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

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

#401
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Have you seen anyone personally take offense As a parent of a teenage child, I see it reasonably often between teens and "boomers". Teens absolutely use offense of misused pronouns as a weapon against older folks. But in fairness, older folks also refuse to use preferred pronouns as a weapon back. But, of course, this is all typical generational strife, and the pronouns are mostly an irrelevant detail to the actual h…

The actual hostility is key.

So many social and cultural interactions are covers for hostility of various kinds that attempting to sanitise a relatively small subset is bound to fail.

Hostility runs on a spectrum from over-reaction caused by previous trauma to outright aggressive narcissism and sociopathy.

Unfortunately we don't have the social sophistication to reliably identify and call out hostility, or to accurately parse the difference between conscious ill intent, unconscious hostility and ill intent, over-sensitivity, personality disorder issues, criminal issues, and other forms of power play.

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

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be certain that companies who did that will be reprimanded for it by consumers.

Google did it to James Damore. People celebrated it, as it opposes their beliefs even though many psychologist publicly said that the gender difference identified in the memo are science backed.

I re-read his memo. I think it was wrong that he was fired, despite the fact that I can't actually agree that his memo was correct. He cherry picked much of his research and actually made a few over arching claims that are not well supported such as biological differences being represented in women vs men across cultures. He reached in a few places.

That being said, I don't know him personally, but I respect that he actually RESEARCHED and tried to have a dialogue, which unfortunately is lacking in today's society on both the left and right. I respect that he has an opinion, he shared it, he suggested changes and he actually seemed to be trying to reach the same goal that diversity programs are trying to reach but offered a critique.

I'm quite upset about how he was treated, and I wish that he took the lawsuit to it's natural conclusion in court rather than settling.

I think we can all agree, the main issue today is in our effort to create safe spaces and make the public forums safe for all, we've completely removed our ability to rationally think and listen to others viewpoints. What is offensive to the sensibilities of one person maybe completely rational and sane to another.

One of the reasons the legal system (supposedly) works is because it attempts to remove emotion from the process to provide a fair trial. I may not like the individual and think that they are guilty, but that doesn't matter. We need overwhelming evidence to determine that they are. We need to learn to put our differences aside and listen to the perspective of the other side and empathize. There is usually at least a grain of truth to what is being said. Without this, it's a pointless shouting match.

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

#403

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…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_market

I am amused you don't know what it means but you made your mind it's wrong :)

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

#404
Can we also ban speech/hate/discrimination towards short men? I mean, it is genetic and it is also known that short men get payed less, have less dating options, aren't represented in top management positions, top sports, modelling, etc.

It is even ok and funny for a good part of the population to insult them publicly and reject them.

If you see a tinder/online post 'black men aren't real men' everyone would jump on them and crucify them, but 'Manlets 6'0 under are just little boys' is even shared and laughed by many.

ps: I don't want any ban, but free speech is free speech, unless inciting violence, no amount of hurt feelings should mould what we are allowed to say, otherwise pretty much every race/religion/physical aspect/intelligence/etc will be somewhat offended at a point in time

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

#405

Free-Speech is a concept that governs government interference, not people losing their jobs or having university acceptance rescinded.

Having a university acceptance rescinded isn’t government interference?

Being protected because of your age but not because of your speech isn’t government interference?

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

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 canc…

> 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)

I can assure you that there are no shortage of people on the receiving end of non-Western boycott threats for making comments deemed to offend, say, religious sensitivities in India or support calls for democracy in Hong Kong. The idea the rest of the world is some paragon of free speech or labour relations is not one well supported by reality.

And needless to say there's no shortage of things that can be said or done outside work which call into question one's suitability for the role or commitment to actually helping the company succeed which have nothing to do with 'cancel culture'.

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

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He, and most of the rest of the IDW would not consider themselves conservative at all. In fact, only JPeterson considers himself conservative out of the commonly touted members. Dont misrepresent people because they dont fit your narrative

[flagged]

This is a dangerous way of thinking and doesnt help to close divisions that are opening up all over society at the moment. He is a left libertarian by his own admission and there are countless examples demonstrating this fact. Because something has some political overlap in some areas, does not mean it is of the same political ideology as whole. Individuals on both the left and right can agree on freedom of speech for example without being considered a puppet of the other side of the aisle. The same can be said on views about gender, immigration ad infinitum. There is a culture war, correct. But he did not pick a side based on its conservatism, rather he picked a side based on postmodernist ideology

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

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 second…

> 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"?

If I had thought there was a situation where "every second counts" was actually true, it would be human trafficking. You seem to disagree.

> Because it seems to me that using a racist term is more likely to divert the attention from your message, not less.

"Black market" is definitely a "racist" term now? GP only gave it as a potential example, or at least that's how I read it. The point is that wording the message like that is not actually going to divert attention. Except for the few people trying to police speech at every turn—and who will try to harm him over it—even though the message itself did its job (a far more helpful job than the people trying to police speech would ever do, for that matter).

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

#409
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Challenge accepted. Pederasty is so far from our cultural norms it’s current form is meaningless compared to a socially accepted version. In a society with active mentoring of youth by people across the gender and sexual orientation spectrum pederasty would reduce the stigma’s associated with homosexuals thus increasing social cohesion. War is a stress test for societies. By destroying less efficient social structure…

> War is a stress test for societies. By destroying less efficient social structures it promotes long term progress and reduces inefficient practices like slavery. War destroys progress and is incredibly inefficient. The mere threat of war creates an endless arms race resulting in half of discretionary spending going to defense. The reason for submitting to government authority is for protection of life and liberty.…

> War destroys progress and is incredibly inefficient.

Please explain the monumental advancements of technology witnessed during both world wars. Even if they were not a direct result of the war effort, they still succeeded in spite of all technically and scientifically advanced nations being on a war footing during those time periods.

> The mere threat of war creates an endless arms race resulting in half of discretionary spending going to defense.

Please explain why we have not seen a significant drop in defense spending during the periods when the threat of war has lessened. Especially after the fall of the Soviet Union when the world was decidedly unipolar for more than a decade.

> The reason for submitting to government authority is for protection of life and liberty.

I would argue that ceding some liberty to government is necessary for peaceful defense of life and property (backed up by the threat of collective force) but I don't believe that a government inherently defends liberty. To the contrary I think that liberty must be actively defended from the excesses of government, preferably by building those protections in to the legal foundation of the governments power so that if they are violated it invalidates the mandate granted and provides legal recourse against the government in favour of those wronged by it.

To be clear, I don't support war and I think that there are much better and less destructive ways to stimulate technological and societal growth but I don't hold with weak arguments either.

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

#410

In the Canadian Charter of Rights (which is like the Canadian equivalent to the US Constitution), there is a concept of reasonable limits. This allows a right to be limited to the extent that it is justified in a free and democratic society. In practice, this has been used in Canada to prevent a variety of objectionable conduct such as hate speech and obscenity. There's all kinds of limits on the limits themselves, a…

>the concept of having an absolutely applicable in all circumstances free speech right is not a concept used everywhere.

It is as a moral concept. I'd argue (as a Canadian) the Canadian legal concept of "free speech" doesn't really resemble the moral concept at all. Which is shameful. Unobjectionable conduct doesn't need protection.

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