NPR Promotes Internet Censorship Advocates

Yesterday's edition of All Things Considered featured an interview with representatives of several authoritarian groups with names like Data & Society Institute, Counter Extremism Project, and (most ironically) New Knowledge, all of whom want social media platforms to suppress "extreme" content. Of course, they want to decide for the rest of us what's "extreme." No one arguing the opposite case was given a platform, so I've submitted this comment:

In re: "Critics Say YouTube Hasn't Done Enough To Crack Down On Extremist Content": No, we are not comfortable with a paternalistic approach, and we shouldn't be. As John Stuart Mill explained a long time ago:

"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them... he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.” (On Liberty)

Social media platforms must justify their oligopoly by acting in the public interest, and that means not censoring content that is legal. What they can do is help keep us out of the "filter bubble" by showing us things we're likely to disagree, as well as agree, with on the subjects that interest us. This doesn't and shouldn't mean targeting any particular content; rather, it means using both people's "likes" and "dislikes" in the algorithm that decides what to show them next.

But we don't have to wait for the platforms to act. Any individual who wants to put in the time and energy can engage in their own freelance "cognitive infiltration" by finding people who may be getting dangerously "bubbled" and exposing them to contrary information.

Review: Two Souls of Socialism

Two Souls Of Socialism by Hal Draper

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is an interesting work in that it puts the idea of socialism in a much broader context than usual, tracing it back almost to the beginning of recorded history. It's thought-provoking to realize that some of the questions that have divided the modern socialist movement have much older antecedents.

My only complaint, as someone schooled in historical materialism, is that the contrast between socialism-from-above and socialism-from-below is almost too abstract; attempting a generalization across such a broad stretch of time seems to come at the expense of really situating the individual examples in their historical contexts.



View all my reviews

I Am Now on Gab

 I'll continue to also be on Facebook and Twitter for the foreseeable future.

https://www.gab.com/stripey7

Gene Editing, Food Insecurity, Voter Disenfranchisement, and More!

The new issue of One Step Away, Philadelphia's street paper, has articles on all these topics as well as contributions by several of the vendors, including my piece "'Identitarian Realism,'" previously published here. If you're in the area, please buy a copy from your favorite vendor and check it out!

Joke of the Month

Why is there no customer service on a ghost ship? Because it only has a skeleton crew.

#MeToo: Children Following the Bad Example Set by Adults

Children are now imitating the adults they see on TV in the destruction-by-accusation craze.

https://fundly.com/defense-fund-for-keith-bailey-1

 

Additional information about the case:

 

https://gazette.com/education/colorado-springs-area-eighth-grader-arrested-in-what-father-claims/article_e3fa3ec8-cc0e-11e8-bebe-67ec51720a6f.html

 

https://www.dangerous.com/49605/boy-13-arrested-cuffed-and-dragged-from-school-over-metoo-allegations/

 

 

We Only Have the White

Yesterday I asked someone serving me coffee for Splenda. She apologized, saying, "We only have the white." I resisted making a joke about the Jem'Hadar.

Disneyville

The other day I finished reading 2010: Odyssey 2. It suggested this commercial:

"David Bowman, you've just travelled thousands of times further from Earth than any human being before you and returned as a being of pure energy! What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to Disneyville!"

Being Heard About Abortion

Yesterday I got to participate in a "deliberative forum" co-sponsored by Temple and Carnegie Mellon Universities, to which I was invited by BeHeardPhilly.com. It was an exercise in listening and exchanging views on a controversial topic in a civil fashion based on the principles of conflict resolution, where the objective is primarily to understand others' perspective and not necessarily to come to agreement.

In this case the topic was the regulation of abortion clinics. Since it soon became apparent that all the participants at my table were pro-choice but also saw it as desirable to minimize the number of people who feel compelled to choose abortion, much of the discussion focused on ways to provide alternatives to abortion and to prevent unwanted pregnancies. This gave me the opportunity to advocate for single-payer health insurance as well as a constitutional amendment to turn all large companies into public enterprises which any citizen could join at will -- both measures that would reduce financial motives for choosing abortion.

The question my table put to the panelists -- "What are the most effective methods of social influence for persuading morally conservative people to refrain from trying to impose their morality on others through law?" -- unfortunately didn't get a good answer because none of the panelists was a psychologist or behavioral scientist. But I wrote the title of my recent blog post where I attempted a partial answer to this question on the back of a card with this blog's address on it and gave it to the two panelists who'd attempted a response, as well as a couple of the people at my table.

On the whole it was a rewarding experience. I'd encourage others in this area to sign up with BeHeardPhilly.

Breaking the Silence Comes to Penn

Flyers posted around Penn's campus announce that a talk on "Breaking the Silence: An Israeli Soldier on the Israeli Occupation" will be given 4pm Monday, 8 October, at the Perry World House Global Policy Lab (3803 Locust Walk), by a member of that group, which consists of Israeli soldiers speaking out about the realities of the occupation.

Strangely, I can't find anything about this event on PWH's website; perhaps they're trying to avoid interference from Zionist trolls. But here's an article about Breaking the Silence:

http://aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2010/February/14%20o/Breaking%20the%20Silence%20Women%20Israeli%20Occupation%20Soldiers%20Speak%20Out%20By%20Stephen%20Lendman.htm 

And here's the group's Website: https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/

 

Exciting Discussions at Mythcon V

https://quillette.com/2018/09/24/amidst-the-youtube-junkies-of-mythcon-i-witnessed-a-new-kind-of-radical-centrism

This sounds like a fascinating meeting and I wish I could have been there. My only quibble with the article would be that, while perhaps the label "centrist" fits most of those who attended, it's perfectly possible to be far from the political center and still be for liberal intellectual values and against ideological tribalism. That is my own position as a libertarian Marxist and I know I'm not alone in it.

A New Surge of Support for My Petition to Amnesty!

In just the past few days we've got 12 new signatures, bringing the total to 34. Thanks to everyone who's making this happen, and please keep it up!

When we reach the 100 milestone, that would be a good time to bring it to Amnesty's attention. Let's get them back to the concept of universal human rights, not gender ideology!

https://www.change.org/p/amnesty-international-usa-end-or-reform-amnesty-international-s-sexist-troll-patrol-program

When Confronting Media Illiteracy, It's Important Not to Replace It with Indoctrination

The July/August issue of The Pennsylvania Gazette contains an article about Penn alumna Erin McNeill's advocacy group Media Literacy Now. Properly construed, media literacy is an important issue, but I see reason to doubt whether her group's approach to it is truly evidence-based and free of ideology. I've submitted this letter to the Gazette:

Erin McNeill says, "Media literacy is about understanding the messages that we see and consume." But who decides what those messages actually are?

A repeated point of contention for several decades has been disagreement about what ideas various media -- from comic books, to sexually suggestive ads, to pornography, to video games and now comics again -- actually are conveying to their consumers.

In the 1950s, for instance, Fredric Wertham promoted a threat narrative about comic books which led to congressional hearings but is now largely discredited. Similarly, in the '80s one-sided hearings were held to promote a threat narrative about pornography which has little basis in science.

It troubles me that McNeill combines uncontroversial points like teaching young children about the decision-making structures and commercial interests behind what they see on television, with talk about identifying "bias, sexism, and racism in media," as if the question of what sorts of media content are actually promoting these and other kinds of bias were not, in fact, hotly disputed to this day.

Instead of a special subject of "media literacy" into which educators could inject their own ideological biases, it would be better simply to make the skills of critical thinking itself a core, ongoing part of the curriculum.

McCarthyite Scare Campaign Attacks Alternative Media

Mainstream media are attacking their competitor YouTube by pushing a McCarthyite report on "alternative influencers" that implies letting people hear a variety of ideas and interact with their presenters "radicalizes" them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHaN1DS0KWU&feature=share

PGN Perpetuates Negative Nerd Stereotypes

This week's edition of the Philadelphia Gay News carries an editorial cartoon continuing the false stereotypes of nerds, and gamers in particular, as being misogynistic. I've submitted this letter to the editor:

I'm disgusted by the false stereotype of nerds in this week's editorial cartoon.

"Those nerds might appreciate a girl -- any girl -- joining their class!" Oh, really? In fact there are lots of women and girls in gaming and other parts of nerd culture.

Here's a video of three women actively involved in speaking out against being "invisibilized" by the false stereotype that all gamers are cishet white guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtzrUsi6Y1s&t=1s

And here are thirty more gamers who don't fit that stereotype -- 22 of them women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzwGIHUCtjU&t=2s

For ongoing coverage and discussion of nerd culture anchored by three women, check out this website/podcast: www.honeybadgerbrigade.com.

If any girls are discouraged from getting involved with nerd culture, it's usually not the boy nerds who are doing it. It's all the people outside of the culture who perpetuate the false stereotype. PGN shouldn't be part of that.

P.S. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that it's inherently derogatory to suggest that only members of a particular demographic group are interested in a particular kind of hobby. The only problem with that is its potential to discourage members of other groups to pursue the same interests. What was inherently derogatory was in the following panel, where it was implied that male nerds had been uniformly opposed to a female Doctor Who and that the reason for this was misogyny. There actually was no such uniform opposition, while it's not hard to think other possible reasons for such opposition as there was. For one thing, inasmuch as the Doctor is supposed to have continuity of personality from one incarnation to the next, doesn't regeneration as a woman pose the potential for gender dysphoria? (We see the reverse of this process depicted in Dreadnought, a novel about a transgender superhero who's finally freed of gender dysphoria when the cape she inherits gives her a perfect body, including one of the right sex for the first time.)

I just called Senator Hirono's office to express my outrage that someone sworn to uphold the US Constitution has, in just a few sentences, attacked both the freedom of speech and the presumption of innocence, as well as promoting the false stereotype that men and only men are responsible for sexual violence, something for which women actually show a comparable propensity (see attachment). SAVE's message about this, slightly edited, is below.

Hello Eric,

Most Americans believe free speech and the presumption of innocence are cornerstones of democracy. But not Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawii.

In a recent interview about the sexual misconduct allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, Hirono remarked,

"Not only do women, like Dr. Ford, who bravely comes forward, need to be heard, but they need to be believed. Guess who's perpetuating all of these kinds of actions? It's the men in this country. And I just want to say to the men in this country, 'Just shut up and step up. Do the right thing for a change.'"

Are we going to acquiesce to Hirono's call to end free speech and the presumption of innocence? If not, please call her office now: (202) 224-6361.

Sincerely,

The SAVE Team

New Visions, Old Acquaintance

I spent a few hours last week at Elwyn Institute, where my friend Rey Williams, who's developmentally disabled, had invited me to the New Visions program's Annual Recognition and Awards Ceremony. He was one of those who received a certificate.

An interesting part of the experience was seeing again the director of the program, Sharon Amill (nee Potts), for the first time since we'd attended many of the same classes from the fourth through the eighth grade at H. C. Lea School.

AE-35

The first science fiction I ever read was 2001: A Space Odyssey, when I was ten. This morning I just finished re-reading it.

While, unsurprisingly, I got more of the symbolism this time, I'm a bit puzzled by the blurbs describing the story itself as an allegory. But I did just get an idea while reading this article about the AE-35 unit: https://www.shmoop.com/2001-a-space-odyssey/AE-35-unit-symbol.html

It says, "The most human part of the ship, then, is in some sense this little gadget." And this reminds me of something I heard a few years ago at a filk circle. There was a song called "Lab 35," and it was an allegory about the creation of humanity by God. It was explained to me that the title refers to the fact that the Hebrew numerals for 35 also form the word meaning "human." Perhaps the designation Clarke gave this unit wasn't random.

I think the image below was the cover of the copy I read when I was ten, or something very much like it.

"Identitarian Realism"

It struck me today that the ongoing campaign of "left" identitarian authoritarians (sometimes called "social justice warriors" or SJWs) to infiltrate and take over various geek subcultures and then try to drive out anyone who doesn't conform to their agenda, is analogous to the "socialist realist" school promoted as the only valid form of art and literature in Stalinist Russia.

Socialist realism insisted that art had to portray class struggle along the lines of a simplistic, vulgarized kind of Marxism. While this was ostensibly supposed to advance the interests of the workers, its real function was to allow the Stalinist bureaucracy to maintain an iron grip on thought within the USSR and prevent the appearance of any independent working-class politics.

Similarly, SJWdom is ostensibly about advancing the interests of various "marginalized" groups as defined by postmodernism-inspired identity politics, but its actual function is to help a section of the Western intelligentsia maintain its grip on a section of the academy and to further extend it by taking over one area after another. This campaign isn't limited to geek subcultures, but a lot of the effort has gone there first, probably because these are seen as smaller and easier targets than some other aspects of society.

It should be noted that there's an intellectual confusion, promoted by the Right, that tries to conflate this sort of identity politics with Marxism, often by calling it "cultural Marxism." This is quite inaccurate, since IDpol is neither class-centered nor, in the last analysis, even materialist -- both essential features of Marxism. To be sure, identitarians will occasionally reference class -- usually as part of the stock phrase "race, class, and gender." But it's interesting that, of all the categories of "marginality," this is the one that they most often omit to mention -- probably because the working class is the only such group to which none of the core SJWs belong, a fact to which it wouldn't serve their interest (or self-image) to draw attention.

The implicit rationale for calling IDpol "Marxist" would seem to be nothing more than its totalistic character -- combined with a false of equation of Stalinism to Marxism -- but by that reasoning one might just as well call Christian fundamentalist politics "Marxist," which would be manifestly ridiculous.

In fact, as others have argued, postmodernism and its political offshoots are better seen as a stratagem whereby capital, expressing itself through corporatized universities, has seduced many intellectuals who like to see themselves as radical to abandon any effective kind of radicalism by replacing the materialist focus on class, and the concrete institutions that maintain class, with a semantics-obsessed preoccupation with the abstraction of "marginality." This leads to a politics that is more interested in symbolism than substance and, to the extent it has a practical effect, is about advancing a layer of "marginal" people within the structures of the academy and other institutions. Or, as Chris Hedges has put it, "It was always about patronage, not revolution."

Far from undermining capitalism, this performs the function of reinvigorating it by co-opting "the best and brightest" from various demographic groups, giving them a stake in the present system, while splintering the working class.

P.S. On Twitter, where I've posted a link to this piece, Hannah Wallen (@oneiorosgrip) suggests the focus on geek subcultures is because this is where the most creative activity occurs, and totalitarians can't allow creativity.

Troubling Anomalies in the Honey Badgers Case

Disturbing anomalies in Alison Tieman's case against Calgary Expo and The Mary Sue: after the pretrial settlement conference but before the trial  itself, a Justice of the Alberta Supreme Court stepped in and tried to pressure her to settle, in the process making aspersions about her motivations, calling her "stubborn," etc. And now, weeks out from the judgement against her, the court still hasn't published it nor sent her the copy she ordered. (Very long interview.)

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DWc6kTWeo1k#

Today I saw someone in a T-shirt bearing the image of a "Toynbee tile" -- a very inside way of saying, I'm from Philly.

Twenty Have Now Signed!

There are now 20 signatures on my petition calling on Amnesty USA to "mend or end" its sexist "Troll Patrol" program, which departs from their founding commitment to the ideal of universal human rights by treating only online harassment of women as being of any consequence, even though harassment of men is more common.

Please let your friends know about the growing support for this effort. Thank you!

https://www.change.org/p/amnesty-international-usa-end-or-reform-amnesty-international-s-sexist-troll-patrol-program

Alison Tieman recently posted this picture of her relaxing with her husband Jonathan. Jonathan's a photographer. We chatted at length at the after party for the Red Pill world premiere. A cool guy. (And one of the luckiest on Earth, as I told him.)

NPR: To Raise Confident, Independent Kids, Some Parents Are Trying To "Let Grow"

From age eight if not earlier, I walked several blocks to and from school every day by myself. This was normal at the time and nothing untoward ever happened.

It's been calculated that if you wanted your child to be abducted you'd have, on average, to leave them alone on the street for 750,000 years (as cited by Steven Pinker in his book _The Better Angels of Our Nature_).

On one occasion when I was ten, a man offered to give me a ride in his car. My mother had told me not to talk to strangers because they might want to abduct me. Knowing how to parse logic, I ignored the part about not talking to him and simply declined the ride. I never saw him again.

This research also supports the understanding that overprotective parenting is bad for kids: https://www.anxiety.org/protective-parenting-anxiety-children

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/03/641256596/to-raise-confident-independent-kids-some-parents-are-trying-to-let-grow?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social

Let Real Equality, Not Totalism, Bloom

The excellent online magazine Areo just published this piece by Race Hochdorf, showing how Allan Bloom foresaw the present alarming trend on the "Left" toward sexual totalism: https://areomagazine.com/2018/08/31/eros-an-obituary/

I comment on the article page about the pseudo-physics silliness in one of the passages quoted from Bloom, which annoys me as someone who didn't just take physics in college, but also idolized Albert Einstein from age nine, when I read Lincoln Barnett's The Universe and Dr. Einstein and became acquainted with the serious use of phrases like "action at a distance."

But that's a personal quibble. More importantly, I want to comment on Bloom's use of the phrase "radical egalitarianism," which Bloom defines as "one that seeks utopia through sameness." I think it's more appropriate to call this "totalistic egalitarianism" or "egalitarian totalism," for two reasons.

One is that it's mistaken to equate radicalism with totalism. A radical approach is one that goes to the root of an issue, instead of only dealing with it on a surface level. Radical egalitarianism, in the socialist sense, is indeed different from the liberal sort, because it isn't satisfied with merely formal equality. It insists that there isn't real, substantive equality unless there's real equality of opportunity, and that doesn't exist as long as society is divided into classes, i.e., as long as the people who do the work of society aren't the same as the people who own and control the wealth and the productive process. The point of this substantive equality isn't to erase individual difference, but to allow it to be expressed freely, no longer deterred by fear of material want resulting should one's difference prove unpopular.

The other reason is that the totalism of which Bloom warns is only "egalitarian" in a very superficial sense. Seeking "utopia through sameness" presupposes that someone has decided in what particular way everyone will be the same -- and that everyone else hasn't. Hence, in the context of sexual totalism, it leads to "the demand to end [alleged] patriarchy by creating a paternalistic government tasked with looking after women, who, bless their hearts, are incapable of looking after themselves."

But even if the present sexual totalism were not gender-biased in the way that it is -- infantilizing women while demonizing men -- it would still not really be egalitarian, because it fails to distinguish substantive from formal inequality in the opposite direction. It refuses to acknowledge that people can play with formal inequality from a position of material equality and therefore real freedom, which is entirely different form sexual coercion. Thus, in fact, it violates true equality by denying the erotic submissive or dominant the same right to fulfillment that others enjoy.