Spotify - an online music service

[Mic09]

6 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I will finish this discussion on here, if you want drop me a message to further discuss. 

But I think you should be careful who you want to take down, because it's entirely possible one day someone will want to de-platform you, or people that you believe. 

Also, I take you don't listen to his podcasts. He takes in a lot of shit, but also disagrees with much his "controversial" guests are saying. For example, one said that you can't catch covid twice. That was a few weeks ago. Since then, Rogan has clarified this (and many other non truths) a number of times.

He is just a pot head comedian. If you don't like him, don't listen.

If you listen, don't take it as truth. It isn't. 

I should also say, if you don't listen, don't comment on what he does or doesn't do, because you simply don't know. Unless you go off secondary sources - but we all know what the problem with these is. 

[Mister_a]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

The FDA, for a start.

Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19 | FDA

I'm not talking specifically about Ivermectin, i don't know enough about it. (Honestly not a cop out lol).

I'm talking generally about being aware who is doing the labelling of people as dangerous, Fascist, Nazi, White Supremacist etc etc, because they are very handy labels to throw at people who you disagree with in order to silence debate. Using those labels against people constantly also has the unintended consequence of devaluing those terms so they become meaningless in a world where those labels are definitely worth taking notice of.

I'm for debating ideas and against banning books and censorship. That's all really.

 

[DCJonah]

32 minutes ago, Mister_a said:

I think that all ideas should be on the table, and the bad ones discounted after discussion about the relative merit to society / humanity / etc. 

That's how we developed language, how we talk and how we form ideas.

It's obviously a very handy way of doing things, otherwise it wouldn't have worked for the past 20 thousand years or so (insert correct number as appropriate!).

 

You seem to be ignoring the potential dangers and impact social media is having on society. 

When you give someone 200 million people to spout lies to, its very different. I'd say that's more like mass propaganda that we've seen throughout history which clearly isn't a good way of doing things. 

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, Mister_a said:

I'm not talking specifically about Ivermectin, i don't know enough about it. (Honestly not a cop out lol).

I'm talking generally about being aware who is doing the labelling of people as dangerous, Fascist, Nazi, White Supremacist etc etc, because they are very handy labels to throw at people who you disagree with in order to silence debate. Using those labels against people constantly also has the unintended consequence of devaluing those terms so they become meaningless in a world where those labels are definitely worth taking notice of.

I'm for debating ideas and against banning books and censorship. That's all really.

 

That's fine. I don't think anyone's used those labels or slurs about Rogan - this was  discussion about some musicians objecting to their music being on the same platform as someone spreading (via his pod) misinformation about covid which could and possibly has led to people becoming ill or dead as a (unintended) consequence.

Debate is fine. Cancelling people is generally not fine, unless in extreme circs. Spotify and Rogan becoming a bit more self aware and careful as a consequence of all this would be a good thing.

[DCJonah]

24 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I will finish this discussion on here, if you want drop me a message to further discuss. 

But I think you should be careful who you want to take down, because it's entirely possible one day someone will want to de-platform you, or people that you believe. 

Also, I take you don't listen to his podcasts. He takes in a lot of shit, but also disagrees with much his "controversial" guests are saying. For example, one said that you can't catch covid twice. That was a few weeks ago. Since then, Rogan has clarified this (and many other non truths) a number of times.

He is just a pot head comedian. If you don't like him, don't listen.

If you listen, don't take it as truth. It isn't. 

But this is the major issue. Because of social media and a giant like Spotify, this pot head comedian now has a platform that can lead to a lot of misinformation or downright lies being believed by millions of people. 

The age of Facebook and YouTube has not been good for society. The impact on the world is pretty damming. There's a great documentary on Netflix currently that's worth watching. 

People dismissed Trump as a failed businessman and if you don't like him, don't listen. We don't live in that world anymore. People now have a platform that can be used to manipulate millions of others. 

Rogan is part of that evil right now.

Edited February 1, 2022 by DCJonah

[Mister_a]

5 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

You seem to be ignoring the potential dangers and impact social media is having on society. 

When you give someone 200 million people to spout lies to, its very different. I'd say that's more like mass propaganda that we've seen throughout history which clearly isn't a good way of doing things. 

I'm not ignoring them, Social Media is a real problem right now.

[Mister_a]

1 minute ago, DCJonah said:

 

Rogan is part of that evil right now.

Gave you a like then read the last bit so had to remove it haha. Evil is a really strong word to be using here.

Stalin was evil, Hitler was evil, Joe Rogen is a stoner who talks to people.

[DCJonah]

3 minutes ago, Mister_a said:

I'm not ignoring them, Social Media is a real problem right now.

Absolutely. So you have to careful about how easy we make it for people to spread lies. Especially dangerous ones. 

Inviting them on a podcast with a potential listening audience over three times the population of the United Kingdom is terrifying as to what it can do to society. 

Edited February 1, 2022 by DCJonah

[DCJonah]

Just now, Mister_a said:

Gave you a like then read the last bit so had to remove it haha. Evil is a really strong word to be using here.

Stalin was evil, Hitler was evil, Joe Rogen is a stoner who talks to people.

I didn't say Rogan was evil. I said he's part of that evil. Putting Alex Jones on a major platform is contributing to the evil in this world. 

[Mister_a]

Social Media certainly doesn't help at all, and where that fits into the free speech debate is quite a challenge right now.

Tough one to fix, but it's definitely not fixed by pushing controversial ideas away.

[Sam-AVFC]

Some interesting stuff comes out of Joe Rogan's podcasts. Entirely driven by the guests while he talks over any interesting points and grasps to bring the conversation back to DMT.

I seriously don't get how anyone can sit down and listen to him for hours. It's largely drivel. It's kind of scary how many people see his podcast as a bastion of open and intellectual debate.

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, Mister_a said:

Tough one to fix, but it's definitely not fixed by pushing controversial ideas away.

I'm not so sure about that, completely.

Pushing away clear nonsense from mass distribution, certainly with no warnings around it's nature ("it's not true") seems like a really good idea to me. In essence, a lot of the stuff is made "controversial" through being distributed, then people who actually know shout out that it's lies, and it gets flagged as controversial and therefore "of interest" and it escalates further "here's our podcast about the Ivermectin controversy - get it via Spotify"

[Mister_a]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

I'm not so sure about that, completely.

Pushing away clear nonsense from mass distribution, certainly with no warnings around it's nature ("it's not true") seems like a really good idea to me. In essence, a lot of the stuff is made "controversial" through being distributed, then people who actually know shout out that it's lies, and it gets flagged as controversial and therefore "of interest" and it escalates further "here's our podcast about the Ivermectin controversy - get it via Spotify"

Yeah, I agree, but it's difficult to define the line between 'controversial ideas' and 'clear nonsense' sometimes. Which is why i referred to Galileo earlier, and the lab leak hypothesis.

 

[Mic09]

21 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

 Putting Alex Jones on a major platform is contributing to the evil in this world. 

Yup, Alex Jones is full of shit. His school shooting disaster was really bad.

But, even 10 years ago, he was talking about millionaires taking underage girls to islands and a secret league of pedophelia within high status people.

It sound crazy. And then Epstein happened. Maybe if we paid more attention, some girls might not have been faced to sleep with royals and major firm producers? 

So let's critiqe the shit Alex Jones has to say, and there is a lot. But even a broken clock is right twice a day. He was with Epstein.

Should there be a place for Alex Jones? I don't know if I'd invite him. But I wouldn't "cancel" him either.

[Panto_Villan]

48 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Ivermectin is a useful drug for human use. It also is used as an anti-parasitic medication in farm animals. It is a fallacy to just label it as horse dewormer and dismiss it - though it's also true that people were using vetinary supplies of the stuff to 'treat' Covid, and that has lead to an enormous uptick in people overdosing on it.

There's no good evidence it does anything for Covid, and the fact it's become some talking point and a conspiracy touchstone for a number of questionable figures is damning.

On the whole Invermectin thing, there is actually good evidence it works - but only in one quite specific circumstance. However genuine data did exist to suggest it improved the survival rate of patients; it wasn't all crackpot science.

Turned out it was very useful in parts of the developing world because the existing covid steroid treatments would suppress the immune system and their parasitic worms would sometimes kill the patient as a result. Taking Invermectin killed the worms and therefore stopped this happening, increasing the survival rate of patients.

It doesn't do anything for you if you don't have parasitic worms though.

[blandy]

11 minutes ago, Mister_a said:

Which is why i referred to Galileo earlier, and the lab leak hypothesis.

That's one for me (as I mentioned earlier) where there's missing information - it's not "established fact" as to where and how the pandemic started - there is genuine "TBD" around that area.

[Mister_a]

Just now, blandy said:

That's one for me (as I mentioned earlier) where there's missing information - it's not "established fact" as to where and how the pandemic started - there is genuine "TBD" around that area.

Yeah, for sure, but banning all discussion on the (any) topic doesn't seem to me to be a way to advance knowledge.

[blandy]

Just now, Mister_a said:

Yeah, for sure, but banning all discussion on the (any) topic doesn't seem to me to be a way to advance knowledge.

Nor does spreading false information. That's what the musicians complained about with Spotify. Rogan's podcast episodes with these people were one sided and contained both from him and his guests complete rubbish. Ivermectin is 99% successful...it's being suppressed by vaccine companies to protect their profits...just utter rot. It could lead to deaths. That kind of stuff needs to be "filtered" by content providing platforms - perhaps with a warning, or perhaps with dangerous misinformation taken out - I mean when Trump talked about injecting disinfectant...it needs grown ups to say "don't do this, kids" in some way, surely.

Otherwise the Darwin awards are going to be overburdened with candidates.

[Panto_Villan]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

That's one for me (as I mentioned earlier) where there's missing information - it's not "established fact" as to where and how the pandemic started - there is genuine "TBD" around that area.

It was certainly established fact that the Earth revolved around the sun before Gallileo challenged that. And the overwhelming scientific consensus was apparently against the lab leak hypothesis in the early stages of the pandemic, it seemed - the idea seemed to be classed in the same category as climate change denial where you could find some people advocating it but it was considered a crackpot theory. And it was only presented that way because it was politically convenient for major international organisations and scientific bodies to not be seen publicly blaming China for it, imo.

This whole issue is a difficult one really. You can't let people spread literally any falsehood unhindered, but choosing how it should be policed is extremely difficult. I mean, society has been having this discussion in various forms for centuries.

I'm a bit uncomfortable about people attacking the platform for presenting the information rather than the purveyor of the information, though. Alex Jones is as big a waste of oxygen as anyone on the planet and he's rightly been pursued through the courts for the horrible lies he's spread about Sandy Hook. But a situation where people start refusing to be on a service that he has also been on doesn't seem to end well to me. Losing the artists / podcasters in question wouldn't really bother me whichever way this is resolved, but as the Spotify CEO suggested I don't really see why the same moral argument couldn't be made by a consortium of female or LBTQ artists about the attitudes expressed towards women or the gay community in many popular rap songs. And I don't see why the same argument couldn't be applied to say radio where they could only play songs from one camp or the other, etc.

Feels like a class action lawsuit on behalf of the people who have suffered harm from the misinformation would be a far better solution. That's what has effectively bankrupted Alex Jones.

[MakemineVanilla]

In my experience doctors are very similar to barbers.

Both prefessions are in the habit of asking who you saw last: one looks at your meds and asks who prescribed them, with a tut and a shake of the head, and barbers always ask who cut your hair last, and do the same.

The right answer is always: 'You did!'