Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive • Hacker News Board

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#241

Post by notahacker » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 11:09 AM UTC

gentleman11 wrote: post #62

rbecker wrote: post #2

Just in case someone finds the examples in the article all acceptable censorship, here's a few more off the top of my head: Evergreen professor forced to resign for opposing day of white absence: https://blog.usejournal.com/the-controversy-of-bret-weinstei... UCLA professor placed under investigation for reading MLK's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail": https://freebeacon.com/issues/university-to-investigate-lect... Dat…

In mainstream news (ap, CBC, bbc, others), increasingly people and groups are being labelled as racist without any discretion. Eg, people out protecting Churchill statues in the UK are labelled as racists in several stories[1]. Surely, there is at least one racist in the group, but increasingly every single person who doesn’t tow the line is being called out - entire police departments, mayors, city councils, schools…

They were also labelled as racist by right wing newspapers that venerate Churchill and defend the historical value of statues of slave traders, on account of the groups organizing it and how the crowd behaved.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#242

Post by _0ffh » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 11:09 AM UTC

cwhiz wrote: post #34

Shouting people down in public and on the internet doesn’t change opinions. People just talk more quietly or take more care with whom they share their thoughts and opinions. Cancel culture, outrage culture, and the general “social justice” movement is not much more than a wide scale attempt to silence dissenting thought. Build your own bubble, and shout down anyone who thinks or speaks differently. Yell and call it “…

Unfortunately, too many people tend towards binary thinking. "Either you're with us to the last detail, or you're the enemy and we'll do everything to destroy you." All attempts at nuanced dialogue are thus drowned out by the extremists. This is not a healthy dynamic for social peace.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#243

Post by monocasa » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 11:09 AM UTC

burfog wrote: post #74

monocasa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And particularly, that election was in the middle of the southern strategy switch, and the Democratic party didn't define itself as the left wing of acceptable politics in the nation as it does today. Particularly the Southern Democrats hadn't overwhelmingly converted over to Republicans yet. It was only after the Civil Rights Act was passed (which was six days into the race riots mentioned, so real actionable change…

There was no switch. Go look up members of congress who switched political party during that era. Wikipedia has a list. You'll find two, one in the house and one in the senate. Had there been an actual switch, you'd expect to see numerous members of congress switching sides. The "party switch" narrative is a lie. It's to cover for the fact that the republicans kept voting for civil rights until they were finally able…

It wasn't a switch as in politicians jumping ship from party to party in most cases, but instead a high level policy switch of voters, purging politicians from one party, and gaining new ones on the other as Dixiecrat voters felt betrayed and were welcomed into the Republican party as a new policy shift of that party.

Framing this as the civil rights act being solved and now voters focusing on other issues is ahistorical, and essentially just propaganda.

That's what the mean by a party switch.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#244

Post by krapp » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 11:12 AM UTC

missosoup wrote: post #37

cwhiz wrote: post #34

Shouting people down in public and on the internet doesn’t change opinions. People just talk more quietly or take more care with whom they share their thoughts and opinions. Cancel culture, outrage culture, and the general “social justice” movement is not much more than a wide scale attempt to silence dissenting thought. Build your own bubble, and shout down anyone who thinks or speaks differently. Yell and call it “…

This is an excellent summary of what's going on. Firing, cancelling, and silencing anyone with a 'bad' opinion doesn't convert them to a 'good' one. Instead it makes them more hostile and causes them to double down. I'm pretty confused how America keeps going down this path even after an actual 50% of the entire population revolted against the 'good' ideologies and voted in Trump with religious fervour. Pretending th…

>I'm pretty confused how America keeps going down this path even after an actual 50% of the entire population revolted against the 'good' ideologies and voted in Trump with religious fervour.

About 60% [0,1] of "the entire population" voted at all, and out of that population, votes for Trump and Clinton were split almost evenly, with Clinton still getting a slight majority of (a couple of million) votes, which isn't actually relevant due to the electoral college. At the end, the margin that decided the election was about 80,000 people[2].

I'm assuming good faith on your part, but the premise that half the country revolted against political correctness by voting in Trump and handing him a mandate is a populist myth. Trump is the result of having gamed the system slightly better than his opponent and nothing more, with far less than half of the population voting for him, and many doing so because he was the only option their party provided.

[0]http://www.electproject.org/2016g

[1]https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/10/13587462/...

[2]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/do...

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#245

Post by svara » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 11:13 AM UTC

whiddershins wrote: post #221

NohatCoder wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All speech besides threats of violence needs to be free, or we can't progress as a society. The problem with that simple rule is that there is no simple way to distinguish threats. Take a statement like "I don't think black people deserve to live", technically not worded as a threat, but the sentiment is no different. Similar examples varying in strength, obfuscation and contextual meaning can be produced in unlimit…

No. That’s logically flawed. We’ve seen this already, where this argument is being used to arbitrarily curtail all sorts of speech. By this argument almost any idea you disagree with could be considered a threat, and honestly, it seems like it is human nature to sort of behave as if ideas that are ‘bad’ are a threat to my safety. It takes effort to fight that impulse. We need very narrow exceptions to free speech: sp…

Your argument is already assuming its conclusion, i.e. that all speech should be free. But then you also recognize that, no, actually, some kinds shouldn't be (i.e direct threats).

The point is: that line you're drawing is arbitrary. You can define it narrowly and precisely, and I think that's what you tried to do here, but at the end of the day you chose where to draw it.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#246

Post by kiplkipl » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 11:15 AM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #82

AHappyCamper wrote: post #78

I understand that there are a lot of people who are hurting right now, and I empathize with their pain, but how can we share out most wonderful and beautiful ideas with each other or convey important information to the public if we believe there might be serious reprisals against us if we "say the wrong thing". For example, I personally helped work against slavery on the Black Market in the Middle East, and I wanted…

Part of the issue is that some people consider any speech they disagree with as a threat of violence or "endangering my safety".

These are weasel words

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#247

Post by blueflow » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 11:17 AM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #237

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you manage reading every code of conduct and honoring it? The trouble I'm having with social changes, expectations, per person pronouns, and other things is that managing all of these interactions can be a crushing amount of cognitive load. Now that I think about it, it's the same challenge I have with microservices. Formerly simple interactions are now hellza complicated. I'm not fighting the trend. I'm just…

> The trouble I'm having with social changes, expectations, per person pronouns, and other things is that managing all of these interactions can be a crushing amount of cognitive load. Are per-person pronouns really such a big deal to manage? I've known more people who have changed their name in marriage than changed their pronouns.

"changing your pronouns" has a link to "tying your identity to how you are being referenced" (i claim this from observation). Using the wrong pronoun is such much more likely to be seen as a personal attack than using your pre-marriage name.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#248

Post by raxxorrax » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 11:18 AM UTC

bachmeier wrote: post #217

rbecker wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would prefer that, after being beaten up, they were also arrested and convicted of spreading "gay propaganda"? You are intentionally conflating homophobic violence with 1st amendment protections, to make it seem like they didn't have the latter. Please debate more honestly in the future.

Traditionally free speech was a 1st amendment issue. In recent years, the term has been used more broadly to mean there should be no consequences of any kind for any form of speech. Consider the examples in the article: > Universities have faced demands to rescind admissions offers for incoming students and discipline professors over disparaging remarks (such as those of a Cornell professor who faulted a protester in…

While mostly true, I think there is a social contract of modern democracies to let people have their opinion, even if it is bigoted and wrong. Don't you think consequences have increased significantly?

Associating an employer with the opinion of employees if prejudice itself for example. Not wanting to drive that point of course. Should I be more offensive with my indictments?

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#249

Post by marcus_holmes » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 11:20 AM UTC

AHappyCamper wrote: post #115

eirini1 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not all, there are plenty of ways to phrase something without offending people - unless of course the content of what you are saying is itself, offensive :)

We were dealing with life and death situations. The pressure is beyond intense. If you mess up, a girl will be locked in a cave for much of her life. It's not a "calm" environment where you can nitpick every term for political correctness. You just need to convey the info that you need. Re raising awareness, there is no way to say "We're trying to stop slavery in the Middle East and shut down the human Black Markets"…

Sorry, I don't understand this at all.

You really can't spend the 30 seconds needed to think about "hmm, maybe be a bit careful about the words I'm using here in case my message gets lost in criticism of my language"?

As others have said, finding a non-offensive synonym for "Black market" takes a single search, about 5 seconds. Is it really that time-critical? Where are you sending these messages that those 30 seconds are "life or death" yet they're spread widely enough to be potentially offensive?

"messing up" involves what, exactly? Because it seems to me that using a racist term is more likely to divert the attention from your message, not less.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#250

Post by paulgb » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 11:24 AM UTC

blueflow wrote: post #247

paulgb wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The trouble I'm having with social changes, expectations, per person pronouns, and other things is that managing all of these interactions can be a crushing amount of cognitive load. Are per-person pronouns really such a big deal to manage? I've known more people who have changed their name in marriage than changed their pronouns.

"changing your pronouns" has a link to "tying your identity to how you are being referenced" (i claim this from observation). Using the wrong pronoun is such much more likely to be seen as a personal attack than using your pre-marriage name.

Have you seen anyone personally take offense, or just high-profile cases? I've definitely seen a few of the latter (e.g. Jordan Peterson) but the common denominator there seems to be antagonistically refusing to use pronouns or doing so to make the point that you reject them, which is different from an honest mistake.