Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#151

Post by Tenobrus » Sat, Sep 10, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #105

Dig1t wrote: post #55

I grew up in the US being told that freedom of speech was a virtue, something that our country did very well and I always thought that it was a shared value. It's very surprising to me to see that change in such a short span, or possibly it was not as popular or widespread as I thought it was growing up and I just never noticed. Is it the internet that has caused this uptick in the number of people who think free spe…

I have not heard any group calling for free speech to be blocked. Who is calling for people to be arrested for what they say? Or to be blocked from being able to say it out loud? I think what you mean is that people are calling for internet platforms to kick out certain groups. This is in no way a call against freedom of speech. I am not sure why people suddenly believe that being for 'free speech' means that other p…

You're talking the US first amendment and how freedom of speech relates to governments, but that's only a limited subset of the general concept of free speech. Obviously discussions around platforms involve more complexity, but for example if AT&T started refusing to send my texts based on what kinds of ideas I was arguing for then this is a serious attempt to limit speech and discussion which is morally incorrect, regardless of legalities.

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#152

Post by krrrh » Sat, Sep 10, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #105

Dig1t wrote: post #55

I grew up in the US being told that freedom of speech was a virtue, something that our country did very well and I always thought that it was a shared value. It's very surprising to me to see that change in such a short span, or possibly it was not as popular or widespread as I thought it was growing up and I just never noticed. Is it the internet that has caused this uptick in the number of people who think free spe…

I have not heard any group calling for free speech to be blocked. Who is calling for people to be arrested for what they say? Or to be blocked from being able to say it out loud? I think what you mean is that people are calling for internet platforms to kick out certain groups. This is in no way a call against freedom of speech. I am not sure why people suddenly believe that being for 'free speech' means that other p…

There are two factors at play when we talk about free speech.

1. The legal protections which are currently very strong in the US 2. The culture of free speech

As much as we like to think of law as impartial, the legal regime is downstream of, and lags the cultural milieu. If we degrade free speech culture then the legal protections become weaker after a couple of decades.

You can see this at FIRE which successfully overturned college speech codes in the nineties and aughts. The return of new forms of speech codes, and new attempts at bad laws attempting to stifle protected speech (Florida's STOP WOKE act). They'll get overturned for now, but we may have seen the high point of legal protections for speech as younger legal theorists who don't prize free speech progress in their careers. [1]

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/24/yale-law-...

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#153

Post by BurningFrog » Sat, Sep 10, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #105

Dig1t wrote: post #55

I grew up in the US being told that freedom of speech was a virtue, something that our country did very well and I always thought that it was a shared value. It's very surprising to me to see that change in such a short span, or possibly it was not as popular or widespread as I thought it was growing up and I just never noticed. Is it the internet that has caused this uptick in the number of people who think free spe…

I have not heard any group calling for free speech to be blocked. Who is calling for people to be arrested for what they say? Or to be blocked from being able to say it out loud? I think what you mean is that people are calling for internet platforms to kick out certain groups. This is in no way a call against freedom of speech. I am not sure why people suddenly believe that being for 'free speech' means that other p…

In 2022, most speech happens on the internet, so if that's outside the ever shrinking "free speech zone", free speech is practically dying.

Also, it's easy to be smug about this when it's only nazis and other despicables from "the other side" being silenced. But once these tools exist, whoever is in power will gleefully use them against those who cheered when they were being "deplatformed".

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#154

Post by gruez » Sat, Sep 10, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

ptsneves wrote: post #87

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust the science (unless it's science I disagree with)

You can trust science as in scientific method and practice and mistrust specific research or studies. All is well then.

If you're going through all the trouble of conducting a literature review on a given topic (ie. finding all the relevant studies and evaluating their methodology/results), then can you really call that as "scientific method and practice"? It seems much more accurate to say that you're trusting your ability to correctly evaluate studies.

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#155

Post by causality0 » Sat, Sep 10, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #105

Dig1t wrote: post #55

I grew up in the US being told that freedom of speech was a virtue, something that our country did very well and I always thought that it was a shared value. It's very surprising to me to see that change in such a short span, or possibly it was not as popular or widespread as I thought it was growing up and I just never noticed. Is it the internet that has caused this uptick in the number of people who think free spe…

I have not heard any group calling for free speech to be blocked. Who is calling for people to be arrested for what they say? Or to be blocked from being able to say it out loud? I think what you mean is that people are calling for internet platforms to kick out certain groups. This is in no way a call against freedom of speech. I am not sure why people suddenly believe that being for 'free speech' means that other p…

I have not heard any group calling for free speech to be blocked. Who is calling for people to be arrested for what they say? Or to be blocked from being able to say it out loud?

I think you'll find a significant portion of the HN userbase supports the idea of the police arresting people for saying racist things on the internet. Mostly Europeans who live in places where that's already the law, but Americans as well.

Unfortunately even in the US the people defending your right to be a big meanie are also the same ones who want the police to arrest teachers for telling kids that transgenderism and systemic racism exist. Those of us who think freedom of speech applies even to people and opinions we despise are a shrinking minority.

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#156

Post by whimsicalism » Sat, Sep 10, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

OrangeMonkey wrote: post #72

Dig1t wrote: post #55

I grew up in the US being told that freedom of speech was a virtue, something that our country did very well and I always thought that it was a shared value. It's very surprising to me to see that change in such a short span, or possibly it was not as popular or widespread as I thought it was growing up and I just never noticed. Is it the internet that has caused this uptick in the number of people who think free spe…

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Attributed to Voltaire but actually from SG Tallentyre 1906. I think the desire to restrict other peoples speech is relatively new because the internet was relatively new. 50 years ago, you didn't see corporations able to effectively silence people as much as you do now. A more accurate quote for todays crowd may be "I disapprove o…

Free speech, like majoritarian American democracy, is relatively young - less than 60 years old, much younger than what American mythos tells us.

I do not think attempts to restrict speech are very new.

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#157

Post by jen20 » Sat, Sep 10, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #94

OrangeMonkey wrote: post #3

There appears to be a recent shift on HackerNews no longer support freedom of speech. I don't know that its just HackerNews either - it seems like its 'internet residents no longer support freedom of speech.' I'm not sure how to interpret this.

It's complicated because the most serious threat to free speech in the US right now is cancel culture, but most aspects of cancel culture are explicitly protected under the first amendment: "...or abridging the freedom of speech [private corporations choosing what to host on their websites, calling someone's employer and requesting that they be fired for what they said], or of the press [this garbage https://parade.c…

> the most serious threat to free speech in the US right now is cancel culture

Surely you cannot be serious?

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#158

Post by bee_rider » Sat, Sep 10, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #103

hotpotamus wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/lawmakers-push-to-b... Don’t forget the 1619 Project.

The 1619 project has been widely lambasted as unhistorical political educating. https://www.city-journal.org/1619-project-conspiracy-theory

This appears to be a single article with 0 sources, not evidence that it has been widely lambasted.

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#159

Post by whimsicalism » Sat, Sep 10, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

the_only_law wrote: post #146

whimsicalism wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also has to do with platforming. And it's not just about progressives, my university (Harvard) disinvited a progressive speaker after pressure from the CIA.

Who was it?

Chelsea Manning

Re: Cognitive ability is related to supporting freedom of speech (2020)

#160

Post by oblak » Sat, Sep 10, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #41

tgv wrote: post #7

It seems to be based on data grouped on questionable labeling of dubious grouping of people, correlated with a weak proxy of cognitive ability (How many word associations do homosexuals get right; that's really one of the cells in the analysis). And it answers nothing of interest. How is this publishable?

>How is this publishable? I am guessing that if you write a paper that effectively tells the reader "you are smart", your odds of being published skyrocket regardless of the quality of your work.

In the 2011 game Hard Reset there are smart kiosks shouting "Special discount for smart people" when you go near them. Always made me smile because I've seen people fall for this sort of thing in real life