Removing Holocaust Denial Content

Am I though, in fact? Is this idea expressly conveyed in the text above? Not that I can see, and it certainly wasn't intended, because I do not hold that belief. So this raises an interesting question: where did that idea come from? This may look like a rhetorical question, but it isn't - it is literal, and I ask it for a very specific and important reason. Are you able to answer the question? After all, it's your idea, isn't it?

> Would you kick nazis out of your dinner party? Yes or No? That’s the fundamental question that is being asked.

Fine - then discuss it in those terms, not in objectively false terms like removing them from the dinner party does not diminish their freedom of speech. The actual actions (and subsequent changes in the state of reality), and the justifications for those actions, are two different things. Acknowledge this distinction, please.

> If you would not permit me to alter my behavior to stop my resources and forum to be utilized by nazis, meaning I must support and publish nazi material, your position is very extreme, severely limits my autonomy and in many ways forces me to “speak” on behalf of others.

It is not I who am forcibly restricting anything, so please refrain from making such accusations. I am merely discussing ideas.

> “Free speech” that does not allow for others to express the consequences of that speech is not, in fact a support of free speech.

Agreed. I am not doing that. Others may, but I am not.

> If you say “I hate nazis, but you must allow them to publish on your website” you are effectively prioritizing one type of speech over another. You are saying I must allow nazis at my dinner party. (Note: the government, with its force of law, is very, very different)

If I was saying that, you would have a fine point. But I'm not saying that. What I am saying, is what I have said above - supplementing what I have said with one's own interpretations and predictions, and then accusing me of holding those interpreted beliefs, seems like a sub-optimal way to solve problems - if we were to do it in our day jobs, we'd write shitty software, and that's why this type of behavior gets called out. So why is it not just acceptable, but enthusiastically preferred, to behave in this manner in "the real world" (including here on HN, home of the intellectually gifted)? Is this not a very odd state of affairs? I mean, if one drops all priors and playfully observes (a certain subset of) the conversations we have here all day every day, is the whole thing not beautifully (but also tragically) absurd? Why do we do this, and why do we refuse to acknowledge it (and why do we downvote people who dare to point these things out - don't shoot the messenger, as they say)?

These seem like good questions to be asking in the 21st century - it's odd not only that no one asks them, but also that there's such unanimous and passionate aversion to the ideas contained within such questions. This aversion can be observed, if one has the fortitude to look.

That's not what is happening. What is happening is that you and that person disagree on what a threat is.

Except Taleb's thesis is not supported by history whatsoever. The past three centuries have had ups and downs, but overall there's been a remarkable and consistent global trend towards tolerance, liberalism, and democracy.

This didn't happen because intolerant groups decided to let up on their zealotry. It didn't even happen because intolerant ideas were violently suppressed. (In almost every conflict, it almost always was the anti-liberal faction that initiated hostilities.)

It happened because starting with the Enlightenment, we built a culture around an open marketplace of ideas. In places with liberal cultures and democratic governments, totalitarian ideologies like fascism and Marxism consistently failed to gain traction. They don't need to be forcibly suppressed. Scratch their surface, and virtually everybody realizes that these ideologies are obviously stupid and inconsistent. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

There's an analogy between real and virtual spaces that often seems to be overlooked. If someone is holding a sign on a street corner saying 'the holocaust didn't happen' then I may find that quite objectionable but I can choose to go and remonstrate with the person or conserve my psychic energy and ignore them. On the other hand, if I'm having a discussion about history and a person comes up tries to force their way into the conversation, my walking away is ceding them the space that I formerly occupied.

In the physical world there's a cost to moving around and and physical constraints on people, so if I hear someone on the other side of town is holding an objectionable sign I have to decide whether I care enough to physically go there. that calculus might change if the objectionable message were on a billboard or an objectionable speaker were holding a rally with amplified sound, in which case I might consider it more worth my while to refute their prominent or loudly-staged opinion.

In the virtual world distance isn't a practical factor so it becomes trivially easy for people in different communities to raid each other and engage in semantic provocations, often with few consequences. Interestingly, there is some evidence that responding to provocation with aggression is more effective in deterring raiding behavior than politely ignoring it: https://snap.stanford.edu/conflict/

It should be borne in mind that the object of raiding (whether for sport as in MMORPGs or for deadly serious reasons as in military conflicts) is to drive people out of territory that they occupy. Getting them to walk away by being sufficiently obnoxious is not directly violent, but is often predicated on an implicit threat of violence.