Social media and Purity Spirals

Harms Harms to society
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Thanks for the thoughtful reply and insight. Sorry that I was trying to get you riled up, but it makes for better discussion in my opinion when people argue a bit.

The surprise that I have been holding out is that the super progressive country France does not look at things like so-called-“race”, religion and ethnic origin. And yet as you may have heard, they do a thorough job in helping the poor, just by looking at things like family situation, income and so on. So maybe you thought I was some kind of reactionary or someone with a strange unique view, when in fact I am just echoing the views of France, one of the most progressive and advanced nations on Earth.

In my opinion, the English speaking rich world is wacky and in outer space when it comes to the silly way they treat minority groups. Again, how strange it is to divide the human race into so called sub-“races” based on things like appearance or who their relatives were 10 or more generations ago. Even 2 generations is too much! And how stupid it is in my opinion, to separate people when the goal is to bring people together and treat all like equals.

I also see what you are saying about racism. Now I understand that you mean that in recent times there is a great deal of racism in Australia. Yes in France and the US too. So logically yes it makes sense to try to undo racism via the reverse racism methods that you seem to prefer. I also have the same goals, but I believe that we can get better results by firstly seeing all people as equals and teaching that. That is something that is just poorly taught.

I believe that most minorities do not want to be seen as being different, they just want to se seen as people. It might be annoying to continually be classified and stereotyped, even if people are being sympathetic. Some people get a kick out of being special, but most I feel just want to be treated as a normal human.

Also I don’t think I was trying to tell you how you feel, just more like do not worry about it because it seems less than healthy. I was trying to say that you create your own feelings and thoughts, and that the society should not react based on just how you feel, to these kinds of inner grievances. All people have issues of every sort. Nobody is spared of suffering, fear and then we all even die ourselves, and we all have our joys and pleasures too. All of our feeling are important some degree, especially to ourselves, yet feelings are literally just illusions in our head. We may not be able to control all of our feelings, but we can try.

Our stories are not special, they are just part of normal human existence. They are just stories, just history, and I could have the same feelings watching a film about a total stranger or reading it in a history book. Just because I know the people in the stories, does not mean I should discriminate against all other people who I do not know by only feeling for my own relatives, my own city, my own ethnicity or country.

Because that is actually discrimination, if we define discrimination as the process where we feel and care for those related to us over those who are not related to us. Is that not the definition of discrimination, the thing we should all be taught not to do? Especially if we actually believe in true equality?

The big issue is that even the progressive parts of society do not believe in true equality, in fact it actually seems the political extremes including progressives often believe less in true human equality than moderates. I believe in true equality, that all people should have full rights to live and work literally anywhere, and the same access to benefits. I would gladly give up any advantage I may or may not have to make the world equal. And full equality and openness would make the world much stronger and richer too according to research. We are getting there at a moderate pace as it is, with remote working being the most recent step in a process that is accelerated by technology.

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Also regarding your comment about disability and autism, it’s a good illustration why people should not need to be called their preferred label. The big issue is #1 do not discriminate and #2 do not be hateful. You have just pointed out that different disabled and autistic people each seem to have different preferences of what they would prefer to be called. I am hoping most of the sane ones don’t care, but that may be my wishful thinking.

I wanted to point out also how you said autistic people “collectively” decided on something, but then think about that maybe 1 in 1000 autistic people belong to an advocacy group, and those that belong to that advocacy group probably have a very different average viewpoint than the average autistic person. They is a strong difference, these are the politically motivated ones, the activists and do not represent all autistic people. In fact that is the same issue with minority groups, feminist groups, white person groups, religious groups, ethnic groups (me), etc where some politically radical core goes on to represent everyone, and then the politically moderate majority is forced to conform to their purity spirals of nonsense and oppression.

Here is an interesting story where many minority studies academic publications were exposed for having seemingly nonexistent scientific standards, open to promoting oppression, and also were interested in promoting radical views.

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I am not interested in rank or promoting any kinds of differences, I am interested in equality,

I think discrimination is more of an effect rather than a cause of differing outcomes as is widely seen. Those differences are deep rooted in the history and culture of groups, not due to genetics but rather due to passed-down culture. The root of the culture may be through oppression such as slavery, segregation, unequal rights and discrimination which persists to the present. But looking deeper, the issue is historical very unequal development, in different geographies of the world. And this unequal development is a problems which exists today, between countries, between regions, and also inside countries and even inside cities. The only “right” way in my mind, is to equalize development and access for all people on earth. I think a another critical part of the solution is to naturally break up groups, for people to mix. If we help the poor and start thinking as equals, then minorities on average will have better outcomes, and then there will be no longer any need for people to discriminate against them.

Regarding me not being aware of funding based on what you call “race” (whatever that is supposed to mean), yes I am aware and have mentioned it. That is why I have been saying it should be primarily done by people’s individual situations instead of so-called-“race”, and by geography. However I would support looking at “race” if we apply this to a geographic area rather than to individuals. Also the fact of the matter is that “race”-based funding and affirmative action goes primarily to rich minorities (for example 70% of minorities in Harvard are rich). That in itself is better than not helping minorities at all, however I believe that like always the system leaves out the poor and middle, and works for the rich.

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A few observations if I may.

These “purity spirals” have less to do with the format of online discussions and more to do with individuals who, despite missing a few screws themselves, launch self-righteous crusades against anyone who disagrees with them. They are often called “vulnerable narcissists,” “victim players,” etc.

Occupy Wall Street is a famous example outside of social media.

“We weren’t talking about real things at that point,” says Pete Dutro, a tattoo artist who used to manage Occupy’s finances but became disillusioned by the infighting and walked away months ago. “We were talking about each other.”

The best way you handle it is by having civility standards in discussions.

You can have a personal civility standards where if you see that a person is starting to insult and provoke you in a conversation, then you just say “I don’t like where this is going,” and end the discussion abruptly.

If you are moderator of a forum then you can do a “three strikes” rule followed by a temporary ban.

On the topic of HN, they have a well-enforced civility policy. This prevents harassment in the comments, which is the primary driver of the purity spiral. The problem they have is that high-karma users have started flagging any post that doesn’t support their chosen narrative on certain topics. This creates a filter bubble and is frustrating to the people who come to HN to challenge their ideas and expand their knowledge. So, the purity spiral is still active, but taking a more discreet and slower form. Eventually, either those high-karma users will stop controlling the front page via flagging, or all the other people who challenge them will leave.

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I don’t think either birdie or myself insulted each other. We simply are having a good and productive discussion. I think that you seem to be implying that we are not being civil, and well your comment could by those standards be seen as being insulting too. However I do not see it as such, because I understand that if we go that path then your opinion too could be repressed.

The kinds of things you suggest would not allow for discussion to occur. If so-called civility standards are introduced, there is a good chance that they will go too far and end up being censorship where nothing which could be considered offensive is accepted. Yet we must allow offensive things and attacks on ideas, otherwise there is no real discussion, only less productive conformity where people reinforce their existing views. Civility standards already exist here in this forum in fact, but if they become more strict they become a system of propaganda and thought control.

I agree with what you say about “victim playing”, I think that my argument about treating people as true equals and not discriminating or classifying people is a kind of opposite to “victim playing”. I have seen the victim playing thing go to the extreme in the rich English-speaking world, where it justifies not only open anti-inclusive discrimination against perceived majority individuals and groups, and also senseless verbal attacks on them. And that is somehow considered not only acceptable but sometimes desired, literally institutionalizing oppression and discrimination, and disrupting our path toward equality.

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I think that you seem to be implying that we are not being civil

I wasn’t talking about anything happening in this thread. Sorry if I gave that impression! :smile: I was just replying to the article posted.

Civility standards already exist here in this forum in fact, but if they become more strict they become a system of propaganda and thought control.

Yes, I am not arguing for a strict standard. Just having a standard at all is enough.

Civility means you are able to exchange ideas without insulting the other person. For some people, insults and name-calling are the only argument they have. Take that away from them and they have nothing else to say. Again, I am not referring to anyone here.

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Yes, this very much is caused by the people independent from where they interact, but their convictions and beliefs then create a group dynamic that reinforces the ‘purist’ behavior which is then driven to become more extreme. On a small to medium-size forum with good moderators it is relatively easy to break these spirals before they become really detrimental to the community. But on the large platforms they are hard to keep in check, and there are also communities where the moderators are part of the spiral themselves, and then start to act elsewhere on the web.

On the fediverse you see these dynamics too sometimes. Here there are 1,000’s of servers - each with their own rules - connected together (there are good moderation tools, see Decentralized social networks vs. The trolls video). There are some extreme activist groups that attack free software projects where not all tools used are also free software themself. I.e. the purity must be absolute. They even go this far that when you boost (i.e. retweet) posts about these projects, they’ll come on your thread to say stuff like “Did you know that this project you just promoted [wasn’t pure to our standards]?”. Then if you do not amend, in their eyes you committed a cardinal sin. There also have been blocklists of people that should be canceled.

A perfect example of FOSS attacking FOSS, an infighting that weakens the cause of free software rather than strengthen it. Luckily these folks are shunned within the community, and eventually the spiral dies out, or is moved to the fringes by collective fediverse moderation.

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