this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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It's odd that someone would think "I espouse all these awful, awful ideas about the world. Not because I believe them, but because other people don't like them."
And then build this bot, to try to embody all of that simultaneously. Like, these are all right-wing ideas but there isn't a majority of wingnuts that believe ALL OF THEM AT ONCE. Many people are anti-abortion but can see with their plain eyes that climate change is real, or maybe they are racist but not holocaust deniers.
But here comes someone who wants a bot to say "all of these things are true at once". Who is it for? Do they think Gab is for people who believe only things that are terrible? Do they want to subdivide their userbase so small that nobody even fits their idea of what their users might be?
Gab is for the fringiest of the right wing. And people often cluster disparate ideas together if they're all considered to be markers of membership within their "tribe".
Leftists, or at least those on the left wing of liberalism, tend to do this as well, particularly on social and cultural issues.
I think part of it is also a matter of not so much what people believe as what they will tolerate. The vaccine skeptic isn't going to tolerate an AI bot that tells him vaccines work, but maybe generally oblivious to the Holocaust and thus really not notice or care if and when an AI bot misleads on it. Meanwhile a Holocaust denier might be indifferent about vaccines, but his Holocaust denialism serves as a key pillar of an overall bigoted worldview that he is unwilling to have challenged by an AI bot.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/
I enjoyed reading it for the most part but couldn't get through it all. Thanks for the link.