Republic.Com 124
| Republic.Com | |
| author | Cass Sunstein |
| pages | 224 |
| publisher | Princeton University Press |
| rating | 6 |
| reviewer | Freematt (Matthew Gaylor) |
| ISBN | 0-691-07025-3 |
| summary | Sunstein argues for greater government involvement as a way to encourage societal cohesion in an age of "cybercascades." |
Cass Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School and Department of Political Science. A former law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, he has worked for the Office of Legal Counsel in the US Department of Justice.
His former works include: "Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech" (1993), which won the Goldsmith Prize from Harvard for the best book on free speech in that year. "After the Rights Revolution" (1990), "The Partial Constitution" (1993), "Free Markets and Social Justice" (1997), and "One Case at a Time: Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court" (1999). His writings have appeared in the New York Times, and the New Republic. He has also appeared on ABC's Nightline, the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, NBC and CBS evening news and other programming.
In "Republic.Com" Cass Sunstein makes the point that in cyberspace individuals now have the ability to filter out everything they don't want to read or see and filter in only those whose opinions they agree with. He calls this the "Daily Me", the ability to filter only the issues that concern you, read only the op-eds that only share your point of view. In short he fears that the Internet will bring about a lack of diversity and will amplify extremism and hate groups (Whatever that means). He writes of "cybercascades" that brings groups of people together who share similar viewpoints, a process that in turn causes group polarization and radicalization.
For example, he says, "a group whose members lean against gun control will, in discussion, provide a wide range of arguments against gun control, and the arguments made for gun control will be both fewer and weaker. The group's members, to the extent that they shift, will shift toward a more extreme position against gun control. And the group as a whole, if a group decision is required, will move not to the median position, but to a more extreme point." (Chapter 3, pages 67 68)
He does his argument great damage by using as an example of a hate and extremist group the usual left-wing target, The National Rifle Association (NRA) He trots out the usual suspects such as Skinheads and the KKK and fails to mention any of the other hate groups such as American supporters of Peru's shining path, environmental terrorists who spike logging areas, World Trade Organization protestors/rioters or other left wing extremists. In Chapter three Sunstein speaks of the gun rights movement alongside the KKK, God Hates Fags, and other hate groups in what can only be considered an attempt at guilt by association.
In Chapter seven, Sunstein writes: "FREE SPEECH IS NOT AN ABSOLUTE," -- his caps. In fact, he repeats this line several times throughout the book. He continues: "We can identify some flaws in the emerging view of the First Amendment by investigating the idea that the free speech guarantee is "an absolute", in the specific sense that government may not regulate speech at all. This view plays a large role in public debate, and in some ways it is a salutary myth." He mentions the usual examples of child pornography, copyright and threats to assassinate the President as examples of the government restricting speech. He creates what I consider a straw-man argument by prefacing these remarks for his "Policies and Proposals" in Chapter eight.
He laments the fact that in a four-station universe the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) had a significant voice. But with the advent of programming with hundreds of choices, the justification for PBS is diluted.
As a partial solution he endorses Andrew Shapiro's suggestion from the book The Control Revolution that the government should support a public website, Public.Net. Sunstein writes: "Public.Net would provide an icon, visible on your home computer. You would be under no obligation to click on it; indeed in a free society perhaps you should be permitted to remove the icon if you really do not like it." He envisions Public.Net to include sections on the "environment, civil rights, gun control, foreign affairs, and so forth." (Chapter 8, page 181)
But what I find most troubling is his idea to require websites to maintain hyperlinks to those with differing viewpoints. His example on page 188:
Sunstein continues: "To the extent that sites do not do this, voluntary self regulation through cooperative agreements might do the job. If these routes do not work, it would be worthwhile considering content-neutral regulation, designed to ensure more in the way of both links and hyperlinks.""We might easily imagine a situation in which textual references to organizations or institutions are hyperlinks, so that if, for example, a conservative magazine such as the National Review refers to the World Wildlife Fund or Environmental Defence, it also allows readers instant access to their sites."
Princeton sent me a free review copy of Republic.Com; I'm glad they did as I would have been highly upset to have paid money for it. I can understand why Professor Sunstein makes the suggestions he does. In my opinion it has less to do with wanting to expand free and open discourse and more to do with control. Who gets to decide which links get to be included as "opposing viewpoints"? I did note that many of Sunstein's examples involved a right wing organization being forced to carry left wing links.
The celebrated civil libertarian, John Stuart Mill, contended that enlightened judgment is possible only if one considers all facts and ideas, from whatever source, and tests one's own conclusions against opposing views. Therefore, all points of view -- even those that are "bad" or socially harmful -- should be represented in the "marketplace of ideas." And the Internet is an incredibly free and eclectic smorgasbord of ideas. And just as we have freedom to choose which sites we visit or what print magazines or books we read, it would be the end of freedom as we know it if the government forced us to read or watch what they want, even if it were only a link. Thanks, but no thanks to Republic.Com.
You can read the first chapter online for free. You can also purchase this book at ThinkGeek. You may also be interested in Cass Sunstein's Homepage.
Re:I learned everything I know from slashdot! (Score:2)
"Apple is the real innovator in the computer industry."
"NASA is a waste of money."
"NASA does cool stuff."
"Everyone is dumber than me."
I think Slashdot has experienced the polarization effect, but not the homogeneity effect. We thrash about wildly to espouse our opinions, and there is no shortage of diversity.
Re:not only Public.Net (Score:2)
KDE or Gnome? :0) Seriously, the government has no business interfering in this way. You want a law passed saying that you have to use different software every day of the week to prevent bias? Ridiculous.
Re:So how biased is discussion on /.? (Score:2)
We shipped it back, tho'. In packing crates.
Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:2)
Umm, not a fact. Even Salon [salon.com] says so.
it is the right that is ideological and the left that has become the natural party of government in most of the democratic world
Assuming you can tell them apart any more. In the UK, for example, Blair is far more a child of Thatcher than Hague. And I'm thankful for it. Can you imagine the Winter of Discontent if socialist dinosaurs like Prescott ran the country?
Back on topic, remember that neither the Daily Mail nor the Guardian are in the business of news, they're in the business of supporting the existing opinions of the right and left respectively.
The NRA are left-wing? (Score:1)
I always felt that they were a bunch of fascists that make Mr. G. "D". Bush look left-wing. They seem to have a lot of extremist Republicans in their group, who in my book are also right wing.
Re:Oh yeah? (Score:1)
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Oh yeah? (Score:4)
Re:press (Score:1)
Re:Slippery Slopes (Score:2)
Hee hee. Of course, what would be really funny is to have religious websites required to link to pr0n sites for the "opposing viewpoint".
And the MPAA would have to put links to DeCSS sites... I'm sure that would go over real well.
I just love it when some professor (who's supposed to be smarter than average) doesn't stop to ask someone else if his ideas are completely stupid and unworkable.
Classic, totally classic.
Free speech is a precious thing. People have made a good case for limiting it in certain situations, like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Generally though, any suggestions to further limit speech should be view with great suspicion.
not only Public.Net (Score:1)
Speaking of which - what's the network effect of Office XP going to be? Will it have yet another extension doc type that only those who upgrade to Word XP will be able to read? And I do mean when the local sect'y creates a new doc and simply clicks 'save' - not the laborious and confusing methode of choosing to save in an older compatible format - that's asking too much of your typical Office® user.
Re:not only Public.Net (Score:1)
Not at all. In fact, the game of "make a different standard so everyone will have to buy all new software whether they need it or not" is going to quickly hinder progress. So is Office XP going to create docs that Office 2K can't open????? I'm working up a quote for my Msft lovin' boss of how much they're going to have to pay for this dubious advance in software - and that includes the cost of the hardware upgrades to run it - and all, not because we need or even want, this stuff, but because it is being imposed on us just so we can share docs. That's rediculous.
Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:3)
People frequently forget that the word Nazi is short for National Socialist. The way the Nazis ran Germany--dictating from the government what is acceptable and what should be liquidated--is sadly what a lot of left-liberals want to do, especially on college campuses.
I learned everything I know from slashdot! (Score:2)
"Hackers are the best people in the world."
"Jon Katz is the smartest journalist & philosopher."
Could slashdot be an example of Internet-blinders too?
InterNet not unique in this regard (Score:2)
slect other media to reinforce their world-views.
This includes the magazines they read, TV shows they watch, music they listen to, and so on.
Do this, it's for your own good! (Score:2)
The really important thing is to maintain freedom of speech-- because then opposing viewpoints can always be heard by those that want to hear them.
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Re:Beyond Majority Rule (Score:2)
Knowing social dynamics, I think the Quaker Process would have a hard time scaling. Also it think it would need people who are genuinly interested in control of their own lives, yet also respect others wishes. Another problem is it doesn't deal well with is people moving around. The Quaker process only really works in long term stable communities. I'd have to say most communities are either to large or dynamic for it to work.
As a country, the US needs to work on getting it's citizens truly involved in government. To the extent that they know the issues facing the communities they are living in. Know the relavant details, etc. Unfortunately most people only just want to slip by on the path of least resistance. If this means giving over control to someone else and following that other person's decisions, so be it.
The one thing a cult can't survive is a bunch of free thinkers. A democracy needs them.
Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:1)
Yes, they put the word "Socialist" in the name of their party. Socialism was very popular in the late 20's and early 30's in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, so it was possible to get a large number of working class votes by claiming to be "Socialist".
The actual behavior of the Nazis was anything but however, in fact their retoric was decidedly anit-socialist, and violently anti-communist.
The name of the Nazi party was an early example of Double-Speak, and regardless of your feelings about "the left" doesn't deserve to be repeated or supported in this forum.
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Anti-competitive (Score:1)
Except when Microsoft does it, it's "anti-competitive."
-Snoot
Set up the Dominoes (Score:2)
Sunstein assumes that the world is like a set of dominoes - knock one down and the whole kit and kaboodle falls down. He's no different than those who figured bad data in Burma would destroy the Dow Jones.
The world is not a bunch of dominoes - it's a complex, ever-changing interconnected organism. A change here produces a change there. If people filter their data, the results of their ignorance will affect them and change (of many kinds) will occur.
However Sunstein goes by the domino theory, and thus assumes some "top level engineering" will stop that first domino from falling. Of course, he fails to ask what the costs and repercussions of his solutions are - which is ironic as he seems to be VERY convinced of the costs of the current situation.
The sad part is that I addressed this in a column [seventhsanctum.com] I do on writing [seventhsanctum.com]. Even in fiction the myth of the "domino world" is obvious.
But I suppose saying "things aren't the greatest, oh well" doesn't sell books. Panic and messianism does.
Oops, wrong column (Score:2)
Re:Gee, I guess you don't agree with his views (Score:2)
We must not read the same
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Not a new problem (Score:3)
Of course, even if an opposing point of view is stated, we humans tend to remember evidence that corroborates our own previously-held point of view, and forget evidence that casts doubt on it. This is a powerful argument against both religious belief and religious unbelief, for example.
Anti-individual bias (Score:1)
perhaps?? permitted to remove???
This guy wants to force me (for my own good, of course) to read government propaganda and with visible reluctance concedes that it might not be feasible in a free society.
In the classic issue of balance of power between an individual and society/government, Sunstein greatly favors the society. That is really a value decision, hard to rationally argue about. However a look at history should prove useful. Societies that suppressed individuals in favor of society/government? Russia, China, Nazi Germany,
Kaa
Re:Not a new problem (Score:3)
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Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:1)
Let me summerize his post:
Governments suck, and the left wing promotes the government, so the left wing sucks. The right wing RULES!! This book is written by a left-winger, thus it sucks.
Gee, I guess you don't agree with his views (Score:4)
Most people who visit
Sunstein thinks that people need to have good knowledge of all sides of an issue before they decide what they believe, and that people who can filter out what information they receive won't have that knowledge.
Perhaps Sunstein's main idea is much more important than his idea of Public.Net. Peer pressure is a very strong force. If people are stuck in an environment where all of their peers believe one thing, they will be extreme discouraged from developing their own ideas. We need to promote more diversity in our discussions, and not flame people who have differing ideas. People should actually try to help their opponents devlop better arguments so that better debates can be held.
Yes I do know I was rambling a lot, but you shouldn't dismiss Sunstein so quickly. He is not a dumb man.
Re:Responsible Gun Ownership (Score:2)
BTW, the sentence `Having a gun in the car tells me I'm the one in trouble if hostilities occur' pefrectly describes the appropriate attitude towards weapons. It heartens me to read that there are such responsible folks out there.
OT: Chinese Crash (Score:2)
But this is horribly OT...
Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:1)
-ben.c
Re:I learned everything I know from slashdot! (Score:1)
I have never heard this one on Slashdot...
So how biased is discussion on /.? (Score:3)
I think there is probably some degree of the polarization that Sunstein describes. But I think more of the problems with discussion stem from two areas. For one, extreme opinions tend to get better airplay than moderate ones. This is not
Second, I think online discussion suffers from a lack of in-depth thought. I'd love to see a graph of posts over time look like for a
I only wish I had improvements to suggest... it's like the Churchill quote, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
Re:Oh yeah? (Score:3)
The oposite would probably be "News for cyber-apathetics." (cheesy, but maybe I should trademark the term) "Stuff for people who aren't interested in anything harder than freecell." or "News for people who continue through life without any tech interests." Granted, there used to be a large Linux leaning on
Moderation isn't perfect, but it seems to be better than nothing (there is quite a bit less noise at +1 than below, though that amount is growing, too).
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Slashdot is the worst offender of all!!! (Score:1)
Once the quickpoll was replete with options of 'RobSux' or 'HemosSux' as their joke answers, but now NO DISSENTION IS ALLOWED, and all the joke answers are 'CowboyNeal', forcing us to agree with everything that Slashdot says!!!!
Re:Not a new problem (Score:2)
I do not know if the constitutionality of this rule was ever challenged in court. However, when applying it to the internet, one should remember that the primary argument for it was that there was limited bandwidth for radio broadcasts, and therefore it was important to keep content roughly balanced. There is no significant shortage of wither bandwidth or opinion on the web, especially since most political speech on the web is textual, and that takes the least bandwidth of all to transmit.
And I do think that most fringe types are being polarized, I would say that A: this is nothing new, and 2: The center is still doing a fair amount of cross-polination of ideas. Hell, even on
So certainly I would oppose taking that step down the slope to government mandated hyperlinking, since it would be open to manipulation by a biased administration (left or right). And it would be hard to put that kind of legislation back in the box if we decided it was constitutional.
Caution is in order when it comes to taking away civil rights.
FWIW, here's a link to a page that came up after a search for 'fairness doctrine' [appstate.edu]
Deja Vu All Over Again (Score:1)
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Re:Gee, I guess you don't agree with his views (Score:2)
How quickly or slowly one dismisses Sunstein depends on how rapidly you dissect his arguments, but dismissal is the inevitable end result of thinking the matter through.
To note but one obvious flaw in Sunstein's notions, a left-wing government given the power to mandate "opposing view" links would approve a left-wing site directing people to neo-Nazi pages as examples of conservative thought, but would hardly permit right-wing sites to smear the left with similar links to revolutionary communist sites. (Of course, a right-wing government would do just the reverse.)
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Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:1)
the resurgance of the Conservatives in Britain,
Come on, man, you've got to do better than that.
NRA misunderstood (Score:1)
The NRA sounds radical because you generally only hear the radicalized version of things. The same could be said of the gun-control people (I'm hard pressed to name even a single such group, in spite of the fact that there are several -- my own ignorance, possibly willful).
There are right wing loonies in the NRA. Not every NRA member is one such. They do all like guns, however.
The NRA defends the right of people to bear arms, as guaranteed in our constitution. This is reasonable. That provision is not really there for hunters -- it exists because we as a people have historically had a profound distrust of government, prefering to keep it close to us, where we can watch it carefully. The authors also had recent experience with governments confiscating arms and property for its own use.
Re:Freedom of expression does not exist in academi (Score:1)
Cite examples please. With evidence that a) there is no freedom of speech/expression permitted, and b) this is the fault of left-wing groups. I hear these claims of liberals attacking these freedoms, but I don't see any more instances of them doing it then people on the right.
Just asserting it doesn't make it so.
I still find it amazing that so many conservatives attack the left as being in favor of censorship and all, when the biggest group that fights FOR those first amendment freedoms, the ACLU, is also considered a left-wing group. (The right-wing version, the ACLJ, is notorious for thinking freedom of religion means the ability to force your beliefs on others - that sure isn't freedom)
(BTW, I am a very liberal person, who donates regularly to the ACLU and is a strong supporter of first amendment rights)
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Re:"Wings" in politics (Score:3)
Liberals seem to look to the future and change things, trying to improve them, whereas conservatives look into the past, and try to roll things back to a point that they felt was comfortable for them.
Not even close. To take just one example, conservatives are trying to reform Social Security to make it self-sufficient and not in danger of bankruptcy in 30 years, and liberals are howling in protest. The defining issue between liberals and conservatives is not the future or the past, it is how much power government should have.
In the US, the democratic party has tried to fight for the people, the little guy, the worker.
"Little guys" like trial lawyers, Hollywood actors, and union bosses? How exactly were Clinton and Gore fighting for the people when they approved the Clipper Chip, the CDA, and the DMCA? How are Democratic politicians helping inner-city families by denying them a choice in education, while they send their own children to expensive private schools?
The republicans support the business executives, big money, and therefore corporations as well as conservative religious organizations.
Take a look at campaign contributions. Democrats get just as much from businesses as Republicans. Corporations will happily buy legislation from either or both parties. I'm not going to defend the Republican party too strongly because they do a number of stupid things (generally due to the religious right contingent), but to say that the Democrats are for the people and Republicans are for the corporations is pure demagoguery.
With the return of the Bush regime to power in the United States, the prime goal that we've seen so far is to reduce environmental standards, by increasing the limits of acceptible arsenic pollution in our water
It is absolutely false that Bush wants to raise arsenic limits. He ordered a _review_ of Clinton's last-minute regulations lowering acceptable levels by 80% to see if there is a scientific basis for them. Compliance will cost a significant amount, and there is little evidence that current arsenic levels are a problem. In fact, if current arsenic levels are so dangerous, why did Clinton wait eight years to do anything? It couldn't possibly have been a political maneuver so that leftist partisans could subsequently accuse Bush of wanting to poison children....
Uhh Duh... (Score:1)
That being said, I really don't agree with Sunstein arguments. People have a tendency to hear what they want to hear and visit web sites that they will follow their line of thinking.
You can't force people to have an open mind
Re:NRA misunderstood (Score:1)
Opposing view links should not be required (Score:1)
Sites that have opposing viewpoint links are saying that they are confident enough in their views (and your intelligence) that pointing to the opposition only makes their case stronger. It's also an excellent way to kick sand in the face of the opposition - "we link to them, but they're not brave enough to link to us".
Sites that don't have opposition links are saying the opposite - that they don't trust you to agree with them, that they think the opposition might fool you despite their best efforts, that they're not 100% confident in their arguments.
"Wings" in politics (Score:2)
I never liked the term "left" or "right" wing. Where did those come from anyways? Were the terms created by how a certain arrangement of people used to sit in a certain assmebly? It's a convenient stereotype that people who want to use a label can tack onto a certain thought or action in order to better classify it.
This is a rather narrow-minded perception of political agendas, even when paired together with the notions of conservative and liberal, these polarized views of an assembly of people's opinions for the most part fails to line up with reality.
Can you walk into a music store, and categorize everything in there to go from technologically inspired to non? Perhaps at one side you'd have techno, and industrial, move a little bit down the line to hip-hop and rock, a little further to country and folk, and finally end up with classical and acapella. Most people wouldn't dig this one-dimensional classification, it certainly wouldn't allow you to go to one part in the line and say that all music here is good, and all music over there is bad. Yet it happens every day in the major media organizations.
These names and parties *do* exist. We can examine what are the general tendencies of these philosophies - Liberals seem to look to the future and change things, trying to improve them, whereas conservatives look into the past, and try to roll things back to a point that they felt was comfortable for them.
In the US, the democratic party has tried to fight for the people, the little guy, the worker. The republicans support the business executives, big money, and therefore corporations as well as conservative religious organizations.
In law student's tirade, he mentions: The left wing has a kind of right-on fashion appeal, which attracts unthinking students and such, (look at the sixties). The sixties were a long decade filled with many activities, some of the most notable were man landing on the moon and the civil rights movement. The imagery that he may be trying to conjure up could be of the group of people who burned out from using too many drugs. That was an unfortunate circumstance to a major societal change. Many things happened in that wave, including the people's hunger to protest their government's stupid ideas being re-ignited (remember, the US was created by a bunch of people who protested their government). Many more personal freedoms were gained, including more gender equity in the workplace, auto safety standards, and the peace corps.
Most people I discussed politics with last fall had an opinion about who they should vote for president. Most of the Gore and Nader supporters had some well thought out opinions that were grounded in facts. I have yet to meet one Bush (or Buchanan) supporter who has anything intelligent to say about them. What I usually heard was "we're tired of Clinton's penis". Fine - but don't deliver hypocrisy as a side-dish.
With the return of the Bush regime to power in the United States, the prime goal that we've seen so far is to reduce environmental standards, by increasing the limits of acceptible arsenic pollution in our water, and C02 emissions so the coal and oil companies can get just a little more profit this quarter, while those same executive's children grow up inhaling our legacy's soot and drinking water with chemicals, and eating dead cows with numerous diseases - leading to the development of all sorts of weird illnesses.
Political debates have raged back and forth for ages, and nothing will settle people's conflict better than facts. Though facts can always be manipulated to tell different truths. That's why an open, free democratic union should always consider all the options available, and never "shun this book, as it is unamerican and left wing" for the american people are left wing, and right wing, and diagonal wing, and some are all 3.
Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:1)
<p>
It is however true that there is a great deal of overlap in the concepts of State Socialism (there are other kinds) and Totalitarianism. Socialism in it's traditional form saw the state as the orginizer of econominc life. Totalitarianism includes this position. </p>
<p> If you find the association of "Left" and NAZI offensive then think you have an overly emotional attachment to the word "Left" . The terms "Left and Right" stem from a discription of two sides in a french assebly. Left and Right do not stand for any particular philisophical position, and thier meaning varies greatly from place to place and over time. The use of the terms "Left and Right" are simply a vacuous substitute for having to deal witht the actual positions of a given person or group. The same is true of conservative and liberal.</p>
Fred Phelps (Score:2)
Speech isn't an absolute (Score:2)
http://home.uchicago.edu/~csunstei/beef.html
Interact with Cass Cunstein (Score:1)
http://pup.princeton.edu/sunstein/
I asked Sunstein several questions which he gave less than satisfactory answers to. One of my questions asks him to explain why his web site at the University of Chicago has no links to opposing viewpoints. You might want to read his dodge.
My review also appears in the April Issue of "The Ethical Spectacle" http://www.spectacle.org/
Regards, Matt Gaylor
Re:Gee, I guess you don't agree with his views (Score:1)
As to the NRA, a better title for them might be The National Republican Association.
Regards, Matt-
Something interesting to note (Score:1)
What I found, interestingly enough, was exactly the opposite of what is hypothesized in this book. Pro gun rights websites tend, in general, to link to more anti-gun editoirials than to pro-gun editorials! Far from seeking to avoid controversial opinions, most people who are activists really love the argument and like to link to opposing views in order to have something to rant about!
The NRA likes to link to arguments against gun rights, but not necessarily because they are after a spirit of fairness and co-operation, of course. They like to link to that sort of thing because when their audience (pro gun rights people) read about gun control, they get mad and donate money.
I think that human nature is such that people do not act in the hypothesized manner. People don't like to read only things that they agree with. They like to read stuff that pisses them off.
Heck, I sometimes even read Jon Katz for that reason.
stupid (Score:1)
If I am going to be required to include links to an opposing viewpoint when I feel like ranting, what is to stop me from linking to the most ridiculous naturally-occuring strawman I can find?
Furthermore, what's with the .net? How is this any different than what has occured in physical groups such as political parties, or in books, periodicals, radio and television programs, churches, and etc. in the past?
Beyond Majority Rule (Score:3)
the collapse of the left acrsoss the entire globe (Score:1)
Not sure about the Conservatives in the uk either - unless you`ve been talking to farmers?
Too bad (Score:2)
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See? You're too stupid to form your own opinions! (Score:1)
Personally, I'm against pr0n so I'm off to investigate the pro-pr0n sites..
Re:Not a new problem (Score:1)
What an awesome troll (Score:1)
I think this is a work of art, not a troll.
What a short awesome job of showing the problems with Republic.com and it's bias.
It poisons the people. I LOVE this post!!! I gather from the last line, the author may not even agree with what he's saying, but I still love it!
Liberals/left wingers what have you, are really after control by society. They think individuals should defer to societies viewpoint(s) whenever it has one and for whatever reason.
Right wingers/conservatives whatever generally believe in individual freedom and individual responsibility.
This book is proposing that the government, or "SOCIETY" get to decide what people put into their brains. Rather than the people themselves deciding what goes in. The lines of what is/isn't radical will be drawn by the government, the choices of what people "need" to be exposed to would be chosen by the government. (ie Democratic society, the whim of the populous at large with guns behind it)
This idea is a liberal's wet dream, of course it's biased. But, the liberals say, we're going to put stuff up there we DON'T agree with too. Yeah, right I believe you. So, um would this post I'm replying to be one of the things "required" on "extreme liberal" sites? Oh, there's no "extreme liberal" category? How did that get left out? Oh, yeah, liberals don't believe anything strongly, except that no one else should either. Huh, that makes sense.
Why do liberals(particularly the leaders) like things this way? Because they are generally good politicians, and good arguers, so it makes it easy for them to get their way.
As a book its fine, but... (Score:1)
It would just be really scary if somebody got a bright idea and decided to implement actual LAWS like this.
That is why this line of reasoning is a bit uncomfortable for those of us who happen to actually BELIEVE in something, and even those who realize that everyone believes in SOMETHING.
Call belief a human trait if you like.
Re:What's wrong with this (Score:1)
Editorial Right Wingedness (Score:1)
"environmental terrorists who spike logging areas" -- hmm, do I detect a hint of bias? Maybe just an eensy weensy bit?
"WTO protestors/rioters and other left wing extremists" don't sound like hate groups to me. I would like to know exactly why you consider these to be hate groups? Or are they hate groups because you hate how they threaten the security of your precious trust fund?
Re:FreeRepublic.com example (Score:1)
Re:Uhh Duh... (Score:1)
The "yelling fire" example
- is terribly misunderstood
- is usually used to make flawed analogies
- doesn't prove that the right to free speech is any less absolute
- doesn't, in any case, justify any federal laws abridging free speech.
Damaging a person's property is always illegal, and should be actionable regardless of whether or not words (speech) are involved. One can say something fraudulent, and the fact that spoken words are involved doesn't protect one from charges of fraud.It's obvious that the constitution was a failed experiment. I mean, now we even argue over whether "congress shall make no law" actually means "congress shall make some laws, if they can show a compelling interest..." Even if the framers were in favor of a number of restrictions on speech (as I'm sure some of them were) they agreed that these things should be done at the state level, not the federal level.
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Re:Uhh Duh... (OT) (Score:1)
No. I first got the image from zanyvg.overclocked.org [overclocked.org] (the game is called Battlerangers) and I've been cracking up about it ever since.
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Link this, ivory tower elitist... (Score:1)
Bingo Foo
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Freedom to NOT listen (Score:3)
Regardless of the various moral positions we wish to promote, this is a quandry we all run into.
To a certain degree, it is a measure of our social skills, to be able to be in communication with someone who does not want to listen. Some poeple who are not very skilled try to insist on it as a right, when in fact it is a matter of social agreement (yah, I'll watch your commercial)
And let's face it the freedom to not listen is often taken as an act of integrity. Republicans not listening to Democrats, dogs not listening to cats, Microsoft not listening to anyone (except when it hurts), etc.
I am sure each of us can think of dozens of things you don't want to listen to. It is an interesting quandry.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
press (Score:1)
Re:Oh yeah? (Score:2)
Personally, I've never felt I couldn't express my mind on a subject, even if it does deviate from what's considered the "typical" Slashdot line. I've found it also helps to provide a bit more rationale than just "foo sucks" or "foo rules". For example, I wouldn't have any qualms against posting the following (to use your animated paperclip example):
Now I'll admit that there are times when the Slashdot moderation system fails. However, I think for the most part, I don't think it overly reenforces just a single opinion. For example, even though I disagree with your post, both I and some moderator have both found it interesting. I also find that people seem to be too quick to label their own posts as "I know I'll get modded down for this..." People underrate the diversity of thought and opinion on Slashdot. I'd consider its opposite to be something like "News for Jocks" rather than "News for people who think Microsoft products are good and Linux is too confusing" -- and even that isn't a given; I'm sure there are a number of athletically active Slashdot readers.
Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:1)
Awww, hell with it.
The "Nazi is short for National Socialist, therefore the Nazis weren't right-wing" blather is frankly offensive. Totalitarianism isn't unique to either the right wing or the left.
And anyone who thinks the Conservative Party is resurgent in the UK is either in the UK and in a dreamworld, or elsewhere and twenty years behind the times.
Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:1)
--
Yours,
who needs links? (Score:2)
Why not just force everyone to use NBCi? That would be so much easier than policing everyone's website.
Equal time redux (Score:2)
These laws were eventually struck down as unconstitutional. Part of the reason, IIRC, was that it required stations to subsidize speech that they didn't agree with.
But more importantly (to my mind), the other reason they were struck down was that they were based on the false notion that there are only two viewpoints on any issue, and that presentation of two viewpoints covered the entire spectrum of the issue.
Sunstein's idea to require linking to opposing viewpoints is just Equal Time redux, and it would be just as unconstitutional. Viewpoints that do not fit into the traditional (and overly simplistic) left-right dichotomy would be even more marginalized than they are currently.
Writer Camille Paglia espouses an unusual brand of feminism which tends to upset conservatives and traditional "liberal" feminists equally. Where would her voice fit in this system?
Pro-life and pro-choice extremists both claim there can be no compromise on the issue of abortion, despite the fact that the vast, but largely silent majority of Americans seem to want a compromise, allowing abortions early in a pregnancy, but not partial-birth abortions. But how likely is it that anyone would be exposed to the moderate view under Sunstein's system?
And when there are more than two opposing viewpoints, who decides which ones qualify to be linked to? If it were up to the website owner himself, what keeps him from linking to the worst, weakest presentation of an opposing viewpoint, and how does that help anyone? Or, to take a worst-case scenario, what prevents him from deliberately putting up a bad presentation of an opposing viewpoint, presenting it as a site independent from his own, and linking to that? Literal biblical creationists are notorious for presenting strawman versions of evolutionary theory to shoot down, either failing to understand or deliberately misrepresenting what evoluationary theory actually predicts.
At least when a web site or other information source presents only one side of the story, most people are smart enough to realize it's biased. But I worry that when two viewpoints are represented (because they're required by law to be represented) people will then conclude that all viewpoints are represented.
Re:Slippery Slopes (Score:2)
Does he present citations to opposing views?
The opposite (Score:2)
And it would die a quick death due to no users!
Opposing viewpoints? (Score:3)
Part of being a responsible citizen is informing yourself by doing some research on ideas, beliefs, policies, organizations etc.
Sure, the web makes it easier to do all this, but are we going to let ourselves be force-fed, in any way, information that is supposedly balanced. I will never believe it, and will not give up looking it up for myself. It's the only way to gurantee that if I'm wrong, I'm at the very least, responsible for it.
yoink
Somewhat agree (Score:1)
For instance, this site is host to some pretty vociferous arguments. Many of the people who post here have very different political viewpoints than mine. Some posts make my blood boil, yet I still keep reading. I read because this is a site about... about... well, I forget what this site is about, but there are generally pretty interesting things on it.
The most interesting idea in the review (haven't read the book yet) is the idea of a 'public service' link to a site about public policy. This could be the fee the government charges for its initial investment in the Internet. Reminds me of the boards in Ender's Game. The democratic system of government presupposes some intelligent public debate, and its long-term survival demands an informed populace, so the system of government (as opposed to the current government itself) might be well-served by this sort of thing. There are precedents to governments incenting their citizens to participate - some states in ancient Greece fined citizens that didn't vote in elections.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:1)
resurgance of the Conservatives in Britain
Ha ha ha ha ha
Re:Gee, I guess you don't agree with his views (Score:1)
p.s. I don't know about in the US, but the view from the outside is that the NRA are a bunch of right-wing loonies. Is this true?
Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:1)
Re:"Wings" in politics (Score:2)
I never liked the term "left" or "right" wing. Where did those come from anyways? Were the terms created by how a certain arrangement of people used to sit in a certain assmebly?
Very perceptive. They come from the National Assembly in France. We've been using the terms ever since there was a hard split among the Girondists (sp) and the other guys, whose name I won't even try and spell. Interestingly, the next phase in the french revolution was the Terror, where the Committee for Public Safety took over. From there it was all downhill....
This is a rather narrow-minded perception of political agendas, even when paired together with the notions of conservative and liberal, these polarized views of an assembly of people's opinions for the most part fails to line up with reality.
Absolutely. I'll attach the word "liberal" to myself quite willingly even though I oppose affirmative action and gun control, since the word is a more accurate description of my overall political views than "conservative" or even "moderate".
Political debates have raged back and forth for ages, and nothing will settle people's conflict better than facts. Though facts can always be manipulated to tell different truths. That's why an open, free democratic union should always consider all the options available, and never "shun this book, as it is unamerican and left wing" for the american people are left wing, and right wing, and diagonal wing, and some are all 3.
You've just hit the point that the book itself misses. As a personal suggestion, the book has an excellent suggestion - listen to opposing viewpoints and actively seek them out. Read opinions written by the "other side" of any question, and try and read them with an open mind, which can be harder than it seems.
As a suggestion to websites, it's excellent - you should at least link to an opposing viewpoint if you really want to serve readers. I think everyone's problem comes from the idea of having a government mandate about political speech on the internet.
The need for closed discussions (Score:2)
It doesn't seem to me that this is a new problem. People have always had the ability to choose what to read or listen to. Should governments force them to read both left- and right-wing newspapers, for example?
It might not always even be a bad thing. I think we need places where people of like views can gather and discuss. I used to read alt.atheism but the trolls(who were "witnessing") and the people flaming back at them were just too much. Here I wanted to discuss my religous beliefs with like-minded people - what do you tell kids?" and so forth - and I have to wade through 100 messages about
RE: RE: RE: UNBELIEVRS GO TO HELL!!!!!! REPENT AND BE SAVED!!!!
in order to get to the discussion I wanted - using a 4800 modem. There was supposed to be a subgroup of alt.atheism for this argument, but nobody read it so the trolls kept posting to the main group (and people kept arguing with them).
I like the occassional flamewar as well as anyone else, but the best discussions occur when people have a common ground. Look at Slashdot posts debating the relative merits of various distros compared to "Windoze sux" posts and "Die GPL Bastard" posts. The Linux discussions tend to be much more factual and involve a hell of a lot less hot air, because everyone involved agrees Linux is a good OS, and all distributions are fairly similar. No one will call you an idiot for explaining why you like Debian.
There's a place for opposite opinions to clash, but Republic.com would turn every single website into a never-ending flamewar.
Freedom of expression does not exist in academia (Score:1)
This lil'book is a great example, a typical tactic of the left is guilt by association. They love this as they can then claim they did not "say it"
The 10 reasons list that went out recently is a great example of the suppresion of speech on college campuses. This is the fault of a falculty who encourages students to violently lash out against opposing views and then excuses them when they do. (if you notice however, its okay to do anything if you can find a group who was possibly oppressed)
freedom of speech sucks because anwsering the claims requires facts and not emotion
Re:This guy has obviously never run a website... (Score:2)
This guy has obviously never run a website... (Score:5)
http://www.furinkan.net/rant/ [furinkan.net]
Subject matter ranges from griping about bad Anime dubs or things that piss me off in the news. I regularly slam organized religion, conservatism, and moralism.
What really amazed me when I started this site was the large number of emails it generated, both in favor and against the ideas I put forth. Some are flames, but a good number are intelligent, crafted rebuttals of my arguments. It has improved my world view, and made me more prone to carefully consider my arguments before I post them.
While I do think that hate groups and kiddie porn groups exist that feed off of their own homogenity, I think this trend is not the norm and still a sign of stupidity or introverted and psychotic behavrior. From my experiences, I beleive that the majority of intelligent people out there do seek out differing views on the subjects they're interested in.
So what if it is biased (Score:1)
Rush Limbaugh said, about 5 years ago, that Republicans tend to think that democrats are stupid and democrats tend to think republicans are mean (whether you like him or not we should be all able to agree that he is one of the most biased men in america.) And I think 5 years ago he was right about this point. But rescently I think opposite is true. So I would rephrase his statement as those in power tend to paint their opponents as mean (those bastards don't want you to have tax cuts) and those with out power cast their opponents as stupid (those republicans just don't understand that we can't aford this tax cut.)
So why am I bothering to say all this? I'm just pointing out that when you submit comments like law student you are simply falling into the trap rather than... well I don't know what he was trying to accomplish. But the same goes for this review. Sure the author is biased; but atleast it is visable. But aside from his biase do the arguments presented in the book offer logical structures? Does he supply evidence? If the main theory of the book is rooted in strong logical arguments what does it matter if laces it with pinko bs (I just love using the term pink bs.) Those who agree with his left wing agenda probably won't have a problem with his examples... but if they are clear minded may or may not agree with the fundemental hypothesis. And those who disagree with the liberal comments should just dismiss those comments and critique the main theory.
It is human nature to catagorize everybody into US or THEM boxes. It's up to you where and how you draw the line. I do tend to fall slightly on the rightwing side of politics (pro-life, pro death penelty) but I try to draw my US/THEM line between openminded and closeminded. I consider a creative liberal that questions, a lot closer to me than a conservative who inhales everything he is fed.
Re:Not a new problem (Score:1)
You're kidding, right? (Score:1)
What is the equivalent of yelling "Fire" on the Net?!
If I type "Fire" in a chatroom, surely this poses no threat to you. You would not be harmed by even the most vicious jpg of a fire on webpage...
Even the most insidious speech on the net may do nothing more harmful to you than raising your blood pressure...
It is different...because it is different...some things are no more complex than that
Why wouldn't this apply to the net as well?
I would suspect that you are a fairly logical person in real life, why doesn't that apply on the net as well? *grin*
Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:2)
Fact Every major European country has had a left wing government for a majority of the time since 1989.
Fact 'Social Democrats' currently form the government in all but two major European states.
Fact The notoriously right wing Murdoch press has even written off the Conservatives as a credible opposition force let alone a government.
Fact No party that believes it will win an election calls for a delay as the British conservatives have been doing.
Fact A majority of the US electorate voted for Gore, hardly a sign that the election can be taken as demonstrating Republican hegenemony. With a drawn presidential election, hung senate and narrowed lead in the house few expect the GOP trifecta to last long.
Delusion is not confined to sad Trotskyites. Nor for that matter is the evil of mindless ideology. Karl Popper had it right when he identified ideological extremism as the 'enemy of the open society'. The idea that the end justifies the means comes from a belief in absolute ideological truth.
Twenty years ago it was the ideological left that was trying to change society and the pragmatic right that spent most of the time in government. Today those positions are reversed and it is the right that is ideological and the left that has become the natural party of government in most of the democratic world.
Re:Dissappointed to hear it is biased. (Score:2)
Meaning nothing, the socialist block was the only group to vote against the enabling act that gave Hitler supreme power. The communists would have done had Hitler not had all their deputies elected.
The claim that Hitler's "philosophy" bore any coherent resemblance to any mainstream political movement. However the principal planks of Mein Kampf were a Eugenic program based on genocide of Gypsies, Jews and Homosexuals and the invasion of Eastern Europe to create a 'Liebensraum'. Neither of those objectives has ever been associated with mainstream European Socialism.
The Nationalization of industry did not actually take place, that is in part because the industrialists were the main backers of Hitler. With the exception of Winston Churchil most of the European right at the time was enthusiastically supporting Hitler's command economy program for restoring Germany's economy.
The fact is that the right was far more tolerant of Hitler than the left, just as the left were far more tolerant of Stalin than the right. Both sets of appeasers were utterly wrong and it was the standouts on both sides who were right - most notably Winston Churchil on the 'right' (although his changes of party means that he is not easily characterized) and George Orwell (Eric Blair) on the left.
Re:So how biased is discussion on /.? (Score:3)
I don't think this is restricted to online discussion. One of my frustrations with what Brill's content calls 'Shout TV' is the lack of in depth thought.
To take one topical example, on chat show after chat show the Administration claim that it is 'unthinkable' that the US airplane could have been responsible in any part for the collision near China. I have only heard one 'news' show mention the submarine sinking of a Japanesse trawler in connection with this claim - and that was The Daily Shown on the Comedy Channel.
Other relevant incidents that the research departments of the news media have overlooked are 1) the fact that the US also claims 200 mile territorial limits with respect to certain activities 2) the fact that a Russian MIG landed in Hong Kong a few decades ago and was dismantled by the Brits and the US 3) the fact that the U2 flown by Gary Powers is still in Russia
Not that these pieces of information necessarily change the situation. But listening to so called experts pontificate while they fail to address the issue the rest of the worlds press is discussing suggests that the real problem is not with the new media but with the established media who have become incompetent and lazy.
It is ironic that Mathew Gaylor should take issue with filtering however since he is the principal individual I try to filter out - in many cases by unsubscribing from the mailing lists he infests. His principal waking activity appears to be bombarding mailing lists with off topic rants/trolls on his pet obsessions. These include guns, libertarianism, gun rights, constitutionality of gun ownership, lack of civil liberties in the UK (guns again), some screed by a right wing nut that is probably about guns etc. To say he is a boring one issue monomaniac is an understatement.
I prefer to filter out all discussion of guns, abortion and the works of Ayn Rand. this is not because I don't care about the issues, I just don't care to listen to ideologues rehashing second or third hand arguments I have heard hundreds of times.
The guy has the wrong model (Score:3)
Longstanding UseNetters will remember the activities of Achmed Cosar, a member of the Turkish Secret police who posted hundreds of messages a day to the soc.culture groups of Usenet under the aliases Serdar Argic and Hasan B-) Mutlu.
The clear intention was to drown out any discussion of the 1918 massacre of Armenians by the Turks. The massacre is a touchy subject for the Turkish government and Turkey recently withdrew its ambassador to France after France recognised the massacre as genocide and made vehement complaints to the British after the Armenian masscre was amongst those recognized on 'Holocaust day'.
What Cosar did was to run an AWK script that scanned several USEnet groups for any occurrences of certain keywords. The script would then return the first paragraph of the post, append a randomly chosen insult and add a piece of Turkish government propaganda to the end. Cosar's activities stopped when the US cancelled his H1B visa. [Don't ask how I know this stuff, I am not going to discuss my sources on /.]
Cosar's activities were an extreeme but there are plenty of similar examples. Shouting down the opposition was a popular tactic of Facist and Trotskyite groups. In the 1930s the NAZI party and the Communists would disrupt each other's meetings. Trotsky called the strategy of taking over another party by joining en-masse and being deliberately unpleasant to force others to leave 'entryism'.
These tactics are rare but not unheard of and it is this against this type of behavior that the majority of negative moderation is directed. On slashdot the 'first post' and 'goat**x' messages are a kind of mindless apolitical version of the same thing.
Strictly speaking I don't think that 'trolls' should necessarily be marked down since there is a very fine line between a deliberately provocative post and a troll. In each of the cases I have made a post that scored 5 I have thought that some people would think of as a troll. A well written intelligent troll can be fun - if the intention is to provoke thought rather than to trigger mindless reactions from the unthinking.
For these reasons I see moderation as a tool to protect the middle ground against the people whose purpose is to prevent debate.
Re:What's wrong with this (Score:2)
Re:"Wings" in politics (Score:2)
The other axis is harder to define, but it corresponds better to the "left" and "right". Jerry Pournelle once used a very strange word for it, but what he seems to have meant is belief in "social engineering", and this does correspond fairly well to the right/left division all the way back to the French Revolution. That is, right-wingers think a thief steals because he is bad, and he's going to jail and then to hell. Left-wingers think social conditions made him steal (like hunger, poverty, bad parents, or a lack of high-paying jobs for stupid and lazy people), and therefore sending the thief to jail is unfair, but if they can just change the social conditions, people will become good.
There's also a strong association between right-wing and "conservative" (reluctant to change). Partly that's because the conservatives were on the defensive for 200 years... But mainly, the left wingers are always going to want to change something to make people better by making the world better, and the right wing is going to worry that it will actually make the world worse.
Re:"Wings" in politics (Score:2)
Re:Oh yeah? (Score:3)
On Slashdot, I have never noticed a post getting modded down due to different ideas if there was a reasonable argument behind it. Of course, posts that display a lamentable lack of basic knowledge or are just plain illogical are either modded down, or else modded up as "funny".
Note that liberals and academics in the softer disciplines seem to think there is no such thing as facts. Christian conservatives are just as bad, in a different way -- they know there is such a thing as the truth, but have trouble assimilating any facts discovered in the last 1500 years. But I'm an engineer. There's a real world out there, with one set of real truths. We don't and probably never will know them all, but ignore just one thing that we do know and that machine you are designing isn't going to work!
Here's what's wrong with this: (Score:2)
- Compelled speech is un-Constitutional.
- People would just filter it anyway, either the way you already ignore banner ads or via anti-compulsion filters akin to WebWasher.
On the other hand, if libel law were modified to limit or remove the safe-harbor provisions when inaccurate or selective quotes did not include a link to the context (if said context was available on-line and at a linkable address - none of this "have to go through the main page and then search" crap), that might address many of Sunstein's objections.--
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day.
What I know (Score:2)
I think the book is very good. Here is an interesting review of it: See only what you want to see, hear only what you want to hear, read only what you want to read. In cyberspace, we already have the ability to filter out everything but what we wish to see, hear, and read. Cass Sunstein asks the questions, Is it good for democracy? Is it healthy for the republic? What does this mean for freedom of speech?" "Republic.com exposes the drawbacks of egocentric Internet use, while showing us how to approach the Internet as responsible citizens, not just concerned consumers. Democracy, Sunstein maintains, depends on shared experiences and requires citizens to be exposed to topics and ideas that they would not have chosen in advance. Newspapers and broadcasters helped create a shared culture, but as their role diminishes and the customization of our communications universe increases, society is in danger of fragmenting, shared communities are in danger of dissolving. In their place will arise only louder and ever more extreme echoes of our own voices, our own opinions." "In evaluating the consequences of new communications technologies for democracy and free speech, Sunstein argues the question is not whether to regulate the Net (it's already regulated), but how; proves that freedom of speech is not an absolute; and underscores the enormous potential of the Internet to promote freedom as well as its potential to promote "cybercascades" of like-minded opinions that foster and inflame hate groups. The book ends by suggesting a range of potential reforms to current misconceptions and to improve deliberative democracy and the health of the American republic . If you are interested in the book you can read a chapter here [barnesandnoble.com]
Re:Oh yeah? (Score:2)
i'd expect that most of the comments from people who aren't part of this nerd culture would have their comments modded down instantly. for instance, someone who has used ms word and part of koffice would be instant flaimbait if they were to say that they found the animated paperclip useful.
i'm kind of expecting to be modded down myself due to my different ideas...
i was angry:1 with:2 my:4 friend - i told:3 4 wrath:5, 4 5 did end.
Slippery Slopes (Score:5)
Re:Oh yeah? (Score:2)
-The phenomenon of groups insulating themselves from arguments they disagree with, has really only been observed in fairly extreme cases. It is somewhat disingenuous to pick out the KKK as an example; millions of less cultist racists exist, and it is not obvious that they also screen the information they recieve (other than by psychological confirmation bias.)
-If they do, it's not clear that filtering technologies and one-sided web sites will do much for them that they don't do already. It's quite easy for people to ignore op-ed pages and PBS already; most do. It's quite possible that the internet will make it easier for them to see differing opinions, through its ease of use or just through its sheer chaos. Filtering on the 'Net is actually pretty hard, after all.
-The argument assumes that individual curiosity is a pretty weak force. The Internet makes it much easier to indulge curiosity. I don't think that's negligible.
-People like to argue. Slashdot is a good example. This exposes them to other viewpoints.
-Even the most fanatic, say, pro-life or pro-choice activist can ill-afford to remain completely ignorant of the other side's viewpoint, if only to oppose it more successfully.
-Many people do seem to still be interested in presenting all sides of an issue. Many more people are interested in seeing such presentations. People are not usually utterly unaware of their own biases, and do sometimes try to counteract them. Again, see slashdot.
-Within the confines of what, externally, is often thought of as a group of monolithic opinions, there are often strongly different and disagreeing ideas. These groups nevertheless maintain cohesion for political or social reasons. Take pro-life again. There are lots of folks who are prolifers because of their religion- but many different religions. There are atheist biologists and doctors who are pro-life for what they consider scientific reasons. There are people who are pro-life because of ideas about sexual morality. For that matter (I say this with no offence intended toward pro-lifers; this sort of thing is true of all movements) there are people who are pro-life because of racist or classist ideas, or antintellectual ideas, or because it was good enough for their daddies, or because a pro-life politician did them some other favor. The point is, there are very few opinions in the movement that are agreed upon by all, and thus any member is liable to hear everything he might believe disagreed with nearly as strongly, on a pro-life web site, as on a pro-choice site!
This sort of thing happens daily already on the internet- on sci.space.policy, there is no proposal or program I have not heard vehemently opposed by someone who is, nevertheless, pro-space.
-Finally, our open-ness, or lack thereof, toward opposing arguments is very much a cultural phenomenon. This culture is shifting in response to the Net, just as it did toward each new medium. Any notion of a static, old-culture response to what we think the new medium's problems will be, is almost guaranteed to be wrong.