Clement Tahershamsi @Clementulus@social.cleverlibre.org

@protecttruth @joshtpm I hear you! I have heard of some great Twitter alternatives that people set up because of Musk's fascist tendencies to shadowban anyone he doesnt agree with, I'm pretty sure they are called Parler and Truth Social. They have been around for a couple years.

@andrewstroehlein I think I speak for just about everyone who is not a despot when I say that we wish human rights were upheld everywhere in the world. The real conundrum is how to force despots to recognize human rights without getting involved in catastrophic conflicts. Sanctions are the only real non-military intervention; but just look at North Korea where their local madman allows his people to go through the closest thing to hell on earth just to hold onto his power. War does not seem to be a very good solution, so what is? I genuinely wish I knew.

@msprout @dragfyre Certainly there are a variety of ways to reduce the number of guns in circulation; but it's hard to overstate how many more guns there are in the States than in any other country at any point in history. Plus economic insentives will never trump people's desire to feel safe; which many people tie to their gun ownership.

@notfunnyelle@mstdn.social In Canada we already got house hippos. Take a look at this documentary.

https://youtu.be/TijcoS8qHIE

@msprout @dragfyre If you want my opinion; civilian disarmament in the states will need to be voluntary by necessity. There are just so many unregistered firearms and so many people who would hide their guns from the government, that even if they somehow chose to forcefully disarm people, so many would remain in circulation that it might not even make a difference. Plus you would have a ton of people actively refuse to disarm so you would have the Wacko situation all over the place.

@msprout @dragfyre While I agree that engaging in martial conflict almost always produces more suffering than it cures, calling a wise military policy pacifistic may cause confusion since the general definition is an absolutist position against involving yourself in armed conflicts at all, regardless of the balance of suffering.

@msprout @dragfyre Being explicitly pacifist means also not getting involved in conflicts where one side is being unjustly destroyed by another. During the Rawandan genocide the United Nations peacekeeping force (a military intervention) helped save thousands of lives and if the world had been a bit more forthcoming in delvering more troops they may have prevented almost the whole thing. I strongly recommed reading Romeo Dallaire's book on his time with that mission. (Shake hands with the devil).

@amyhoy . You are talking about AI as if it is meant to be an equivalent to the human brain, but people in the field know it refers to programs that are self refining (machine learning) in order to make decisions within a limited window, such as being able to make the optimal moves in a game of chess. It's that most people think of sci-fi self aware computers which is not close to what we got. And crypto currencies are literally in use on a daily basis, they just are not as stable as currencies tied to the gdp of a nation-state. Just because reality does not match our daydreams does not make those things failures, or preclude their ability to improve.

@nomi I understand this position, but as you point out, the ability to distinguish between different things depends on our ability to perceive differentiating traits. However, the ability to perceive also depends on our interprative framework, which is to some degree under our control. Take Zhuangzi's dream for instance. He has a dream of being a butterfly that was so real he questions whether he is indeed a man dreaming of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man. Ultimately how he experiences reality is a choice he makes in that moment. Even our memories are subject to reinterpretation constantly and there have been quite a few studies done on people who's memories of important events change with time, or from outside influence. So the question becomes, whether two things are indistinguishable solely due to our interpretive framework and is there more utility in changing the way we view the situation or leaving the two things as indistinguishable?

@amyhoy It is strange to use the word "believe" for things that already exist and are in use. You seem to be referencing the fact that people who are ignorant of the technology simply have misconceptions about what the current technology does and what it could feasibly do in the near future. That is nothing new, some people in the 50s believed that widespread flying cars would be a thing in the 90s. Also, there is the illusion that there is less room for creativity because the huge amount of products that are designed for consumers, not tinkerers; but there are still plenty of people and spaces where things are being built or rebuilt and innovation happens.

@emmalbriant I enjoy having discussions about ideas, it's how I learn new things. I'm glad you challenged me on my thoughts, it makes me think more deeply on the subject matter.

@chespace I was being ironical and I cannot tell if you are as well. XD

@chespace Kind of funny that one of the first Africans to ever set foot on Japan literally became a samurai.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke
Super racist.

@emmalbriant The only somewhat good point they make is that people should not be able to lie to the effect that it might obstruct someones rights, like manipulating people so they fail to vote. But that should be easy to deal with under existing laws because it is essentially fraud (or maybe mischief in some cases). But those are very fringe cases, most of what people are actually worried about is populism and demagogues but you would not even be able to come close to touching them with the very mild changes they were suggesting in the article. The article only really hints at going further, like by mentioning the hate speech laws in other countries but like I said before those are not seen as universally good things. Anyway, I was not trying to be contrarian, just didnt find that the article really contribute meaningfully to the discussion around political speech.

@emmalbriant Yeah and it really did not give a very compelling argument for further restricting speech in America. It basically said that other countries have already started down the path of restricting speech (like Canada and Germany) but fail to mention that those policies are highly controversial in both of those countries. Also the fact that punishing those spreading "hate speech" usually just makes a martyr of them and their following (usually online) just grows stronger and more siloed and more radicalized. It also mentions that there should be punishments can metted out to those who lie about "empirical truths" and if these last 6 years have taught us anything its that people cant agree on what facts are, or what data is valued. Fact checkers already exist and people are skeptical of them, setting up a government sponsored fact checker that has punitive authority is just as 1984 a suggestion as you can get.