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Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

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Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#261

I feel like I must have been corrupted by the internet or something if the tweet in question is considered "grossly offensive". It certainly isn't nice , but 18 months supervision and 150 hours of community service? I don't even know how to put my bafflement into words here.

At first glance it may seem baffling, but if you see it from the “different culture different values” framework, you realize it’s just how people there want their society to conduct itself. It’s no different, from this perspective, to how baffling may seem cultures where burping loudly in the dinner table is not frowned upon, where people really value their personal space or not, and on and on.

I am from such a "different culture", and I hate criminalization of speech. Unfortunately, it is a minor topic in our politics and thus the status quo is likely to stay that way, not to mention that the EU where we are members wouldn't probably let us decriminalize hate speech; the winds in Brussels blow in the other direction.

The USA is protected by its Supreme Court and the fact that the Constitution is impossible to amend at this point, but if the younger cohort could vote for criminalization of unpopular speech, I suspect the proposition would actually win. Definitely so on many university campuses.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they don't have a privilege for being white. As a white (and formerly working class) boy from the UK, I can confidently say that nobody has at any point in my life discriminated against me on the basis of my ethnic background. That is the extent of what this expression means – it does not mean that any individual to whom it applied is in a superior position relative to others, but only that they do not suffer from di…

The lack of having been discriminated against is by definition not a "privilege". What's wrong isn't the lack of discrimination, but the idea that lack of discrimination should be called a "privledge" rather than a "norm". It attacks people for not having hardship, namely turning something that's good int o something that's bad. The use of the term "white privledge" fundamentally applies that to make things "equal" w…

> the idea that lack of discrimination should be called a "privledge" rather than a "norm".

But the lack of discrimination isn't the norm. It would definitely be nice if it was, but that's not the case. White people experiencing better general overall treatment by society compared to those in the same situation who are black is just a fact. Complaining that it causes reverse discrimination doesn't make that untrue.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with first claim. We clearly disagree on the second so can you elaborate? I believe formal legal censorship of an expression GIVES it oxygen and will subsequently increase it.

My understanding is that studies show deplatforming actually works if the goal is to remove the broader cultural influence of a group. That is to say, if there is a group on platform A who are then group-banned from platform A, when they move to platform B the group is actually smaller in size and has less influence. If this happens from platform B to platform C the group continues to become smaller and have less inf…

If this were true, "heretical" movements (Christians in the Roman Empire, Protestants in the 16th century, Liberals in the 19th century, Nationalists in multi-national empires of the early 20th century) would have never prevailed, because they were "deplatformed" by the powers-that-be with vigor. In fact, they were often even decapitated, not just deplatformed. But they were often successful in the end anyway.

Brute force (and deplatforming is brute force) isn't an automatic recipe for victory in a war of ideas.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#264

There's something I find loathesome about this "Send a message" sentencing. What the judge has done is send a clear message, that he won't sentence you on the merits of the case but will sentence you to serve his own agenda. The only message this sends is that justice has failed. It's always completely transparent who exactly gets made an example of, and who gets off with a slap on the wrist. We'll spend months hunti…

The entire concept of "setting an example" seems like a bit of fascism that has snuck its way into liberal democracy.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#265
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While "the usual crowd" absolutely rightly believes in canceling the cancelers as pushback for anti-freedom policies like the cancel culture embraced by the left and progressives Unironically canceling the cancelers to pushback against cancel culture? Maybe the horseshoe theory has some merit after all.

Certainly, it is the cancelers who are most upset when their behavior comes back around and bites them in the behind. Do you also have a problem with robbers being punished by the justice system and having their ill-begotten spoils returned to their rightful owners? It’s really no different.

It is different. Fundamentally different. One is retributive (A did it to B so B is “justified” in doing it to A, too) and the other is restorative (A took from B so “justice” is served by A returning it to B). Everyone is worse off in the first scenario (an eye for an eye and all...) while everyone is back to where they started in the second scenario.

A better example might be punishing a murderer with the death penalty. But most people who oppose retributive “justice”, myself included, do indeed have a problem with that system so it’s still not a particularly persuasive point.

If a person believes $action is wrong but are able to rationalize why it’s only wrong when others do it but it’s justified and permissible when they do it then it seems to me that the hullabaloo over $action is just a pretext and real issue they’re mad about is who is doing it rather than the $action itself.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#267

I’m generally in favour of some limits on speech. I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example. It’s obviously very complicated and something people are going to argue a lot about. BUT this case has made me change my opinion. Things much worse than this are tweeted every day and this is the one that gets prosecuted. It’s blatantly politically motivated (‘national hero’, British soldier etc) a…

I never understood why "slippery slope" was listed among other logical fallacies. It is exactly the opposite.

Scot Adams. Full stop.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Out of many criticisms of the U.S. that the country deserves, its mostly rigid protection of free speech rights in a formal sense is one good thing, and it hasn't led to a hell of bigotry, or at least no more so than have weaker protections for free speech in other countries. Depends on how you measure it. The US has some pretty notable racial issues, even compared to other Anglosphere countries. I wouldn't put tha…

Many countries, including many in Europe have some very serious, heavy racial issues that are both more ingrained than those of the U.S and in quite a few cases more violent or openly discriminatory. The U.S. however is generally at or close to the center of global media familiarity and attention, so naturally, the theme of its own racial issues is disproportionately magnified. How many major countries are overtly et…

What European countries?

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#269

I’m generally in favour of some limits on speech. I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example. It’s obviously very complicated and something people are going to argue a lot about. BUT this case has made me change my opinion. Things much worse than this are tweeted every day and this is the one that gets prosecuted. It’s blatantly politically motivated (‘national hero’, British soldier etc) a…

“I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example.”

we live in a world where saying “all lives matter” makes you adolf hitler 2.0. crime statistics are banned on twitter. if you say “its ok to be white” you will be called a nazi, and fired from your job. THAT’S racism.

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