"New" Atheism
I was confused yesterday by references to "New Atheism" in an essay I was reading, specifically that New Atheism is "thoroughly rejected by both Left and Right" and "is truly a dead letter in 2023". Oh really
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Like "there are microchips in the Covid-vaccinations, Bill Gates wants to control our minds!" - or believing the earth is flat and not a sphere (thanks to the internet and missing action against spreading such bullshit which is scientifically disproved for centuries now gets popular again, unfortunately...).
Okay, I know that there are a lot of people out there which saw the sudden fallout of censorship on the internet and social media platform critically because it enclosed nearly everything that didn't agree with what the governments around the world said about Covid (which was always also backed and motivated by what they were in favor of politically, and the industrial lobbies they represent).
This ran into the other version of "extreme".
But, on the other hand - look what would or did happen if one had not interfered here and there. People DID hand around the internet too much as being stranded at their homes, and they consumed all kinds of weird shit that called itself "news" or "truth about [...]". And this bullshit still is a source of why people are so hostile to each other.
Was it trying to do something against this stream of bullshit which raised this hostility within the people - or did the bullshit itself under the cover of "information" cause it?
Realistically - probably both.
But the latter is something that one clearly couldn't watch idly. Still cannot watch idly.
Because it's what destroys all accumulated knowledge of mankind by distorting and raising doubt in each and every thing. And since it's not secured that people receive any kind of proper basic education, they have no cognitive repertoire to recognize absolute bullshit and be able to differ it from stuff which really is "crique" and "doubt of dogmas".
It's something that clearly cannot be left alone, unless one wants to find themselves within a huge war of everybody against everybody over pure nonsense...
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"a huge war of everybody against everybody over pure nonsense"
This is what Twitter feels like to me LOL.
It sounds to me like you're defending Internet censorship because without it so much disinformation will flow that people will have no idea what to believe. Of course censorship can be used for different purposes, to save lives from stupid mistakes, or to block people from criticizing the Chinese Communist Party.
Growing up under the US Constitution my education taught me that free speech and free belief create a marketplace of ideas in which the truth eventually wins out. But that was before computer algorithms started tweaking social media feeds to promote "engagement", ultimately creating this huge war of everybody against everybody over pure nonsense.
I'm not sure how to regulate the Internet to find the right balance, but I'd start by turning off the algorithms in social media feeds. Let people follow who they want, and don't rearrange posts or insert suggested posts. At least that way people would be engaged in natural discovery and debate, not some sort of supercharged anger escalation subroutine. Then I'd make social media companies responsible for the stuff posted on their sites, so if people engage in fraud on their sites, or sell illegal goods, or give harmful "health advice", or defame others, the social media companies can be sued for damages.
Make the social media companies responsible actors instead of allowing them to bring out the worst in society.
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But since quality public education is not guaranteed and people can even refuse to receive it, so they cognitively don't become able enough on their own to recognize and distinguish bullshit from fact, I don't know what else you can do to protect them from themselves and their naive and gullible minds.
At least a thing which one could do - without having to do much that qualifies for conventional censorship - would be to try to force websites and platforms to end using background algorithms to keep people in certain content bubbles and encourage engagement just to be able to present more advertising to them (to make money) - or in order to produce data traffic on a platform artificially, so it appears vivid although there's not much going on there.
Even in business terms, this concept of making money is not undisputed.
And, as it seems, here or there mainwhile also come in a few court sentences or claims from larger political players (like the EU) which regard this business model as "immoral" or "dubious" at least because things take place during the course of this which they find too opaque - and, by that, potentially illegal.
For example, that's why there's a lot going on with the big platforms inventing a "paid membership" on their services.
As far as I know, this has a connection with the ad-based model to generate money being potentially regarded as illegal by a large legislation in their geographically important business areas in the future anytime - and, if they don't get their platforms financed in a different way than that until then, it might make some of them go broke from one to the other day. Even the large platforms.
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