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Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

latimes.com

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Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#461

Post by diehunde »

bosswipe wrote: post #29

There's a disconnect that keeps running through a lot of the arguments from the conservative side which I don't understand. The examples given in this piece are a) the right of street protesters to be heard without being attacked by government officers vs b) the right of people to not get fired for what they say by private organizations like the New York Times. This disconnect keeps coming up, and it's extra weird be…

I would go even further than acceptable behavior. Today we know for sure racism and sexism are dangerous beliefs. If I own a company I don't want that people around. So unless there's a law that forbids me to fire someone for being openly racist or sexist, I will fire their asses without thinking twice.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#462

Post by jgeada »

I think they're misunderstanding the difference between freedom of speech and not having any negative consequences accruing to you for said speech. Yes, we all agree that government must not censor speech. However, all us other individuals and non-government organizations are certainly free to decide who to associate with and who not to associate with. You are free to say whatever stupid shit you want in public, but the rest of us are well within our rights to ostracize you, fire you, etc as a consequence of learning that you, due to your free speech, are an ignorant/repulsive/racist/evil person.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#463

Post by etherael »

notahacker wrote: post #452
etherael wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can assure you that there are no shortage of people on the receiving end of non-Western boycott threats for making comments deemed to offend, say, religious sensitivities in India or support calls for democracy in Hong Kong. The best defense that can be mustered is that the worst authoritarian and theocratic dictatorships of the world do the same thing so it's no big deal? To be fair to you I guess the truth of t…

> The best defense that can be mustered is that the worst authoritarian and theocratic dictatorships of the world do the same thing so it's no big deal? To be fair to you I guess the truth of the matter is that really is the best defense. It just happens to be terrible. It's not a 'defence' but a simple refutation of your claim that companies coming under pressure from some quarters to fire employees for sentiments t…

> It's not a 'defence' but a simple refutation of your claim that companies coming under pressure from some quarters to fire employees for sentiments they have expressed is a uniquely Western thing

And it's not a refutation at all, because the examples you cite are themselves restricted to particular jurisdictions (and I'm sure of this because I spent the past ten years travelling the entire world and never saw anything of the magnitude I've seen coming from the west during that period), and the incidents are far more excessive breaches of the local cultural etiquette in incidents where they do end up causing outrage, whereas in the west you can be legally hounded by professional victims for not using their pretend pronouns, and people make art forms out of misinterpreting things to be as offended as possible for no reason at all obviously because it gives them power whilst those who would like to pretend it's not the fatal problem it clearly is choose to continuously ignore or minimise it, even while cadres of the discussed movements in question are out burning down cities, looting, and other typical obvious indicators that things have gone seriously wrong, this discussion itself being a perfect case in point.

> (Bit of a stretch to suggest India has been amongst the 'worst authoritarian and theocratic dictatorships' since its independence too...).

Pointing out that the worst authoritarian and theocratic dictatorships are the nearest analogs to the "me-too"-ism you cite doesn't imply that applies to India in particular, my reference to theocratic dictatorships was mostly regarding middle eastern jurisdictions at any rate.

> you're trying remarkably hard to find an angle sufficiently obtuse for you to drag my bland statement that companies think all sorts of different behaviour outside working hours gives them cause to fire people into your culture war...

Not at all, I'm not even disagreeing with that statement. I'm simply pointing out it's symptomatic of a disease rather than a positive or neutral thing that should just be accepted.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#464

Post by joshuamorton »

AHappyCamper wrote: post #457
joshuamorton wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand: you just did that. What was difficult about it? (and I'll note that you spent a bunch of time mentioning ultimately irrelevant details. Being homeless, or in an area with feces and urine and cardboard probably aren't relevant to anyone responding. The important facts are that there's a person in need of immediate medical assistance, the area is potentially hazardous, and the person is being uncoop…

They're relevant details because they directly affect the health and safety of the ambulance staff, and protocol dictates that they call in on anything that could be hazardous to them. Not to mention that those details could affect the treatment of the patient. See? This is the problem. The filtering is more important to some people than actually doing the job correctly. This is why speech must be free, because I don…

No, I don't see. Precise communication is of the utmost importance in life and death situations. Consider pilots. The communication is extremely structured so as to precisely convey relevant information. Pilots are trained specifically and at length on how to communicate over radios in normal and emergency situations. This is done to make communication more efficient and effective. And these choices are data driven.

You're arguing for essentially the opposite of that.

> They're relevant details because they directly affect the health and safety of the ambulance staff

A person being homeless is not relevant to the health and safety of the medical staff. A person sitting on wet cardboard is not relevant to the health and safety of the medical staff. The area being hazardous is relevant, and was conveyed. You may argue that "the area has feces and needles" is necessary to communicate. And that's fine.

> This is why speech must be free, because I don't want a paramedic who's treating me to be debating exactly how to define me to dispatch

No, if this is your goal what you want is paramedics who are well trained in how to communicate effectively over radios, much like pilots are. This has nothing to do with free speech. Restrictions and regimentation on speech in this context would actually make the communication more effective. For example, specific guidance on what things should be communicated about the hazardous area: that feces and needles are relevant but that cardboard boxes and homelessness aren't. This way, there are fewer wasted words.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#465

Post by cglace »

bluntfang wrote: post #433
cglace wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my intent does not matter and my words can be construed to mean anything then where do we go from here?

The point is that the only thing you can control, as the communicator, is the words you use. You can't control your audiences vocabulary and their interpretation, thus the onus is on the communicator to communicate their message, not the listener. It's up to the communicator to understand their audience and make the best faith attempt to communicate that they can, and to listen and learn how to communicate effectivel…

I feel like you have removed so much nuance from the discussion that what you are saying is essentially meaningless.

Choose your words wisely, listen, react, respond.

It says nothing about the intent of the listener. A listener can intentionally take a statement in good faith or bad faith. If your statement is taken in bad faith and weaponized against you it's hard to respond over the chorus of the angry mob waiting to skewer the new victim. People enjoy being outraged. Usually, once your side of the story comes out they have moved onto their next cause and could care less what you really meant.

So, as others have said, it's better to just say nothing.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#466

Post by phreeza »

jgeada wrote: post #462

I think they're misunderstanding the difference between freedom of speech and not having any negative consequences accruing to you for said speech. Yes, we all agree that government must not censor speech. However, all us other individuals and non-government organizations are certainly free to decide who to associate with and who not to associate with. You are free to say whatever stupid shit you want in public, but…

That is the legal situation, but the question then arises if it is desirable for a society to develop in the direction where such ostracisms happen a lot. I think there is an argument to be made that speech which is overly constrained by societal norms at some point would lead to similar negative consequences as speech constrained by the government. I am not saying that we are anywhere close to that point, but it think it is an important point to keep in mind.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#467

Post by cglace »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #391
cglace wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s trivial if we are to the point where we are censoring completely benign words.

>> where we are censoring completely benign words Are you saying in any context? That's not the proposal as i read it. >> >> Could you just say >> censoring For censoring to be the case, it must be that you can't use particular words. I read the case as 1. the GP's post expressing a desire to show heightened care to a reader 2. your parent posting a possible solution Taking this to an extreme, if both behaviours abov…

I was using "we" to mean "we" would be self-censoring.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#468

Post by cglace »

bluntfang wrote: post #454
julianmarq wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to listen and learn how to communicate effectively to the intended audience after a failure occurs. You, accidentally, hit the nail on the head. I'm pretty sure that the intended audience often gets the message just fine. The mobs trying to police everyone else's speech are never the intended audience; they just butt in to try to control how everyone else talks regardless of how much they actually care about the to…

>The mobs trying to police everyone else's speech are never the intended audience If the "mobs" are receiving a message not intended for them, the onus lies on the communicator to resolve this. I also think it's really funny that you're assuming you know what people involved in fighting the slave trade want. Are you currently doing that?

Once something leaves your lips/phone/computer it doesn't matter who it is intended for. Surely you know this.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#469

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

gwd wrote: post #255
ngngngng wrote: post #177

I argued with a family member about this just the other day. She was trying to get a faculty member at a local university fired for saying something offensive on Twitter. I asked her what happens after we get him fired? Can he earn back the worthiness to again feed his family? Will he need to denounce his views or just stop spewing them publicly? Will he just need to collect unemployment for the rest of his life now…

> I asked her what happens after we get him fired? Can he earn back the worthiness to again feed his family? Will he need to denounce his views or just stop spewing them publicly? Will he just need to collect unemployment for the rest of his life now that we've deemed him a heretic unworthy of work? As someone who's a devout Christian, it's quite interesting to me to see how the same anti-patterns which plague zealou…

I think the common root between the two is a belief in having found a universal and unquestionable Truth from which it logically follows that anyone that denies that Truth must be "evil".

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#470

Post by sam_goody »

jstanley wrote: post #240
sam_goody wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On HN, if you disagree with a comment, you downvote it and punish the author. (Or, at least, that is the common way to respond, and for good reason - the only "disagree" button is the one that hurts the credit of the OP) This especially hurts new commenters, whose credit is fragile (and who don't know the cap on down-votes). Which keeps the conversation "safe", and the lurkers quiet. Cynical me thinks this is a refle…

> (Or, at least, that is the common way to respond, and for good reason - the only "disagree" button is the one that hurts the credit of the OP) I don't think that's a good reason. You should downvote if you think someone is arguing disingenuously or otherwise writing nonsense that doesn't belong on HN. If you merely disagree, you should upvote instead, and articulate your disagreement in a reply.

I agree with you 100%, and that is what I try to do myself.

I think it is wrong of HN to not have a disagree but great comment button, hence my complaint about it reflecting a negative aspect of society.

But, the common practice is to do as I described. Case in point, my comment was down-voted! I clearly agree with you, and am pointing out an unfortunate fact, but since someone don't like that fact, I lost a point.

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