this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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Controversial - the place to discuss controversial topics

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Controversial - the community to discuss controversial topics.

Challenge others opinions and be challenged on your own.

This is not a safe space nor an echo-chamber, you come here to discuss in a civilized way, no flaming, no insults!

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, "trust me bro" is not a valid argument.

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Calls for defederation - Is the idea of the open marketplace of ideas outdated? (self.controversial)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Hastur to c/controversial
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Lately I see a lot of calls do have specific instances defederated for a particular subset of reasons:

  • Don't like their content
  • Dont like their political leaning
  • Dont like their free speech approach
  • General feeling of being offended
  • I want a safe space!
  • This instance if hurting vulnerable people

I personally find each and every one of these arguments invalid. Everybody has the right to live in an echo chamber, but mandating it for everyone else is something that goes a bit too far.

Has humanity really developed into a situation where words and thoughts are more hurtful than sticks and stones?

Edit: Original context https://slrpnk.net/post/554148

Controversial topic, feel free to discuss!

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[–] Hastur 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's a key difference with email: that's opt-in communication. Generally speaking (outside of botspam which does get blacklisted) you have to sign up for a newsletter or ask someone to email you. It's opt-in, not opt-out. Lemmy/Kbin are by definition opt-out: a new user, browsing All, will see everything they haven't blocked.

Good point!

If the first post they see on their New feed is a screed calling for the death of all LGBTQ+ people (for example), do you think a brand new user will calmly block the instance and move on, or decide that this instance isn't the one for them? And a user that agrees with that hateful message, they have now gotten the message that this instance is friendly to their worldview.

And here I disagree with you. The world is a horrible, dangerous, wonderful, exciting , murderous, funny, sad, depressing, manic place. Hiding that some people hate gays will not change the fact that some people hate gays. It will also not make these people disappear. Isn't it better to know reality and accept it as it is, deal with it as it comes?

[–] Barbarian 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think that this has been a surprisingly productive debate. I may not agree with you on this, but I do understand where you're coming from and can respect it. I think I'll answer this and leave it at that:

Isn’t it better to know reality and accept it as it is, deal with it as it comes?

I don't need to read hateful things to know that hateful people exist. I've had plenty of people say far worse to my face IRL. I don't come to Lemmy and didn't go to Reddit to get into shouting matches with people who think me or my friends are less-than. My goal here is not changing the world, it's entertainment and discussion. Neither am I seeking some safe space with a strict blocklist and careful vetting of each user. All I want is a medium place where I can have good conversations without someone questioning my right to exist.

[–] Hastur 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think that this has been a surprisingly productive debate.

Thank you and likewise.

I don't need to read hateful things to know that hateful people exist. I've had plenty of people say far worse to my face IRL. I don't come to Lemmy and didn't go to Reddit to get into shouting matches with people who think me or my friends are less-than. My goal here is not changing the world, it's entertainment and discussion. Neither am I seeking some safe space with a strict blocklist and careful vetting of each user. All I want is a medium place where I can have good conversations without someone questioning my right to exist.

Questioning your right to exist sound quite stupid, you obviously exist (Let's not go full Descartes now) and that settles any discussion in my POV.

As you just said: I can see where you come from and I can respect that, however I don't fully agree with it.

Nonetheless it has been a great pleasure to disagree with you and learn about your POV, thanks for stepping up to the task and giving me food for thought.

[–] Oni_eyes 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not questioning their existence, it's questioning their right to do so in the way they choose.

Thus the "to" in right to exist. It's a different argument entirely and you're casually merging it the same way you did the vaccines are gene therapy nonsense.

[–] Hastur 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thus the "to" in right to exist. It's a different argument entirely and you're casually merging it the same way you did the vaccines are gene therapy nonsense

Where was I wrong with my, simplified, explanation? Because you're just shouting "Fake News!" without providing any argument.

[–] Oni_eyes 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I provided my argument. There is a difference between "someone exists" and "allowing someone to exist as they are". By conflating the two you ignore all the people that are determined to prevent the second from happening while allowing for the first within a set limit. Usually those limits may be sound (no pedophiles, no murderers, etc), but a significant (alt right/religious/conservative) group are pushing that a subset of people aren't allowed the second because it goes against their morals for whatever reason. Accepting that there are hateful communities in the lemmyverse and allowing them access under terms (no brigading, no hatespeech on other instances) is the first option while defederating from hateful communities is the second option, if you needed an example of the difference.

The only difference between lemmyverse and the real world in this case is that defederating doesn't remove anyone's right to exist as they are in their own space, whereas many of these hateful groups want to eliminate the right for people to exist as they are anywhere.

[–] Hastur 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I provided my argument. There is a difference between "someone exists" and "allowing someone to exist as they are".

That's a non-argument. Just because someone says: "Being gay is a sin" this doesn't deny any gay person the right to be gay or the right to exist. Unless you go to Iran or Dubai and try be be openly gay there, there you can for sure experiments how denial of existence looks like in reality.

I also asked you to disprove my simplify explanations of why an argument could me made about mRNA COVID vaccines being genetic treatments. You haven't said a word about that apart from: This is wrong. Well prove me wrong, please. Where did I fail?

The only difference between lemmyverse and the real world in this case is that defederating doesn't remove anyone's right to exist as they are in their own space, whereas many of these hateful groups want to eliminate the right for people to exist as they are anywhere.

That's a bold claim, do you have bold evidence to substantiate that?

[–] Oni_eyes 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"These vaccines do not enter the nucleus of the cell where our DNA (genetic material) is located, so it cannot change or influence our genes."

From the cdc website.

All the mRNA vaccine does is feed a blueprint in to the cells protein synthesizer (not modify the genes or add new genes, or interact with them in any way). This new protein is similar to the protein on the surface of the targeted virus and triggers an immune response that will then give the immune system a memory for the targeted virus. It's like feeding a template into a 3d printer. The new template doesn't change or alter the printer in any way.

[–] Hastur 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nothing here contradicts what I wrote. Can you please quote my post and tell me what exactly is wrong? Please see how mRNA works and then look at my postz if you find anything wrong with it and evidence where I was wrong, I'm happy to correct.

Right now you're parrotting the CDC website which doesn't contradict me in the slightest.

Here look at this first https://youtu.be/TbaCxIJ_VP4

[–] Oni_eyes 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you think that doesn't contradict your vaccines= gene therapy point, you need to recheck the definition of gene therapy.

It modifies the genetic structure in the HOST through one of a few methods, none of which are : provide modified RNA genetic material to produce a specific compound, unless said modified RNA also introduces desired genes into the host cells.

https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/cellular-gene-therapy-products/what-gene-therapy#:~:text=Gene%20therapy%20is%20a%20technique,healthy%20copy%20of%20the%20gene

Now if you wanted to be obtuse and say that anything that has any sort of genetic material in it designed to interact with the human body, then you could argue that mRNA vaccines are gene therapy. By the definition and by method of interaction they are at best adjacent, not gene therapy.

[–] Hastur 0 points 1 year ago

If you think that doesn't contradict your vaccines= gene therapy point, you need to recheck the definition of gene therapy.

You haven't read what I wrote or you haven't understood it. I did not say: It is gene therapy.

I did not say: I think it's gene therapy. I haven't made any statement about my opinion on that matter.

I said: Given the, simplified, explanation of how mRNA vaccines work an argument could be made to call it gene therapy.

I did NOT say that this is my argument. I did NOT say that calling mRNA vaccines gene therapy is right (or wrong, I did NOT make ANY judgment on that matter).

So either you're intentionally misreading my statements or you're not able to understand that even if I don't agree with an opinion I might be able to follow it's inherent logic which is what I did.

In any case I don't see value in further engaging on that topic with you.