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Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

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Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#271

Post by MrMan »

otterley wrote: post #66
EricE wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"I don’t know how this gets enforced, but we simply cannot give every lunatic a megaphone." At least in the US you can't enforce it - and yes, any lunatic can grab a megaphone if they want. The best way to handle problematic speech is more speech, NOT less. Trying to pretend lunatics don't exist is irrational and often a pretext to just block people that others disagree with. Screw that. Safest place for lunatics is…

> The best way to handle problematic speech is more speech, NOT less. This theory is an interesting one. This concept is enshrined in our law. I used to think that this was true, but now I'm no longer sure. For the concept to work, it requires that our populace have an open mind and actually be receptive to different opinions and points of view. Sadly, in the last 30 years or so, we have become less so.

its categorically untrue. it is at best wishful thinking. but if the person who says it knows that the statement is false because of human nature and the way we interact in societies, what does that say about them?

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#272

Post by MrMan »

asveikau wrote: post #42
refurb wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come to HN for a diversity of opinion. I'm more interested in the ideas than the ideology of the authors. Good ideas can come from anywhere.

I feel like the recent thread on Joe Rogan was a bit less "diversity of opinion" and more "a large crowd expressing fringe narratives". While most people in other places were talking about Joe Rogan's support for ivermectin, telling people to avoid vaccines, or platforming the guy who calls pandemic response "mass psychosis", over here, the story was that Spotify was censoring him, and what an outrage that is.

those HN-ers are just "curious" and "asking questions" just like the owners of this site like it.

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#273

Post by ericmay »

dustymcp wrote: post #229
pyuser583 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a bit confused. Is your wife from a more less equal/free place than America?

Most places according to incarceration rate is more free than USA

Why is this a metric we should use to understand if a place is “free”?

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#274

Post by ericmay »

bp0017 wrote: post #141
rayiner wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public education is a service provided by the government. What material the government chooses to teach or not teach using parents’ is entirely up to the government and the parents. Free speech is irrelevant to curricular choices because teachers aren’t there to engage students in a marketplace of ideas. They’re being paid to provide a service. Organizations that provide content make such curation choices about what…

This is stated like it is an absolute fact, not a reflection of our hyper-capitalist society. I would argue that reducing education to a content curator is harmful to what it aims to be, although the analogy is not entirely inaccurate, unfortunately. Is education an infotainment service or a search for the truth? The latter requires a free exchange of ideas and informed debate, although this is rarely encouraged in o…

I’m not following your “reflection of our hyper-capitalist society” comment here. Can you explain what you mean?

From my current point of view, curriculums are largely set by the state which has an interest in promoting itself with very little capitalist or free-market elements involved.

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#275

Post by Clubber »

YEwSdObPQT wrote: post #247
jacquesm wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The argument you have presented is a classic tactic that the state uses to justify censorship and its abuse of power. Present scary group of people and then use it to justify taking away everyone's rights. it is a nonsense because. Firstly There simply isn't enough for these people to be politically relevant. The number of KKK members in the US IIRC is approximately 10,000 in a country of ~350 million. That is 0.002%…

>In the US I heard they can literally take your property if they suspect (have no proof) that it might be used in illegal activity.

It's called civil asset forfeiture. Many police departments use this as a tactic to fund their departments. Some have been said to fund police parties and drink machines with it, among other things. The federal government incentivizes this as a "cut" needs to be send to the federal government while the local and state departments need to keep the rest. In 2010, estimated $2.5 billion in assets was seized. They made no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate seizures.

Here's a recent example of an innocent man (and former marine) getting around $80k seised and left with $10. The corruption is at all levels.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/stephen-lar...

Also, in the US, all civil servants have what's called qualified immunity, which means they can't be sued for wrongdoing unless the exact thing happened before qualified immunity was enacted in the 60s. This is an example of a corrupt government protecting itself.

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

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#276

Post by Jtype »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #192
raxxorrax wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt you will find any example where minorities suffered from too much free speech. The truth it that there are always some people who pretend to know better and put pressure on officials. These people are not friendly to any minority and should be disregarded. The people in power currently try everything to restrict speech, but it is also welcomed by a certain sheltered demographic whose worst part of the day is…

>I doubt you will find any example where minorities suffered from too much free speech. people of minority X are subhumans and should not be allowed the same rights as the rest of us! Yes, minorities did not suffer from having free speech; they did suffer from others having it.

Whose speech do you think would have been censored though, the majority or the minority. Minority groups are always the ones who suffer from restrictions on speech. Supporting speech censorship will always lead to restrictions on minority groups, not the majority. I feel that there is confusion in this topic because there are so many people who think they are fighting hate-speech against minorities. Since it then feels morally superior to suppress speech that they don't agree with they think it's in the best interest of the minority. However the arguments and policies that are established to suppress free speech will inevitably lead to restricting the speech of minority groups. This is simply because the majority at any given point in time will only suppress the non-majority opinions. You see that now, none of these groups trying to restrict speech are trying to restrict popular speech that they agree with, only the minority opinions.

The majority will always have the freedom of their speech.

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#277

Post by Octabrain »

wayoutthere wrote: post #7

I believe in freedom of speech. What I do not believe in is freedom of mass speech. Your responsibility to the truth should increase in line with your reach. Have 1000 followers in twitter and want to talk about starting the next holocaust? Great, say whatever. A million followers? Yeah, that’s a problem. I don’t know how this gets enforced, but we simply cannot give every lunatic a megaphone.

I strongly disagree. That arbitrary line is dangerous: Who decides when the amount of followers vs kind of message is not allowed? When the message is inconvenient? Inconvenient to who? To the ones in power? Are they good or bad?

Free speech shouldn’t be censored, ever. Instead, we should focus on giving, as a society, much more importance culturally speaking to critical thinking. Critical thinking should be a sacred element and should be promoted in any education level and in any cultural manifestation we citizens are exposed.

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#278

Post by Jtype »

abirch wrote: post #246
raxxorrax wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really know anything about the people you mentioned, I am not from the US. I know Sanders and Cruz but not about any instances of censorship. Who do you think is the target of deplatforming which the current US government promotes? There are also articles about how deplatforming allegedly works, so it has to target some people I guess.

These other people that were mentioned are from all areas of the political spectrum. After the Capitol Attack in 2021, Twitter deplatformed then President of the United States for inciting violence. Who in the US Government do you think is leading the deplatforming?

Just because it was political doesn't mean that a particular person or group in the government was responsible.

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#279

Post by [deleted] »

wonnage wrote: post #211
golemiprague wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what is the problem compromising on those issues, it is not all or nothing issues, there is a whole range of possible compromises on most of the issues you have mentioned. For example abortions, you can compromise on the maximum month in which abortion is legal. Climate change, many conservatives will agree to stop subsidising coal power stations because it bode well with the free market views. Covid, you…

Look at where we’re at today. We’ve “compromised” on every issue you listed; abortion is illegal in several states, the coal industry is slowly declining, vaccinations are encouraged but not required. Theoretically this is state #2 and everyone is happy… yeah no. You can’t “compromise” on abortion if you think it’s murder. Nor on climate change if your city will disappear under the waves in 30 years. Nor on Covid pol…

[deleted]

Re: Our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health

#280

Post by glial »

sleepingadmin wrote: post #268
issa wrote: post #139

I have a foreign wife and it really drives home one truth: America is a very nuanced place. We have this idea of almost unlimited free speech. Which sounds great, but in practice, it is not really true. Because ultimately, Americans do not have equal rights. We see this over and over in different aspects of society. The Frederick Douglas example from Boston in the article is a great example of why free speech is good…

>But, again, in practice, the people in power do not allow free speech. And this is fundamentally different from most examples of cancel culture. Here in Canada we actually removed freedom of speech. Hate speech laws are tremendously vague and are really not used to prevent anything bad. Sure the Westboro baptists have their 'god hates canada' stuff but realistically speaking it's never used to prevent anyone who is…

> It seems like this flag was counter protesters trying to label these Indian truckers as white supremacists.

That's quite a claim to make w/out providing evidence.

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