Do we have science to support that internet in its current state is safe? What do we need to understand it? Is it even in the realm of feasibility?
There is a lot of media articles about the dangers of social media. Are all of them pseudoscience lies then? If these sorts of posts encourage hysteria about online content, isn't that the same as causing harm?
Maybe the act has loopholes to allow for some US Great Wall analogue (that seems to be what the article implies). What are those? Can it be reformed to ensure safety without creating a curtain of censorship?
So many interesting, relevant, questions to make.
bigyabai•8mo ago
The internet cannot be made safe. For as long as you consider information a hazard to it's users, the internet will enable people to freely spread ideas harmful or intelligent. This happens today, it happened in the past, and it will continue into the future barring some radical redesign of the internet's protocols.
Legislature like this puts the tiny side-effects first ("think of the kids!") while conveniently neglecting to acknowledge the ways it stifles democratic process and individual rights. If a similar law was passed regulating libraries this way, voters would universally agree that it's a pants-on-head stupid decision.
alganet•8mo ago
So, it's unfeasible to either prove or disprove its safety.
Claiming there is no scientific basis then is doubly irrelevant, in addition to laws often not requiring scientific studies to be passed. It sounds like it's trying to fool people, specially "science defenders". I think it's dishonest, and people will notice.
"Think of the kids" is used by a lot of media articles hammering the "big tech is bad" anvil. It poses a contradiction. They're trying to justify it by saying it will harm only small businesses ("think of the poor small businesses!"). However, there is the contradiction of the same media articles having had created the very same hysteria that pushes people to support the act. It is not helping to sell why one would vote against it.
I said it bluntly: it opens a loophole for US Great Firewall. That argument will sell to both the right and the left, and it will be untouchable. It is also rooted in truth.
I also provided solid questions that, if made in opposition to the act, will stop it. But there needs to be a stop to the sensationalist media too (everybody wins, media conglomerates lose a very small, already known to be ineffective tabloid thematic).
I am trying to help the poorly written article to be better written.
bigyabai•8mo ago
> it's unfeasible to either prove or disprove its safety.
Upload the designs of a Teller-Ulam device right now, and phone me from jail once you're finished. I am very willing to prove it, if you have sufficiently disruptive information to test with.
alganet•8mo ago
I am glad we agree on the unfeasibility of the issue.
Now, catch up on the remaining of the argument. You only touched my first paragraph. I expected more.
mdp2021•8mo ago
Cars are not safe. We benefit from them. Encyclopedias are not safe: you can bang people on the head with them. Tools are not safe.
Solutions must be "intelligent" and radical: acting on the real causes, not the indirect ones.
alganet•8mo ago
What is your solution? If you're just gonna interject, I don't need your comment.
mdp2021•8mo ago
> What is your solution
As always, education.
> If you're just gonna interject
You are made to note that discussing whether "X is harmful" is a wrong target, and requested to sharpen the focus. Everything can be harmful - water can be harmful. Teaching people how to drink is closest to the proper point. Should resources be available? Yes. Should they be used responsibly? Also yes. Whose burden is it? Societies'.
Good common sense is as always the criteria drawer. One cannot be responsible for leaving a screwdriver around because there are fools around who use them to stab.
alganet•8mo ago
Most of my argument is not about safety. My only mention of it is in _rethorical questions_ that expose the issue of feasibility, which you tried to bring it as a novelty without noticing I already made that point.
Go back, read again. When you address the remaining of my comment, I will be ready to talk about your education solution.
mdp2021•8mo ago
And I will reply again with the "drawer of commonsense rules".
No you cannot create a """safe""" world where everyone lives in a virtual woumb, but you are to fight individual abuses, through legislation against abuses ("gratuitous violence") - and not through ad hoc legiferation ("when walking on stone sidewalks in spring").
alganet•8mo ago
[flagged]
tomhow•8mo ago
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
I always thought kids safety was one of the four horsemen of the internet apocalypse, as in the internet would be destroyed by political actors in the name of "think of the children". I tried to confirm or refute that, but the internet has unfortunately already been destroyed by AI and I can't reliably look anything up anymore.
alganet•8mo ago
Do we have science to support that internet in its current state is safe? What do we need to understand it? Is it even in the realm of feasibility?
There is a lot of media articles about the dangers of social media. Are all of them pseudoscience lies then? If these sorts of posts encourage hysteria about online content, isn't that the same as causing harm?
Maybe the act has loopholes to allow for some US Great Wall analogue (that seems to be what the article implies). What are those? Can it be reformed to ensure safety without creating a curtain of censorship?
So many interesting, relevant, questions to make.
bigyabai•8mo ago
Legislature like this puts the tiny side-effects first ("think of the kids!") while conveniently neglecting to acknowledge the ways it stifles democratic process and individual rights. If a similar law was passed regulating libraries this way, voters would universally agree that it's a pants-on-head stupid decision.
alganet•8mo ago
Claiming there is no scientific basis then is doubly irrelevant, in addition to laws often not requiring scientific studies to be passed. It sounds like it's trying to fool people, specially "science defenders". I think it's dishonest, and people will notice.
"Think of the kids" is used by a lot of media articles hammering the "big tech is bad" anvil. It poses a contradiction. They're trying to justify it by saying it will harm only small businesses ("think of the poor small businesses!"). However, there is the contradiction of the same media articles having had created the very same hysteria that pushes people to support the act. It is not helping to sell why one would vote against it.
I said it bluntly: it opens a loophole for US Great Firewall. That argument will sell to both the right and the left, and it will be untouchable. It is also rooted in truth.
I also provided solid questions that, if made in opposition to the act, will stop it. But there needs to be a stop to the sensationalist media too (everybody wins, media conglomerates lose a very small, already known to be ineffective tabloid thematic).
I am trying to help the poorly written article to be better written.
bigyabai•8mo ago
Upload the designs of a Teller-Ulam device right now, and phone me from jail once you're finished. I am very willing to prove it, if you have sufficiently disruptive information to test with.
alganet•8mo ago
Now, catch up on the remaining of the argument. You only touched my first paragraph. I expected more.
mdp2021•8mo ago
Solutions must be "intelligent" and radical: acting on the real causes, not the indirect ones.
alganet•8mo ago
mdp2021•8mo ago
As always, education.
> If you're just gonna interject
You are made to note that discussing whether "X is harmful" is a wrong target, and requested to sharpen the focus. Everything can be harmful - water can be harmful. Teaching people how to drink is closest to the proper point. Should resources be available? Yes. Should they be used responsibly? Also yes. Whose burden is it? Societies'.
Good common sense is as always the criteria drawer. One cannot be responsible for leaving a screwdriver around because there are fools around who use them to stab.
alganet•8mo ago
Go back, read again. When you address the remaining of my comment, I will be ready to talk about your education solution.
mdp2021•8mo ago
No you cannot create a """safe""" world where everyone lives in a virtual woumb, but you are to fight individual abuses, through legislation against abuses ("gratuitous violence") - and not through ad hoc legiferation ("when walking on stone sidewalks in spring").
alganet•8mo ago
tomhow•8mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html