The MASM Forum
General => The Soap Box => Topic started by: hutch-- on January 20, 2023, 12:13:13 PM
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Ann Widdecombe | We Should NOT Support No Platforming (8/8) | Oxford Union
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njj_rG_9HKM
Old girl has some genuine hoot. :biggrin:
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Musk’s approach to free speech (https://theconversation.com/wrong-elon-musk-the-big-problem-with-free-speech-on-platforms-isnt-censorship-its-the-algorithms-182433) is typical of how this issue is often framed: in terms of content moderation, censorship and matters of deciding what speech can enter and stay on the platform.
But our research reveals this focus misses how platforms systematically interfere with free speech on the audience’s side, rather than the speaker’s side.
Outside the social media debate, free speech is commonly understood as the “free trade of ideas”. Speech is about discourse, not merely the right to speak. Algorithmic interference in who gets to hear which speech serves to directly undermine this free and fair exchange of ideas.
I use Quora (https://fr.quora.com/A-quel-pourcentage-de-la-vitesse-de-la-lumi%C3%A8re-faudrait-il-aller-pour-atteindre-la-galaxie-dAndrom%C3%A8de-en-10-ans-temps-propre-et-quelle-serait-la-dur%C3%A9e-pour-un-observateur-rest%C3%A9-sur-Terre/answer/Philippe-Guglielmetti) every day. The posts are often top notch, written from true experts in their fields. Seriously, the content is often better than their Wikipedia equivalents (and I know, Hutch, that you don't trust Wikipedia, and it's true that the quality varies, but that's also true for the Encyclopedia Britannica).
Now the point is:
a) top quality, yeah
b) but only if you want to see it.
Quora's business model is really simple, and it's brilliant:
They show you what you like.
They keep you in your bubble.
If you have clicked three times on a post that sustains the IPCC line, you will see only IPCC-positive posts in the future.
Well, I clicked three times on posts that criticised the IPCC line, now Quora continues to show me the ultimate crap from climate change deniers. Brilliant posts, well researched and professionally written (coal and petrol industries pay well...), but easy to de-construct if you know your stuff, i.e. if you have studied and worked as a researcher a dozen years in the field and have published a number of peer-reviewed scientific articles. If you don't know your stuff, you have no chance, you'll get brainwashed, and you will believe that the IPCC's only objective is to reintroduce slavery. Dunning-Krüger at its best :cool:
Censorship is bad, censorship is woke, censorship is cancel culture. We must go on the streets to fight censorship.
Freedom now, says Ann Widdecombe :thumbsup:
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now Quora continues to show me the ultimate crap from climate change deniers.
:joking: :skrewy:
A decent summary of that.. :wink2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c
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"The planet is fine ... the people are fucked!"
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c
George Carlin, one more who is proud to be ignorant.
"The planet is fine ... the people are fucked!"
That part is correct. Actually, the whole part after the really dumb rant about species loss is pretty funny :thumbsup:
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But he does have a good point or three about extinction, doesn't he? First, that's it's absolute hubris to believe that we can do anything about it, really, even acknowledging that we are at least partly responsible for a lot of species' extinction. Second, that it absolutely is a rigid rule of nature: nothing lasts forever.
People can disagree about the degree of our (hue-mons) culpability in "destroying the earth", and about whether or not it can be stopped; really, that latter isn't about the health of the planet as it is about our own survival as a species--which I think is rather in doubt in the short term at this point. But the planet will be fine. Even if we explode our nuclear weapons and global warming finally does us in. As they said in Jurassic Park: "life will find a way". There have been mass extinction events before, and there will be more in the future.
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But he does have a good point or three about extinction, doesn't he? First, that's it's absolute hubris to believe that we can do anything about it
No, he is wrong (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1400253):
the average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 100 times higher than the background rate
And we could obviously do something about it, for example: stop converting tropical rainforest to soya fields.
It's all about speed:
There has always been species loss, but we are extinguishing them 100 times as fast.
There has always been climate change, but we are changing it 100 times as fast.
Nature can adapt to slow changes, no doubt. But converting fertile land to deserts, thanks to climate change, takes only a few years, while converting thawed permafrost soil in Siberia to fertile land will take several hundred years.
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:biggrin:
Of course you can do something about habitat loss, the usual formula from the WOKE loonies, introspect at you naval while cold and hungry, contemplating suicide to save the planet, give the microbes a chance to inherit the earth, why do something about fixing the phukups when you can sit on your arse mouthing platitudes about the sacrifices that OTHERS should make ?
The sobering fact is, one belch from an active volcano pelts more crap into the atmosphere that a vast number of petrol guzzling SUVs, jet aircrafts and coal fired power stations combined.
By avoiding the equestrian fertiliser (horse sh*t) and addressing what CAN be done, you can get productive results like in parts of Europe, initiatives in China, reforesting in various countries, cleaning up the sea, stop pelting crap into the atmosphere etc etc etc ....
The only problem with a practical approach to cleaning up the planet is it does not entail the CONTROL that these WOKE morons want to exercise. :thdn:
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:biggrin:
> But converting fertile land to deserts, thanks to climate change, takes only a few years
This comment is not without its problems, ancient China is a good example here, it has taken THOUSANDS of years to degrade many of the areas that were once fertile production areas through over use and there are others as left overs from wars, look at the example of the "Black Castle" that is the result of an extended siege which involved the redirection of a river, climate WHAT ?
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The sobering fact is, one belch from an active volcano pelts more crap into the atmosphere that a vast number of petrol guzzling SUVs, jet aircrafts and coal fired power stations combined.
The sobering fact is that volcanic ash actually cools the planet, thus temporarily neutralising the combined effects of petrol guzzling SUVs, jet aircrafts and coal fired power stations.
Never trust the "facts" of your Exxon-sponsored bubble :cool:
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permafrost soil in Siberia to fertile land will take several hundred years.
In several hundred years Siberia will be frozen again.
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:biggrin:
> The sobering fact is that volcanic ash actually cools the planet
Have you ever heard of the Siberian lava fields ? They lasted about 2 million years. Not much cooling happened over that period. :tongue:
You have to watch those volcanos, they are not green or politically correct. :rofl:
Now to be more contemporary, think of all those poor bastards in La Palma with a volcano that did not cool down the area at all.
Psssst, A far as I know Exxon were not around when the Siberian lava field was being formed. :tongue: