About Friends and Trust

Brett Weinstein, speaking about the stress-testing of friendships (on the October 29, 2023 episode of his podcast with guest, Joshua Slouch):

I've now been through several of these events in my own life. And I've noticed a pattern, which is that in every case, these divisive crises reveal people's character. And each time I've seen the same pattern: there are people you thought you could trust who absolutely disappoint you. And then there are people that you never expected, maybe you didn't even know them ahead of time, who rise to the challenge and they shine. And you see that somebody, maybe you didn't know their name, but they turn out to have tremendous strength of character and insight, and they stand up at the right moment and defend you for no reason. Right? No reason other than that it's the right thing to do. And so each time I have lost friends, and it's painful. And I have gained people who are much higher quality. And I call this "painful upgrade," Right? It keeps upgrading your social circle.

And I now have to look back on the world. Before I had been through any of these and realized that I was walking around with trust in people that carried with them the ability to absolutely betray under the worst possible circumstances, and that that's dangerous. You are far better to know who actually has the strength of character to face these things. And to limit your significant interactions to that pool of people. Right? It is a gift to know who cannot be trusted with your well being. And I don't like to say that, but I think people need to be alerted to this. Because, you know, people are not labeled. They don't even know themselves whether they're capable of this until they're faced with the situation. It's the crisis that reveals it. And it's the silver lining of these terrible chapters that it does tell you who's really on your team.

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Massaging the News

"Palestinian" is a different category than "Hamas" (even though there is overlap). "Israeli" is a different category than "Jew" (even though there is overlap). The BBC is refusing to report what is happening. Instead, they are telling us what they want us to think. When someone tells you who they are, a good default is to believe them.

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Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi Deliver the Latest Update Regarding Censorship in the US

I highly recommend this video if you'd like to get up to speed on many of the new and sophisticated ways your government is trying to regulate how you communicate with your fellow citizens. Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi have been intensely covering the "censorship industrial complex" for years. This is merely the latest chapter of a disturbing series of stories they have broken.

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi Deliver the Latest Update Regarding Censorship in the US

Censorship Doesn’t Fix “Bad” Ideas. It Merely Shoves the Discussion Underground

Greg Lukianoff explains that censorship, no matter how well intended it is, drives conversation into the shadows, where it festers. It isolates viewpoints away from the mainstream, detached from any interaction with opposing views, where participants experience a false consensus.  Where their reach on important topics exceeds their grasp.  Those who advocate for censorship to cure "bad" ideas, always makes the situation worse by emboldening the "bad" ideas. This is one of the ideas why censorship never works. 

[C]ensorship on one platform may lead to an increase in the amount of similar content on other platforms. This is the unintended consequence of heavy-handed moderation policies.

Social media censorship creates new ecosystems that are ripe for group polarization. As Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein explains in an essay on group polarization: “People who are opposed to the minimum wage are likely, after talking to each other, to be still more opposed; people who tend to support gun control are likely, after discussion [with each other], to support gun control with considerable enthusiasm.”

For a vivid portrayal of how exclusion makes polarization, paranoia, and radicalism far worse, we highly recommend Andrew Callaghan’s documentary This Place Rules, which highlights some of the protests and personalities that played large or small roles in the run-up to, and day of, the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Callaghan has a grave warning about how badly attempts to censor can backfire: “When you take someone who talks about a deep state conspiracy to silence him and his followers and then you silence him and his followers it only really adds to his credibility,” he says in the film. When you’re dealing with people who believe there’s a conspiracy to shut them up, do absolutely nothing that looks anything like a conspiracy to shut them up.

Simply put, censorship doesn’t change people’s opinions. It encourages them to speak with people they already agree with, which makes political polarization even worse.

Continue ReadingCensorship Doesn’t Fix “Bad” Ideas. It Merely Shoves the Discussion Underground