Interesting Links for 22-10-2021

[andrewducker]

The NFT-based book-writing group aimed at teens that lasted nearly 12 hours before being questioned to death

(tags:writing cryptography wtf epicfail copyright publishing teenagers )

Vienna Tourist Board museums join OnlyFans after explicit artworks censored online

(tags:history art socialnetworking nudity censorship )

This Taiwanese Teacher Who Puts Their Math Lessons on Pornhub

(tags:taiwan teaching porn videos )

The 'Most Controversial Opinion' Hinge Question Is Easier Than You Think

(tags:dating questions )

Tory reforms redistributed schools cash from poor to rich areas

(tags:poverty school inequality UK conservatives )

Government refuses to publish Brexit plan legal text for scrutiny

(tags:UK Europe NorthernIreland )

Comments

[andrewducker]

"anyone with different political motivations" covers a huge amount of space. I think it would be awesome if there was a tram that came past the local shopping centre, and they reopened the train line to passengers where it goes nearby. But I don't think anyone who disagrees with me is acting badly. And I'm totally happy to engage in friendly debate with such people.

Whereas I do believe that people who want to take away LGBT rights are causing large amounts of harm. And I believe I've read plenty of research which would back that up. And I think that I could see that some of the people who were against LGBT rights are totally rational (if by which we mean can follow logical steps) and prosocial (provided their idea of society didn't include LGBT people). But I still think they'd be causing more harm by letting them act in that way than if we prevented them, even if we did so rudely.

I assume that you'd disagree with me in the second paragraph?

[mountainkiss]

I would, I’m afraid. I disagree with the premise, because I don’t think there is a block thing called “people who want to take away LGBT rights”, but more importantly I think that this mindset will ultimately cause more harm long term through polarisation and most particularly more harm to the most vulnerable, even if there are short term benefits of the activism.

Which was the point of the original question, I think: to uncover the beliefs that others would find most controversial?

[andrewducker]

I started to write a reply about what I think causes polarisation, but then realised that we're polarised around so many axes that it would end up being an awfully long comment - and I have to go and get Sophia from nursery before the 50mph winds get here.

So I will just say that I think that my understanding of polarisation is pretty complex, and that I certainly don't believe that it's always bad, although it certainly can be.

[mountainkiss]

I probably don’t think it’s always bad, because few generalisations always hold. (See what I did there.) But I think it’s bad much more often than it’s good, and I think the badness is bad badness.