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Cake day: March 17th, 2026

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  • Many academics have vocally disagreed with Haidt’s conclusion that social media can be directly linked to declines in teens’ mental health. Haidt’s former colleague Peter Gray, a psychology research professor at Boston College, recently published a book criticizing Haidt’s theory as promoting a moral panic and offered an alternative theory that pins adolescent mental health issues to the rise of a stringent education curriculum under Common Core. Other prominent researchers also have critiqued the theory, and several large studies and meta analyses have found little or no direct effect of social media use on teen mental health at the population level.

    Still, Haidt’s theory has gained credence with many parents, teachers, and teens who believe it reflects their experience with social media.


  • Anytime someone brings up paradox of intolerance in the fediverse, the chance is very high they’re completely wrong about it and are regurgitating shit they read from some dumbass on social media.

    1. The paradox of intolerance is a paradox, not a conclusion.
    2. The reductive conclusion social media dumbasses insinuate by invoking it is entirely wrong according to the philosopher who articulated the paradox.
    3. Intolerant carries a more technical meaning in philosophy (at least to that philosopher) than a mere disagreement with other ways: it includes the element of imposing (by unjustified force) on society to literally prohibit other ways. People who do not force us to comply with their position are tolerant.

    From the article (you didn’t read or understand) quoting Karl Popper (extended with the rest of the passage)

    [Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.] But we should claim the right to suppress them [intolerant ideologies] if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

    The type of intolerance they refer to is the kind that uses force and refuses debate. They even explicitly reject that we should in general “suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies” as long as rational argument & public opinion still govern public choice.

    background: book promotes intellectual freedom

    The quote comes from a footnote in the book The Open Society and Its Enemies, whose thesis is that an open society (ie, liberalism) has stronger merits than the newer, trendier totalitarian political theories of the day predicated on teleological historicism. They approached this from their background in philosophy of science (emphasizing enterprises controlled by skepticism and free inquiry) to argue that liberal democracies are not inevitably doomed by totalitarian systems of power, because liberal institutions have an overlooked strength

    Only democracy allows an institutional framework that permits reform without violence, and so the use of reason in political matters

    and to keep totalitarian systems like fascism or communism at bay, we need to sustain institutions that allow for open inquiry and grant all citizens extensive rights against their governments.

    Even with the best rulers, unchecked power is likely to err and cause unbound damage. Instead of focusing only on selecting the best rulers, a better system of government might determine

    How can we so organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?

    They resolved that such a system should include strict limits on the power of the state and a special emphasis on intellectual freedom.

    They were absolutely arguing in favor of more open discourse & deliberation, not less of it, to reform government without violence and restrict its potential damage. That means tolerating opinions we disagree with from people who don’t try to impose them with force.

    Their discussion on public policy has no bearing on the democratic consequences accepting code that “solves the problem” from people we disagree with. It’s pretty much accepting charity and doesn’t imply you promote or agree with their views at all. Philosophers generally scoff at purity policing bullshit and genetic fallacies, especially those who emphasize free, open inquiry and rational argument as crucial to an open society.


  • checks alt text

    Peter Singer

    OP can start with a proper text alternative.
    No way someone unable to read an image will get the content, and search engines won’t find it by missing text, either.

    Not cheating accessibility & editing a post to correct that is definitely in OP’s power.
    Nothing of comparable moral importance is lost by doing so.


  • Explain what the disabled did to you to deserve shitty conduct from you.
    Same for whomever upvotes you.

    If you want to be an asshole, keep in mind whom you’re taking it out on, because it’s definitely not your critic.
    Moreover, no one is immune to disability, and you could find yourself screwed over by that arrogant inconsideration you embrace.
    I’ll gloat over the idiocy regardless, champ.

    Anyone who purports to be leftist yet downvotes accessibility is the biggest hypocrite on the planet.
    They’re all talk, but when it comes to concrete action here and now, that’s all they are: all talk, no action, hollow words, fake.




  • It’s a cheap relinquishment of control to authority under the guise of “public good & safety” of youths whose fundamental rights society is carelessly bargaining away. The goal is less personal responsibility, less autonomy and more control by authority to suppress liberty to access information openly, safely, anonymously.

    The article mentions a record of legal decisions I also quoted showing lawmakers had commissioned enough legislative studies to know that more effective & less restrictive legal alternatives exist than these irredeemably flawed laws that obstruct everyone’s participation.

    Everyone conveniently seems to forget it’s just information on screens of devices parents voluntarily give their children. Control is entirely within grasp of the individuals if realized and supported. As those justices had argued (before the new ones ruined it), government could facilitate & empower parents to realize their parental discretion & responsibility by legislating programs to educate parents & children & provide them the resources. Such legislation would empower parents without imposing on everyone else or sacrificing freedoms. Despite being told that solution, lawmakers never bothered to pass it in the decades since.

    Oddly, the children didn’t seem to matter anymore until shitheads waited long enough for the Supreme Court (with enough right-wing appointments) to change their tune.


  • Even more incredibly, the Eleventh Circuit literally seems to suggest that states can regulate all sorts of speech that might make people more interested in content as “features” rather than speech. CCIA had pointed out that the law is not at all content neutral because it puts rules on internet speech that doesn’t apply to speech in other mediums, and uses “cliffhangers” in books as an example.

    In particular, CCIA emphasizes that HB3 prohibits addictive features only on websites, not on other “services that disseminate speech”—like, for instance, “books that end in cliffhangers.”

    The Eleventh Circuit dismisses this in a footnote… suggesting that cliffhangers and other tricks to get people to read more in books can be regulated because they’re “features” not “speech.”

    Further, the analogy to literary devices that make books more engaging—like cliffhangers, shorter chapters, or serialization—simply reinforces Florida’s contention that it’s not focused on speech and the accompanying ideas, topics, and messages, but rather on features that in and of themselves are agnostic as to content.

    I am… flummoxed by this. Cliffhangers are features, not speech? Have any of these judges ever read a book? Short chapters are features not speech? What? Under the logic of this ruling, a state could issue a ban on short chapters and cliffhangers as being too “addictive” and the Eleventh Circuit says that would pass intermediate scrutiny and be just fine.