HackerTrans
TopNewTrendsCommentsPastAskShowJobs

khawkins

no profile record

comments

khawkins
·7 anni fa·discuss
Went into the data and took the top 1000 individuals with self cite percentages over 40%, then sorted by institution. Nearly every major institution had individuals in this group: Johns Hopkins (4), Cal Tech (4), Georgia Tech (2), MIT (5), each of the Max Planck Institute campuses (3-7), Moscow State (7), Penn State (6), Stanford (1), Utrecht (2), University of Zurich (4), ETH Zurich (1), DLR (3), Imperial College London (3), University of Tokyo (2), Princeton (5), Kyoto University (4)...

I feel like if this problem were very concerning we'd see the distribution concentrated at certain institutions but I'm not sure there's one with over 10 researchers at them. We hear a lot about questionable Chinese journals, but the highest institution in this list is the Chinese Academy of Sciences with 3 individuals.

I think the more likely case is there are a few bad apples, some bad practices we can't ever fully get rid of, and that some research lends itself more to self-citation.
khawkins
·7 anni fa·discuss
Playing whack-a-mole with extremist communities is only going to drive them together under a common threat and make them more desperate. The dedicated ones install a tor client and go further underground. The not-so-dedicated ones leave. But the not-so-dedicated parts of the community are the ones helping contribute to the deradicalization of the others.

It should be obvious to state that if you get rid of 8chan, those people aren't suddenly deradicalized and they're still in the country holding the same beliefs. Those people who are today at risk of continuing in this shooter's footsteps have already read the manifesto. People like the shooter often do these things because they want to be heard and they want to contribute to the course of history. Taking away what little voice they have in their own spaces makes them feel less heard. Destroying the little community that they have removes their stake in the world. Suppressing their only place to express their grievances causes them to lose hope. This is the cocktail for more violence, not less.

The *chans are the furthest from centers of indoctrination because the moderation is the weakest of all social media platforms. All ideas are present and little to nothing is suppressed. Dissent is commonplace and general consensus has no power. Sure, it means ugly ideas get spread, but it means that people actually have to refine their moral argumentation. No longer can you assume that the other person has the common ground of "racism is wrong", you have to actually dive into why racism is wrong. You can act outraged all you like, but it won't convince people to change their mind. Changing minds is going to be the only effective course of action to avoid tragedies like these.
khawkins
·7 anni fa·discuss
Clearly you understood what I was trying to say, you're just acting dumb to avoid directly engaging with it.

These arguments can be directly used to argue for the suppression of Islamic religious speech. Using the same "guilt by association" reasoning, you can easily argue that 9/11 is proof that Islam itself is a hateful and dangerous ideology which, when spread, has "consequences".
khawkins
·7 anni fa·discuss
It's fascinating to compare it to the desperate fight for Net Neutrality. HN was hysterical when faced with a hypothetical threat, but when we see real examples of censorship the response is filled with apologist arguments and hand-wringing.

The only difference seems to be who is doing the censoring. When it's Silicon Valley tech corporations with a well established left-wing bias, well then they're private businesses who can be trusted to choose which dialogue is okay to have. But when it's corporations outside of Silicon Valley, well the internet will never be the same, be sure to call your congressmen.
khawkins
·7 anni fa·discuss
Your definition of "justice" is warped beyond recognition. Justice doesn't mean bad things don't happen, it means people who wrong others pay for their actions.

Thousands of people every year are randomly murdered for no good reason. Many actually never get closed, meaning no one actually goes to jail or gets punished for their murder. These people actually don't receive justice, but obviously we can't live in a perfect society.

You're oversimplifying a complex issue to accuse others of being heartless. It's the lazy moralizing of tyranny.
khawkins
·7 anni fa·discuss
How many people had to die on 9/11 to protect the free speech rights of Muslims? It is undeniable that those terrorist attacks have a direct connection to the ideas being spread by those Mosques. How many Muslims have "skin in the game"?
khawkins
·7 anni fa·discuss
And yet, we let Islam continue to be preached in this nation. When will we recognize that extremist ideologies like these can not be allowed to fester? Freedom of speech needs its limits.
khawkins
·9 anni fa·discuss
More importantly, how would you forbid someone from using their contacts?