>Yes I would? ... 3. this means the overall story is a net positive for everyone and your moral grandstanding has no place here
This entire section boils down to an argument that could equally made for slavery. Well if they have a roof over their head and food, why not have slavery? At least they're not starving, right?
The funny thing is that there's absolutely nothing unjustifiable about your position. I actually genuinely don't disagree that people should be able to have these jobs. I'm bringing all this up because your justifications and motivations are completely immoral and illogical. Of course I would take the choice to do this job, but equally I would take the choice of slavery if it stopped me from starving. That doesn't make it right or a good thing for society.
>This entire section boils down to an argument that could equally made for slavery. Well if they have a roof over their head and food, why not have slavery? At least they're not starving, right?
What's the alternative? This is the 6th time I'm asking this. Without answering this question, you are playing rhetorical games.
What is a rhetorical game if "ignoring the entire comment and then complaining you didn't answer one question that's entirely irrelevant to the central point" isn't? Read the comment again and try to figure out why it's irrelevant. I'll give you a hint: read the last paragraph. Once you've done that I may continue speaking to you.
you have not answered - "its not a good thing for society". so what is? having enough money? what's the point in moral grandstanding to say something so obvious? of course it would be good if everyone has a lot of money.
Read a history book to learn how all this bad stuff was abolished in the West. Ofcourse that requires a basic respect for poor people to develop in India...
If I was in that position, and you gave me the choice to ritualistically mutilate myself for your amusement so my children could escape, I'd probably take it.
Your entire chain of argument is vacuous; devoid of any sense of empathy for your fellow humanity.
I show empathy which is why I’m happy that they have this job and can put food on their plate. You show fake empathy and fake concern by prioritising metaphysical needs.
Again, vacuous. You deride as 'metaphysical' what is psychological. But the health and well-being of
children too is a 'metaphysical' concern to the worker by this metric, and yet you call it up to
support yourself? Your argument is empty, hypocritical: there can be no substance to calling the one
metaphysical and the other physical, thereby dismissing all suffering.
If you're going to play the game you're playing, play it everywhere: their children don't matter, their
suffering doesn't matter, they don't matter.
The core of your argument is merely that if it is possible to force someone to do something, it is right
and proper. What a vile philosophy, to make what is detestable into that which is desirable.
At least have the grace to be ashamed and turn away, if you cannot stomach the taste but to replace it
with deception.
My point is that material needs are more important to people under poverty than metaphysical like feeling bad about watching abusive videos.
You agree that this job is necessary to be done. You agree that this is the best option they have and they are better off with it.
You would also do the same thing if you were in their position. You agree that this job exiting is overall beneficial for everyone involved.
Then what’s with the moral grandstanding? Yes it’s not ideal that someone has to do the job.
What point do you want to make other than virtue signalling?
Being able to force someone to do something is not justification for doing so. Further, it is ridiculous to try and label that as 'beneficial for everyone involved'. By the same token you can call outright slavery under threat of execution 'beneficial for everyone involved'. What tripe.
Repeatedly stating that it's 'better for them' because they have no choice is not the slam dunk you seem to think it is. The entire class of argument does not hold water; this line of reasoning will not convince me. It does not even slightly support your position.
I'd thank you to not put words in my mouth. You're wrong about them.
What point do I make other than virtue signaling? Mayhap read what you replied to, and you'll find it. But if you struggle still: your load-bearing use of 'metaphysical' is basically nonsense. I explained why already, why should I endlessly repeat myself?
> Being able to force someone to do something is not justification for doing so. Further, it is ridiculous to try and label that as 'beneficial for everyone involved'
He likely betrayed his real motivations a few comments back. He's annoyed about candidates getting elected by "low IQ" voters, and he wants them to get smarter by eating more so they can vote for the right people.
AFAIK, after all the hype around Bitcoin proved to be false, the last justification for owning it among people who can't think straight was as a systemic risk hedge, like gold, but this has also not borne out.
I don't doubt the faithful's ability to conjure up some other BS story for why it's worth owning, but there has to be something.
> In those days they did this by having physical public spaces for interaction, which we've since priced people out of through artificial scarcity of real estate via zoning laws.
IDK where to begin with this, because we clearly do have physical public spaces for interaction, whether free like parks or not free like coffee shops. People also hang out at each others' homes. Moreover, supply of public spaces increases when there's demand, much of which is being soaked up by social media.
You're also acting like we can't meaningfully distinguish between social media and other forms of communication and that we have to be all or nothing about it, which is a bewildering take. Even social media can be meaningfully distinguished in terms of design features. Facebook back when it was posting on friends' walls, no likes, comments, shares, friend/follower counts, or feeds, was fun and mostly harmless. LinkedIn was genuinely useful when the feed was nothing more than professional updates. They've all since morphed into toxic cesspools of social comparison, parasociality, polarization, disinformation, and other problems. Interoperability/federation doesn't solve those problems: most of the interoperable and federated solutions actually perpetuate them, because the problematic design features are part of the spec.
> IDK where to begin with this, because we clearly do have physical public spaces for interaction, whether free like parks or not free like coffee shops.
How many public discussions have you participated in at a coffee shop? If you have something to say and you go there and start trying to chat up anyone who walks in the door, what response do you expect from the proprietors?
If you go to a park which is within 10 miles of the median home, how many people do you expect to encounter there at any given time, especially in the heat of summer or cold of winter?
You need indoor spaces that don't have some private commercial operator, like community centers or hackerspaces, but those are the things that get priced out by high real estate costs.
> People also hang out at each others' homes.
You move to a new city and want to meet people. Are you expecting many strangers to invite you into their homes without introduction?
> Moreover, supply of public spaces increases when there's demand, much of which is being soaked up by social media.
Social media costs time. Physical spaces cost even more time (since you need to travel there) and they cost money (to cover the rent). What happens when you then make the rent high?
> Even social media can be meaningfully distinguished in terms of design features.
So is e.g. Usenet social media or not? Does it matter if it provides ordering options other than search by date?
> They've all since morphed into toxic cesspools of social comparison, parasociality, polarization, disinformation, and other problems.
Because those things increase engagement and the central middle man gets paid for increasing engagement.
> Interoperability/federation doesn't solve those problems
It removes the perverse incentive to design things that way.
> most of the interoperable and federated solutions actually perpetuate them, because the problematic design features are part of the spec.
Then why is Neocities or "add a Bluesky comments section to your blog" so much less toxic than Facebook?
The primary thing driving toxicity in certain federated networks is when they get a huge influx of users after some incumbent social network gets into the news over political suppression, because then a mass of the target's partisans try to switch to something else in protest and partisans are toxic so if you get inundated with disproportionately partisan exiles you've got a problem. Which doesn't happen if you federate the whole main network containing the majority of the population including moderates and apolitical subjects rather than disproportionately one side's most excitable militants.
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