I wrote this on Facebook this morning.
Somebody shared my post about big tech censorship yesterday and in his comments some other guy was barking about how “you don’t get off that easy” and that I can’t just recognize problems but I also have to supply solutions. Then the poster who shared it tagged me to answer. (I get shared thousands of times so please don’t do that) but my response got me thinking, and it’s not just related to our current topic either. If you still think this is all about Trump, you are a fool.
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Nope. Don’t tag me. I get an endless time suck random moron parade on my own page as it is.
Anyways, it doesn’t matter because that line of thought is a dishonest derailment trap, where if someone notes a problem, the first step is always to speak about the topic. Except to the disingenuous that is insufficient, and talking about the existence of a problem is invalid unless you also provide a solution to said problem. It is just designed to shame/silence opposition, because nobody has all the solutions fully formed when they first note complex issues. It’s the very act of discussion which they are trying to shut down that usually postulates solutions.
Which is another example of why the left only wants the right to be able to discuss issues in spaces they can control or manipulate.
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That last sentence is key.
For all of history when people have a problem they have been able to talk about it and hash it out. Solutions to complex problems don’t spring fully formed into existence the instant you note the problem. You get ideas from others. Their perspectives help you better articulate the issue and recognize consequences you didn’t expect.
Lawyers know law, engineers know engineering, artists know art, so on. So when there is a big problem that spreads across multiple fields, of course you need to talk it over with people who know those areas, because they know things you don’t. Being smart in one area doesn’t automatically make you an expert in others. We all need help. Big problems require discussion and brainstorming. Even if it isn’t effective, it’s still useful for the clever people who can make solutions to be able to listen to what the regular populace thinks and feels so that they can get the scope and understand how the problem hurts the public.
In the old days these conversations happened at churches, taverns, colleges, that kind of thing. All the famous places where big solutions to big problems were hashed out have a historical marker on them today. For us, those things are now illegal or stifled and we get the internet.
So of course the people who don’t see the problems as problems—or sometimes they are the problem—are trying to stop the rest of us from discussing the problems or they are trying to control where and how the conversations happen. Since they benefit from the problem, they will squash or sabotage people talking about solutions. It is in their best interests to do so, and when you give a bully a stick, they will beat you with it.
The topic of the current problem isn’t the important thing. This is our public square now whether we like it or not. We have foolishly abdicated the public square and now we are paying the price. Of course they can’t just let people they don’t like converse. That’s dangerous to their positions.
So when information they don’t like appears, they hide it. If they can’t hide it, they “fact check” it, and often that’s just a headline screaming false followed by an article full of straw grasping excuses they know most people won’t read. The goal is to shut you up or discredit you.
In the old days, at your pub or church, your drinking buddies or co-religionists probably shared your concerns and faced the same problems. So at least you were working toward a common goal. But now, big tech doesn’t want that. They don’t like groups or forums that don’t share their orthodoxy. They want/need to keep you here, and they need strangers to constantly kick in the doors and blunder in to tell you that you are stupid or crazy, that way we waste time arguing with them. It used to be a village had one idiot. When we talk now we get to deal with a thousand villages worth of idiot.
Of the many things booted or banned this week, one that I found interesting was the email newsletter of a group of former Democrats who have left that party. As far as I am aware not a single member was involved in the event at the Capitol and every member of their leadership condemned it. Yet their private email correspondence was shut down.
Why? I’m sure some bullshit justification will be offered, but really it is because they don’t want you talking somewhere you can’t be browbeaten and shamed back into compliance. Go somewhere else? Make your own thing? So that they can shut that down too?
Most of us who stay here do it because this is where we built an audience/community before the bait and switch. We feel stuck, and thus, we are part of the problem. I personally, am part of the problem. I stay here making content they profit off of, because this is where I’ve got the audience. I’ve been trying to move my audience elsewhere… only to discover that the company that runs my blog server and the company that processes my mailing list are willing to engage in the exact same behavior.
The arguments that this foolishness is to stop the incitement of violence is asinine, when we have literally thousands of examples of worse on these pages that aren’t being removed from app stores. The employees of this page routinely suffer from PTSD from the sick shit they see. The TOS is unevenly applied, so that the left gets a pass on actively coordinating looting and arson while guys like me routinely catch bans for asinine and silly reasons. Twitter bans Republicans, but is okay with literal foreign terrorist organizations and communist propaganda about how the genocide they are currently committing is really a nice thing.
Rules selectively applied are not rules at all. They are a shield for their cronies and a club against their enemies.
But that is where we are.
What do we do now? I don’t know. Try to figure it out… as long as they’ll let us.