161–170 of 204 posts
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Words can cause trauma. A lasting, debilitating effect. Even changes to brain structure (PTSD etc) and long term disability. I regard that as a harm. Note that "cause harm" does not always imply "blame". It does imply cause and effect though, suggesting "responsibility".
Sources please?
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> what if that retribution comes in the form of speech, which is likely? It sounds like... Don't read in what wasn't written - by retribution I meant in real terms like pain, danger, or economic ostracism. > complete freedom from the consequences of your actions. Someone in the pro-free-speech camp would not consider getting yelled at on Twitter to be a truly significant consequence. If they did, they would have to b…
By economoc ostracism you mean boycot? Cause that one used to be valid and speech just a few years ago.
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I have no idea who Toby Young is, but why describe FSU as "right-wing libertarian"? Are they just normal libertarians? The vast majority of libertarians do not self-identify as being 'right-wing'.
US context, unsurprisingly, isn't applicable to the UK. In the UK a bunch of people self-describe as libertarian, but are described by just about everyone else as right wing. Toby Young is a cunt and I hope he dies[1] a slow and painful death and he's definitely on what the UK would describe as the right. [1] People may think this is a bit strong but he has repeatedly called for eugenics, so what's good for the goose…
I'd just like to point out the large quantity of greyed out comments on this thread...
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...and what if that retribution comes in the form of speech, which is likely? It sounds like you're not worried about freedom of speech, but complete freedom from the consequences of your actions.
> what if that retribution comes in the form of speech, which is likely? It sounds like... Don't read in what wasn't written - by retribution I meant in real terms like pain, danger, or economic ostracism. > complete freedom from the consequences of your actions. Someone in the pro-free-speech camp would not consider getting yelled at on Twitter to be a truly significant consequence. If they did, they would have to b…
I'm not sure what you mean by economic ostracism, but people are protected from having pain inflicted on them or being put into danger, as there are already explicit laws against assault and reckless endangerment.
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> what if that retribution comes in the form of speech, which is likely? It sounds like... Don't read in what wasn't written - by retribution I meant in real terms like pain, danger, or economic ostracism. > complete freedom from the consequences of your actions. Someone in the pro-free-speech camp would not consider getting yelled at on Twitter to be a truly significant consequence. If they did, they would have to b…
by retribution I meant in real terms like pain, danger, or economic ostracism. I'm not sure what you mean by economic ostracism, but people are protected from having pain inflicted on them or being put into danger, as there are already explicit laws against assault and reckless endangerment.
What I’m becoming more painfully aware of with each passing year is that “free speech” is actually (sadly) a very unpopular ideal. We haven’t really had it in a long time, and we have less of it with each passing year - cheered on by a not insignificant majority.
The moment you introduce laws about “hate speech”, “banning XY” for all the right reasons, etc. you don’t have “free speech”, unfortunately.
Every person supporting free speech should always keep in mind that free speech is about allowing absurd, horrendous, stupid, inconceivable ideas floating around. Having the patience and maturity to confront these ideas with arguments is key to free speech.
Free speech is easy to take away. But to restore, takes a lot of blood on the streets.
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> If I tell you to kill someone and tell you I will kill you if you don't follow through, then I am still only using words. No you're not, you're using violence. The violence travels back in time to compel action on the part of the recipient in order to prevent your anticipated violent action. If there was no expectation on the part of the recipient of any negative consequences from not following your order, the orde…
> The violence travels back in time to compel action on the part of the recipient in order to prevent your anticipated violent action. So in order to defend your interpretation of free speech, I am now morally culpable for actions that "travel back in time"? If it never occurs how can it travel back in time? What is it that causes the violence to travel back in time? If I had planned to kill the speaker if they didn'…
This is the entire premise of the law taking into account intent. If you shoot at someone in an attempt to kill them but miss, you're still going to jail.
> If I had planned to kill the speaker if they didn't do the action, but didn't tell them (and they don't have an expectation that I would kill them) - then they killed the person, would I not be responsible
In that case your intention to kill them if they didn't do it wouldn't have been the cause of them doing it (they did it without even knowing about it), so why would you be?
Their being aware of it is necessary to cause them to do it, but it isn't the part which is the root cause of the harm. It's like calling a prohibition on knowingly transferring weapons to terrorists a free speech violation because you have to call the weapons depot and tell them to ship the weapons in order to cause it to happen. The speech isn't the thing being prohibited, it's the action. The fact that the speech is necessary to cause it to happen isn't a restriction on speech, because the speech isn't sufficient to cause it to happen -- it has to be combined with some business arrangement with the weapons depot in which you e.g. pay them for the weapons they're shipping, or it doesn't happen. And it's that part which is the crime.
> It seems that the key action here that causes this "travel back in time" effect is speech and the expectations it produces.
Separate them into two different parties and see what happens.
Osama bin Laden offers a million dollars to anyone who kills a US soldier. CNN reports this fact. Someone hears it from CNN and commits the murder in order to collect the money. Is it CNN or Osama bin Laden who is guilty of the crime?
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I have no idea who Toby Young is, but why describe FSU as "right-wing libertarian"? Are they just normal libertarians? The vast majority of libertarians do not self-identify as being 'right-wing'.
> but why describe FSU as "right-wing libertarian"? I would guess, from everything I've seen about Young and the FSU, because it is. > Are they just normal libertarians? Well, right-libertarians are a common subset of normal libertarians (in the US, most—but not remotely all—who identify as libertarians are right-libertarians, non-right libertarians are more likely to identify differently, but I don't think that that…
When you look up on Wikipedia, you'll even find that "libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists, especially social anarchists, but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists."
Another quick search, and you'll find that:
> Right-libertarianism, also known as libertarian capitalism or right-wing libertarianism, is a political philosophy and type of libertarianism that supports capitalist property rights and defends market distribution of natural resources and private property. The term right-libertarianism is used to distinguish this class of views on the nature of property and capital from left-libertarianism, a type of libertarianism that combines self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources. In contrast to socialist libertarianism, right-libertarianism supports free-market capitalism. Like most forms of libertarianism, it supports civil liberties, especially natural law, negative rights and a major reversal of the modern welfare state.
So I do think it's right to make the distinction between left-wing and right-wing libertarianism.
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I think, being offended at words is mostly a sign of one's own personal insecurity. Can you imagine a successful doctor or a business owner being seriously offended because someone on the Internet called them a bad word? I bet they would respond same way I do when my son calls me a "bad papa" for insisting he finishes lunch before getting a desert. The bigger, much bigger problem is the growing amount of people that…
> Can you imagine a successful doctor or a business owner being seriously offended because someone on the Internet called them a bad word? Yes. Do you know any doctors or business owners? Cause both are often reacting quickly on what was said. Always did. Quickly and severly reacting to offense and retaliating even used to be part of manhood. Not that it was good thing, it is good that guys dont duel over what was sa…
I absolutely can't imagine wasting time getting outraged about what somebody said on social media, when I could spend it cooking some great recipes with my wife, or taking kids to a boat trip, or replaying a classic computer game.
Most people getting outraged really don't have anything better to do.