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I am spending time slowly trying to unbrainwash my mom. It's not easy. She is smart but bipolar and deaf so she probably only watches network TV due to closed captioning. Phone conversations with her are very difficult and my whackjob sister wouldn't let her have access to ANY devices during COVID. So we were essentially cut off from her since we don't live in the same town. She could call us and tell us about her various ailments, but was not able to hear anything we said back. Finally, she got a cell phone and while it's closed captioned, she still can't get much out of it other than basic stuff. The CC functions poorly.
So I started by asking her what she really thought of JFK and what happened. She is happy to talk about her views and her memories of the time, which is what I asked her about. It's funny but because she had ECT, her memories can be spotty. But sometimes she has great memories so you never know what to ask.
So we started discussing censorship and like all good lefties, she is for it under certain circumstances. So I am going to press her on it and ask her WHO gets to decide and in WHAT instances censorship should be implemented. I thought of these examples, all of which are based on reality. Some are embellished a slight bit to make a point, but not much.
Censorship quiz
1) A political group starts Facebook ‘mom’s groups across the country posing as community groups. They allow posts about babysitting, business promotions, general questions about restaurants, etc. The groups are very large, often in excess of 20,000 members. They also allow anonymous posts and every leading thread post must be approved by a group moderator. When anyone posts a view that differs with their own, they do not allow it or remove it if isn’t in the comments section. Their views are posted and celebrated by like minded members. Members with opposite views either self censor or have their comments/threads removed.
2) Three weeks before an election, a reporter writes an extensive story exposing the corruption of one of the candidates. The campaign manager is made aware of it ahead of time and places a call to the editor (a personal friend) and asks to hold the story until after the election. He agrees.
3) A new drug made by a major pharmaceutical company can only get emergency approval if there are no other drugs that can effectively treat that illness, which can cause death. Two drugs have been shown to be safe, effective, massively availably and cheap. The drug company asks to have any information regarding the cheap alternatives to be withheld.
4) A student in high school calls another student the word that shall not be uttered or written.
5) A student in a high school calls another student stupid.
6) A young girl with mental issues walks into a new school. She insists that in spite of it being obvious that she is a girl, everyone refers to her as a boy. The students and teacher do not agree to do this and the parents of the girl sue the school district.
So the question is, in what cases should censoring happen and why?
I am not interested in hearing your views about specifics of these situations other than in the context of whether they should be censored. Feel free to copy the quiz and paste your answers in bold below them.
(1) Your platform, your rules - but don't get testy when called out on the echo chamber.
(2) That is politics.
(3) The problem here is with the needing to get approval. Way too much regulation by the FDA.
(4) When you start censoring one word, you set a bad precedent. If school was disrupted, then action should be taken, but not because of a specific word.
1-6 dont have anything to do with censorship as we generally use the term, which is to refer to censorship by the government. The school examples in 4 and 5 don't involve any censorship but maybe the OP just forgot to include them. I could see that leading to censorship.
All these are simple examples of human nature. I don't agree with groups of people who have power manipulating the narrative like an example two but it happens all the time and will continue to happen. The left these days believes the ends justifies the means so they use questionable tactics for the sake of increasing their power at times. However like I said it's done by everybody all the time in politics and elsewhere. They did this in the days leading up to The 2020 election by withholding vaccine data and pushing unfounded stories about Russia collusion.
Examples 4 and 5 are examples of bullying and I don't believe in bullying and believe that bullies and people who bad mouth others just because of their own insecurity need to have society apply negative feedback to them until they change their behavior. Even in my workplace we still have a very high schoolish mentality where all the co-workers are constantly talking about each other and cutting each other down behind their backs and it's one reason I don't like small talk.
I'm not going to participate in conversations where you're simply bad-mouthing other people for your own amusement. However, it's human nature and it's wired into our species genetic makeup. It's fascinating to watch people around me just sit around and talk about other people non-stop around the clock. It's like people are addicted to talking about each other.
Example one is basically herd mentality and wanting an echo chamber of like-minded people around you. We are a herd species and this is perfectly normal evolutionary behavior. Leftists whether they realize it or not are actually intolerant to a certain degree they would call it hating the haters. However it's still a very intolerant and cliqish mindset. This is where spiral Dynamics stage yellow comes in the ability to rise above your emotional bias. Most leftists are spiral dynamics stage green.
Example 3 is more anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists believing their ivermectin is some miracle cure... My personal experience shows no evidence of this. Even if there is evidence of this corporations are always trying to sell you the latest new thing TV shows are always trying to get you to watch the latest new show they don't want you to use old stuff because there's no money to be made in people using old stuff. It's not some conspiracy to kill you it's a simple matter of following the money trail. This assumes you believe that your alternative medicine would have worked over a vaccine. To me this example is more human nature in a nutshell. Whether the vaccine or worked or the intentions were good or not the people involved in producing the vaccine and implementing the policy made a lot of money. It was Donald Trump that authorized the original order to fast track those vaccines by the way which his supporters keep forgetting. Conspiracy theorists who question the actions of their leaders have always existed to going back thousands of years. Sometimes they are actually right. In any case they should have a right to have a voice they shouldn't be canceled. There's multiple human nature examples to be made out of this one but I'm not going to make this post drag on any longer. The whole Central Bank printing and handing out money for people to do nothing is more human nature by the way.... But I digress.... I think I'll go to the local park and feed the local wildlife and make it dependent on me for more handouts.
There's a good BBC documentary called the century of the self that talks about this whole consumerist revolution we had.
(1) Your platform, your rules - but don't get testy when called out on the echo chamber.
(2) That is politics.
(3) The problem here is with the needing to get approval. Way too much regulation by the FDA.
(4) When you start censoring one word, you set a bad precedent. If school was disrupted, then action should be taken, but not because of a specific word.
(5) See 4.
(6) Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina.
Regarding 3), do you know why the FDA was created? Because unscrupulous companies were marketing snake oil as cures for everything, with no data to prove that they work, and no data to prove they are safe. A lot of gullible people were being harmed.
In OPs example, drug company asks that info on the cheap alternative is squelched, he didn’t say who is doing the squelching. “Two drugs have been shown to be safe, effective, massively availably and cheap.” If that were true, they could have received FDA approval. If a drug is approved, the information is available to anyone. Typically the decision is made upon recommendation by an expert panel. The panel proceedings are also public domain.
Regarding 3), do you know why the FDA was created? Because unscrupulous companies were marketing snake oil as cures for everything, with no data to prove that they work, and no data to prove they are safe. A lot of gullible people were being harmed.
In OPs example, drug company asks that info on the cheap alternative is squelched, he didn’t say who is doing the squelching. If a drug is approved, the information is available to anyone. Typically the decision is made upon recommendation by an expert panel. The panel proceedings are also public domain.
This is 2023 not 1906. Evolve or die.
Last edited by Winter Coven; 07-29-2023 at 12:59 PM..
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