What are the similarities and differences between 'Q' haters and Ayn Rand haters?

[Jon Letendre]

9 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

The proper method of validating means (among other things) ignoring arbitrary statements from an unknown source. You validate based on a source that talks like a horoscope writer. Or someone who has the skills of a magician.

We were discussing the photographic evidence of Biden's doubles, which is all over the internet and easy to examine, and Q has never to my knowledge mentioned that topic.

Just making it up as you go.

[Jon Letendre]

@Doug Morris

[Doug Morris]

18 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

@Doug Morris

The amount of space between the earlobe and the cheek is very small.  Photographing it from a different angle makes it harder to see.

 

 

[Harrison Danneskjold]

On 1/2/2023 at 11:09 AM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Well, if there were any such collusion then I'm sure it'll come out in the Twitter Files.   

On 1/2/2023 at 1:14 PM, Eiuol said:

Whatever the Twitter files could have been, the whole thing was botched up, especially since for the sake of transparency, all the relevant details can be dropped right now. 

Yep.  In August of 2021 Alex Berenson retweeted "It's now clear #COVID19 natural immunity is superior to #vaccine immunity, by ALOT. There's no science justification for #vax proof if a person had prior infection" which had originally been tweeted by Doctor Brett Giroir (who is, in fact, a proper medical "doctor").   On August 27th of 2021 Doctor Scott Gottlieb (who is both a proper "doctor" and a Pfizer board member) brought it to Twitter's attention, writing in an email: "This is the kind of stuff that's corrosive. Here he draws a sweeping conclusion off a single retrospective study in Israel that hasn't been peer reviewed. But this tweet will end up going viral and driving news coverage."  This prompted Twitter to prevent anyone from ever liking or retweeting what Giroir had said.

The word for the kind of activity this represents, between Pfizer and Twitter, is "collusion".

Obviously the collusion between Twitter and Pfizer is not the same kind of thing as the collusion between Twitter and the American government; it's not going to end Western Civilization or anything.  But score one more for the conspiracy theorists.

 

I agree about the relevant details.  I don't know what reason there is for not dropping them all right now but I also don't know how to simultaneously run five or six companies without destroying them all (I probably couldn't even run a single one).  If Elon Musk says that this is how you build a revolutionary new kind of rocket then I'll take his word for it, and if he thinks that this is the way to make the Twitter files public then I'll take his word for that, too.

And I would bet actual money that all the naysayers who've been making fun of him over Twitter will suddenly fall very silent about it within the next year or two, and pretend to forget that they ever had anything negative to say about it at all.  Ignorant herds are fairly predictable like that.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

On 1/3/2023 at 8:41 AM, tadmjones said:

Yes , that is the kind of thing I was/am "hearing" about. And what is ridiculous is that some conclude that there are at least two Joe Bidens running around skipping right over "wait, why the fuck would there be two Joes ?!"

Maybe it's a security thing.  

On 1/4/2023 at 11:52 AM, Doug Morris said:

The amount of space between the earlobe and the cheek is very small.  Photographing it from a different angle makes it harder to see.

It does look a bit weird, though, doesn't it?

I mean, since things like Photoship exist I don't think it exactly proves anything conclusively at all.  But it does look a bit odd.

 

And what would it prove if some of Joe Biden's speeches were actually given by a body double, instead of the man himself?  I could see that being a reasonable security precaution (there are plenty of people who'd like to assassinate him) and maybe that could explain why some days he seems capable of speaking in complete sentences, and some days he doesn't.

[Eiuol]

26 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

The word for the kind of activity this represents, between Pfizer and Twitter, is "collusion".

Collusion by definition is something deceitful or manipulative. What you describe is cooperation, and if 2 companies would like to cooperate in order to promote better science communication, this is a good thing. And the alleged collusion with the FBI is, from our limited perspective, mostly cooperation in terms of investigating crime, along with compensation for volunteering time. 

[Harrison Danneskjold]

3 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

I agree about the relevant details.  I don't know what reason there is for not dropping them all right now but I also don't know how to simultaneously run five or six companies without destroying them all (I probably couldn't even run a single one).  If Elon Musk says that this is how you build a revolutionary new kind of rocket then I'll take his word for it, and if he thinks that this is the way to make the Twitter files public then I'll take his word for that, too.

To be clear, I think that Elon Musk is the closest thing I have ever seen to a walking, breathing Randian Hero.  That matters to me.  I would follow Elon Musk to the gates of Hell if he ever asked me to, and I'd thank him for the privilege afterwards.  

 

3 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Collusion by definition is something deceitful or manipulative. What you describe is cooperation, and if 2 companies would like to cooperate in order to promote better science communication, this is a good thing.

I would agree that this cooperation wasn't deceitful or manipulative in a way which should be illegal.  It's annoying and gross, certainly, but nobody's rights were violated.  I don't want to get bogged down in the difference between "collusion" and "cooperation" (since "collusion" itself smells to me like a collectivist term for "bad cooperation which we should hate") so for the purposes of this post I'll be using them interchangeably.

Firstly, though, the "collusion" bit started because of an article which you couldn't take seriously because it suggested "collusion" between big tech and big pharma.  I pointed out that if there is any such collusion it'll come out in the Twitter Files and, sure enough, that precise thing happened a week or two later.  Does your original dismissal of that article still stand for the same reason?

Secondly, I don't agree that the suppression of speech can ever be a good thing.

 

To be clear, this suppression of speech is not censorship (not when it's only between Twitter, Pfizer and Alex Berenson) but it is still a suppression of speech.  And whether that speech contains good ideas or bad I think it is always worse to have it suppressed.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, isn't it?  When you suppress the expression of bad ideas you only convince those who hear them that they hold some special legitimacy, since you've shown that you're unwilling to discuss them openly.  You make them look stronger than they are - and that's assuming that you know which ideas are good or bad.

Deciding which ideas are bad enough that they aren't even worth hearing is an inherent responsibility that each of us has to himself.  It would be one Hell of a thing to attempt to take up that responsibility for another if they offered it and downright immoral if they didn't.

 

I like science.  This is part of why I'm one of Elon's Musketeers and also why I routinely engage with flat-Earthers and young-Earth creationists: because sunlight is the best disinfectant for bad ideas.  But shutting down the expression of bad ideas is the opposite of communication, and doing so in which the way Twitter has been is the opposite of scientific thinking.  Like any local Heroin addict, it should not be illegal, but it is far from a good thing.

 

2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

And the alleged collusion with the FBI is, from our limited perspective, mostly cooperation in terms of investigating crime, along with compensation for volunteering time. 

No, it is censorship.

You do not catch criminals by suppressing what they have to say.  Far from it; a remarkable number of criminals have been caught, over the years, by simply buying them a drink or two and listening to the stories they tell.  Even if the suppressed accounts in question were actually outlets for legitimate Russian disinformation (as the FBI full well fucking knew they weren't) the practice of silencing such accounts would be far from a clear-cut moral good.

The Federal government instigating a company into the suppression of its own citizens' speech IS censorship. 

 

It's censorship, and censorship is the bright red line at which a violent revolution (according to Ayn Rand) becomes justified.

[RationalEgoist]

11 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

I think that Elon Musk is the closest thing I have ever seen to a walking, breathing Randian Hero

Really? I mean, I can see what an Objectivist could find admirable about Elon's character, but after listening to Yaron's recent take I lost even more respect for him. For instance, look at how he handled the recent Twitter mess. To me, he just comes across as someone who follows his own whims. A poll to decide whether he should step down or not? Come on. 

I get this overall impression that Elon is kind of like a teenager stuck inside a man's body. And not in a good way. 

[RationalEgoist]

For the life of me, I cannot understand all the fuss about vaccines. Don't want to get a shot? Then don't. The government isn't forcing you. 

Conspiracy theories about the COVID vaccine are weird. Get off the internet for a bit. 

[tadmjones]

15 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Collusion by definition is something deceitful or manipulative. What you describe is cooperation, and if 2 companies would like to cooperate in order to promote better science communication, this is a good thing. And the alleged collusion with the FBI is, from our limited perspective, mostly cooperation in terms of investigating crime, along with compensation for volunteering time. 

But what about the stuff from congressmen and "Hamilton 68 " ? The people at Twitter knew what Adam Schiff was after was bullshit and said so to each other , yet acquiesced anyway , those actions were furthering legitimate investigations and good science, too ?

Edited January 29, 2023 by tadmjones

[Eiuol]

12 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

It's annoying and gross, certainly, but nobody's rights were violated.

Why is it wrong for 2 companies to seek a common goal about communication? That's what you want to happen, and this is an example of communication you would want. You say it as if it's obviously wrong, but my whole point is that not only is it legally permissible, but should be morally desirable. 

12 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Deciding which ideas are bad enough that they aren't even worth hearing is an inherent responsibility that each of us has to himself.

And it is also the responsibility of each individual to decide what healthy environments of communication will discourage or encourage a rational discussion. I can't have a rational discussion when everyone around me is poisoning the well. There are standards of rational discussion, or even discussion that isn't abusive or hostile.

12 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

The Federal government instigating a company into the suppression of its own citizens' speech IS censorship. 

Except, the government wasn't. Twitter seems to have reacted to communication with the FBI in such a way that they, independent of the FBI, decided that certain voices were harmful or causing issues to the platform they wanted to have. 

The FBI investigates things, that's the point. They are going to talk to people, and sometimes, people respond to the information they infer from the FBI talking to them. It would be different if Twitter offered privacy information or violated property, but that doesn't seem to have happened.

12 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Deciding which ideas are bad enough that they aren't even worth hearing is an inherent responsibility that each of us has to himself. 

Building on that, when it comes to illegal actions or violations of rights, there should be no discussion on the right way to present that information, except to say everything is presented completely. If there are earth shattering revelations between Twitter and the FBI, there is no reason to throw breadcrumbs starting with circumstantial evidence. 

1 hour ago, RationalEgoist said:

For instance, look at how he handled the recent Twitter mess.

He was out of his element. You can say he made a debacle out of Twitter, failing to bring about the changes he promised, or even failing to show the pathway towards change within Twitter. Social media companies don't operate like a tech company. When the product is people talking to people, I don't think Musk has a good handle on things. But just because he ended up as a big disappointment with Twitter doesn't mean he isn't capable of leading tech companies. Public communication is not his strong suit. 

[Harrison Danneskjold]

10 hours ago, RationalEgoist said:

Really? I mean, I can see what an Objectivist could find admirable about Elon's character, but after listening to Yaron's recent take I lost even more respect for him. For instance, look at how he handled the recent Twitter mess. To me, he just comes across as someone who follows his own whims. A poll to decide whether he should step down or not? Come on. 

I get this overall impression that Elon is kind of like a teenager stuck inside a man's body. And not in a good way. 

Um - yes?

 

The dude has already had a lasting impact on the world we all live in, today (I assume you're familiar with PayPal?) and he's spending most the remainder of his time trying to further shape the direction of that world - not by coercing anyone into anything at all, but by building many different private companies in order to drive our technological progress further than it otherwise would've gone.  SpaceX alone has single-handedly revitalized an entire industry which had decayed to the point where we are no longer even capable of sending men to the moon.

I guess I'll have to track down whatever Yaron Brook recently said about Musk but if Elon Musk isn't what a modern-day Hank Rearden or Ellis Wyatt look like then I really can't imagine who would - except that I can say that none currently exist at all.

 

10 hours ago, RationalEgoist said:

For the life of me, I cannot understand all the fuss about vaccines. Don't want to get a shot? Then don't. The government isn't forcing you. 

Conspiracy theories about the COVID vaccine are weird. Get off the internet for a bit. 

The government DID try to force everyone to get the COVID vaccine; it would have done so if the Supreme Court hadn't struck it down.  Yes, the conspiracy theories are pretty weird (it'd be a pretty significant technological leap forward if we could build microchips that'd fit through a syringe needle) but I don't believe it's any of the government's business what I do or do not inject into my own veins.

 

Have you forgotten when they outlawed work because of COVID?  That would've been the same time when they cheered on rampant lawlessness, looting and burning while simultaneously maintaining the abolition of work.

That also would've been the time when Elon Musk tweeted 'I'm breaking this law and opening my factories back up.  I'll be in my Tesla factory if you want to arrest me'.  If that was born of whim-worshipping then I can only hope everyone else is capable of a little bit more of it, because there was little enough of such defiance that I'm fairly certain they will get away with it next time!

 

I'm sorry.  I am still very pissed off about 2020 and I think I have a goddamn right to be.  Which part of the fuss, precisely, do you not understand?

Edited January 30, 2023 by Harrison Danneskjold

[Harrison Danneskjold]

On 1/29/2023 at 1:08 PM, Eiuol said:

Why is it wrong for 2 companies to seek a common goal about communication?

The number of companies involved is not the problem; the only reason I mentioned the number of companies involved was because you were mocking the very notion of collusion between big tech and big pharma.  I don't think that, in itself, is a problem at all.  The problem is the suppression of speech, regardless of the number of companies involved in that suppression.

 

On 1/29/2023 at 1:08 PM, Eiuol said:

You say it as if it's obviously wrong, but my whole point is that not only is it legally permissible, but should be morally desirable. 

It'll be very interesting to hear you attempt to justify that.

 

I've been thinking about how this applies to newspapers with clear editorial guidelines.  I think that's the steelman position in favor of controlled speech, isn't it?  If there was a newspaper which paid its contributors for their articles and only accepted articles from a clearly Marxist viewpoint, although its Marxism would be gross, it shouldn't be illegal.  And perhaps that is the best way to think of any Tweets from 2020 to 2022 - as excerpts from a dirty, collectivistic rag.  And if Twitter billed itself as just another dirty rag then I would actually have no problem with it (at least no more than I do with The Huffington Post, The Guardian or any other dirty rag).

HOWEVER:

On 1/29/2023 at 1:08 PM, Eiuol said:

When the product is people talking to people, I don't think Musk has a good handle on things.

Is the product "people talking to people"?

 

If that is the product then preventing certain people from talking to people depending on the ideas they hold is pretty fucked up on many different levels.  It's a bad business practice, in addition to being morally wrong and gross.

As much as I dislike the publisher-platform distinction this does seem to be the difference between when the product is a limited number of viewpoints from a select group of people and when the product is just "people talking to people".  Suppressing good ideas from the former is bad but suppressing any ideas from the latter is a whole new kind of bad.

 

And note that I'm talking about ideas, here (just as Twitter was); not the way in which those ideas are presented.  We're not talking about whether these ideas are outlined in a clear and concise way or whether it's just some jackass shouting incoherently into the void; we are specifically talking about the content of what's being said.  And that is specifically what makes this such a fucked up thing for Twitter to have done.

 

On 1/29/2023 at 1:08 PM, Eiuol said:

And it is also the responsibility of each individual to decide what healthy environments of communication will discourage or encourage a rational discussion. I can't have a rational discussion when everyone around me is poisoning the well. There are standards of rational discussion, or even discussion that isn't abusive or hostile.

Yes, it is each individual's responsibility to decide in which situations it's appropriate for him to attempt to share his ideas.  Totally.  But again, we're not talking about "hostility" or "abuse" (which would be the manner in which those ideas are expressed); we are specifically talking about the content of the ideas which are being expressed.

 

Do we suppress certain specific ideas on OO?  Do you think this forum (which is a place for "people talking to people") would be a better forum if we did that?

 

On 1/29/2023 at 1:08 PM, Eiuol said:

Except, the government wasn't. Twitter seems to have reacted to communication with the FBI in such a way that they, independent of the FBI, decided that certain voices were harmful or causing issues to the platform they wanted to have. 

The FBI investigates things, that's the point. They are going to talk to people, and sometimes, people respond to the information they infer from the FBI talking to them. It would be different if Twitter offered privacy information or violated property, but that doesn't seem to have happened.

Let's try out a little thought experiment.

 

Let's say that you were a moderator on OO and the FBI contacted you to say that there's probably going to be some Russian disinformation to the effect that Twitter is working together with Pfizer to suppress speech which cuts into Pfizer's bottom line.  Let's say that this made quite an impression on you (it's not every day the FBI contacts a guy to personally request his help in preventing international counterintelligence attempts!) and so, when you saw someone on OO declare that Twitter and Pfizer actually have been doing precisely that, you didn't respond "LMAO where's the evidence"; you simply deleted the post and made sure to delete any subsequent posts which attempted to suggest any such thing.

If we then learned that this was actually the truth all along, would you be completely responsible for suppressing the truth?  Maybe you'd bear some responsibility; sure.  But if it also became public knowledge that the FBI knew all along that they were feeding you some bullshit, would you still bear full responsibility for that suppression?

 

Let me ask you a simpler question.  Let's put that one aside and just think about something else for one second.

 

What kind of investigation requires the suppression of somebody else's speech?  In what way could that ever conceivably lead to the solution of any sort of mystery?

 

On 1/29/2023 at 1:08 PM, Eiuol said:

Building on that, when it comes to illegal actions or violations of rights, there should be no discussion on the right way to present that information, except to say everything is presented completely. If there are earth shattering revelations between Twitter and the FBI, there is no reason to throw breadcrumbs starting with circumstantial evidence. 

*sarcasm*

I don't know.  Who can say what sort of misinformation might have proliferated if all the details had been immediately made public on day one?  The resulting confusion probably could've hurt people.

*end sarcasm*

 

I mean, do you agree that it is morally wrong to attempt to decide which ideas aren't worth allowing some third party to even be exposed to?  If not then there's nothing much in the Twitter files and the manner in which they're being presented shouldn't really matter, because the files themselves do not matter.  If so then the manner in which they're being presented does matter - and so does every other thing I've mentioned thus far.

 

On 1/29/2023 at 1:08 PM, Eiuol said:

Public communication is not his strong suit.

That is unironically true.  Probably the only thing in that post which I agree with, but I'm 100% with you there.

[Eiuol]

16 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

The problem is the suppression of speech, regardless of the number of companies involved in that suppression.

What you call suppression I call sensible content moderation. 

17 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

If that is the product then preventing certain people from talking to people depending on the ideas they hold is pretty fucked up on many different levels.  It's a bad business practice, in addition to being morally wrong and gross.

Not really, that's how justice works. People do things. You judge them for it. Sometimes that judgment properly includes "these types of behaviors and beliefs are toxic, so I don't want those behaviors and beliefs in this community." I guess I'm saying that you might see this as bad business practice, but most evidence suggests that it's bad business practice to not bother with content moderation. That's all that's really going on, content moderation. And in fact, there are plenty of platforms that have utterly no content moderation if that's the way you want your social media.

23 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Do we suppress certain specific ideas on OO?  Do you think this forum (which is a place for "people talking to people") would be a better forum if we did that?

...we do. 

26 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

you didn't respond "LMAO where's the evidence"; you simply deleted the post and made sure to delete any subsequent posts which attempted to suggest any such thing.

Unsubstantiated claims like that usually should be deleted and this would be in the website policy. It would count as suppression if I knew that they figured out the truth, so then I decided to delete their posts. Depending on the way the post was written, I might even say it was promoting a toxic and irrational way of holding communication. 

32 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

What kind of investigation requires the suppression of somebody else's speech?  In what way could that ever conceivably lead to the solution of any sort of mystery?

Because the alleged suppression is separate from the investigation. Why might Twitter talk to the FBI? Investigation. Why might Twitter moderate content related to things that the FBI might care about? Because after talking to the FBI, they happen to be aware of what bad actors might exist out there that they didn't consider before. You can't rule out actual collusion, but you can't say that it did happen for sure either. Just because 2 events aligned doesn't mean that they had to be coordinated. 

39 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

do you agree that it is morally wrong to attempt to decide which ideas aren't worth allowing some third party to even be exposed to?

Yes, I agree, but only if the attempted justification is preventing other people from being exposed to the ideas. I'm fine with banning the promotion of certain ideas in private affairs not because I want to prevent exposure that will corrupt the minds of the pure and innocent, but that the people who promote these ideas have intentions that I think are harmful and toxic to a community.