I do agree that any ban is of limited future utility if kids go from a safe kiddie pool into deep waters that are lethal for a majority of the population.
Still, dismissing a ban is throwing the baby out with the bath water. (I couldn't help myself with the water analogies. Sorry)
Free speech is the cornerstone of our ability to debate and understand the shape of reality. It remains the best way forward. The issue is that the modern attacks on the market place of ideas are designed to circumvent our intuitions and safeguards.
Today control is achieved by overwhelming the network and users. An Abundance of privately generated content instead of central regulation and restriction of content.
However the threat is the same- reducing the ability for humans to engage in fair debate.
If you want a better environment for kids to be able to transition to, we need to triage.
1) Ensure an even playing field. This means regulation, which by nature will be censorial, as well as the creation of independently funded news and information bodies.
2) Transparency and Data from tech firms. When we find out a substance is harmful, and have the data to prove it, we make rules to mitigate those harms.
3) Valuing informational health and hygene. Junk food used to be dominant globally, and today we joke about avocado toast and the latest health food fad. People shifted consumption habits when costs and benefits were made clear.
I mean, yeah you can have the joy of being right from the heights of the hill you are standing upon. But It seems like you grasp the heart of problem being discussed.
How do we deal with the floods threatening those living in the valleys and slopes?
Having moderated both PHP forums and SM sites, quantity is its own quality.
Not to mention we have adversaries to contend with now. I still remember seeing Palantir slides for sock puppet management tools way back in the day. That was the SOTA at one point. Today?
SM pushed connected humanity past a critical connected mass that Usenet and IRC never could.
If you are alluding the Holmes’ judgement, he spoke not simply about free speech, but about actions in service to a market place of ideas.
His argument was in defense of the process to uncover truth.
Given that Fox has clearly said they cannot be taken seriously, and that they were from inception created to muddy the waters and wage war for political gain, they are an enemy to the process that was envisioned back in that era.
If someone is demonstrably selling false goods, and multiple sources have evidenced this, as has a court of law, should that all be dismissed because every single individual in America has not taken the time to look at the evidence?
At some point you abdicate roles and responsibilities to others, so that they can do the job of ensuring that a fair debate takes place.
Oh the Murdoch Empire is a more than deft hand at escaping any meaningful comeuppance. As I recall, in a court case brought against them by Prince Harry, they just folded and accepted they were guilty.
I believe that admission was because ending the trial and eating the judgement, was less damaging than allowing the light of discovery and trial ingress into their workings.
Its an interesting point you end up raising - does it still count as a strategy even if you are doing something patently impossible given the knowledge and intelligence at your disposal?
If someone decided to come up with a strategy to do something fanciful, like find the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow to solve their debt problems, would it really be worthy enough to be called a strategy?
If we take the absolutely narrow scope of just Tariffs - Elementary economics, and history from far and wide. We know exactly what tariffs achieve and fail to achieve. It’s the stuff of 101 Econ classes.
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