[HN Gopher] Twitter bans ads that contradict science on climate ... ___________________________________________________________________ Twitter bans ads that contradict science on climate change Author : DocFeind Score : 160 points Date : 2022-04-23 16:58 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (apnews.com) (TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com) | h2odragon wrote: | The "scientific consensus" was once in favor of tobacco smoking. | ChrisLomont wrote: | That's a myth. Read more on the history of that. | h2odragon wrote: | I have. One of my favorite highlights: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_smoke_enema | SalmoShalazar wrote: | What is your point? Are you taking issue with the current | corpus of evidence that exists around climate change? | cultofmetatron wrote: | the single biggest thing we can do to slow down climate change is | to drastically rethink our zoning policy. | | why do I need to get in a car and drive 10 minutes to grab some | milk? because none of the land in the next few miles is zoned for | a grocery store! We need to allow mixed use so that a lot of | current errands that need a car could be easily performed on a | bike. | jokethrowaway wrote: | That's definitely one of the reasons I don't live in the USA or | in Russia. | | You guys spend too much time driving. | | The CO2 impact from cars is not that high though. Probably | carbon sequestration is a fastest / cheapest route. | nharada wrote: | Everyone in this thread talking about how "science is never | settled" and maybe that's true, but this move isn't designed to | discredit some competing scientists, it's designed to shutdown | bad-faith propaganda paid for by oil companies and other | entrenched interests. | | Curious how y'all would propose combating this type of | misinformation. Or is this just something we should accept as a | necessary evil on any platform? | WalterBright wrote: | The scientific consensus used to be that the sun revolved around | the earth, and you were put under house arrest if you published | anything contradicting that. | | Then there was that scientific consensus that margarine was good | for you and eggs caused heart attacks. | | Or that scientific consensus that disease could be cured by | draining the bad blood out of your body. | | Or that scientific consensus that if you sailed west too far, | you'd fall off the edge of the world. | | Or my favorite scientific consensus that in order to ensure a | good harvest, it was necessary to chop the hearts out of your | enemies and offer it to the gods. | BryantD wrote: | Heck, scientific consensus used to be that airborne diseases | were transmitted by droplets. Whoops. | | The interesting thing about every single one of these examples | is that consensus was able to change without anyone having to | advertise on Twitter. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | To be fair, those models were overturned by other scientists | publishing their findings. Not randos taking out billboards. | WalterBright wrote: | Check out what happened to Galileo when he published his | findings. Want more? How about Lysenkoism? Or the rejection | of "jewish science"? | tzs wrote: | Galileo's problems weren't due to his findings and theories | going against the current consensus. Galileo's problems | were a combination of: | | 1. His heliocentric theory wasn't actually noticeably | better at explaining observations than the current | geocentric theories. Galileo, like the Church, believed in | a universe intelligently designed by an all-powerful God, | and he believed that said God would of course choose laws | of physics that were mathematically beautiful and elegant. | He had to hand wave away things that didn't fit with his | notion of mathematically beautiful and elegant as optical | illusions or observational error, which is not very | convincing. | | 2. His ego. He was a celebrity who was frequently invited | to hang out with the rich and powerful, which he loved. | | 3. He was an asshole. He was very intolerant of and rude to | those he considered to be his rivals or his inferiors (and | because of his big ego "inferiors" included pretty much | everyone else). | | 4. He had a very poor sense of politics. He failed to | realize or ignored that some of those rivals or inferiors | that was a major asshole towards either were politically | powerful or had better connections than he did to | politically powerful people, and they could cause that | power to be used to make his life miserable if he kept | being a major asshole to them. | | There's a great detailed look at the road to replacing | geocentricism with heliocentricism here [1]. | | [1] http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great- | ptolemaic-smac... | WalterBright wrote: | Galileo observed the phases of Venus and the moons of | Jupiter, which provided strong evidence that contradicted | geocentric theories. | [deleted] | JumpCrisscross wrote: | None of which is relevant to a social media company | restricting ads. | vl wrote: | But it's different this time. | h2odragon wrote: | > chop the hearts out | | That's where we went off the rails. It was the _livers_ we were | supposed to offer up. | | No wonder everything since then is so screwed. | driverdan wrote: | This is a bad faith argument. If you want to be taken seriously | at least try to use good faith. | bencollier49 wrote: | I totally disagree - he's demonstrating that what appeared to | be the scientific consensus on several occasions in the past | was completely wrong. | spidersouris wrote: | I must say I find it quite dishonest and hypocritical to | use examples of theories which didn't impact humans' lives | at all, or, if they did, only on the level of an individual | -- to use these examples as a comparison with climate | change. These beliefs have nothing to do with climate | change which effects have already started being visible for | decades now. This has nothing to do with medicine, it's | biology, geology, meteorology. Hundreds of species are | disappearing, sea level rises are undeniable, temperatures | are rising as well and forest fires are increasing. These | are facts. | hotpotamus wrote: | Exactly, it's like how the current scientific consensus is | that the earth is round, but many enterprising individuals | are busy trying to prove their theory that the earth is | flat. | CoastalCoder wrote: | Please remember the HN ethos of assuming good intent. I'd be | interested in hearing the problem(s) you have with the parent | post. | tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote: | Twitter is not banning ads that contradicts "scientific | consensus". | | They are banning ads which contradicts the current | scientific consensus on climate change. | | Do you see the difference? | WalterBright wrote: | What's bad faith about it? | dlivingston wrote: | Several things, but to name one, none of those examples are | actually representing "scientific consensus" (except for | the margarine example, and medical science is notoriously | tricky and subject to _lots_ of noise and false signals). | | Science didn't even "exist" until the 1600s - well after | the timeframes of nearly all of those examples. [0] | | Your examples demonstrate "social consensus", "religious | consensus", "proto-medical consensus", but not "scientific | consensus." | | [0]: a note that to say "science started at time X" is | subjective, of course, but the modern formal framework of | science is relatively new and putting it around the time of | Isaac Newton's _Principia_ is probably a good rough guess. | | I would not consider Galileo to be a representative of | modern science, more of a precursor. | WalterBright wrote: | Whatever consensus you wish to call it, it was the | consensus of those in power in society at the time that | believed they knew the truth. | | Galileo was a scientist whether scientist was a | recognized term at the time or not. He made observations, | and developed theories based on those observations. | That's science. | | George Washington's death was hastened by doctors who | bled him, 200 years after 1600. | | And how about Darwin's theories, Lysenkoism, Phrenology, | etc.? | dlivingston wrote: | > Whatever consensus you wish to call it, it was the | consensus of those in power in society at the time that | believed they knew the truth. | | Your definition here is an apt one, and your examples | demonstrate this particular effect well. | | My beef is that you framed them as 'examples of when the | scientific consensus was wrong' when they do not | demonstrate 'scientific consensus.' | yongjik wrote: | > The scientific consensus used to be that the sun revolved | around the earth ... | | Ever thought about why it took so long for this particular | "scientific consensus" was reverted? Because geocentrism could | explain the motions of planets pretty accurately, and the | easiest _actual_ evidence of heliocentrism was that apparent | locations of stars should move _very_ slightly following the | motion of the Earth (i.e., parallax) - the effect was so small | that the first measurement was made in 1838, about 200 years | after Galileo 's death. Until then, the apparent absence of | parallax was a scientific evidence _against_ heliocentrism. | | The lesson to draw is that it's not sufficient to have its | proponent put under house arrest in order for a new theory to | be accepted by the scientific community. Your new theory has to | first explain all the things explained by the existing theory, | and then some more that can _not_ be explained by the existing | one. | | I'll leave it to readers to conclude what that means in the | context of global warming. | | Honestly I'm depressed by the level of discourse here. | Otherwise mostly intelligent people are basically resorting to | "Well some groups of people have been wrong about various | things before, which proves that this particular (unrelated) | group of people _can_ be wrong, so instead of addressing the | problem they say we have, let 's debate for the umpteenth time | whether the problem is real, again." | | It's a classical stalling tactic, and IMHO the only proper | response is "Get out, adults are talking." | kurupt213 wrote: | I don't think there is any evidence against the last one. | TedShiller wrote: | Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the | contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be | right, which means that he or she has results that are | verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus | is irrelevant. | | The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because | they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as | consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's | science, it isn't consensus. | | Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is | not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists | agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is | 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak | that way. | 8note wrote: | Science relies heavily on a consensus of observations and a | consensus on the analysis of those observations. Reproduction | is creating aa consensus | | Plenty of scientists have broken with consensus without a new | consensus forming around their models. | | "Scientists have consensus about X" is something science | communicators say. It's about how easy it is to describe the | evidence to laypeople than what the evidence is. | dudul wrote: | Reminds me of the old south park episode where 2 ultra scientific | factions fight over some silly religious-like details. | | Science shouldn't be treated like a religion. Consensus in | science changes all the time. New things are discovered and | invented by Goin against the concensus. | dlivingston wrote: | Right, my fear with treating climate change as "settled, | absolute, unquestionable wisdom" is that this puritanical | attitude towards science potentially stymies researchers from | postulating radical new ideas, or prevents other researchers | from taking radical ideas seriously. | | To be clear, anthropogenic climate change is definitely a | thing, and those who say it isn't are either gaslighting or | being gaslit. | | But even though Newton was right, Einstein was "more right." | Could an Einstein exist in climate science today, going against | the "Settled Science(tm)?" | seoaeu wrote: | So climate change deniers are engaging in gaslighting, but | you don't think we should do anything to stop them... because | maybe one of them stumbles on a scientific breakthrough? | dlivingston wrote: | > So climate change deniers are engaging in gaslighting | | Sometimes. Oftentimes they have just been lied to by | political or cultural institutions that they trust. | | > but you don't think we should do anything to stop them | | It greatly depends on the context. In the case of ads on | Twitter, I have no opinion as I'm not familiar enough with | the nuances of this action to make a judgement. | | > because maybe one of them stumbles on a scientific | breakthrough | | That's a misreading of my comment. My point was that a | serious climate scientist may be afraid of pushing past the | boundaries for fear of going against the very real | orthodoxy. The orthodoxy, by the way, is a social thing, | not a science thing. Many scientists have gotten | 'cancelled' by randos on Twitter for publishing standard | research. | 8note wrote: | If you're proposing a radical idea via advertising, where are | you getting the money to buy the ads from? | | Why are we limiting radical idea creation to the rich? | onos wrote: | Another voice here not happy about this. It's as if the advocates | here have no interest in learning anything from the history of | science as a practice of argument by evidence. Banning arguments | doesn't convince anyone paying attention that the opponents are | wrong it just makes people suspicious that the banners can't | defend their positions. | wittycardio wrote: | Go publish evidence in a scientific journal or stop pretending | you're a scientist. | samatman wrote: | Hey, except for all the science which never enters journals, | and all the nonsense which does, it's a great criterion! | gunapologist99 wrote: | Do most people on Twitter spend their time reading | countervailing evidence in scientific journals? | owisd wrote: | It's not banning arguments, just recognising that twitter ads | aren't the best medium for certain arguments. | bencollier49 wrote: | "It's not banning arguments, just recognising that the public | sphere isn't the best place for certain arguments." | | And so on. That feels like a slippery slope to me. | [deleted] | owisd wrote: | That's like saying banning electing of representatives by a | show of hands in favour of the secret ballot is just a | slippery slope to banning democracy altogether. | wtallis wrote: | > That feels like a slippery slope to me. | | It only feels like a slippery slope if you make no attempt | to think about _why_ Twitter is a bad place for certain | kinds of debate, and instead assume that whatever traits | make Twitter bad for that generalize to the entire public | sphere. | elicash wrote: | Worth noting that political ads are already banned on Twitter and | have been for a couple years: | | https://twitter.com/jack/status/1189634360472829952?ref_src=... | | In practice, this leads to weird scenarios where Exxon can run | promotional ads but climate groups can't run ads in opposition. | | I'm not saying this is the wrong policy necessarily, just that | "politics" is a tricky thing to define. Labor unions can't run | ads saying workers should demand more pay, but Amazon can run ads | saying their jobs pay good wages. | | Edit: Also, I tried to find the original post but the blog is | down, at least for the moment for me. https://blog.twitter.com -- | anyway, here's a cached version: | https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ADXc6W... | blablabla123 wrote: | I guess this also shows the limits of communities where the | topic is basically everything | wraithgourd wrote: | They removed Danny Devito's blue check mark when he supported | the Nabisco union or whatever. | | Twitter is so close to being perfect, I hope they fix it... | Gorgo wrote: | Twitter is close to being the perfect perpetual rage | generator, is that what you meant by calling it 'close to | being perfect'? The format in combination with their | nefarious algorithm makes for a nearly perfect polarisation | machine where you're either 'with' or 'against' how Twitter- | the-company wants you to think. | chefandy wrote: | Twitter said that's not why they removed the blue check and | it was re-added. Not that I trust press-releases but that | seems like it would be a bit of a departure for them. | pydry wrote: | The timing suggests that an automated system was tripped by | a deluge of malicious abuse reports. | | I'd say that's pretty in character. | chefandy wrote: | If that supposition is even true, Twitter removing a blue | check because he publicly supported a union-- the initial | implication to which I replied-- and twitter removing and | restoring a blue check because people exploited their | abuse reporting system are two very different things. | pydry wrote: | Yes, and twitter is kind of shit either way - this is | being the sole implication I got from the OP. | | The timing still undeniably connects the two events and | in spite of it _likely_ being due to abuse of their abuse | button they still didnt admit that. | nyuszika7h wrote: | > The timing still undeniably connects the two events | | Not taking any sides here, but correlation does not equal | causation. | systemvoltage wrote: | > Twitter is so close to being perfect, I hope they fix it... | | LOL, I couldn't disagree more. Twitter is profoundly broken. | Scams to UX, pretty much every aspect of it is subpar. | root_axis wrote: | > _Twitter is so close to being perfect_ | | That's an unusual take... Twitter is pretty widely regarded | as about as far as perfect as it can get, putting it mildly - | and this is across the political spectrum. I'm curious to | understand your perspective on why you believe twitter is | near perfect. | ms4720 wrote: | Perfectly so | jesushax wrote: | This is basically a good thing, but I'm always annoyed by the use | of "science" like this, making it into an institution with a | unified voice. If they used the word 'consensus' or 'studies' the | claim would sound weaker, and they want to give it the weight of | a quasi-religious absolute. | | Which is great for the tactical, rhetorical power of their | argument, but plants the seed of their strategic downfall. If you | do this enough, "science" is lowered to a political device | commanding the same respect as sociology did in the Soviet Union | (or even in the US, at this point), ie less than nothing. | stretchwithme wrote: | Every generally accepted theory starts out as a theory held by | one. And sometimes directly contradicting the consensus. | | We think independently for a reason. Not submitting to the | PERCEIVED consensus is a good thing. It means we can have | different deeply committed people investigating different | theories at the same time, rather than waiting for a central | authority, financed with other people's money, to give up on | one and pick up the next when it finally gets over its ego. | wtallis wrote: | It's fine to have competing explanations for the available | evidence. But that's not what anti-science political | positions usually look like. Rejecting both the evidence and | the explanation without justification or alternative is | completely different from reasonable scientific dissent. | rhino369 wrote: | Right. The vast majority of people rejecting global warming | are doing it for irrational reasons. | | But Twitters rule would also exclude earnest differences of | opinions. During law school, my class had a talk that | included a tenured climate scientist at our university (a | major research institution). He had a non-census view of | climate change that predicted warming 25-50% less than UN | models. A bunch of law professors came and read him the | riot act for DENYING SCIENCE. It was crazy. That's exactly | the type of censorship big tech is engaging in. | pornel wrote: | Twitter ads are not the place to overturn scientific | consensus, especially not such an important and well- | established topic. If you have material new information, | write a paper, get it verified/replicated, etc. | mach1ne wrote: | > rather than waiting for a central authority, financed with | other people's money, to give up on one and pick up the next | when it finally gets over its ego. | | Arguably, currently the ego problem is very real with the | individuals who hold power in academia due to status quo. I | don't think the development of science would significantly | change even if there was a central authority - it might even | speed up, since the people making the decision would not have | their careers dependent on preserving the current consensus. | elicash wrote: | Good news for you. Here's a direct quote from their post, which | I believe their blog is currently down so don't blame you for | not finding it: | | > To better serve these conversations, misleading | advertisements on Twitter that contradict the scientific | consensus on climate change are prohibited, in line with our | inappropriate content policy. | torstenvl wrote: | That's more honest, but also more obviously problematic. | Thank God publishing platforms didn't prohibit contradicting | the scientific consensus on, say, Newtonian physics in the | early 20th century. | staticassertion wrote: | Are you just severely confused? Do you think that Newtonian | physics received its scrutiny through media advertising? | saalweachter wrote: | Yeah, if Einstein hadn't been able to take out those full | page ads in the Times relativity might never have gotten | off the ground. | elicash wrote: | I think your point of view is a valid one, but I saw my | role with my comment on just correcting facts. They hadn't | realized that Twitter had in fact used the word | "consensus." I was not offering a view either way. In that | spirit, I'd also note for you that this new policy applies | specifically to advertising. Not to what you can post. You | can still be opposed to this policy, for reasonable | reasons, but just to clarify. | tshaddox wrote: | But wasn't the scientific consensus already that Newtonian | physics was unable to explain certain observations, i.e. | everyone already knew Newtonian physics was false? It's not | like Einstein just published a paper that said "nuh uh, all | the experts are full of shit and here's why..." and then | proceeded to use powerful rhetoric to convince everyone | they had been wrong. | jesushax wrote: | Oh I don't fault Twitter in particularly, just whoever | decided on the title of that specific article (so I guess the | AP people in this case). Like, if an article was titled | "Science says you should stretch more!" but then in the | article, they just cite a specific study, I would still be | slightly annoyed by that. | | It's just a nitpicky pet peeve that I think reveals some epic | underlying truth about the cycle of human civilization (but | probably doesn't) | Nextgrid wrote: | There are good _theoretical_ arguments against this in the | comments, but I wonder whether _in practice_ there have been | occurrences where _ads_ were useful in challenging the scientific | status-quo and advancing science? | | It seems like in practice, this policy is primarily designed to | prevent stupid politicians that deny science to advance their | agenda or maybe snake-oil vendors that use ads denying science to | sell their shit. Both of those are a good thing to me. | timcavel wrote: | Only the Science Ministry is authorized to ordain official | science through the USA Fact-Check Algorithm, the canonical | arbiter of truth. | qiskit wrote: | > Twitter says it will no longer allow advertisers on its site | who deny the scientific consensus on climate change, echoing a | policy already in place at Google. | | Maybe someone should tell twitter, google, etc that science isn't | supposed to work on consensus. Politics works on consensus. And | when you mix politics with science, you get social | darwinism/scientific racism/etc. | | > Twitter said it would provide more information in the coming | months on how it plans to provide "reliable, authoritative | context to the climate conversations" its users engage in, | including from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The | U.N.-backed science panel's reports on the causes and effects of | climate change provide the basis for international negotiations | to curb climate change. | | The good old authoritarian, I mean authoritative sources. It's | amazing how the entire establishment political/media/tech/etc all | rallied around "authoritative sources". It's almost like someone | flipped a switch and it's become a national mantra. | "Authoritative sources", "authoritative sources", "authoritative | sources". | | A UN backed science panel. Great. If there is one thing we all | know about the UN, it's that the UN isn't political. An | institution ruled by the US, Russia, China, Britain and France. | Seems very trustworthy to me. | systemvoltage wrote: | I remember when we progressives used to be _against_ the 3 | letter agencies and authority in general. Remember the 90 's? | That's what classical liberals did. | | Current progressive movement is completely unhinged and looking | more like CCP, sorry to say. It is going to backfire massively. | [deleted] | magicalist wrote: | > _I remember when we progressives used to be against the 3 | letter agencies and authority in general._ | | Neither the IPCC nor the UN are three letter agencies | 8note wrote: | The democratic institutions are broken, and the leaders are | unwilling to put in fixes, and the electorate can't hold them | to account without them | | Preserving voting rights, reducing gerrymandering, and | limiting the filibuster to be an infrequent tool have no real | priority. | | The old guard of bad 3 letter agencies have some insulation | against that, making them the old evil instead of the new | cryptica wrote: | Of course it will backfire. Progressives these days have no | real values aside from extracting as much money as possible | from governments and citizens without providing any value in | return. Once this strategy stops working, they will turn on | each other. Their loyalty to each other is fake, just like | everything else in their lives. | | Everything they say and do is founded on lies; that's why | they depend so much on each other for support and | reinforcement. It's a religion. The only way they can | maintain their nonsensical ideologies is through repeated, | mutual brainwashing. | jmull wrote: | > Maybe someone should tell twitter, google, etc that science | isn't supposed to work on consensus. Politics works on | consensus. | | The ads are politics, not science. | | This is a case of twitter's political stance being at odds with | some of their potential advertisers. | | I don't see why advertisers should have some right here that | overrides twitter's. | | > authoritarian | | If you're interested in liberty here, you should be backing | twitter's right to do this. | loceng wrote: | > If you're interested in liberty here, you should be backing | twitter's right to do this. | | Indeed, so long as it isn't the government enforcing it on | everyone, then the free market will come up with a competitor | that will arguably start attracting those most aware of the | importance of and aligned with freedom, freedom of speech - | those people who arguably are on average much more highly | competent and earning a higher income to be able to | financially support a better model, and likewise bring their | network(s) with them; I am working on launching such a | competitor and believe I'm designing a platform model and | launch/growth strategy that will work very well. | goodluckchuck wrote: | No one's saying Twitter doesn't have the right to do this. | They're saying it's a bad policy and Twitter should choose to | allow content it disagrees with. Silencing others is not | Liberty. | gigatexal wrote: | Except it's well within their rights to do this. They're | not beholden to be the platform that furthers false things | like climate change denial | robertlagrant wrote: | >> No one's saying Twitter doesn't have the right to do | this. | | > Except it's well within their rights to do this. | | Swing and a miss. | loceng wrote: | That's a very difficult thing to moderate, to manage, and | from personal experience Twitter doesn't even enforce | their existing rules accurately. | | For example, will posts denying the hysteria of climate | change - let's say the ideology of climate change | activism that has formed, perhaps fuelled by for-profit | industrial complexes, perhaps also leveraged by some | governments wanting to use fear to manufacture consent | toward control - be ban on Twitter, will that be | considered denial if they point out things like some | parts of the world actually cooling - and "heat deaths" | in those areas are actually going down? Climate change | hysteria media seems to only want to report the | increasing heat deaths annually, but not deducting the | reduced deaths from the cooling areas. | | Now I don't even know for 100% if the above is true, or | how true it is, as I haven't had a chance to dive into | some of the leaders of that effort who're supposedly | trying to have a grounded, balanced conversation on | climate - referencing data, etc. | | An organization or individual claiming they can be or are | an arbiter of truth is a recipe for disaster; what New | Zealand Prime Minister once actually said comes to mind, | that if you hear something not from government (about | COVID, the pandemic) then it's not true. | sillysaurusx wrote: | Actually, it's the opposite. Liberty is for individual | freedom, not institutional freedom. | | I would back a small business's right to do this. Somewhere | between there and twitter scale, the decision changes. | gigatexal wrote: | So you'd impose the small business or political groups | rights to advertise on twitter (a larger corporation)? | Where's the balance there? | version_five wrote: | This argument is so boring, it's the same every time. | | "They can build their own Twitter!" | | We have monopoly laws, they are not fundamentally at odds | with liberty, they recognize that it's undesirable for | society to have monopolies exercising market power. These | need to be updated to reflect the current platform | monopolies. Just like the phone company can't tell you | what you can talk about on the phone, or railroads have | to share their tracks under some conditions. Applying the | same thing to Twitter and other bug tech platforms is a | logical extension. The only difference is it would also | involve the government/establishment giving up power | gigatexal wrote: | Nah. I don't buy it. Don't like Twitter? You have a few | options: | | 1. Create a competitor. Network effects here are tough. | Inertia is a thing. But perhaps those Twitter users with | your sentiments will follow you to your new platform. See | ya! | | 2. Buy up enough shares to put yourself on the board. | This is akin to "write your congress person". Amounts to | little. | | 3. Buy Twitter. Only folks crazy enough (see also Elon | Musk) can do this. I say crazy because Twitter doesn't | make decent money and is fine without him in my opinion. | But ownership is a sure fire way to change things. | | Other options you could also pursue are: | | 4. Wax poetic on the internet about how since they're the | only game in town they need to be open to taking money | from anyone and everyone. They also need to allow all | forms of speech. This also amounts to nothing. | | I guess a future Trump or DeSantis or Carlson or other Q | affiliated presidency could along with a majority in | congress force Twitter to do the things you're advocating | for. I sure hope not. | | So yeah, if you build it they will come. So go build a | competitor or join the myriad of others that operate in | the extreme free speech/anything goes mantra. The rest of | us will keep using Twitter and enjoying the relatively | benign place it's become since Trump was banned. | the_gastropod wrote: | The outrage at one large corporation (Twitter) acting one | way while implicitly defending other large corporations, | e.g., Exxon-Mobil's propaganda-spreading-- seems a weird | tightrope to walk. Not sure how large a problem small- | business-climate-disinformation-spreading is. | [deleted] | achikin wrote: | Twitter is not outraged for spreading a specific opinion | but for muting the opposite side. | [deleted] | magicalist wrote: | > _A UN backed science panel. Great. If there is one thing we | all know about the UN, it 's that the UN isn't political. An | institution ruled by the US, Russia, China, Britain and France. | Seems very trustworthy to me._ | | A solid philosophy of science is difficult to live up to in the | real world, but I guarantee that "I don't know anything about | the IPCC but I see it's organized through the UN so I know | enough to dismiss it" is not it. | istinetz wrote: | Why not? It seems obvious to me that a UN committee will be | under a lot of political pressure to bend the truth, where it | is in conflict with politics. And I have seen many, many | examples of committees bending the truth. Why is this one | different? | MisterBastahrd wrote: | You're totally right. Any day now we're going to discover the | secret to alchemy and then those folks in Flint will have | faucets full of gold. | olddustytrail wrote: | To address your last sentence: yes, if you can get those five | countries to agree on anything, it's probably trustworthy. | bequanna wrote: | If you can get those five countries to agree on anything, the | lobbyists/politicians running those countries have found some | way to benefit from that message. | stretchwithme wrote: | Unfortunately, two of those countries aren't allowed to vote | so we don't know what they agree on. | olddustytrail wrote: | Which two countries would those be? | jokethrowaway wrote: | Like voting changes much. Countries are all basically | oligarchies, some of them have extra steps (a sprinkle of | democracy, a pound of corruption) so people won't look up | from their iPhone and feel superior to those backwards goat | farmers with a dictator and no potable water. | | Still, I'm glad to see you enjoy seeing your 1/xxxM | representation. | threatofrain wrote: | Science policy is different from science research, and | similarly, medical policy is different from medical research. | Policy is the intersection of technical craft and politics, and | it ought be consensus-oriented. | | That doctors almost entirely practice consensus-based medicine | does not mean that medical research is halted, but it does mean | that not all clinics are labs, and thus medical research is not | advancing at peak speed. | jokethrowaway wrote: | That's exactly how you get people to buy statins for 50 years | because the consensus is that cholesterol should be a certain | number. Or covid vaccines for everyone x3. And I can't wait | to see what taxes we'll need to raise to fight climate | change. | | If science and profits wouldn't have a chance to mix in there | would be value in a shared policy. In the real world, you'd | better pay a good doctor for advice (enough to offset big | pharma) and hope that policy being enforced by "the people's" | government won't break your bank too much. | staticassertion wrote: | "science isn't supposed to work on consensus" lol yes, let's | throw out the concept of peer review, all science is equal now | everyone | shoulderfake wrote: | mlindner wrote: | More often than not peer review acts as gatekeeping rather | than actual analysis of the data and methods. The people who | do peer review are often those with institutional political | power rather than proper "peers". | SalmoShalazar wrote: | This is such a bizarre take. Have you gone through the peer | review process for a scientific paper? I have, and fairly | reliably I've had experts in the field review the content | and provide strong, thoughtful feedback. Maybe your | particular subject field is more prone to politicking than | mine? It's hard for me to think of peer review as anything | other than absolutely essential. | Kye wrote: | Does it? Someone should do a study and...huh wait a minute. | | That's quite a claim to make, and impossible to falsify in | the universe it posits. | alkonaut wrote: | > Maybe someone should tell twitter, google, etc that science | isn't supposed to work on consensus. Politics works on | consensus. | | This was Twitter, not Nature or ArXiv. | | This is sad, but good. It's sad that this is the least bad of | two bad alternatives. | cardy31 wrote: | Yeah they rallied around it since the alternative is to just | put everyone on an equal platform. Gatekeeping is good in areas | like climate science where certain groups have a large | incentive to spew demonstrably false information about it. | _3u10 wrote: | What group doesn't have a vested interest to spew | demonstrably false information about it? | | Climate change isn't science it's mostly politics around | preserving or not preserving the temperatures and sea levels | from when the steam engine was invented. | | Like I believe the climate is changing, but we should do | almost nothing about it. That said I don't own any property | within 7 feet of sea level so I don't really give a shit if | the people who do lose a little bit of their waterfront | property. | throwaway15908 wrote: | Consider it like this. | | Sustainability is _only_ a waste management system that | enables recycling rates of 90% or higher (which is damn | hard). CO2 is also just one of many waste products, we | totally dont care about, but _must_ to sustain our | civilisation. | | No politics, just input/output, same goal. | _3u10 wrote: | The earth has had higher CO2 levels... and had much more | biodiversity when it did. If anything for a sustainable | world for life we should probably be targeting the 800ppm | of the Carboniferous and not the 200ppm of the little ice | age. | | Can you tell me why from a sustainability perspective why | 200ppm is the ideal? Or if 200ppm is not the ideal what | is the sustainable ideal, and why civilization collapses | if we don't reach that target? | | I mean the totality of civilization not just that | Buckingham palace or a few other places might be | underwater? Like why can't we build ports a little inland | from Amsterdam? Why can Paraguayans survive 40C but | civilization collapses if Europe goes above 27C. | throwaway15908 wrote: | >Why are 200ppm sustainable? | | The higher CO2 levels of long gone times where probably | not even remotely a problem for those critters around, | because evolution had plenty of time to do its thing. | Your whole point of "but what about back then" is | comparing apples with oranges. | | Looking at the steep graph today, the increasing weather | extremes and how brittle our supply chains are, i think | its very appropriate to call it a climate catastrophe, we | are heading for. | | Btw. I was using the ideal of perfect recycling and | applied it to CO2, no absolute or relative ppm value is | relevant for this. | spidersouris wrote: | > That said I don't own any property within 7 feet of sea | level so I don't really give a shit if the people who do | lose a little bit of their waterfront property. | | Are you implying that those who are the most concerned | about climate change are wealthy people afraid to lose | their possessions? | | How do you explain then that the wealthiest people, that is | those possessing the greatest number of companies and | contributing the most to climate change, are those that | will do the least for climate change and will even fight to | maintain the current economic model? | jokethrowaway wrote: | Excuse me? This is factually incorrect. | | Most wealthiest people, big tech, big business, | mainstream media are all backing climate change. | Politicians have been trying to get political support for | years to pass new taxes for that. Recently Europe bundled | a bunch of climate change funds together with covid | recovery and postponed that 10 years in the future. | | Then, in terms of doing, I'm sure they will all find a | way to make the middle class pay while the wealthiest pay | zero like usual. And I'm also sure companies innovating | will do way more to reverse co2 emissions and make | renewables work than any western government will (China's | dictatorship actually did some meaningful changes, | especially in making solar cheaper; they must have been | tired of pollution in the cities). | | I don't think it's wealthy owners of seaside properties | who are causing all this climate alarmism, I think it's | the usual politicians who would never let a good crisis | go to waste. | encryptluks2 wrote: | Gatekeeping is not good, providing education and insight is | good. If you gatekeep then you are essentially advocating for | propaganda because that is how it will be used and has been | used. | ChrisLomont wrote: | Science works on consensus, the consensus of experts. When the | experts on a topic don't have consensus, we say the science is | undecided. When they have consensus, we call that science | settled. | | And for the science to change under new evidence, again the | consensus of experts is required, otherwise the new change | remains on the fringe. | mrtnmcc wrote: | Kuhn and Popper may have something to say about that. | modzu wrote: | physics was settled by newton. any writing about those pesky | quantum effects should have been banned | User23 wrote: | > Science works on consensus, the consensus of experts. | | This is scientistry, not science. Science works on | observation and experiment. In a perfect world perhaps | consensus would be established scientifically, but that's | observably at odds with the history of science. | jltsiren wrote: | That's like saying that software engineering is about | typing. Observations and experiments are low-level | activities you perform while doing science. Actual science | works on higher levels. | | Convincing yourself that your ideas are right is a low bar. | The key part of doing science is convincing yourself that | your ideas are wrong. It's about telling the difference | between actually discovering something new and making | mistakes in experiments and reasoning. If you fail to | convince yourself, you ask others to convince you that your | ideas are wrong. If they also fail, you are starting to | build a consensus that maybe you have actually discovered | something. | | Believing in something that contradicts the consensus is | politics. Building a consensus among experts who are | skeptical but open to new ideas is science. | User23 wrote: | Thanks for the clear demonstration that the use of | analogy is no substitute for reason. | | The problem is one of confusion. There are at least three | distinct things that we call science. Primus, the social | enterprise itself. This is where "consensus" applies. | Secundus, the method for understanding the rules | governing the system of the world. This is where what you | call "low level" activities are. Tertius, the body of | accepted knowledge that's been ascertained. | Unfortunately, this doesn't necessarily follow from the | scientific method. Sometimes it instead follows from the | needs of the social enterprise of science, which we | rather clumsily call politics. | | It's only by clearly and distinctly considering these | three concepts that we can avoid frankly intellectually | crippling confusion. | [deleted] | ssivark wrote: | (Assuming the parent comment is normative/prescriptive rather | than just descriptive) This is a dangerously wrong | perspective. There are many beliefs that we consider | laughably crazy today that were "settled" per the experts of | the day. | | Remember "Eppur si muove"? It is impossible to establish who | the "experts" are by the old truths -- we need the new truths | for that. | | To channel Max Planck, scientific revolutions happen not | publication to publication but funeral to funeral as old | experts die and people grow up with new truths. | timcavel wrote: | ^^^ Someone deserves a full refund of their educational | expenses. ^^^ | _3u10 wrote: | Nah, when the science is settled it becomes a law. Like the | Laws of Thermodynamics. | | Those things take hundreds of years. We don't even have a | working model of climate change which is why they average out | hundreds of them. | | The science on climate change is far from settled. | | It's pretty easy to take any given climate change model and | watch it give inaccurate predictions. | mhh__ wrote: | Broadly speaking laws are a thing of the past. | | Also modelling basically anything is hard. Applying the | laws of thermodynamics to a kettle well enough that you can | predict it's exact dynamics is not a simple task. | driverdan wrote: | > when the science is settled it becomes a law | | That's not how it works for most of science. Most consensus | ideas are theories because they are impossible to prove | well enough to call them a law. | _3u10 wrote: | Couldn't have said it better myself. Climate change is an | unproven theory, far from the certainty that the | political side of science makes it out to be. | | For all intents and purposes until we have better | modeling climate change is largely a political topic. | | People for the most part have a pet form of energy | generation they want the world to switch to and use | wildly inaccurate climate models to beat everyone who | disagrees with them over the head with. | | See Germany and switching to oil and gas over climate | friendly nuclear and trying to get gas added as a | renewable form of energy and nuclear removed. | Retric wrote: | Laws aren't based on consensus or age as we have plenty of | Laws that are known to be wrong and stuff gets called a law | fairly early. | | F=MA fails really obviously at high velocity but the error | doesn't go away at low speed it just becomes small enough | to be ignored. Even the most known Law of conservation of | energy fails in expanding space time. | | The basic rule of thumb is can you write a useful equation? | And for climate change it's just too complex for that. | dlivingston wrote: | > ...when the science is settled it becomes a law. | | This is absolutely and completely wrong. "Hypothesis -> | Theory -> Law" is not actually the scientific pipeline. | Theories and laws not only can co-exist, but often do. | | From Wikipedia [0]: | | > Scientific theories explain why something happens, | whereas scientific law describes what happens. | | An example of this is the theory of gravity [1], which | contains laws of gravity [2]. | | [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law | | [1]: https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/ESSAYS/Bekenstein/ | bekens... | | [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_univer | sal_gr... | _3u10 wrote: | Ok, Newtons law of gravity is settled science but also | wrong. | | The "settled" science of climate change makes wildly | inaccurate predictions on earth, during time periods we | have lots of data on. | | Aren't we past the point of no return 8 times over now? | dlivingston wrote: | To your points: | | 1) Newton's Law of Gravity is not wrong, it is just | incomplete. Newton's Law of Gravity is a critical formula | used for calculating rocket trajectories and behaviors. | It is correct but has 'boundaries' where Einstein's | General Theory of Relativity takes over. | | 2) I'm not sure what this means. | | 3) I'm not sure what this means. | mechanical_bear wrote: | This is my interpretation of his statement: | | 3)Dates for "Certain Doom", with regards to the climate, | have been proffered by prognosticators of climate | science. Much like those that predict the religious End | Of Time, these dates invariably pass with no notice or | fanfare. | Retric wrote: | That's a serious straw man argument. Where exactly do you | see some "Certain Doom" prediction in say an IPCC report | that's predicted something beyond X equivalent CO2 | results in Y temperature? | | The 2022 version for example basically says 1.5C above | preindustrial levels by 2025. | | That's not some doom that's basically exactly where we | are now and only relevant because the keep updating past | predictions. Go back to reports from 1990 and 1.5C in | 2025 is well within error bars. We are experiencing | negative effects that could have been avoided in 1990, | then again things could also have been worse before now | without quite a lot effort into improving efficiency etc. | | Predictions further into the future assume continued net | emissions continue and therefore the effects will be | worse. That's not some "doom" that's cause and effect. | 1.5C, 2C, 2.5C, and even 3C, as long as net emissions | continue we well eventually reach all of those | milestones. | nobodyandproud wrote: | Not OP and not a physicist. | | I think wrongness is inherent to any well-proven theory, | because each theory is a model. | | It's just understanding where the theory falls apart and | where it makes accurate and useful predictions. | | Like Newtonian physic. Even where it's accurate, the math | can get hard for very simple scenarios. | | The classic three-body problem can be computed; but it's | also inherently chaotic so any computation quickly | becomes inaccurate (sensitive to initial values). | | I think they compute many different times with different | initial conditions, to generate probabilities. | | I imagine the climate science of "what happens" is also | the same: We may not turn into Venus, but we also know | all that excess heat and energy has to go somewhere and | in our fragile global supply chain it won't take much to | make a disaster. | | Still, I don't like the quasi-religious aura that climate | journalism has. It's very off-puttingz | 11thEarlOfMar wrote: | Choose your experts carefully. | edmcnulty101 wrote: | Labotomies won the Nobel prize supported by the consensus. | | Heliocentric theory and antiseptic theory was scoffed at by | the mainstream. | | Consensus is merely a guide, there's no such thing as settled | science. | | The reason is, we're studying an infinite universe with the | limited technology and when that technology or that current | mode of understanding changes, our entire understanding of | the univ. changes. | djbebs wrote: | No it doesn't. Consensus is at best irrelevant to science, | and if anything it's harmful because it reduces the search | space for the truth. | kirykl wrote: | Science works on empirical evidence. Consensus perhaps is | important in testing that evidence is repeatable and true. | But the basis is evidence. | nathanaldensr wrote: | No, science works on _skepticism_. | nlitened wrote: | How can the consensus ever change if we deplatform, defund, | and ostracize all scientists (or would-be scientists) | researching and publishing any evidence that contradicts | consensus? | pfdietz wrote: | By presenting good evidence that the consensus is wrong, | and then after the existing model is thrown into doubt, | presenting a better model. But there actually has to be | that evidence. Bogus evidence (such as that presented by | global warming deniers) does not suffice. | Hammershaft wrote: | This is a fair argument but it seems like the proportion of | climate deniers who are driven by bad faith massively | outweight climate skeptics acting in good faith. | notatoad wrote: | that's how dissent in science has always been treated, | going back to things like "the earth is round". i'm not | saying it's the best system, but it's not new. | historically, science gets it right in the end, but | shifting the scientific consensus is a long and slow | process that happens among scientists, not something that | uninformed masses contribute to in any meaningful way. the | barrier to getting widespread acceptance of your dissenting | theory is much higher than for getting widespread | acceptance of your theory that matches the status quo. | | i don't think it's obvious that there's a benefit to making | it easier to promote ideas that contradict the generally | accepted science. if it's correct, smart people will | eventually be convinced of that. promoting fringe theories | on twitter amongst people who have no underlying knowledge | of the subject matter won't do anything to advance the most | correct ideas, only the loudest ideas or the ideas that | most match our pre-existing biases. | mach1ne wrote: | > if it's correct, smart people will eventually be | convinced of that. | | That's not how science has historically worked. Smart | people won't be convinced, new people will. Status quo | changes when the previous generation is laid to rest. | | This is the result of the academia being just another | human social system obeying the same laws of power as all | the rest, thus inheriting all their flaws. | pfdietz wrote: | Science has often worked like that. As an example | consider Galileo's discovery of the phases of Venus. It | immediately destroyed the Ptolemaic model of the solar | system. Even supporters of that system overwhelmingly | immediately abandoned it. | mannykannot wrote: | There are plenty of cases where things have moved much | faster than that - e.g. the adoption of QM and | relativity, dark energy becoming a respectable | hypothesis, plate tectonics, dinosaur extinction via | impact... In each of these cases, either new evidence or | a new explanation for previously-puzzling evidence was | key. | monort wrote: | It took 50 years for plate tectonics: https://en.wikipedi | a.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics#History_of_the... | KennyBlanken wrote: | > if we deplatform, defund, and ostracize all scientists | (or would-be scientists) researching and publishing any | evidence that contradicts consensus | | Because the announced policy is none of those things? | wtallis wrote: | Twitter is already pretty much the worst possible | communication medium for engaging in scientific debate. | Challenging scientific consensus in a way that is credible | and easily distinguished from trolling or corporate PR | requires a more in-depth discussion of facts and | explanations than Twitter is designed to facilitate. | Certhas wrote: | This is risible. Next we'll cry a tear for all the good | scientists who can not get heard with their findings that | Tobacco is harmless after all? | | There has been concerted funding and propaganda _against_ | the science by an industry that is literally earning | billions a week. | | Others have already pointed out that it's always been hard | to go against the consensus in science. It's supposed to be | hard. The consensus became the consensus for a reason. | Overthrowing it is a monumental effort that gets you into | the history books. | | This is not what this is about and this is not what is | going on here though. In the 80s serious scientists debated | man made global warming. They raised objections, and | contradicted the models. Eventually all the reasonable and | important objections were addressed. The debate settled. | The evidence came in. We now have 30 years of observational | data on top of that! | | And _now_ people complain that there is no scientific | debate! No one was paying attention when the debate | happened! That's why you are getting the conclusion! That's | why people who object are told "Yeah we covered this, check | the papers." Which doesn't feel like debate but in reality | just shows that the person coming in hasn't done their due | diligence or isn't arguing in good faith. | [deleted] | _-david-_ wrote: | >Next we'll cry a tear for all the good scientists who | can not get heard with their findings that Tobacco is | harmless after all? | | Don't forget that the consensus used to be that tobacco | was harmless. The consensus can change from an incorrect | position to the correct one. | KennyBlanken wrote: | > Don't forget that the consensus used to be that tobacco | was harmless | | No? Tobacco companies themselves knew tobacco wasn't | harmless. Just like oil companies have known for almost a | century that humans were causing drastic climate change | due to CO2. | devindotcom wrote: | I think you'll find that as soon as researchers began | looking into the harmful effects of smoking, the link to | cancer quickly became the scientific consensus. It did | not become the popular consensus for decades because of | the indefatigable opposition campaign funded by the | tobacco companies. | | A good history of all this is here: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22345227/ | | Imagine if a company had prohibited tobacco advertising | that asserted smoking was healthy. That's the parallel | here. | wslack wrote: | That isn't what Twitter is banning. There are plenty of | academics working to refine our knowledge around the | climate. Conservatives who have dug into the full science | have concluded that the consensus today has merit. | | This is knowable. | | It's like the difference between someone researching the | exact strength of antibiotics and claiming that medicine | doesn't work. One of those isn't science. | azornathogron wrote: | Even without any of the more modern forms of deplatforming, | defunding or ostracization, people have been concerned for | at least several decades about an inability for new ideas | to make inroads and change overall scientific consensus or | understanding. | | I am speaking of the idea often described as "science | progresses one funeral at a time" - which Wikipedia informs | me is sometimes known as "Planck's principle" | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle | enkid wrote: | How does allowing people to advertise on Twitter make | that process better? I don't see it. | azornathogron wrote: | It doesn't, and I was not claiming anything like that. In | fact I wasn't making any claim about anything at all. I | was just pointing out some broader context that the way | ideas spread and consensus forms or changes is a messy | and human process and always has been, and that it's | something people have been thinking about for a long time | already, so there are plenty of ideas to read about the | topic for anyone who is interested in it. | | If you do want a claim, my personal opinion is that | Twitter's choices to ban or allow certain advertising | will make no noticeable difference to the progress of | scientific understanding, because I don't think adverts | on Twitter are a communication channel that matters for | the spread of ideas within academic communities. I can | imagine that over time it might make a difference to lay- | people's beliefs about some things, although I'm not sure | whether Twitter has a broad enough audience to really | change much here. Since I personally am fully onboard the | "climate change is real, and it's real bad" train, I | don't have any problem with Twitter banning adverts that | spread the opposite idea. If it was a ban on what general | Twitter users can post then I would have a problem with | it, but I'm ok with a ban on adverts. Maybe that's | inconsistent of me, I don't know. | jcranberry wrote: | By publishing their science in academic journals rather | than twitter. | beached_whale wrote: | This is it. The conclusions should match the weight of | the evidence being written about, and that of existing | papers. This can be seen with semi-recent FTL neutrino | experiment... it was probably a faulty cable. There are | often many reasons for counter evidence that explain it | better than changing the current understandings. That has | to be worked through first, and isn't a headline grabbing | process. | istinetz wrote: | Hypothetically: a study finds racial differences in | intelligence, or something equally taboo. | | Do you _really_ believe an esteemed journal would | actually publish it? Or would they find a reason to | politely decline, such as "it's out of scope", "didn't | pass peer review", "doesn't align with out values, | reword"? | | Do you believe, even if the study is published, that it | would not destroy someone's career? | | And finally, if researchers believe there is a chance of | that happening, would they actually start to investigate | the taboo area? | | My answer to all these questions is "no". This is why | when you say, "just publish in academic journals", I am | highly skeptical. And why I am annoyed at yet another | example of the social media oligarchy enforcing what | ideas are allowed to propagate. | sadris wrote: | Behold, exactly what you are talking about: | https://kirkegaard.substack.com/p/positively-motivated- | to-he... | KennyBlanken wrote: | Emil Kirkegaard? That's your example? Did you dig that | out not knowing who he is, or did you post it with full | knowledge of who he was, hoping HNers wouldn't actually | look at who he is? | | For those who aren't aware: | https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Emil_O._W._Kirkegaard | | > Emil Ole William Kirkegaard is a Danish far-right | eugenicist, perjurer[3] and activist for legalising child | pornography. He has a wide range of crank views and is a | global-warming denier, anti-feminist, ableist, anti- | vegan, homophobe, Islamophobe, transphobe and has | promoted white supremacy. He is most notorious and | obnoxious online for his ableism and calling transgender | people, liberals, feminists and pretty much anyone with | left-wing political views who merely disagrees with him | as "mentally ill". | | > Aside from his controversial writings on eugenics and | race, Kirkegaard has been involved in other activities | such as publishing personal data of 70,000 OKCupid users | without permission, including their sexual | preferences,[10] considered by Vox to be "without a doubt | one of the most grossly unprofessional, unethical and | reprehensible data releases".[11] His writings on race | and intelligence[12] have caused controversy and because | peer-reviewed journals refuse to publish his work, he set | up the OpenPsych pseudojournals.[13] However, after this | journal was discredited he now publishes pseudo- | scientific race articles in the open-access Psych | journal.[14][15] | | [...] | | > His highest qualification is a Bachelor's in | linguistics. Having dropped out of his Masters degree, | instead preferring to be "self-taught in various | subjects" | | [...] | | > Kirkegaard's own personal blog is home to topics such | as "Is miscegenation bad for your kids?" and how one | could empirically verify a Jewish conspiracy | istinetz wrote: | I read the entire rationalwiki page on him, and followed | the links to the primary sources, and I learned the | following: | | a) whoever wrote the wiki _really_ doesn 't like him. A | lot of the claims about him are a stretch. | | b) he does make some good points | KennyBlanken wrote: | 1) Ad hominem; even if it were an accurate claim, it | would also be an irrelevant one. | | 2) You're broadly dismissing factual statements as | "claims" with no supporting evidence. Given the | statements on RW are backed extensively by citations, | please support "a lot of claims about him are a stretch" | with citations of your own. | | 3) I take it your "hypothetical" example about race and | intelligence isn't actually hypothetical but something | you actually believe? | aeturnum wrote: | > _Do you really believe an esteemed journal would | actually publish it?_ | | You seem to be forwarding an idea of an information | ecosystem where what is an "esteemed" journal is static. | Like you cannot imagine Nature being anything but the top | journal - so Nature _must_ publish works they find | suspect because otherwise nothing will change. | | Frankly, that's not how anything works. Groups of people | organize around beliefs and there is a relatively stable | (but shifting) understanding of the prestige of those | organizations. Look at, for instance, the understanding | around the stonewall riot / protest (depending on who is | describing it). If these heterodox views are correct (and | for the record I think the race 'science' that claims to | show non-white people consistently test below white folks | is obviously and embarrassingly wrong. I encourage you to | check out this critique of the bell curve[1]) then they | will, over time, become more and more accepted and their | articles in "alternative" journals will be key in that | process. | | The way that previously alternative views have come to | the center is that they were published in their own | "fringe" publications for years - and then, over time, as | those view were more and more accepted, the papers start | appearing in 'mainstream' publications. The "years in the | wilderness" is a feature not a bug! You have to let | subaltern movements develop their own ideas and voice | outside of the mainstream to see if they really have a | substantial critique of the mainstream - because | inevitably any real critique involves getting the | mainstream to let go of one or more central axiom of | their worldview. | | If you are serious about supporting these ideas (and I | really hope you are using 'race science' as an attention | grabbing flash point rather than a thing you believe), | you really should start talking about them like you're | aware of the history of how previously controversial | ideas become mainstream. | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBc7qBS1Ujo | istinetz wrote: | half your comment is spent debunking my "claim". You | cannot even discuss discussing taboo ideas. | | >The "years in the wilderness" is a feature not a bug! | | You just invented that. Never have I heard a suggestion | that for a new theory to become mainstream, you must | first create a new fringe journal that can exceed the | existing journals in reputation. | | In fact, I can think of several examples of brand new | findings that upended the mainstream that were published | directly in Nature or Science. | | You literally just invented this entire process just to | give a reason why politically taboo ideas are | unpublishable. | staticassertion wrote: | This is a silly hypothetical for a number of reasons. | | 1. There are a million reasons it could be rejected. For | one thing, we have decades if not centuries of _terrible_ | science here, motivated by even worse agendas. A journal | is going to be extremely skeptical of any study in this | area for that same reason, and they would be for anything | much less controversial that had centuries of garbage | behind it. | | 2. Science is not morally exempt. A journal may ask | themselves if the scientific implications of this paper | are worth the practical implications of supporting the | work _at that stage_ - that 's going to depend a LOT on | the paper itself, and since this is a hypothetical, we | have no way of discussing this point. | | > Do you believe, even if the study is published, that it | would not destroy someone's career? | | I don't know, maybe? Again, it's a hypothetical. What is | this paper showing? Who is it by? There's so much context | missing here. I'd certainly think whoever did this | research, with no other context, is _probably_ an idiot, | but I could be convinced otherwise. | | > And finally, if researchers believe there is a chance | of that happening, would they actually start to | investigate the taboo area? | | Maybe? Like, yeah, _good point_ , I would definitely | question the motives of anyone doing this research. But | _this is a hypothetical so it 's impossible to say_. | | > My answer to all these questions is "no". | | Given this extremely broad hypothetical it seems pretty | absurd to answer any way definitively. | | Regardless, this in no way supports the idea that the | research rejected by journals is somehow fit for _Twitter | ads_. It is, at best, a criticism of journals, without | any comment on what the right solution would be. | | The idea that _advertising on Twitter_ is somehow the | bandaid we need for purported issues with scientific peer | review is absolutely fucking laughable and I think people | on HN should seriously question the competency of the | average user here. | pcl wrote: | Rather than twitter _ads_ , in the case at hand. | staticassertion wrote: | They can submit their papers to journals for review. No one | is stopping them. Twitter is not the place for that. | alkonaut wrote: | Do you think it changes with political ads on social media? | I think this is completely decoupled from the science | itself. Luckily. | owisd wrote: | How can the consensus change if only the side that can | afford the most twitter ads get to put their position | forward? | rhino369 wrote: | Allowing one side to advertise doesn't mean the other | side doesn't get to "put their position forward." | owisd wrote: | If, as you say, not advertising on twitter doesn't mean | you don't get to put your position forward then nothing | of value is being lost by the twitter policy change. | rhino369 wrote: | I'm saying that allowing A to advertise on twitter | doesn't prevent B from advertising on twitter. | owisd wrote: | If one side has a financial incentive to push bad faith | arguments, whereas the other side has no financial | incentive or resources and is just interested in science | for the sake of science, then by supporting having the | debate via twitter ads you've created a system that locks | out one side. | enkid wrote: | Advertising on Twitter should not be the way people try to | change the consensus. | mlindner wrote: | > Science works on consensus | | No it doesn't. I can't believe people are even claiming this. | Science has NOTHING to do with consensus. If evidence is | produced that goes against a consensus then the consensus is | wrong. Consensus has nothing to do with science. Consensus is | a problem of humans that disrupts the scientific process. | mrtnmcc wrote: | Worth remembering the scientific method relies on some | sense of repeatable phenomena for idealized "experiment". | Social science, medicine, astronomy, geology, earth | science, each have their own axioms for what that means. | (E.g., assume the universe is isotropic). | | I don't think each of these are as solid as the other. | Climate science is certainly less testable than say | particle physics. Not that we shouldn't work together as | humans to model, understand and keep our (only) planet | stable as best we can.. but "scientific consensus" is less | meaningful in this field.. used as a political word to | motivate people at the expense of more nuanced | understanding. | | But like vaccines, it's probably better to act now before | we understand it all.. (on the day before we go extinct). | alexashka wrote: | > Consensus is a problem of humans that disrupts the | scientific process | | No, no, consensus is the only reason we _have_ science, or | language, or much of anything humans find interesting. Let | me explain: | | Science is a thing humans do. Without humans around, I | don't see ants doing science anytime soon :) When humans | share the stuff they do and reach agreement, that is called | consensus. | | In other words, any word you use, it is because humans | wanted to communicate and reach consensus, so they invented | a word for it. | | So you have it backwards, it's humans -> consensus -> | science, not science -> consensus -> humans. | mithr wrote: | > If evidence is produced that goes against a consensus | then the consensus is wrong | | To be more specific, then the consensus _may_ be wrong. The | bar to demonstrate that something is wrong _and be taken | seriously_ is meant to be higher than simply claiming one | can produce evidence to the contrary. | | When such evidence is discovered, the idea is that one | would present that evidence to peers, who would attempt to | replicate the findings, and support them if they are able | to do so, or otherwise publish their counter-findings in | response. This is obviously more complicated in practice | because we're dealing with humans and not ideals (and thus | we have things like the replication crisis), but that is | the theory of how we advance the body of knowledge that we | derive from scientific theses and experiments. | | We do not advance it by claiming that evidence has been | found and then leaving it at that, in a vacuum. So it's not | _exactly_ that science "works on consensus", in the sense | that _just_ a majority doesn 't prove anything, but -- | convincing, using evidence, the majority of the scientific | community in your field, is certainly part of the process. | belorn wrote: | Let say someone want to advertise natural gas as an green | energy source. What is the consensus among climate researcher | on that, and what does EU politicians consensus say? Which | authoritative sources should we pick here? | fzeroracer wrote: | Scientists are not publishing ads on Twitter for their theories. | Corporations are. | | What people are defending is corporate consensus, because | ultimately that's who puts up ads that contradict the current | research around climate change. Corporations have reached a | generalized consensus that climate change isn't a problem to | worry about right now, because to accept the opposite means | change that would affect their business and profits. | | These two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Sometimes | scientific consensus can be artificially created through the use | of corporate backers; but a little bit of logical deduction in | this scenario should make it obvious that the people with the | largest profit incentives are those that have a vested interest | in claiming climate change isn't an issue. | | That said, people arguing that scientific consensus doesn't exist | is remarkably ignorant. It should take time and effort for any | theory you publish to make its way to the forefront because | otherwise you end up with a flood of charlatans, corporations and | otherwise submitting bunk science in order to further their own | profit or political motives. | politician wrote: | Twitter needs to stop or be stopped. Censorship belongs to the | government, not private institutions. Let the government pass | legislation instructing Twitter about which speech is allowed. | The government, at least in the US, is accountable to the people, | but Twitter like other authoritarian regimes is accountable only | to themselves. | SalmoShalazar wrote: | So you want a more authoritarian government to clamp down on | what businesses can and cannot do? Seems contrary to the | freedom everyone on this website seems to be enamoured with. | I'd expect private enterprises (emphasis on the word private) | to be able to do just about whatever they want with their | businesses in a "free" system. | 8note wrote: | So far, all laws around censorship are that it is up to private | individuals which ideas they want to promote, and which ones | they don't. | | Antitrust is a much better direction to tackle this kind of | issue through. Twitter needs to be one way of seeing the | underlying data, rather than having a monopoly on it. | mdavis6890 wrote: | Blood letting was the scientific consensus not long ago. You | would have been spreading misinformation to question it. | lambdaba wrote: | Well just yesterday there was a story about how donating blood | helps remove microplastics so... | wtallis wrote: | Bloodletting and the practice of medicine as a whole both | predate organized science. Transforming medicine into a | scientific discipline is an incomplete work in progress, and | discarding bloodletting is one of the consequences of that | transition. | olivermarks wrote: | "science' in this context is essentially a form of religious | dogma. | | Who is twitter to say that science is settled, done and dusted? | This is just the latest version of torturing people considered | heretics to force them to recant their views and is antithetical | to western liberal concepts of free speech, discussion and | evolution of ideas | | https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/02/26/Galileo-the-gifted-1.... | akomtu wrote: | Scientism as the new religion. This gradual shift from the | feeling-based dogmas to dogmas based on shallow knowledge is, | in fact, a sign of progress, that the majority of the populace | starts putting knowledge before feelings. | puffoflogic wrote: | What's weird is that until COVID, scientism was on the way | out of favor, with the sidelining of the New Atheists (Tyson, | Hitchens, et al). It's funny how the movement managed to get | revived just before it stepped through the pearly gates, as | it were. | olivermarks wrote: | Sadly much of what passes for 'science' these days is | actually slanted persuasion, feeling/fear manipulation and | cancel culture | staticassertion wrote: | This is good news. Misinformation is cheap to produce and | expensive to combat once it's out there. My opinion is that the | only effective approach is to deplatform it entirely, as early in | the process as possible. | dominotw wrote: | >Misinformation | | thats not what this is about. | staticassertion wrote: | It very obviously is. They're rejecting advertisers who | project misinformation around climate change. | SalmoShalazar wrote: | Actually it seems like it's explicitly about misinformation | promoted by those with an interest in denying the realities | of climate change. | gigatexal wrote: | Good. This is twitter doing what it should in the public good. | meatsauce wrote: | Stalin said the holodomor was for the public good, too. | encryptluks2 wrote: | Pretty soon I could see the US saying sending Russian | Americans to camps is good and the left celebrating it. | gigatexal wrote: | You folks seem to love the slippery slope argument. There's | clearly a difference between facts and fiction. Not | allowing clearly and proven false advertising on the | platform elevates that advertising and makes it even more | valuable. At least to me. And makes me want to use the | platform even more thereby increasing engagement and then | driving up ad value and prices. | | Advertising honesty != a forced famine nor is it forcing | Russian Americans into camps like we did to Japanese | citizen in WW2. | SalmoShalazar wrote: | This is an absolutely absurd thing to say and is about half a | degree away from reductio ad Hitlerum. We're talking about | misleading advertisements here, try to stay grounded when you | think about these things. | vixen99 wrote: | You're just yea-saying. Who defines public good? You and | Twitter whoever they are behind the scenes? Clearly there are | matters of which we should know nothing. And folk like you will | protect us. | gigatexal wrote: | If we stay within scope of the action taken here we can | clearly see that this is Twitter enforcing some truth in its | advertising. Now if it would just ban crypto ads ... but I'm | not head of advertising at Twitter so it won't happen. | gigatexal wrote: | Also this is the actions of a company. Not a government. A | company seeking to limit who or what to advertise. That's | gotta tick a few right of center (politically) boxes no? | kvetching wrote: | [deleted] | tsol wrote: | I wonder if this has anything to do with Elon Musk saying he | wants to buy Twitter and change it for the public good | kvetching wrote: | chernevik wrote: | "Contradicting science" is exactly how you do science. | seoaeu wrote: | Yeah, but then you publish your theory (along with supporting | evidence!) in academic publications. Who ever heard of a | scientist taking out Twitter ads to push their fringe theory | directly to ordinary people? | endominus wrote: | Efforts to ban "misinformation" are gaining ground pretty | much everywhere, with full-throated support by government | institutions and at most given token resistance from social | media companies, if that. Banning misinformation or heterodox | opinions in ads is the initial step; does anyone, in good | faith, truly believe that's where it will stop? Facebook and | YouTube already warn about videos that mention certain | topics, hence some YouTubers saying phrases like "Hope you're | staying healthy in these trying times" in case the platform | deranked them for saying COVID. Soon, as the ability for | algorithms to understand context evolves, discussion and | especially disagreement of such things at all will be heavily | censored (I'm sorry, "downranked") by algorithms on such | sites, until they are essentially invisible. | | Also, it's not just about publishing papers. Scientists use | Twitter to network and communicate their ideas with other | scientists. To learn about what people are working on, | interesting ideas in their field, and so on. If heterodoxy is | banned from discussion, it becomes that much harder to | challenge existing consensus, because they will be unable to | communicate effectively with one another on public platforms. | wtallis wrote: | > does anyone, in good faith, truly believe that's where it | will stop? | | If you see the actions of Twitter, _et al._ as stemming not | from a desire to flex power over society but merely as a | desire to not be exposed to claims that they 're profiting | directly from and complicit in harmful disinformation | campaigns, then it is reasonable to expect that they won't | go too much further. | | They've certainly dragged their heels thus far. They're | clearly trying to put the minimum moderation effort to | avoid getting hit by more serious public outcry or | government interference, which naturally gives rise to a | very error-prone moderation scheme. | endominus wrote: | >If you see the actions of Twitter, et al. as stemming | not from a desire to flex power over society | | Except I don't see that as being the source at all. Like | I said, the support for these initiatives originates in | government. Hence the government making much of their | intent to further legislate and examine the operating | models, algorithms, and moderation of these companies. | Twitter, Alphabet, Facebook, etc are all acting | defensively in response to these pressures, but in the | process there's very little appetite to defend free | speech proper (even the ACLU, I am given to understand, | is not the same organization that at one time defended | the KKK's right to march in the streets - although I | can't remember too much of the noise around their | supposed change in direction). The ratchet only ever goes | one way. | | Other companies are already modifying what discussion is | allowed or disfavored on their platforms, as I noted in | my post. They can see the headwinds clearly. As more | governments discover the power of controlling the | narrative, it will only be natural for them to apply | pressure to companies that have the greatest power to | modify that narrative. Institutions follow incentives | just like every other agentic thing. They have an | incentive to defend themselves and accumulate power, and | so it is often useful to model them as (usually) taking | actions that help them do that. | | Note that I'm not saying that the President is going to | call the CEO of Twitter and tell him, "Stop this whole | 'Let's go Brandon!' thing." That's not really how it | works. To paraphrase the editor of the NYT (iirc), "I've | never had to kill a story my journalists wrote for | political reasons." And neither, probably, did the | editors of Pravda. Once you get to a certain level of | awareness, and it's hard to believe the C-suite of these | large tech companies lacking that, you have to be able to | read the room, politically speaking, and know what the | actual big players - the people with the real power - | want out of you. Subtle alterations of reported reality | is going to be the new normal. "What you're hearing and | seeing isn't really what's going on" - a bit more | terrifying to realize that that's the capability that's | slowly becoming normalized. | wtallis wrote: | So your claim is that nobody can honestly believe that | social media companies would show increased opposition to | increasing government pressure, and that it's obvious | that the companies are willing to follow the governments | all the way to totalitarianism--in spite of the | resistance and reticence the companies have already | shown? You _really_ think it 's that unreasonable to view | this as a shifting of the equilibrium rather than an | unchecked runaway process? | endominus wrote: | More or less, yes. I don't believe that these companies | have actual principles to defend here; they act in self- | preservation. If the government threatens to break up | Google for spreading propaganda, it's going to stop | spreading propaganda, however the government defines the | category. PRISM wasn't that long ago. Gag orders exist. | Do you think Fastmail is going to refuse to comply with | the Assistance and Access Bill? To view this as a | shifting equilibrium, I would need to see organizations | arising as dedicated to opposing this process as there | are those seeking to accelerate it. I don't believe they | exist at the scale necessary to do so. Instead, I see a | meme gaining ground that free speech itself is | unnecessary or harmful - "freeze peach" at the mud- | slinging lower end of the intellectual scale, and "the | Paradox of Tolerance" at the higher end. | PolygonSheep wrote: | > then it is reasonable to expect that they won't go too | much further. | | Is it reasonable to expect that whatever social/political | forces have pushed them to do this will stop there? | | It makes no difference really if Twitter is out in front | leading this or being dragged along kicking and screaming | against their will. Is there reason to think "okay you | can all stop worrying it's definitely stopped here and | won't go any further"? | stonogo wrote: | Scientists use Twitter to get eyes on their papers, talks, | and posters. No scientist's work would be meaningfully | impacted by the dissolution of Twitter. We had conferences | and journals before the web, and we'll have them long after | whatever big tech darling of the moment is gone. | 8note wrote: | how many scientists buy ads through twitter to network with | other scientists? Is money spent the right networking | mechanism? | mhh__ wrote: | Are adverts scientific research now? | TedShiller wrote: | Let me point out that science has been wrong many times before | tzs wrote: | How many of those times was the error corrected via ads in | popular media? | cryptica wrote: | There is no such thing as 'contradicting science' - Science is | never settled, never certain. If it was, it would be called | Mathematics. | timcavel wrote: | Thought-crime alert! Science Ministry Rule 186 violation, do | not question the science without a registered science license | identifier attached. | bediger4000 wrote: | A step in the right direction towards banning all untruthful ads! | | But wait, since advertising is almost exclusively lies, then | Twitter might ban all ads! That would be great! Elon would have | to finance all Twitter operations out of pocket, but he can | afford it, it's a drop in the bucket for the world's richest, and | therefore smartest, man! | mirceal wrote: | Elon is gonna save them. all ads will be welcome! | npunt wrote: | It seems a lot of people are responding to this from the | 'allowable speech' and 'consensus is bad' perspective, which | triggers the inevitable 'its a private platform' or 'its just one | place' response. | | We should be looking at this from a threat model perspective. | That certain subjects, at certain times, are subject to | coordinated threats in order to gain power to those coordinating | them. This isn't about 'scientific consensus', this is a known | set of threat actors following a known playbook to spread FUD, | 'flood the zone with shit', etc, for known reasons. | | Any human effort at scale is going to be subject to some amount | of threat noise trying to get in the way of signal. We overcome | these with institutional antibodies, things like practices and | protocols and checks and balances (hopefully made transparent). | We try to lower the noise floor so that the quality stuff is | encouraged and sticks around. | | I feel like a lot of complaints fall back to unrealistic idealism | because they don't have the insight on what the decision making | apparatus is, where it is empowered and where it is limited, and | how decisions were reached. That's a problem, but arguing that | threats shouldn't be addressed is not the solution, because _we | already know how that plays out in institutions, communities, and | societies_. They fall apart. | systemvoltage wrote: | I believe that CC is a problem that I am 100% behind but how do | we avoid this piggy backing and hijacking of CC initiatives to | further _some other_ agenda? Say increase profit margins or green | wash people? Just recently I stayed in a Marriott hotel and my | entire experience was marred with CC warning labels everywhere | from Toiletteries to free breakfast in the morning. You know what | would be better for CC? That hotel to not exist in the first | place. There is no end in sight and no limit to what can be done | for CC. So you have this unlimited power from random authorities | masquerading behind CC. | | I think the problem with Climate Change movement is sort of like | COVID. Restroom closed? Because COVID. Public Park Trail closed? | COVID. Wtf!? | | No one challenges it. No is allowed to. It has all these side | effects. | | We ought to double-down where things _actually_ matter for the | betterment of the planet and speak up against this other non- | sense. | chmod600 wrote: | It's a bandwagon thing. Founders and early joiners of a | movement are very different from people who join after a | movement is already successful/catching on (perhaps widely or | perhaps in one area/subculture). | | After something becomes so successful that you can't challenge | it in any way (at least in some circles) it takes on the | characteristics you describe. If someone pokes you in the eye | and says it's for climate change, you can't say anything. | | None of this has to do with the accuracy of the original | movement. CC can be very real and abused by politicians and | other opportunists. | seoaeu wrote: | It doesn't seem that hard to differentiate "Marriott is washing | towels less often to save money, not because they care about | saving water" from someone claiming that climate change isn't | happening... | CreateAccntAgn wrote: | Scientific consensus on climate change is pretty well defined. Is | anyone saying that messages that contradict them are correct | sometimes and so Twitter is wrong in this action? Corps have been | abusing capital to amplify their speech intentionally misleading | public on this subject regardless of its harm. This imho is the | right move. | UberFly wrote: | What about Corps abusing capital to muffle speech? This isn't | necessarily just about climate change. | TeeMassive wrote: | "Twitter says it will no longer allow advertisers on its site who | deny the scientific consensus on climate change" | | Does that mean if an advertisers sais the wrong thing elsewhere | in public they will be banned? | yes_really wrote: | I have a feeling that "contradict science on climate change" will | only go one way. For example, economists agree that effects of | climate change would be very small (compared to the world's | economy) or even positive. David Friedman even thinks that | climate change might be a *net positive* for the economy [1][2]. | Is Twitter going to ban ads that say climate change will be a | catastrophe? | | [1] | https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/09/david_friedman_9.ht... | | [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euL39f1kins | npunt wrote: | Macroeconomics really strains the definition of 'science'. Few | economists would place their field's predictive or descriptive | power anywhere near that of chemistry, physics, biology, and | all the other hard sciences that are part of climate science | and the analysis of its effects. And I haven't yet seen people | in the fact checking / 'allowable speech' sphere bring up most | any social sciences as being settled or beyond reproach enough | to take down content. | | Given that there are so many unknowns about the extent of the | nth-order effects of climate change (e.g. ecosystem collapse), | I find it laughable that economists have a macro model that has | any level of certainty to it. They can't even get relatively | static situations correct, let alone literally world-changing | ones. | markdown wrote: | > David Friedman even thinks that climate change might be a | _net positive_ for the economy | | Which economy? Certainly not the ones that are getting | destroyed by "biggest ever recorded" tropical cyclones. | | Maybe he meant Sweden finally being able to grow and export | bananas? | yes_really wrote: | > Which economy? Certainly not the ones that are getting | destroyed by "biggest ever recorded" tropical cyclones. | | The literature is mixed on whether climate change is really | the cause on these recent natural disasters and, if it is, on | how it impacts those disasters (e.g. reducing the frequency | of the disasters, changing their location, etc). | | > Maybe he meant Sweden finally being able to grow and export | bananas? | | Your example of Sweden is a rich country, but most of the | increases in crop production would take place on developing | countries - and that is a big deal for them. | olliej wrote: | Massive crop failures across poorer equatorial regions have | become increasingly regular. | | Longer, harder, droughts, and then extreme water events | that can't retain much of the water causes other problems | beyond just floods. | | Economists have historically proven to be extremely | inaccurate at predicting long term patterns. They also have | a strong bias in favour of business, so always find | "supporting evidence" for almost any choice creating | immediate gains for business. | | An easy measure is: has any major economic "study" ever | supported raising taxes for businesses or the rich? Have | they supported investing in employee welfare? Universal | healthcare? Etc | | In countries that have done this, and thus actually | measured the outcomes, they have found things have improved | for the majority of people. | | In countries that have followed the "reduce taxes and | services" to improve society we have for decades seen the | exact opposite, and yet economists still claim that life | will improve for people. Again, this is despite decades of | direct contrary evidence. | | Economics is a fiction, the only actual supported piece of | economic theory is supply vs demand. That's it. | yes_really wrote: | For people that are lost on how climate change could be | positive: it causes higher crop yields, and increases the | temperature in cold regions (saving people from freezing to | death and saving huge amounts of energy in heating). | | Economists have performed many analyses on these and the | conclusions indicate the consequences of climate change are | much more mild that what the media, NGOs and politicians | propagate. It's revolting that institutions have kept this | scientific analysis away from the general population and have | been feeding us political hysteria instead. The fact that even | educated, rational, successful engineers in Hacker News are not | aware of these data is another argument for why Twitter | shouldn't be censoring ads in this political way. | xyzzy21 wrote: | "Science" is NEVER decided and the fact they are doing this is | specifically and explicitly ANTI-SCIENCE. It is itself | misinformation. | PraetorianGourd wrote: | I guess this shows the slippery slope fallacy isn't always | fallacious. | | The problem with "consensus" as a measure is that consensus is | always moving. We need to encourage professional and laypersons | alike to embrace the freedom to be wrong as everything is wrong | until it is right. | | And what constitutes consensus? If Mazda puts out an ad saying | that ICE cars contribute less than transoceanic shipping, is that | acceptable? It's factual, but it goes against the consensus that | ICE cars need to be eliminated. | | I get this is ads, not user generated content, though the | chilling effect is there. | tshaddox wrote: | > I guess this shows the slippery slope fallacy isn't always | fallacious. | | No, it's still always fallacious. The argument "it's going to | rain today because it's Saturday and it always rains on | Saturday" is fallacious even on the occasions that it does rain | on Saturday. | yakak wrote: | Freedom of speech in advertising means you are paying and have | a monetization strategy. That is more commonly known as fraud | and many systems might ultimately penalize platforms when they | catch up with their being new outlets for new frauds. | | Maybe cigarettes are the new health food! Maybe, but if the | consensus is no it is unethical and hopefully illegal to | present a case as a cigarette manufacturer directly to the | people as a run around of systems of critique. Each member of | the public can't be individually expected to resist all logical | fallacies that are profitable cons, no? | tensor wrote: | In contrast, I get downright scared when people are allowed to | use their money to pay for a louder voice and potentially | interfere with discussions around science or politics. That's | both immoral and dangerous. | rnd0 wrote: | I disagree. I think that platforms have some sort of | responsibility to vet the ads who run on their platform. Not | just for science or politics but in general. | | 1/2 of the reason I have used an adblocker for 20 years is | because of how often straight-up malware has made it onto | advertising networks because of a lack of vetting.[1] | | There's a discussion to be had about twitter and social media | removing posts and posters but I don't feel like this is that | discussion. I feel like this is a positive (or at least | neutral) development. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising#History | PraetorianGourd wrote: | I don't have a problem with a company exercising editorial | control over ads. The concern comes from the measure being | used (scientific consensus). | | 1. Twitter is not and ought not be the adjudicator of what | has or lacks consensus. | | 2. Using consensus as a measure implies that it is immutable. | We should have learned during COVID that consensus is | incredibly variable | ChrisLomont wrote: | Consensus has never meant immutable. | PraetorianGourd wrote: | Exactly, and policies and rules should be as immutable as | possible thus showing that consensus is a bad measure | here. | 8note wrote: | I'm not clear that policies and rules should be | immutable, nor as immutable as possible. Rules are an | adversarial game, and being responsive is useful | indymike wrote: | > I disagree | | At one time, consensus was bleeding with leeches cured | disease, owning humans was normal and legal, sugar was good | for you and so on. | rnd0 wrote: | The difference being that these days we at least pay lip | service to the scientific method and reproducibility. | | I'd much prefer to rely on that than on what some | disinformation-fed Q-anon supporter proposes. And I'd | prefer to not give bad actors (eg folks who spread anti- | vaccine disinformation) a platform at all. | indymike wrote: | Status quo is easy. | rnd0 wrote: | injecting ivermectin or bleach or whatever qanon covid | cure du jour ...is hard | | Which, frankly, is a good thing. | pigeonhole123 wrote: | Are other people allowed to disagree with that view? | 8note wrote: | And people used twitter to disprove those? | jesusofnazarath wrote: | marcosdumay wrote: | > ICE cars contribute less than transoceanic shipping | | It's not factual, unless you are talking about bullshit | measurement that focus on sulfur pollutants that we accept on | the middle of the ocean because they do almost not damage there | (and have no relation at all with Global Warming). | jeffbee wrote: | In what way is that factual? The data I can easily punch up at | the moment indicates global shipping emitted 1 billion tons of | CO2 in 2020 and automobiles emitted 3 billion tons. | CWuestefeld wrote: | This is great. No longer will I need to see people claiming that | climate is an existential threat, likely to snuff out human | society by the end of the century. Oh wait, those aren't the | untruthful extremists we're talking about? | 8note wrote: | I don't think they have the money to buy enough twitter ads for | you to see them | jokethrowaway wrote: | They don't need to, they get organic tweets from any media | publication. | | I can't say I've seen ads denying climate change anyway, the | closest I've seen was stuff from Exxon saying something | climate change friendly trying to convince you they support | green policies. | AHappyCamper wrote: | Thank goodness science is in COMPLETE agreement when it comes to | climate. I mean, if there was more than one scientific opinion | about climate, then this ban would be ludicrous.... | civilized wrote: | Awesome. Finally someone decided to ban something that's actually | unambiguously bad, useless, and materially harmful. | | Even with Trump, whose banning I support, you could argue there | was some value in knowing what the President had on his mind. | | I really don't need to know what Exxon's PR hacks want me to | believe about climate change, even just for informational value. | I'm extraordinarily well-aware of what they want me to think and | why. | | Some things are just evil, and they become more evil and more | powerful the more you feed them. Hitler was one. Exxon talking | about climate change is another. | 8note wrote: | I think it's interesting to know what Exxon's PR is thinking, | though I don't think money spent is the right way to prioritize | their thoughts vs anything else | pixl97 wrote: | If you want to know what Exxon's PR is thinking just listen | to your average Texas senator. | pornel wrote: | Exxon's PR is always thinking FUD, such as "banning our anti- | scientific PR ads is a slippery slope towards banning all | science (because who can tell the difference between new | revolutionary theory that upends thousands of peer-reviewed | papers in 280 characters, and our lies)". | Proven wrote: | deanCommie wrote: | The terms "progressive" and "conservative" have been completely | stripped of meaning in our political discourse, (like "agile"!) | but fundamentally they have a core meaning. | | Progressive philosophy is to seek change to improve/fix problems, | even with the risk that action can have side effects that also | will need to be dealt with. | | Conservative philosophy is to maintain the status quo and not | take action to address problems even if they are causing harm - | until we can establish all possible side effects can be dealt | with. ( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Chesterton%27s_fence ) | | Which is why it's so strange and disappointing to me to see the | overall discourse on this site about Twitter and the steps they | take to try to deal with misinformation on global society- | impacting subjects like pandemics, vaccines, and climate change. | | People are not wrong to worry about knock-on effects, but it's | shocking to me that by default most of the comment upvotes | suggest it's preferable to do absolutely nothing and offer no | moderation of content like this. | | This would never fly in our day-to-day jobs. If HackerNews is for | startup enterpreneurs, being stuck in analysis paralysis is no | way to build a startup. Progressive bias for action is the only | available option. | staticassertion wrote: | Reading this thread, one of two things must be true. | | 1. HN commenters simply refuse to read articles. | | 2. The average HN commenter is extremely stupid. | | The idea that Twitter Ads are somehow the right place for | scientific peer review to happen is so absurdly stupid that I | can't imagine that either 1 or 2 is not blatantly true, if not | both. Otherwise, I have no explanation for the comments talking | about censorship, problems with academic publishing, etc. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-23 23:01 UTC)