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You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

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Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#761

Post by claudiawerner »

Lammy wrote: post #750
claudiawerner wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that speech can be distinguished from action does not in itself provide a reason to prioritize speech over action. Further, speech and action share a number of commonalities that there are good arguments made (by Susan Brison and Frederick Schauer, for instance) that the categorical difference between them rests on a philosophical error.

When one censors 'speech' they are really censoring thought. We just call it speech because that's the highest-bandwidth and lowest-latency mechanism us humans have to exchange our ideas. Eumemics and eugenics are two sides of the same coin, and I am very suspicious of people practicing either of them.

>When one censors 'speech' they are really censoring thought.

This is incorrect; we would surely say that a hypothetical person who cannot communicate at all, only absorb information, has thoughts, even if he has no speech. Further, thoughts are abstract, quite literally figments of the imagination. Speech is concrete as something we do with thought.

Just because someone is prohibited from, say, shouting that Jews should be rounded up and shot in a Jewish neighborhood it does not mean he cannot think it or even express the idea in other contexts. Speech is expressive in that it takes an abstract idea and makes it concrete through the action of speaking. Only certain forms of the expression of that idea, in certain contexts, would be prohibited.

A baseball player will get in trouble for swinging his bat on a busy street. He may still swing it at the stadium without any trouble. The act of swinging the bat hasn't been prohibited, only its specific 'expression', provided by its context as determined by time and place and who is around him. The player has freedom of bat-swinging. We have freedom of thought.

The idea that speech is not action is a relic of the doctrine of mind-body dualism, in which the effect of words on a listener is so substantially different that they are deemed lesser harms, because they affect the mind, not the body. Advances in neuroscience and philosophy have put dualism in hot water[0]. The law in several non-speech related areas has for a long time realized dualism is false, such as with the issue of the insanity defence and voluntary manslaughter.

[0] https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1... [1] http://www.susanbrison.com/files/B.16.-speech_harm_and_the_m...

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#762

Post by AnimalMuppet »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #758
lliamander wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EDIT: the rain of downvotes is telling as usual. You suggest that people subject to social stigma and censure should "maybe ask [themselves] some questions". Do you think the reaction you are receiving should cause you to question your own position?

> Do you think the reaction you are receiving should cause you to question your own position? If there was a clear accusation of hate speech on my behalf I would certainly do. Would you?

Nobody is accusing you of hate speech. The downvotes are accusing you of being wrong, though. You might question your position, not because it might be hateful, but because it might be wrong.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#763

Post by [deleted] »

edrxty wrote: post #520
roenxi wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right supports environmentalism and healthcare. They disagree with specific leftist plans. The official right wing position towards the left is "your outcome would be lovely, but it isn't worth the excessive cost to getting there". There isn't a sizeable lobby who is "against environmentalism", for example. There is a huge lobby who just doesn't see how a comfortable living standard can be achieved without fossil…

Beyond being objectively untrue, this doesn't even come close to attempting to answer the question.

[deleted]

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#764

Post by eeZah7Ux »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #762
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think the reaction you are receiving should cause you to question your own position? If there was a clear accusation of hate speech on my behalf I would certainly do. Would you?

Nobody is accusing you of hate speech. The downvotes are accusing you of being wrong , though. You might question your position, not because it might be hateful, but because it might be wrong.

Give me some good reasons for believing that a "slightly bad opinion" and "hate speech" can be easily confused and I'll be ready to rethink my position.

Questioning our own positions is the opposite of bigotry, after all.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#766

Post by elastolin »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #633
T-hawk wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a major and serious point. A large part of the discourse has become slapping the "extremist" label on every dissenting argument from the other side, regardless of where the position actually is. If you ban extremist speech, then what you've done is create incentive to label everything as extremist.

It's like the rule: "Don't debate Nazis, just punch them!" Sounds reasonable, but the real fun begins when you add: "Everyone who disagrees with us is a Nazi."

No, it doesn't sound rasonable. Even if it's real Nazis. It's an absolutely retarded standpoint.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#767

Post by nopeNopeNooope »

lliamander wrote: post #658
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some slightly bad opinion suddenly finds themselves shut out of the main platforms because of hate speech rules A "slightly bad opinion" has to be more than "slightly bad" to break hate speech rules. If you feel a platform is overzealous in enforcing hate speech rules, don't use it. Or maybe ask yourself some questions before moving out. EDIT: the rain of downvotes is telling as usual.

> EDIT: the rain of downvotes is telling as usual. You suggest that people subject to social stigma and censure should "maybe ask [themselves] some questions". Do you think the reaction you are receiving should cause you to question your own position?

Sometimes when you're the odd man out, it's because you're the asshole.

The Hacker News crew tends to be a little tender about that being the case, because it's been the case so often for them.

I know you agree from how you worded that, you're sensitive about someone saying "don't use it if you don't like it, and maybe you're the problem, so I might ask myself that if it came down to it."

But yeah, obviously everyone is against these people, and they're being held down by the weight of the man.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#768

Post by smsm42 »

Hitton wrote: post #421
smsm42 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want a definite proof you're wrong, read this: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kkk-klu-kl... This is the story of Daryl Davis, a black man who convinced 200 KKK members (yes, real violent racists, not just people who disagreed with you on tax rates) to change their ways. If a black man can do it by talking to KKK members, maybe it's after all possible for you to dialogue with your neighbor ab…

Protip: Don't start the conversation about tax rates by calling your neighbour "fascist" or "commie".

I think you can safely omit "about tax rates".

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#769

Post by roenxi »

edrxty wrote: post #520
roenxi wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right supports environmentalism and healthcare. They disagree with specific leftist plans. The official right wing position towards the left is "your outcome would be lovely, but it isn't worth the excessive cost to getting there". There isn't a sizeable lobby who is "against environmentalism", for example. There is a huge lobby who just doesn't see how a comfortable living standard can be achieved without fossil…

Beyond being objectively untrue, this doesn't even come close to attempting to answer the question.

The direct answer is too complex to argue in a HN thread. "More healthcare" is a trade off. At some point real resources have to be taken from somewhere and put into healthcare. There is no limit to how many resources can be put into healthcare, so more healthcare means less of something else.

The premise of the question is that more=better, without acknowledging more=less of something else. The argument over what gets given up is exactly the political process, and that isn't going to be fun to rehash. People throw out "what if we trade off [thing I don't like]" and the whole argument becomes divorced from what will actually happen in the actual policy implementation.

The more productive response is to lay out the viewpoint, without delving in to the theoretical justifications. The view is pithy and might help a few people understand what the thinking is.

Re: You can't censor away extremism or any other problem

#770

Post by smsm42 »

ncallaway wrote: post #238
smsm42 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you mean by "fascists form of government"? Something like Italy in 1924-1945? I don't think there's any political power that advocates anything like that, and I am sure that at least 99.999% of daily use of terms "fascist" and similar ones are not directed at people who advocate appointing Il Duce and advocating government after Mussolini's example.

Well there was just an attempt by the ex president to overturn the results of an election and install himself as the president contrary to the expressed will of the people. Maybe that’s what they meant by “fascist form of government”?

> Well there was just an attempt by the ex president to overturn the results of an election and install himself

Just as there was an attempt by a presidential candidate to overturn the results of an election and install himself in 2000. And many times before. Challenging election results is not something unusual, it happens all the time. And will undoubtedly happen again. There's nothing "fascist" in using free speech and court system to try and prove there were election fraud (or miscount, or whatever the next candidate could think of). That's why we have the court system, so they have their chance to prove their case.

> Maybe that’s what they meant by “fascist form of government”?

Except nobody tried to change the form of government. So either we already have the fascist form of government right now, or trying to prove, using existing form of government, that you were - by existing laws - the rightfully elected candidate - can not be seen as advocating "fascist form of government".

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