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[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Their views are rarely rooted in circumspect thought. Often, they are driven by and entirely derive from feelings.

Feelings are fine for relationships. But one's feelings, which are inherently subjective and frequently not tested via rigorous application of logic and assessment of whether such feelings should be foist upon society at large, are not the stuff on which sane, sober policy decisions should be made.

And this is not aimed at the left. The right is every bit as emotive. They've been whining about "losing their country and culture" for years now. And it's simply not true. Things change. That's constant. Their culture is a throwback. And historically the country was and has always been more a melting pot than a lily white Mayberry.

Their feelings made them gullible targets for Trump who then ran the country in complete unreality for four years and split the damn place down the middle. All based on myths, on feelings.

ETA: I suspect you would assert that we can stop people from being rubes, being slaves to their feelings, by moderating the content to which they are exposed on places like Twitter. That is a facially credible solution. It’s also authoritarianism lite. That is manipulation of the crowd.

Of course, certain actors (states, corps, etc.) have manipulated the crowd for as long as there have been crowds to manipulate. But to advocate for it so nakedly as is being done today is both scary and counterproductive. It is scary because it is an arrogant and dystopian concept. It is counterproductive because, as we can see, the people sought to be manipulated will simply lose trust in the platforms and instead follow even more aggressively the messages of people like Trump.

What policy decisions are made on Twitter?