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Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

thenewhumanitarian.org

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Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#241

Post by Natsu »

immibis wrote: post #194
Natsu wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Paradox of Tolerance said that people have, based on their right to self-defense, the ability to defend themselves against those who would shut down speech with fists or pistols . In short, it's aimed at protecting people from literal brown shirt tactics of assaulting people for speaking. Those invoking it now are pretty far afield from what it espouses.

The word "would" indicates targets who haven't committed the crime yet, so I'd say it's being used correctly.

The word "would" is me describing a kind of person willing to do a thing, not a guaranteed future action. Also, it's kinda weird to hang on a word not in the original quote:

> But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

If someone is preemptively attacking people because of what they "might" do, then they're turning this completely on its head.

Can you tell me more about why you want to live in a world where people are assaulted for pre-crime? Which pre-crime is eligible? If pre-crime is illegal now, would you support yourself getting assaulted for promoting it?

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#242

Post by throwawayacc2 »

MrsPeaches wrote: post #224
colechristensen wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To be clear the article is talking about States suppressing freedom of expression (not the ephemeral Twitter mob). The point I am trying to make is an intolerant population is really easy to control by an intolerant state. The people in power at the top usually don't actually care very much about the topics of intolerance, but they are a useful tool for building and maintaining power. Intolerance in a population is…

> The point I am trying to make is an intolerant population is really easy to control by an intolerant state. I understand what you are getting at here, but I have to disagree. My view is that state sanctioned intolerance is usually a top-down process, primarily driven by economic incentives. Hitler for example exploited the absolutely dire economic situation of Weimar Germany, directed the hate against a clearly del…

> I understand what you are getting at here, but I have to disagree. My view is that state sanctioned intolerance is usually a top-down process, primarily driven by economic incentives.

I think it’s a bit of both. Intuitively the comment you are responding to made sense to me. The thinking around it being, imagine literal nazis somehow taking over the US government and attempting to impose their authoritarian regime. It wouldn’t work. There is no appetite in the population for this.

I think it’s a bit of both in the sense governments do notice things for which the population has an appetite for. And they do grow this appetite and exploit it for authoritarian power grabs.

What makes this hard to see or hard to agree it’s happening is the people craving authoritarian measures and the politicians enacting them don’t see it as such. They simply see it as normal, moral, basic decency measures.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#243

Post by wahern »

azekai wrote: post #134
witherk wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? I have seen multiple stories of the police showing up to people's house and fining them for tweets in the UK? https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-60260292 Also it is my understanding that it is much easier to sue someone for libel in the UK. I would think that the UK score should actually be lower.

The US also has a higher bar for what constitutes slander/libel than the UK, which can also have a chilling effect on speech.

Anything that makes people accountable for what they say will have a chilling effect on speech, just like people handle real guns with much more care and attention than they do toy guns. The real question is whether the benefit is worth the cost.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#244

Post by etchalon »

ReptileMan wrote: post #197
etchalon wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like that would just eliminate 80% of HN comments.

The first line of the article is Internet blackouts. Strategic lawsuits against journalists. Regulations restricting the activities of NGOs. The weaponisation of health and security policies. These are all strategies that governments around the world are increasingly using to curtail the right to dissent, protest, and even just access information. Most of those are made easier by the current structure of the internet…

2 for 2.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#245

Post by MrsPeaches »

throwawayacc2 wrote: post #242
MrsPeaches wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point I am trying to make is an intolerant population is really easy to control by an intolerant state. I understand what you are getting at here, but I have to disagree. My view is that state sanctioned intolerance is usually a top-down process, primarily driven by economic incentives. Hitler for example exploited the absolutely dire economic situation of Weimar Germany, directed the hate against a clearly del…

> I understand what you are getting at here, but I have to disagree. My view is that state sanctioned intolerance is usually a top-down process, primarily driven by economic incentives. I think it’s a bit of both. Intuitively the comment you are responding to made sense to me. The thinking around it being, imagine literal nazis somehow taking over the US government and attempting to impose their authoritarian regime.…

Maybe. America in the late 20s seems like a much more intolerant place than late 20s Germany. E.g. Lynching doesn’t seem to have been anywhere near as prevalent in Germany as it was in the US.

Would you consider America in that period to be an intolerant state?

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#246

Post by hotpotamus »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #239
hotpotamus wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'd like someone to give me money while I yell whatever I want at them, but I don't see it happening. Good luck with that.

Your workplace behaviour doesn't fall under the scope of the laws we're discussing but thanks, I've been enjoying it while I worked all over Europe.

I fail to see how my workplace behavior would be relevant to what I said?

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#247

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

hotpotamus wrote: post #246
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your workplace behaviour doesn't fall under the scope of the laws we're discussing but thanks, I've been enjoying it while I worked all over Europe.

I fail to see how my workplace behavior would be relevant to what I said?

If you yell at your employer, it is workplace behaviour.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#248

Post by BTCOG »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #8
colechristensen wrote: post #3

"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…

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.

Tolerance is not acceptance. To tolerate, is to allow something that you do not like. While tolerance is needed, what's really needed is truth and acceptance. I'd rather have someone tell me they don't like me and what for than to be merely tolerated while simultaneously treated like a second rate citizen or talked down upon by simply being just "tolerated." Anyway, I know it's a bit tangent-like here, but tolerance is really not acceptance but to allow something begrudgingly, and so it shouldn't be used as the positive side to intolerance. Not directly replying to you but the entire chain.

Otherwise on topic, I see and feel the chilling effects on speech from those big platforms being discussed across America as well. I do not see any of it coming from the US government, though. I see it all coming from citizens wishing to control others' speech all around them, else they will whip out a phone and think they're some sort of vigilante over others' speech or wrongthink. This is tiresome and old already but I'm not comparing this to government level, authoritarian free speech removal. Still, it's having a mass effect on societal attitude, conversation, politeness, and all else, as far as I can tell.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#249

Post by throwawayacc2 »

MrsPeaches wrote: post #245
throwawayacc2 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I understand what you are getting at here, but I have to disagree. My view is that state sanctioned intolerance is usually a top-down process, primarily driven by economic incentives. I think it’s a bit of both. Intuitively the comment you are responding to made sense to me. The thinking around it being, imagine literal nazis somehow taking over the US government and attempting to impose their authoritarian regime.…

Maybe. America in the late 20s seems like a much more intolerant place than late 20s Germany. E.g. Lynching doesn’t seem to have been anywhere near as prevalent in Germany as it was in the US. Would you consider America in that period to be an intolerant state?

I feel like we are using this word, intolerant, without an agreed upon definition. We are trying to measure something but we have no metric for it.

To answer your question, we need a way to measure the level of intolerance, whatever this is.

Should we measure the laws in effect? Should we measure the number of tolerable behaviours? Should we weigh these behaviours in our metric? How do we deal with behaviours that are nominally considered immoral but in practice are accepted? How do we deal with regional differences?

I don’t know the answer to your question.

Re: Backsliding on free expression around the world needs to end

#250

Post by krapp »

jessaustin wrote: post #193
krapp wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the only rebuttal the other side has ad hominems and slippery slope fallacies? You can disagree with the Paradox of Tolerance but almost no one who does ever even attempts to do so in good faith.

...almost no one who does can even attempt to do so in good faith. This seems a bit overblown. You can't imagine that someone with radically different experiences than your own could genuinely object to some aspect of this "Paradox"? What dastardly scheme do they advance by pretending to so object?

>You can't imagine that someone with radically different experiences than your own could genuinely object to some aspect of this "Paradox"?

I'm sure they can, but most people don't seem to understand it well enough to formulate a coherent argument against it, they only know that they hate it because the politics of their tribe hates it. Like people who object to CRT who obviously have never engaged with the source material beyond a quote or two taken out of context.

The poster above it drivel and anyone who brings it up anti free-speech. That isn't an argument it's just shit-talking, and it conveniently ignores the fact that the parameters of "free speech" are very much up for debate here.

>What dastardly scheme do they advance by pretending to so object?

Mostly - because there's a reason none of this was an issue before 2016 - they want to ensure the spread of right-wing accelerationist propaganda without significant social or legal consequence for themselves. But of course they can't argue for this explicitly in most public spaces, so instead they couch their real politics in arguments like "intolerance of intolerance is itself intolerance" or "sunlight is the best disinfectant."

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