Politics Monster Island

[Kildonan]

I listen to a lot of podcasts. Most of them are left-leaning politically or involve science / skepticism / medicine or are comedic and a few are footy related.

One of my favourite podcasters is Thomas Smith. He is involved in a number of podcasts. Like me he is an atheist. I first encountered him in a podcast called "Thomas and the bible" - this was an ambitious project where Thomas read the bible from cover to cover giving his comedic commentary throughout. He has several other podcasts - one called "Atheistically Speaking" which evolved to become "Serious Inquiries Only". This is a great podcast and has spawned several offshoot podcasts in collaboration with various guests. Opening arguments is a law and politics podcast where Thomas teams up with an ivy league lawyer Andrew Torrez, and they cover a range of US legal issues - many of which are related to the political situation there. Another offshoot podcast is "Philosophers in Space" where Thomas teams up with philosophy professor Aaron Rabinowitz to use science fiction as a vehicle to discuss philosophical concepts. Aaron has another podcast called "Embrace the Void" which tends to approach philosophical concepts though a review of the philosophers who originally discussed / described them and through astute interviews.

In his article for UK's The Skeptic Aaron writes " Our story begins in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election. Like many very online Millennials, I was posting a lot of political content to my personal facebook wall and getting some rather inflammatory pushback from individuals on the right. It got so bad that I started to get private messages from friends begging me to find an alternative venue. The final straw came when a Native American friend saw a thread where one right wing individual repeatedly referred to Dakota Access Pipeline protesters as “primitives” and “savages”. We’ll call this right-winger Bruce. Bruce, myself, and a few other regular participants decided to take our debates to a private group. A place where people from a truly broad range of perspectives could fully express their most controversial views at a safe distance from the rest of humanity. There was only one possible name for such a place: Monster Island."



The Curse of Monster Island: a four year experiment in unmoderated free speech

ByAaron Rabinowitz
14th October 2020

 

[Kildonan]

Late last year and during the COVID-19 pause in AFL this year, the Saints board (in the absence of any footy discussion to be had) allowed threads to discuss a number of issues including the bushfires, the political performances of Morrison and Trump and COVID-19 among other less inflammatory issues. As a moderator of the board I saw the extremes of behaviour of our posters and could link that behaviour explicitly to their political alignment.

The ultimate outcome of the Monster Island Experiment is of interest to me and should be so for moderators of all politically charged discussions.

 

[Kildonan]

Aaron Rabinowitz writes "Monster Island had always had left-leaning demographics, but we tried hard to invite more right wing folks to the island. That was how we ended up with a horde of Ryan Balchs. Perhaps it was just the result of which groups our right wingers ran in, but we found it nearly impossible to bring in right wing individuals who would even try to engage in debate before dropping some random hate speech. We even formed a leadership group where I represented the left, Bruce represented the right, and our mutual friend – let’s call him Peter – who helped us form the group originally stood for the moderates. Peter was technically a moderate conservative. Having leadership that explicitly leaned right was still insufficient. The right wingers claimed I still held absolute power over the group and they claimed Peter was too soft on the left and so Bruce was effectively outnumbered. Nothing short of giving Ryan Balch a leadership position was going to satisfy them, and thankfully we didn’t go with that option."

I can see a theme from my own experience and that of Aaron's. Posters with a strong right leaning were both abusive of others and always claimed moderators were soft on the left and too reactionary (restrictive) against the right.

Should we look at Monster Island as a single data point in a huge on-line experiment involving hundreds of millions (potentially a billion or more) posters in discussion forums across the internet or should we look at this as a warning that allowing unrestricted far right wing talk radicalizes and intensifies the political leaning to the right with potentially lethal consequences.

 

[Kildonan]

I looked at wikipedia to source the difference between politically left leaning people and politically right leaning people:

The left focus on Freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform, and internationalism

The right focus on Authority, heirarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism

Further to that I would like to suggest that the left generally show more empathy and sympathy and wish to provide safety-nets to catch those who have fallen ie sick leave, unemployment benefits, disability support, old age pensions etc.. They favour inclusiveness and celebrate diversity.

The right tend to blame the victim in order to justify not giving them any support. They favour others that resemble themselves physically and philosophically making those outside these parameters "the other" who they fear and hate. They favour exclusivity and fear diversity.

 

[Kildonan]

I can't remember who it was, but it was a credible source on psychology who stated that when people who tend toward a right leaning get together in a shared space (without much of a contrary voice), just having a majority of others who reinforce their own beliefs / ideologies tends to magnify the extent to which they lean towards the right even though the concepts discussed lean only marginally right. It may be the same on the left, but it was not mentioned at the time. Personally I think if a person who is left leaning politically and the extent of that left-leaning is amplified then they go from caring for others to caring a lot for others. Whereas the right leaning people go from fearing others to fear and hatred of others... and that is the problem in a nutshell.

How Many People Live in Political Bubbles on Social Media? Evidence From Linked Survey and Twitter Data

 

[Kildonan]

There is some suggestion that our political leaning may be partly physiological.

Biology and political orientation

"Studies have found that subjects with right leaning political views have larger amygdalae and are more prone to feeling disgust. Left leaning people have larger volume of grey matter in the anterior cingulate cortex and are better at detecting errors in recurring patterns. The right have a stronger sympathetic nervous system response to threatening images and are more likely to interpret ambiguous facial expressions as threatening. In general, right leaning people are more likely to report larger social networks, more happiness and better self-esteem than those leaning left. The left are more likely to report greater emotional distress, relationship dissatisfaction and experiential hardship and are more open to experience and tolerate uncertainty and disorder better."

The amygdalae are 2 small nodules within the brain that perform a primary role in the processing of memory, decision-making and emotional responses (including fear, anxiety, and aggression).

The most basic form of anterior cingulate cortex theory states that the ACC is involved with error detection.[7] Evidence has been derived from studies involving a Stroop task.[8] However, ACC is also active during correct response, and this has been shown using a letter task, whereby participants had to respond to the letter X after an A was presented and ignore all other letter combinations with some letters more competitive than others.[17] They found that for more competitive stimuli ACC activation was greater. A similar theory poses that the ACC's primary function is the monitoring of conflict. In Eriksen flanker task, incompatible trials produce the most conflict and the most activation by the ACC. Upon detection of a conflict, the ACC then provides cues to other areas in the brain to cope with the conflicting control systems.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

I can't remember who it was, but it was a credible source on psychology who stated that when people who tend toward a right leaning get together in a shared space (without much of a contrary voice), just having a majority of others who reinforce their own beliefs / ideologies tends to magnify the extent to which they lean towards the right even though the concepts discussed lean only marginally right. It may be the same on the left, but it was not mentioned at the time. Personally I think if a person who is left leaning politically and the extent of that left-leaning is amplified then they go from caring for others to caring a lot for others. Whereas the right leaning people go from fearing others to fear and hatred of others... and that is the problem in a nutshell.

Dividing politics into the left-right binary doesn't account for the split between libertarians and authoritarians in both camps. Some left-leaning people whose beliefs are amplified become more concerned with destroying whoever they believe to be the oppressors than with caring a lot for others, because they have an authoritarian mindset. That's how Stalinism came into being. Paralleling this, plenty of libertarians, especially in the US, have a rabid focus on freedom and rights but would spit at you if you classified them as left.

Both left and right are prone to living in echo chambers, groupthink and intolerance of deviations from orthodox beliefs. Many on the right would have you believe that this is only a problem with the left (generally the people who moan about political correctness gone mad), but they're wrong. Just look at the outcry whenever anyone wants to discuss Anzac Day in a way that is not either quietly respectful of the military or straight-up jingoism.

 

[Kildonan]

The left / right binary is one dimension (economic)
The libertarian / authoritarian binary is another dimension (social)

I have somewhat conflated the two for simplicity sake

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

I can't remember who it was, but it was a credible source on psychology who stated that when people who tend toward a right leaning get together in a shared space (without much of a contrary voice), just having a majority of others who reinforce their own beliefs / ideologies tends to magnify the extent to which they lean towards the right even though the concepts discussed lean only marginally right. It may be the same on the left, but it was not mentioned at the time. Personally I think if a person who is left leaning politically and the extent of that left-leaning is amplified then they go from caring for others to caring a lot for others. Whereas the right leaning people go from fearing others to fear and hatred of others... and that is the problem in a nutshell.

Too right. Echo chambers aren't always the most productive of environments for ideals. I think dissenters against prevailing thought on either left or right are invaluable - even if the dissenters are wrong it forms a point of contention against which you can measure the worth of your own ideal or political stance.

Natural contrarians can be frustrating as f*ck to put up with, but they have their place

 

[ferball]

The left / right binary is one dimension (economic)
The libertarian / authoritarian binary is another dimension (social)

I have somewhat conflated the two for simplicity sake

The trouble with that is that making things simple makes them inaccurate.

This is the basis of political compasses isn't it? Tho the questions that divide you into auth/lib or l/r may be arbitrary. Even that is only a two dimensional model tho. We live in a three dimensional fractal reality and we usually map it with three dimensional maps in our heads. (ie froward back, left right and up down.)

So we really need another axis to understand politics better.

Because simply saying conservatives (or the right) are dumb and stupid (even if you have some good evidence) is kind of unfair, a little bit cruel and doesn't really do much more than push those people to double down on their position. It might make us feel better and we might think its true but it doesn't necessarily help anything. If we focus on fraternity and equality (yes I'm a bit of a lefty) we shouldn't be doing that sort of thing (its essentially bullying) to people no matter how stupid their views seem.

 

[Gethelred]

The left / right binary is one dimension (economic)
The libertarian / authoritarian binary is another dimension (social)

I have somewhat conflated the two for simplicity sake

I really, really wish this was more broadly acknowledged.

 

[Seeds]

The left / right binary is one dimension (economic)
The libertarian / authoritarian binary is another dimension (social)

I have somewhat conflated the two for simplicity sake

you think social dimensions are only either on authoritarian or libertarian? Thats just a dimension about the extent of influence of government on society but does nothing to speak about the goals with which society organises itself? social dimensions can be defined as religion (which can be split many ways again given the different religions) vs utilitarian vs libertarian vs Social darwinist vs socialist. Note socialism isnt just an economic movement but a social objective as well.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

Note socialism isnt just an economic movement but a social objective as well.

In the sense of eliminating classes, yes, but socialism says nothing about individual freedom. You can have an authoritarian or libertarian or anarchist socialist society.

 

[ferball]

you think social dimensions are only either on authoritarian or libertarian? Thats just a dimension about the extent of influence of government on society but does nothing to speak about the goals with which society organises itself? social dimensions can be defined as religion (which can be split many ways again given the different religions) vs utilitarian vs libertarian vs Social darwinist vs socialist. Note socialism isnt just an economic movement but a social objective as well.

If you are building a simple 3d map of politics libertarian v authoritarian is a good axis. Libertarianism isn't just anarcho capitalism ala Murray Rothbard. there were Civil Libertarians in the US who overturned Jim Crow laws. It goes to how the government uses power over citizens.

The evolution of democratic societies has been toward libertarianism and away from authoritarianism. When democratic societies collapse (ie Wiemar germany , or Chile after the Pinochet coup, or the anti Chavez coup attempts and strikes and Chavez (and Maduro's) subsequent government,) authoritarianism becomes dominant again. Dunno if that happens with democratic societies and the left/right divide.

 

[Seeds]

If you are building a simple 3d map of politics libertarian v authoritarian is a good axis. Libertarianism isn't just anarcho capitalism ala Murray Rothbard. there were Civil Libertarians in the US who overturned Jim Crow laws. It goes to how the government uses power over citizens.

The evolution of democratic societies has been toward libertarianism and away from authoritarianism. When democratic societies collapse (ie Wiemar germany , or Chile after the Pinochet coup, or the anti Chavez coup attempts and strikes and Chavez (and Maduro's) subsequent government,) authoritarianism becomes dominant again. Dunno if that happens with democratic societies and the left/right divide.

No its a terrible axis that only describes the size of government and ignores the most important thing. The goal of government. The neoliberal US government is further away from authoritarinism them the nordic states on your axis. Thats just frankly rubbish in so many ways. the nordic welfare states adopt a far more utilitarian style approach to government to help the people. the usa in some ways is far closer to many authoritarian states where the goal is to maximise an ideology that supports some elite. I.e. the freedom to buy power and influence. And your measures takes no account of drivers such as extent of religion or supernatural belief Which for many socieites is the most important driver of social life.

 

[Seeds]

In the sense of eliminating classes, yes, but socialism says nothing about individual freedom. You can have an authoritarian or libertarian or anarchist socialist society.

Ofcourse it has. The goal of society is to maximise the welfare of the community and the community is not simply the sum of individal parts. It is its own beast. A social being.

this was very much the understanding and belief of early socialists all the way up to the 1970s. This view has dispated as the atrocities of communism have been slowly revealed and biologists have realised that both the evolution of genes are at the indivudal level and not the community level and the experience of happiness is uniquely an individual one despite the existence of mirror neurons and strong sympathy alogorithms within the brain.

You can narrow socialism to whatever modern interpretation that you want that excludes the social being as the end goal. But the socialism that i refer to here are the many forms that had the welfare of the make believe social being as the ultimate driver of social organisation at the expense of the individual. Indeed some academic groups still hold onto this view.

 

[Kildonan]

In the sense of eliminating classes, yes, but socialism says nothing about individual freedom. You can have an authoritarian or libertarian or anarchist socialist society.

I'm not sure that anarchosocialism can actually exist except in a primitive society with strong family ties...

 

[Kildonan]

you think social dimensions are only either on authoritarian or libertarian? Thats just a dimension about the extent of influence of government on society but does nothing to speak about the goals with which society organises itself? social dimensions can be defined as religion (which can be split many ways again given the different religions) vs utilitarian vs libertarian vs Social darwinist vs socialist. Note socialism isnt just an economic movement but a social objective as well.

I didn't want to get too caught up in definitions - especially of leftist ideologies (because it seems that every individual has their own idea of what socialism is in a similar way to every Christian has a different concept of God and their own theology). I was discussing left leaning philosophies only in their difference from /opposition to right leaning philosophies - especially when those right leaning ideologies are intensified to far right ideologies which are then adopted as a social norms and consequently actioned as what they would have recognised as extreme misconduct prior to the intensification process.

 

[Kildonan]

If you are interested here are links to two episodes of Thomas Smith's Podcast "Serious Inquiries Only"

SIO260: Aaron Rabinowitz on James Lindsay and Monster Island

SIO261: A Monster Island Follow-up

 

[ferball]

No its a terrible axis that only describes the size of government and ignores the most important thing. The goal of government. The neoliberal US government is further away from authoritarinism them the nordic states on your axis. Thats just frankly rubbish in so many ways. the nordic welfare states adopt a far more utilitarian style approach to government to help the people. the usa in some ways is far closer to many authoritarian states where the goal is to maximise an ideology that supports some elite. I.e. the freedom to buy power and influence. And your measures takes no account of drivers such as extent of religion or supernatural belief Which for many socieites is the most important driver of social life.

We're not describing government with a political compass (tho you probably could,) but we are describing individual people's political positions.

Some people are more authoritarian than others and some people prefer authoritarian government but we aren't describing the government they have a preference for, just the preference itself. i think the assumption is people who like authoritarian government have a bit of an authoritarian streak themselves. Seems logical enough to me.

 

[Leeda]

absolutely believe in your world of conflagration..
interesting words and shunting the rocks of damn systems where someone is allowed to be different..

 

[Seeds]

We're not describing government with a political compass (tho you probably could,) but we are describing individual people's political positions.

Some people are more authoritarian than others and some people prefer authoritarian government but we aren't describing the government they have a preference for, just the preference itself. i think the assumption is people who like authoritarian government have a bit of an authoritarian streak themselves. Seems logical enough to me.

I still dont believe that is the right distinction. A utilitarian believes governments purpose is to help the people so that they can live the lives that make them happy. the goal of society is not to follow authority. Its to use government to better peoples lives and maximise their freedom. Government is a tool for the people. a nationalist or monarchist society tells people to follow authority for the betterment of the nation or monarch regardless of the welfare of the people. A libertarian society is about following free will with extremelly limited external protections from the harm of others that may try to impede that will.

societies based on utilitarian and libertarian governments are very similar in that the argue its the individuals worth that matters (even if libertarians wont explicitly state it). Neither believe in objective external sources of good and wrong and therefore conclude that its individual people that matter. They just disagree on the best way to maximise our welfare/freedom. Utilitarians use science, knowledge and maths whilst libertarians live in a fantasy world that is in denial of both the nature of man and the drivers of our behaviour (Ive elaborated on this point in many other threads so wont do so here).

A monarchy or dictatorship or society based on religious authority is a completely different kettle of fish that believes in an external objective good/authority. To lump utilitarians in with authoritarians is ridiculous. A utilitarian does not have a tendancy to authority. I despise authority and as a teen was as librtarian as anyone could be but i now recognise my happness can be greatly improved with a government that has its primary goal to improve the happiness of the people for numerous reasons and not just physical protection from others. Failing the existence of such a government i prefer a much more libertarian leaning government over an extreme authoritarian dictatorship based on some crazy notion of external objective good.

a better distinction to base society around is those that believe in external objective sources of Good/authority and those that dont.

 

[ferball]

I still dont believe that is the right distinction. A utilitarian believes governments purpose is to help the people so that they can live the lives that make them happy. the goal of society is not to follow authority. Its to use government to better peoples lives and maximise their freedom. Government is a tool for the people. a nationalist or monarchist society tells people to follow authority for the betterment of the nation or monarch regardless of the welfare of the people. A libertarian society is about following free will with extremelly limited external protections from the harm of others that may try to impede that will.

societies based on utilitarian and libertarian governments are very similar in that the argue its the individuals worth that matters (even if libertarians wont explicitly state it). Neither believe in objective external sources of good and wrong and therefore conclude that its individual people that matter. They just disagree on the best way to maximise our welfare/freedom. Utilitarians use science, knowledge and maths whilst libertarians live in a fantasy world that is in denial of both the nature of man and the drivers of our behaviour (Ive elaborated on this point in many other threads so wont do so here).

A monarchy or dictatorship or society based on religious authority is a completely different kettle of fish that believes in an external objective good/authority. To lump utilitarians in with authoritarians is ridiculous. A utilitarian does not have a tendancy to authority. I despise authority and as a teen was as librtarian as anyone could be but i now recognise my happness can be greatly improved with a government that has its primary goal to improve the happiness of the people for numerous reasons and not just physical protection from others. Failing the existence of such a government i prefer a much more libertarian leaning government over an extreme authoritarian dictatorship based on some crazy notion of external objective good.

a better distinction to base society around is those that believe in external objective sources of Good/authority and those that dont.

You're talking about governments but a political compass is something individuals use to map their own preferences and people.

Essentially libertarian end of the spectrum is about prefering minimal control over others lives and the authoritarian end is about prefering maximal control over others lives.

Personally I think the only role of government is to protect people from the market when they don't have the resources to do it themselves.

 

[Kildonan]

We all have different views on the role of Government.

I see Government as providing infrastructure (roads, bridges, railways, airports, child care, schools, universities, hospitals, water, electricity, communications), planning for the future needs of the people, provision of protections and safety nets. I see a role for the market determining the value of most things including wages, however the Government should be able impose taxes in order to create a society with most people in the middle range to reduce exploitation of workers and the resources. They should protect the environment particularly from pollution of our air, land and water (methane, carbon dioxide, lead, mercury, etc), and the Government should be responsible for setting prices for resources which are undervalued by the market (water, natural resources, trees, animals, things of beauty, things of historical value).

 

[Seeds]

We all have different views on the role of Government.

I see Government as providing infrastructure (roads, bridges, railways, airports, child care, schools, universities, hospitals, water, electricity, communications), planning for the future needs of the people, provision of protections and safety nets. I see a role for the market determining the value of most things including wages, however the Government should be able impose taxes in order to create a society with most people in the middle range to reduce exploitation of workers and the resources. They should protect the environment particularly from pollution of our air, land and water (methane, carbon dioxide, lead, mercury, etc), and the Government should be responsible for setting prices for resources which are undervalued by the market (water, natural resources, trees, animals, things of beauty, things of historical value).

For what purpose should the government do this? I.e. how do you come to the conclusion it should do these things? There must be a reason. Once you have a reason then it helps you define all the things government should and shouldnt do. It provides you a way to measure the success or failures of government and all its decisions. For me its what makes the average person better off. And when i say better off I dont refer to wealth. I refer to mental state.