Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

bigthink.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 480 posts

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#401

Post by kcplate »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #312
kneebonian wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Nobody is calling for anything remotely extreme as your post seems to be hinting at in a tongue-in-cheek manner. From the perspective of someone who sits in the middle with a leaning to the left, it looks to me like the left doesn’t have problems with others holding differing views, so long as following those views doesn’t result in the harm or impediment of liberty of others. Nobody is saying it’s wrong to be be a c…

I can appreciate what you are saying about religious fundamentalism worming it’s way in to legislation and I have fought hard for decades against that.

But…religion is more than just the form of the Christian church. I’d argue that in the case of some of the moralities of the extreme left today have reached the levels of dogmatic fundamentalism and their demands and influences on their politicians are not unlike what the religious right was doing in the 80s onward. They very much have a problem with differing views, attempt to ban books, and work to shun out folks from public life whose views don’t align with their own.

40 years ago I would have argued against the horseshoe theory but I damn sure wouldn’t question it today.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#402

Post by kcplate »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #394
fallingknife wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my personal experience the left is much worse at handling disagreement. I have had lefties get angry at my more conservative opinions, but conservatives never seem to get angry when I'm more liberal than them.

When it comes to day to day interactions, it probably varies a lot between circles. Having been raised in a deep red area but living in a more blue area the past decade or so, my experience has generally with a few exceptions been the opposite… lots of buttons I need to tiptoe around and avoid accidentally pushing when visiting back home.

I live in a deep red area and I am a liberal. I’ll happily share my thoughts or talk politics with pretty much any conservative I meet and rarely have I encountered a person that gets angry about my opinions. They might disagree, be dismissive, offer to pray for me, or give me the fabled “bless your heart”, but they are generally polite. However, I avoid those kind of conversations with most anyone who I know to be “on the left”, because those conversations tend to sour faster than milk on a hot day.

Literally I have been told that not being “liberal enough” is worse than being a conservative.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#403

Post by wonderwonder »

Shared404 wrote: post #399
wonderwonder wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets the power to decide what is ethical and to then ban what they deem unethical? Elected officials? Academics? Who do we give that level of power too? You? Me? Biden? Trump? I understand that saying negative things about people is not a nice thing to do and can cause emotional pain, I just think that the consequences of removing free speech are far worse and leads to a place where suddenly people you voted agai…

> Who do we give that level of power too? You? Me? Biden? Trump? Society as a whole, via the sort of discourse that we're having now. Freedom of speech comes with other people having the right/responsibility to also have freedom of association and reject the sort of speech that is found to be intolerable. Note that in this specific instance, it is not a case of legally unavailable speech, but a case which is more lik…

100% agree that objectionable speech should not be free of social ramifications. My only concern is with government restrictions on speech.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#404

Post by breadbreadbread »

wonderwonder wrote: post #252
breadbreadbread wrote: post #144

I think this article comes very close to saying "don't let words affect you", which is fundamentally impossible to ask anyone to do and taken to it's logical conclusion I should also not absorb anything in the article. I also think this article also ignores the fact that hateful people often use the language of free speech to justify their own behavior and to punish their critics. Everyday on the internet I see trans…

"Everyday on the internet I see trans people threatened, disrespected, or legislated out of existence" Legislation in the US has actually made trans people vanish or are we using large amounts of hyperbole? People have been saying mean things about other groups for millennia, as long as its just words, its fine. I'm a jew, I see the neo nazi groups with banners or Kanye ranting and just laugh. Who cares? Now if they…

> Trans people are for some reason the only large visible group yelling that speech is violence and saying mean things about them should be illegal.

this in an incredibly disingenuous take. Who is trying to make saying antitrans things should be illegal? last i checked trans people were still trying to access affirming medical care and not be attacked in the streets. If you are referring to like pronouns/names, I still think you are being disingenuous. I think right to self determination is a meaningful thing to fight for, you can argue that one persons request to be called by their chosen name impedes on your speech but i think you're wrong.

> I don't really see F2M people doing it

This is actually a really interesting phenomena! It does have to do with existing double standards in how society treats men and women. The fact is a lot of trans men either have an easier time passing bc masculine aesthetics are easier to adopt or they are dismissed because they aren't seen as a threat by people who think a penis is the thing that makes you dangerous. Of course trans men have their own battles but they largely aren't being branded as a sex offender for existing in the way that trans women are. Also they absolutely are fighting for the same rights, it may seem quieter because the popular culture war talking point is specifically about drag queens. I don't think the media has figured out how to villainize trans men.

> Stop asking for special treatment.

Every minority group fighting for their rights has been told this

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#405

Post by kcplate »

anonymousiam wrote: post #396
kneebonian wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's clear to me that you left off the /sarcasm tags. Hopefully it's clear to others as well.

Ahh yes the lovely “/s” tag. A superfluous visual indicator for intelligent people to recognize obvious sarcasm.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#406

Post by comte7092 »

jrm4 wrote: post #390
comte7092 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As is oft repeated, the law you refer to only applies to state action. The notion we could easily apply this to private individuals quickly breaks down. Employee X gets fired for publicly stating that their employers products are trash, said employee sues, nothing about what they said was illegal.

Those oft repeaters should talk to a real lawyer? Libel, slander, the occasional tortious interference with contract?

A real lawyer would know about Lloyd corp v tanner and be able to contextualize the fact that most of this controversy exists because it is legal to limit speech in the ways we are debating all over the internet.

People saying “we should limit it to what the law says” don’t make a ton of sense… because the law says that Twitter limiting speech is perfectly acceptable.

The first amendment doesn’t even apply in civil cases. Everything you listed aren’t exceptions to free speech, they are positive constructions as to the kinds of speech that you can make a civil claim of injury over. As such, they are not exhaustive.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#408

Post by throwawayacc6 »

breadbreadbread wrote: post #397
throwawayacc6 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this article comes very close to saying "don't let words affect you", which is fundamentally impossible to ask anyone to do and taken to it's logical conclusion I should also not absorb anything in the article. I also think this article also ignores the fact that hateful people often use the language of free speech to justify their own behavior and to punish their critics. Everyday on the internet I see White…

you could have said "I know you are but what am I" and it would've been easier and have the same effect nuance is dead and internet comment sections killed it

>you could have said "I know you are but what am I" and it would've been easier and have the same ef

nuance is dead and internet comment sections killed it

This is an /r/selfawarewolves tier post.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#409

Post by tootie »

aidenn0 wrote: post #333
tootie wrote: post #255

Who exactly is this article speaking to? Who right now is trying to put legal limitations on speech? Maybe Ron DeSantis? Most of the agitation against hate speech is not demanding formal punishment from a court. It's asking for platforms to choose not to amplify their messages. Or for the speakers to rethink their lives and choose to be different. The entire article is arguing against a point of view that doesn't rea…

My interpretation is it's speaking to former bastions of "intellectual liberalism" (e.g. universities).

About what? Universities are supposed to educate. Hosting people with objectively wrong viewpoints isn't edifying. A history department isn't going to host a speaker who denied the Holocaust because they want a diversity of opinions. They are by their very nature going to be very selective about who speaks.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#410

Post by mansion7 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #191
version_five wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect the above will get flagged but it's correctly pointing out that we've effectively brute forced some loopholes that allow normal protections on speech and thought to be bypassed. The fact that you "can't" say certain things ends up shifting the game to claiming your opponent has said one of those certain things. Edit: to wit, the parent post claim in ridiculous action: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=348…

> The fact that you "can't" say certain things what fact is that? who enforces the "can't" ?

According to the Twitter files, Silicon Valley enforces it at the behest of the federal government.
Post reply on HN