Building apps is not the same thing as activism.
To be more on point, the problem with flagging dubious content is tribalism. There are very few (no?) umpires trusted by the vast majority of Americans anymore. Any app that flagged things you believed as false would rapidly be perceived as "a tool of the opposition"
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Not everyone can be an activist but everyone can talk to friends and family. Everyone can support the work of people knocking doors and trying to get people out of their comfort zone. And importantly, everyone can avoid criticizing that kind of activism.
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The "heresy" frame is a strong criticism of a flavor of activism that attempts to make it clear that there's a strong challenge afoot to conventional wisdom. So when people repeat "women are just not well represented because of natural preferences", they get strong pushback.
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If you're used to believing those things it will seem like a "heresy" has sprung up over night. But actually what has happened is that a bunch of people decided to fight hard against the sentiment whenever it crops up.
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And importantly, the consequences of the sentiment are still front and center. I'm basically saying that if we want to help, we should help people fight back against excuses people use to justify unequal treatment, rather than put on the Very Serious Hat and tut-tut.
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Perception is definitely a challenge of such app. But are you absolutely sure it cannot be addressed? As programmers we are uniquely position to deliver such solutions. And we will someday.
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I'm certain that so far our efforts have rapidly escalated the tribalism issue. And I'm not too interested in leaving the near future of our country and world in the hands of people who can't even quite understand the concept of harassment on their platforms.
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Software will be part of the future of activism because it's part of the future of everything. But it's not, itself, a solution. Software written by activists will be powerful. Software written by people who believe the problem is "not enough debate" will continue to polarize.
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We agree in essence. We are roaming about changing people's minds. The quality of debate has been a real problem. Remind me of how the iPhone succeeded while Microsoft had made windows ce for years.
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I think the Freedom to Marry work is a nice template for a lot of kinds of activism that empirically worked recently but isn't the same as "debate". Stuff like BLM and the protests in Charlottesville are deeply important as well. There's a spectrum of stuff to do.
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All of it amounts to "changing people's minds" but most of the time a prereq is getting people ready to listen in the first place. I'm basically saying support people doing the hard work if you can't. Help activists make apps, don't make your own targeted at the same goals.
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In the absence of a real game changing app. I agree.
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We've had game changing apps. They resulted in toxic social media vicious cycles that made things worse. I'm not holding out hope for apps solving our human problems.
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