Nobody is forcing anyone to watch it. Many people watch it voluntarily. If we are so sure that these media are so bad for people, why are so many people still watching it?
If the answer is that these media "hack" the human brain, then I don't think that banning the producers is the right way to go. The root cause is that people are too easily tricked. Banning the producers will only cause other media, such as YouTube or Facebook, to fill the gap.
Exactly right. The solution to a mass movement toward an ignorant and blind viewpoint isn't to censor it, it's to dismantle it with an opposing viewpoint and to provide a less ignorant way forward. Censorship of any kind doesn't solve anything despite what people want to think about Alex Jones or any others.
Nobody was forcing anyone to drive cars fuel powered by leaded gas either, could it have been so bad? And if it was so bad, why were so many people using it?
I would say that the answer to solve this is education, but unfortunately many states have decided that education is the bad thing, instead of blantantly misleading information. Even if you could teach it successfully in school, how many adults are going to go back to school to learn the media they're consuming is bad? If you're an ardent fox news viewer, how will you view that information?
> Nobody was forcing anyone to drive cars fuel powered by leaded gas either, could it have been so bad? And if it was so bad, why were so many people using it?
I wouldn't say this is a great analogy, because leaded gas was the only gas available, and alternatives to cars were disappearing in many cities. If you wanted to participate in the economy, you pretty much had to use gasoline.
I mean, you're not really correct. The first 10 years of my life every gas station had both "leaded" and "unleaded" options and it was regulations that forced car manufacturers to remove the the requirement for the former type of fuel.
You could argue the market would have gone there anyways, but it's actually insane how much damage to human health and the environment was done in the interim until regulation forced the matter.
>If we are so sure that these media are so bad for people, why are so many people still watching it?
Although I don't have an opinion on this particular podcast situation, this statement doesn't hold any water.
You are implying that if people do something, it must not be bad for them because.. people continue to do it.
There are tons of things people do that are objectively bad for them. Hard drugs (fentanyl, etc.) being an easy example.
The point is there is not and will never be consensus on what is "bad", so it ultimately is decided by power imbalance rather than some higher moralilty.
In a liberal society we allow things we don't like in order to maintain individual freedom as a higher good than "perfect" society.
Those who do envision "perfect" society and pursue it with the power of the state are the worst sort of authoritarians, because it's all done "for your own good", no matter what you think.
It's not necessary to hack the human brain if you can hack the YouTube algorithm. I get recommended this crap once in a while even though I have zero interest. Starting with a "Private" browsing window, it was pretty common to hit Andrew Tate shorts extremely quickly 6 months ago or so. Jordan Peterson's over-dramatic rants are another favourite YouTube recommendation.
The free for all market also gave me access to a hundred chefs who vastly improved my cooking. It also gave me access to a dozen woodworkers who taught me how to work safely and efficiently. A whole host of gardeners in my USDA zone with hyper local content relevant to me and taught me about native plants.
The free market has saved me thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in home repair costs. From changing my blower motor, to installing my Ecobee w/o a common wire, to installing ceiling brackets correctly, repairing my garage trolley.
The free market gave me podcasts and podcasters which taught me a ton about international conflicts and their history. Gave me access to brilliant environmentalists and conservationists doing incredible field work.
The real price I had to pay was hearing people endlessly, endlessly, endlessly complain about, and in so doing, amplify people that they don't listen to, disagree with, and think are harmful.
> It also gave me access to a dozen woodworkers who taught me how to work safely and efficiently.
And also "woodworkers" who would take transformers out of microwaves and run the resulting current through bare nails to make fractal lightning patterns in wood. If you're starting with a blank slate on wood-based projects how do you differentiate the former from the latter?
This is meaningless because what "common sense" is changes person to person. The person yelling about how 5G will damage your brain would say that it's "common sense" that "radiation" is bad for you so 5G must be bad.
You're basically saying that the way you avoid doing something dangerous recommend by others is by already knowing that it's dangerous. Well duh.
I don't think most people getting into something the first time would reasonably try a hard project and make it harder by adding electricity in the equation. I think your example is really just absurdity to be honest.
I also don't know what point you're making.
Since some people can't tell who the experts are and what a beginner is, we need to regulate youtubers?
For an outsider it's baffling to see 50% of the US slowly getting brainwashed to the point where they reject all facts out of spite, and think it is important to be contrarian on literally every social issue.
Whatever you think about CNN or MSNBC, FoxNews is pretty over the top, it’s basically a tabloid at this point with many tabloid stories.
I disagree with the premise however: it’s not that American media has so much influence on American consumers, rather American media is producing the product that their consumers want. The influence is basically reversed.
As an outsider it seems to me one half wants to burn books, regulate love and curb compassion, the other wants to improve education, regulate hate and promote compassion. It’s pretty easy which side to choose.
The reason for the two alternate realities in the same country is primarily to do with what information you consume.
As an exercise, go to the front page of Reddit everyday. You will almost always notice on the first page or the first few there are always posts on politics. And the vast majority of these posts are the "bad" takes/actions/scandals on rebuplicans/conservatives.
If you go to r/conservative , you will see the "bad" takes/actions/scandals of the democrats/liberals.
On Reddit the echo chamber for democrats is the entirety of Reddit except for a select few subs. The echo chamber for conservatives is in their own subreddits. On conservative websites this is the opposite.
If one looks only at the Reddit front page, no doubt they would not like the republicans because it's a highlight of their low points. I.e a Reverse Instagram, post all the bad parts of your life.
This is the issue. The two realities is from getting information about how "good" your side is and a feed about all the bad stuff from the other side.
The reason why you think 50% of the population is like that is precisely because the information you have received about that side is their bad highlight reel. And they will equally think the other 50% of the aisle is brainwashed because of all they are viewing your bad highlight reel
This sounds like the official signaling coming out of the US' nation-state George Creel-styled media. I'm personally grateful for the distributed and non-curated media. DC is just going to have to get over itself and adjust to the changing landscape. There's good and bad. When the original printing press came out the #1 books were for witch hunting and yet society -- in the end -- was better off for it.
Ehhhhhh you don’t want to go down that road though. Or at least, I don’t want to. You can still punish people for advocating violence, you don’t need to step in and exert government control over the platforms they use to publish content on.
I didn't make an argument for regulated speech and this isn't really about free speech since neither were criticizing the government.
All I did was point out that they aren't able to say whatever they want without permission or friction because there are consequences to intentionally lying over time to hurt people.
If the answer is that these media "hack" the human brain, then I don't think that banning the producers is the right way to go. The root cause is that people are too easily tricked. Banning the producers will only cause other media, such as YouTube or Facebook, to fill the gap.