This is coming from a pretty honorable, pretty reasonable guy on the pro-speech, pro-Science Left.
My guesses: Youtube management develops its algorithms with a lion’s share of user data, outsourcing much judgment to AI models and a complex automation process.
Youtube management probably feels pressure, as a company, to direct user attention towards paying clients (existing news outlets and networks just as many such media companies are being hollowed-out by….Youtube). The conflicts of interest in health, the sciences and politics don’t necessarily mean all the truth and getting at the truth.
Many human biases are pushing towards the broad, humanistic goals of equality and ‘democracy’. Ever more freedom, led by Enlightened, benevolent Western sorts.
Freedom is next! Health and Safety first!
For my part, with COVID-19 about, I’m seeing an inconsistent application of rules, bureaucratic authoritarianism, and some clear political corruption and conflicts of interest.
Following the threads of radical liberation doesn’t necessarily weave a strong cloth. In fact, many such threads lead to further institutional decay and ideological capture. The assumption of equality across race, sex, and ability doesn’t necessarily map the terrain.
Many of the wrong people and wrong types of people are ending up in wrong places.
Human nature runs deep. It certainly ain’t all good. Maintaining legitimate authority, our Constitutional constraints, and the consent of the governed ain’t easy.
Addition: I’ve gotten some pushback on: ‘The assumption of equality across race, sex, and ability doesn’t necessarily map the terrain.’
What I mean: I believe basic equality in dealing with another person is a moral obligation, but not one which begins and ends with the laws of men. Civil Rights logic is a major step towards civil recognition and freedom for those oppressed, but is also a massive expansion of State authority which oppressed. Some claiming Civil Rights leadership have devolved into racketeers. Many ideologues reaffirm daily the wish to destroy that which exists. Something like a new belief system, and civic religion, is being formed, likely of necessity. Some minds haven’t (and maybe can’t) necessarily have been persuaded, only coerced.
This is asking a lot of our laws and institutions. Perhaps too much.
Comparing men and women across all domains (personal, biological), while encouraging the many divides between the sexes be remedied by the guiding light of humanistic ideals, and increasingly dense law, does not necessarily mean good law. In fact, it might not accurately map many personal experiences, deepest hopes, nor biological imperatives. Among those charged with highest responsibility in maintaining laws and institutional authority, there is a foundational belief that change comes first. How might such a belief work in practice? Can many current rates of change be sustained?
Individuals aren’t equal in ability, often not even while compared across different days…with themselves. Incentives matter.
These are reasons for deep pessimism, of course. I hope to be proven wrong, or certainly, incomplete, in my thinking.
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On that note, re-constituting a good humanities education, speaking to deepest needs, might be a good place to start.
This probably means kicking out many entrenched ideologues, mid-level managers and gravy-trainers, or just letting some folks rot on the vine.
I won’t pretend to have the knowledge in deciding who’s who and how much.
Start anew? Where?