Aaron Ross Powell ☸️

People do get cancelled and deplatformed for dumb and unfair reasons, and there are elements of the cultural left prone to shutting down, rather than engaging with, reasonable disagreement.

But addressing those problems gets lost in the crying wolf of a cultural right that, motivated by status anxiety, labels as "cancel culture" others' exercise of their freedom of association, and demands to be respected, platformed, and listened to, no matter how ugly and bigoted their proudly stated views.

Nov 27, 2022 at 1:04amFedilab
Show threadAaron Ross Powell ☸️Nov 27, 2022
As the Fediverse grows and diversifies, however, it'll be crucial to have these conversations, and to have them in good faith, even if a lot of ideologically motivated actors don't want to. Otherwise we'll end up with a balkanized ecosystem and constant conflagrations caused by context collapse.
Show threadAlbert Cashier's CousinNov 27, 2022
@arossp what is context collapse? and what is a balkanized ecosystem? apparently I am missing some very specialized vocabulary to be able to understand this post.
Show threadAaron Ross Powell ☸️Nov 27, 2022

@acc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_collapse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkanization

Context collapse - Wikipedia

Show threadDave RahardjaNov 27, 2022

@arossp Wow! Today I learned about “context collapse”—what a wonderful descriptor for a phenomenon that I have not had a name for.

Thanks!

Show threadfakegreekgrillNov 27, 2022

@arossp
I completely agree! We need to have a good faith discussion about the interaction of technology and social mores around free speech that treats it as a problem to be solved. The well has already been so poisoned by people who want to prove the issue is a left wing character flaw and don't actually care about solutions beyond silencing the left (cancelling, if you will).

I hope the move to Mastodon offers a fresh start to get it right.

Show threadJKChicagoNov 27, 2022
@arossp I admit to giving up on trying to engage the right in discussion, due to it being a waste of time, effort, and air. Fortunately, I live in Chicago, and don’t really have to deal with it often. I’m just tired of having someone with an opinion claiming facts support their position (facts that don’t exist) and they can’t/won’t articulate, me asking what said facts are, and being told to do my own research. Maybe that makes me a bad person.
Show threadshukesNov 27, 2022
@arossp I agree Aaron, better option would be passionate debating with facts. For real progress society must be able to this platform to flesh out hearsay from truth. That's why during after WW2 those who suffered from the horrors of the war, many lawyers make sure that those who voiced opinions that they themselves thought where awful, of the Klan or of neonazi myths had their right to have their right to freedom of speech. To counter facts from fiction with debate and reason.