71–80 of 299 posts
Free speech is great and all, but what about my feelings? Authoritarians have it so easy nowadays.
I see this type of attitude often and it is very frustrating, not because I'm an extremist but because I'm a centrist.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.
Is Popper's POT drivel the only talking point the anti-free speech people have these days? Every time. Sometimes with the associated cartoon.
You can disagree with the Paradox of Tolerance but almost no one who does ever even attempts to do so in good faith.
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Is there a way that adults who are capable of critically thinking for themselves to opt out of your crusade to protect us from ideas you disagree with?
Problem is, there’s been an active war against critical thought across multiple fronts for a while now, which includes campaigns in social and traditional media and attacks on the education system. Youth and unwitting adults alike are being trained to stay angry and act on impulse rather than address situations as thoughtful, well-rounded members of society would. I won’t claim to have a solution, but there are clear…
Time will tell if you're capable of holding it there.
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Step 1 - governments privatises /sells all public squares and large streets in your city Step 2 - private companies that own them hire private security firms Step 3 - if anyone protests, stands with a banner or says anything in convenient anywhere in the city, they get violently removed. Step 4 - folks like you yourself defend it under the guide of 'but it's not a government!' Vioala, no free speech to worry about! Y…
This seems like a false comparison
Why not take a cynical approach? If free expression is useful, then countries cracking down on it are shooting themselves in the foot. If they want to do it, why stop them? They are delisting themselves from the global competition: set up attractive immigration programs to pick out their most talented population and let the rest sink to Russia/N. Korea level.
> Since he took office in 2000, Putin has been eroding the space for public debate in Russia. He moved from dismantling independent media Right, Russia bans independent media, while those in the free EU can go read https://www.rt.com ... oh yaa, the EU blocks that web site.
Since you're talking about independent media, your whataboutism doesn't make much sense.
"I find people who don't think exactly like me to be intolerable" is the bread and butter for controlling a population. People look at the past and think to themselves "those people in the past were wrong, that's why the one acceptable way to think being enforced with power was immoral, on the other hand, my opinions are right, so the ends justify the means". Intolerance is intolerance, regardless of how morally just…
The thing is, this sort of truism seems so flat and weak. I'd even say it's the symptom of something worse and increasingly prevalent – skin-deep, black-and-white thinking that ignores the complexity of any interesting issue. It's thought-terminating clichés all the way down.
Almost every single member of society draws a line at some point between things they think are acceptable and should be tolerated, and things they think are unacceptable and should not be tolerated. The interesting questions are in figuring out how we build a shared, messy consensus that most of us can live with – one that protects the right of people to speak freely and without fear while protecting the rights of others.
the article is an example of orientalism, presenting the case as if there is no urgency on the matter in the Western world. Cancel culture, de-platforming, algorithmic dampening, account mislabelling, brigading on-platform, account suspension and deletion - all of these things are happening in the Western world, on US platforms. I used to have sympathy with the the argument that 'private company's can do what they li…
The amount of political posts that just turn into light gray on light gray are awful. I don't like much of the political content, but it seems there are many with a clear agenda on HN.
"I find people who don't think exactly like me to be intolerable" is the bread and butter for controlling a population. People look at the past and think to themselves "those people in the past were wrong, that's why the one acceptable way to think being enforced with power was immoral, on the other hand, my opinions are right, so the ends justify the means". Intolerance is intolerance, regardless of how morally just…
I think the necessary addition is "and they need to be stopped".