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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35199 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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But then again, I'm a virtue ethicist and I think people's salad preferences possibly have moral relevance.

I'm genuinely interested in hearing the argument that people's salad preferences possibly have moral relevance, as I can't come up with any plausible-sounding ones on my own.

And frankly, if this thing goes big and the internet just up and DDOSes itself out of existence like some sort of MAD scenario from a video game I would consider that to be the greatest boon to the existence of man since the invention of penicillin. The internet delenda est.

I hate Kiwifarms, I hate what's happening to Kiwifarms. What happened there was immoral, but what is happening to them is immoral too.

Well, at least I can appreciate that you are being consistent on this front.

I don't want to argue against your moral distaste for the whole sphere, but there are some mitigating factors, however weak:

  • "Doxing" usually just means collecting readily available information. Typically this information has been provided by the target himself. There often is no clear line between observing the person and acquiring information about their job, their place of residence, etc.

  • People who get noticed by places like KF are typically attention seekers with large online footprints and aspirations to be some sort of cultural influencer within their sphere. They want you to look at them. They document their lives in excruciating detail. They solicit donations for their "work". They only start complaining when people notice all the skeletons in their closets.

  • KF can't cancel anyone unless it produces undeniable evidence that person has done something truly horrible. People and institutions with the power to cancel hate the place. In certain circles, being "persecuted" by KF even seems to be a career booster.

  • Cancellation is usually driven by an agenda of speech suppression. KF has neither the power nor a discernible interest in suppressing people's speech. Doing so would just make their content dry up.

"Doxing" usually just means collecting readily available information. Typically this information has been provided by the target himself. There often is no clear line between observing the person and acquiring information about their job, their place of residence, etc.

I feel like this is such a weak defense. Sure, there may be no effective barriers against this sort of stuff, but I think signal-boosting this kind of information is often only ever done with the intent of "reaching out and touching someone." Or at the very least, the effort required to protect one's self from the potential consequences of "readily-available information" is disproportionately higher than the effort needed to acquire said info in the first place.

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