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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

#261

Post by dqpb »

lucideer wrote: post #181
dqpb wrote: post #20

I’ve been very surprised at how quickly the American left has turned its back on free speech. I guess that’s why they’ve stopped calling themselves “liberal”, instead calling themselves “progressive”. Much like how the American right has stopped calling the US a democracy, instead calling it a republic. Or how Google changed their motto from the specific “don’t be evil”, to the ambiguous “do the right thing”. After a…

> Edit: as I rack up downvotes... Just for clarity, these are likely because you didn't read the article. Your comment does not relate to the article content in any way - it seems to be based on an interpretation of the title.

> Freedom of expression and democracy are intimately linked, and both are deteriorating on a global scale.

The article isn't talking about the US. But my claim is that US left-wing is attacking free-speech and the US right-wing is attacking democracy. I don't know how much more hand-holding I can provide to indicate that "deteriorating on a global scale" includes the US.

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

#262

Post by armchairhacker »

immibis wrote: post #185
armchairhacker wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is roughly what I’m thinking. We can be intolerant of things which are “obviously” wrong, like hate and other intolerance. We shouldn’t be intolerant of the gray area, where something is controversial but still justified. The fundamental truth is that you are intolerant, because speech leads to action. People like to think of themselves as tolerant and not sensitive, and maybe some people are tolerant to speech…

> We can be intolerant of things which are “obviously” wrong, like hate and other intolerance. We shouldn’t be intolerant of the gray area, where something is controversial but still justified. It doesn't work. Whenever someone wants to say an opinion in the black area, they'll say the closest thing on the boundary of the grey area, instead. Their followers, who do the same thing themselves, understand this as if it…

I do think it's different.

" shouldn't have their home searched for purely political reasons" is a completely valid argument. But when you realize the person is the unstable former US president, he was presumably searched out of genuine suspicion (I wouldn't consider it just "politics"), and then it contained a list of foreign spies and other documents it wasn't supposed to - now it's no longer reasonable. But I would also say you're no longer really arguing " shouldn't have their home searched for purely political reasons".

The two are barely connected. Yeah they are connected, but no rational person would jump from "home search for political reasons is unjustified" to "leaking spies to enemy states is justified". An extremist would understand, but extremists can figure out codes to communicate with each other as long as any speech is allowed.

Radicalizing sensible people is absolutely a real phenomenon which is happening right now in the US, and has happened many times before. But it's not free speech which has caused this. It's actually poverty and other societal flaws which make people upset, and when the "good guys" don't fix those flaws, people start listening to the bad guys. Sensible people can listen to garbage, but they can also listen to your side, and if they're still reasonable they can make rational judgement.

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

#263

Post by californiadreem »

r00fus wrote: post #212
californiadreem wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone wanting the full quote from Popper's The Open Society: "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation,…

Seems a summary of the pivotal point of the intolerance paradox is key: "tolerance of viewpoints requires reciprocity of tolerance from those viewpoints"

I can almost guarantee that Karl Popper (the person who wrote a book on the reductive tendencies of proto-totalitarian societies) would fundamentally disagree with this summary of his 750 page work. He might point to the next five decades of his life as evidence for a repudiation.

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

#264

Post by [deleted] »

TeeMassive wrote: post #46
californiadreem wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone wanting the full quote from Popper's The Open Society: "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation,…

Nothing in your quote talks about speech.

[deleted]

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

#265

Post by julesnp »

armchairhacker wrote: post #116
colechristensen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a kind of "have an open mind but not so much that your brain falls out" situation. Too many people think their brain is going to fall out of even the slightest deviation from their moral code is tolerated these days.

This is roughly what I’m thinking. We can be intolerant of things which are “obviously” wrong, like hate and other intolerance. We shouldn’t be intolerant of the gray area, where something is controversial but still justified. The fundamental truth is that you are intolerant, because speech leads to action. People like to think of themselves as tolerant and not sensitive, and maybe some people are tolerant to speech…

> I also think there are also exceptions to tolerance in the case of an emergency, with the distinction that it has to be an actual emergency universally (agreed on by logical people), and also temporary unless it’s really, really bad (like everyone dies once we stop). e.g. covid in January-May 2020. If we had a super strict, solid covid lockdown when the virus first broke out, we may have actually eradicated covid. Yeah we’d be violating essential freedoms, we’d have to lock up or possibly execute people who go outside, and may even have to curtail anti-science speech. But with said lockdown we may have actually eradicated covid, IMO that is worth being intolerant of dissent for 3 months.

I'm sorry, but this is just a bizarre argument. I don't see how the outbreak of a disease with a 1% death rate [1], or even the initial 3.4% estimate given at the start of the pandemic, could ever justify executing people for going outside. Even China never went that far, is this really something you believe "logical people" would agree upon?

1. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

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

#266

Post by dleslie »

golemotron wrote: post #251
dleslie wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He advocates to be intolerant of those who refuse engage in rational argument and those who opt for violence. The nuance is in the limit. If a person, in their intolerance, is resorting to violence towards those that are not doing likewise, then they are in the wrong. Even if they believe that they are abiding by the limit when doing so. Rational argument should always be the preferred course of action, and intoleran…

People miss the nuance and become intolerant even when violence isn't on the table.

Of course, but that doesn't mean they're unwilling to talk, and it's only when they cause violence that we should be intolerant of them.

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

#267

Post by lwelyk »

thfuran wrote: post #169
greenthrow wrote: post #159

This is not talking about bogus "my freedoms" claims of people being kicked off Twitter, it's talking about actual loss of freedom of expression, where the government imprisons people for saying the wrong things. In the US we have loss sight of what real freedom of expression means.

Getting kicked off social media is essentially having your ability to engage in public discourse removed, or at least severely restricted.

Do you truly believe that? It's a privately owned place to post thoughts, you were not being restricted if no newspaper would print your letter to the editor.

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

#268

Post by commandlinefan »

hotpotamus wrote: post #131
commandlinefan wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> require creating laws that restrict speech Actually, you don't have to - you just have to create laws that protect entities that support it. Explicitly indemnifying online discussion portals from being held responsible for any (alleged) harm caused by discussions on their platform would go a LONG way toward supporting organizations that actually believe in free expression. Twitter can go on banning everybody who op…

I don't understand what you're saying - has Parler been legally shutdown for banning anti-communists?

No, but only because they're being very careful what they allow to be posted.

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

#269

Post by panarky »

thfuran wrote: post #198
SiempreViernes wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

You seem to be replying to a comment that I didn't write. I said nothing whatsoever about what the most extreme sort of punishment for speech is or about the maximal extent to which speech can be restricted. I certainly never suggested that being banned from twitter is either of those things.

Do you think Twitter should be forced to provide a platform for all speech with no exceptions?

If not, what exceptions do you think should be allowed?

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

#270

Post by leaflets2 »

vehemenz wrote: post #33
Victerius wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It lines up with the Corruption Perception Index: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Map_of_c... Judging from this map alone, one would logically conclude that Homo Sapiens is a pretty corrupt species. The average human being lives in a corrupt dictatorship.

I'm not sure it makes sense to judge homo sapiens as corrupt, given that they lived much differently the past 10,000 years than their first 300,000 years. I can easily imagine social groups were more egalitarian and less corrupt for most of human prehistory.

The larger the group, the more corrupted power seekers will climb close to the top, and do the more damage (since they affect more people).

Maybe we can say that the human brain partly isn't well suited for living in large societies, for these reasons

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