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

#381

Post by dcsilver » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

gwd wrote: post #255

ngngngng wrote: post #177

I argued with a family member about this just the other day. She was trying to get a faculty member at a local university fired for saying something offensive on Twitter. I asked her what happens after we get him fired? Can he earn back the worthiness to again feed his family? Will he need to denounce his views or just stop spewing them publicly? Will he just need to collect unemployment for the rest of his life now…

> I asked her what happens after we get him fired? Can he earn back the worthiness to again feed his family? Will he need to denounce his views or just stop spewing them publicly? Will he just need to collect unemployment for the rest of his life now that we've deemed him a heretic unworthy of work? As someone who's a devout Christian, it's quite interesting to me to see how the same anti-patterns which plague zealou…

So true.

Far too many people today, many of whom I suspect have a recent inclination to harboring particular political views at all, are missing the entire point of politics - that it's a debate.

It's the great debate, the one that we set up entire electoral systems to have, and built entire buildings in which it would be held.

Today, a dangerous number of people are outright enraged by having their dogmatic political beliefs challenged, and they'll go to great lengths to ensure that you can't share yours.

It's a mess. Years ago, attempts at political conversation were more often than not met with indifference and you had to find like-minded people interested in having them. We used to bemoan that too few people were engaged in politics. Who knew that it would be this much of a mess once they were.

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

#382

Post by BlackFly » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

cheschire wrote: post #67

gentleman11 wrote: post #65

There are a lot of downvoted posts in this thread that make reasonable arguments and that are promoting discussion. I disagree with a lot of them, but it’s awkward for this to be a story where people are heavily downvoting people they disagree with

It's a question I've been struggling with lately. Downvotes reinforce groupthink, that much is subjectively clear. I've considered solutions, and I believe forcing people to reply before they are allowed to downvote would help. However, in opposition to my own idea, I consider that simply requiring a more effort wouldn't necessarily change the groupthink problem, but would just stifle low effort downvotes. Let's cons…

One of the common threads on some limits to free speech is the notion that lies are not protected. Libel, perjury, false advertisement, slander. I treat downvoting similarly: I only downvote things I know to be false and figure the speaker either knows it to be false or reasonably should know.

Since I only downvote in the rare cases where I believe a person is being dangerously disingenuous or unreasonable, I often don't feel there would be any value in replying. If they are misrepresenting facts or I believe they are not reasonable, why would I attempt to reason with them?

Instead if I think the person is just confused or hasn't considered a different perspective, I won't downvote and might reply. Often I will just ignore it anyways, since I am ambivalent about the possibility of reasoning with people over the internet.

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

#383

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #369

AHappyCamper wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course - and thank you for asking. One of my friends is a paramedic who primarily works in ambulances in LA. One day, he arrives at a scene after a passer-by called 911. A homeless man is lying on the street on top of garbage and cardboard boxes. There is urine and feces everywhere - it's a bad situation - and there are used needles lying next to the man. The man is obviously in medical distress, and is unable to…

Radio protocol is extremely specific. As is medical terminology. If they're required to use a term for a person, but haven't been briefed on what term to use, then I think there are bigger problems there and "political correctness" is not the problem. Basic communication is. They will also not be penalised for using the wrong term when there's no briefing on what the correct term is. If they can't remember what term…

[deleted]

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

#384

Post by garraeth » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #336

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…

First, good on you for helping the world be a better place. I have to ask, why use "Black Market"? It doesn't make sense whether you are involved in these issues or not. Modern day slavery is universally known as human trafficking within law enforcement, social justice and international peace groups. This isn't a word police thing, it's just not accurate or common. Seems like using "Black Market" just makes things co…

It means/implies under the cover of darkness, or within a "black" box - un-seeable...A market place for anything illegal.

Going full on, we could remove the word "black" from our vocabulary. So hex #000000 would now be "abuefho" (some random made-up word) until people conscript that for their own designs and use it pejoratively: "you 'abuefho' jerk!"...

and then round and round we go...

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

#385

Post by goatinaboat » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

rini17 wrote: post #148

scarmig wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a fan of easy ability to downvote and upvote. What I would be interested in is a more sophisticated ordering than by net number of votes. For example, I'm sure some people's upvotes correlate well with my own (and probably some people's downvotes correlate with my upvotes!) If comments could somehow be ordered by how likely I am to upvote them, based on historical correlations between my and others' votes, that s…

If we must have the one-click convenience (I'm not convinced it's necessary) I'd prefer to have few labels like "I disagree" "Not true" "Off topic" "Pls read the article" "Disgusting" etc. instead of downvote button, perhaps also similar for upvote.

I'd prefer to have few labels like "I disagree" "Not true" "Off topic" "Pls read the article" "Disgusting"

Slashdot used to have that, it didn’t save it.

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

#386

Post by cglace » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #349

cglace wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we really have to research each word we use before using it?

It's important to know the meaning of the words you use. I can't believe I have to say that.

Are you being intentionally obtuse?

There is a difference in knowing the meaning of a word and knowing the myriad of ways a word can be perceived by your audience. One is very easy the other is a gargantuan task.

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

#387

Post by at_a_remove » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #236

high_derivative wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find codes of conduct meaningless. They will go on in very general terms about 'hate speech' which is just synonymous with 'anything that anyone feels offended by' now. I would argue that code of conducts were a symptom of the start of the problem. The strategy of the grievance class: - Propose a code of conduct which surely nobody can disagree with, it's great to have rules and be nice to each other. - Design the…

That was always implicit in group discussions. As others have said, Codes of Conduct aren't creating new rules, they're just making them explicit instead of implicit. Let me give you an example: you have a group of friends. Two of your friends have recently experienced a miscarriage. The implicit rules in your group have now expanded to include "no dead baby jokes" (depending on how dark your group's humour was, this…

Do we not already have several examples of someone new coming in, pushing the adoption of a Code of Conduct, and then there is a sudden attack on the founders due to some minor quibble? Then there is the usual backroom meeting and whoosh, they're gone. Didn't we see that in, if I recall, Drupal?

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

#388

Post by nec4b » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

trabant00 wrote: post #263

Why are we beating around the bush even on anonymous platform like this one? What do "conversations", language policing, social media activism, etc actually do to improve the situation? Where are the actual actions and involvements like volunteering for actual work in a poor community? Why is the suggested action so often giving money? Buy this book about how to be a good white person, donate to local BLM chapter, su…

BLM has as much in common with black lives as ANTIFA has with anti fascism as Democratic People's Republic of Korea has with democracy. Just empty slogans.

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

#389

Post by etherael » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #370

etherael wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question here from someone who is the "virtually nobody" that you describe in terms of being a complete free speech absolutist and seeing attempts to shut that down as perhaps the worst thing happening in the world today pretty much guaranteed to end in complete disaster, and simultaneously not seeing what the issue is in terms of "while you're at work" limits on sensitive discussions. It's one thing to tell…

> It's one thing to tell the employee what they can say on the job to their colleagues or customers when they're not hired to talk to colleagues and customers about sensitive topics (this doesn't even need to be an explicit prohibition, it can take the form of "that's not what you're being paid to do, and while you're doing it you're not doing what you are being paid to do, so please shut up and do your job"), and an…

Insisting that someone stick to doing their actual job, while they're at their actual job, isn't tone policing. And the fact that they could do damage to their company by their speech outside the context of their employment is nothing wrong with the employee, it's symptomatic of the cancerous state of modern western society (and as an expat, I can tell you it's mercifully absent outside the west) and the idiotic cancel culture nonsense, currently in the process of ending extremely badly.

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

#390

Post by scoutt » Thu, Jun 25, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

sojournerc wrote: post #342

raxxorrax wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that these groups (yeah, yeah, always with the generalizations) preach empathy but have no trouble to get people fired, their families too if possible. I think they behave this way because of pressure from social media and racism and sexism are used as some form of emotional sink. Maybe that is too harsh on them in contrast of people just flaming random people by random characteristics, but they do have…

> racism and sexism are used as some form of emotional sink. Reminds me of the 10 minute hate from 1984, which was also intended for catharsis not outward justice or remedy.

VERY interesting analogy! Never thought about it this way.