81–90 of 165 posts
Sometimes missing in these debates is that right to free speech isn't the right to be listened to.
Or "freedom of speech is not freedom of reach"
Technology has no awareness of whether it's used to liberate or enslave.
if a leftist comedian makes a joke, nothing happens. If a right-wing comedian makes the same joke, he could be sued.
This happened several times.
Someone relatively famous on the left came out as a pedophile, he confessed in an audio. The left was very worried that he was going to commit suicide...
The same does not happen when some famous pedophile is from the extreme right...
The left is against any arrest of homeless drug addicts. They don't try to treat these people, I saw a video on the left teaching how to use crack, taking care of your health, not using soda cans, because the paint on the can (!) is bad for you.
Of course the solution for homeless addicts is to kill everyone, for the alt-right.
Our former president is right-wing. "An anti-scientific and anti-ecological president"
The current president is leftist. With the same anti-scientific and anti-ecological ideas, BUT NOW he is right.
And between these two idiotic views, nothing is fixed.
My country has many basic problems such as hunger, security and basic health. But people in power are arguing about pronouns and shit.
Yeah, you can argue about anything, but for me, with decades of watching this shit, it's not about arguing about pronouns, or... it's about doing nothing about real issues.
Nothing about this is new, it's just weirder than in the past.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
History ebbs and flows like the tide. A hundred years ago young people saw how censorship, racism, and authoritarianism were being used to maintain the status quo. A wave of free expression and individuality grew throughout the 20th century as a way to disrupt the power balance. They encouraged diversity of thought, even things you didn't agree with, and expected that freedom of expression would allow the "good" idea…
The so-called "systemic" racism is mostly a conspiracy theory unsupported by evidence. But even if it exists, your theory makes no sense here, since nobody doubts that racism was more prevalent in the past. So free speech can't be blamed to have caused it.
I will give you far too much benefit of the doubt and assume that you are speaking from a privileged position of ignorance vs being willfully ignorant, or arguing in bad faith. I do not have the time, nor is it my responsibility to educate you on these matters, but here is a very easy place to start.
A couple years ago, somebody remarked to me, "oh, you're one of those free speech guys, aren't you?" and I realized it was meant as an insult. Yes, I guess so! I'm not sure what changed, but I doubt that would ever have happened a few decades ago. You might have argued about the practical limits of free speech (shouting fire in a theater, Potter Stewart's obscenity test, etc.) but you would never hear someone say tha…
A few months ago I was discussing due-process-related rights and principles with some twenty-something university student (mostly CS) acquaintances. Apart from the frightening fact that I was the only one strongly defending these rights, at one point someone associated my rhetoric with "Jordan Peterson's free speech arguments" in an attempt to dismiss my points. Apparently democracy and a free judiciary are now an al…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was commenting on "restrictions on speech", of which book banning is a historically symbolic example but less relevant in the modern age. In the West the left has dominated restricting speech.
[flagged]
Come on now. Deep breaths.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
(At the risk of having my comment turn gray) The entire concept of "hate speech", the concept of "dead naming", anyone who thinks "words are violence" and therefore retaliation with physical violence is justified. These are all forms of attack upon free speech and there have been instances of these in universities for the past decade.
How is "deadnaming" an attack on free speech? It's always been considered discourteous to refer to people by a name they don't go by.
https://nypost.com/2022/12/15/tonje-gjevjon-faces-up-to-3-ye...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how it would be worrying. The alt right are basically the only major suppressed group in the Western world at the moment, and I have no problem with that. Even they are not silenced by the government, so even their free speech is being protected. However, people generally don't like what they say, and want to silence or ignore them - without government involvement. Of course free speech would be extremely…
You don't actually have any definition of "alt right", it's a made up term used to mean anyone who isn't an extreme progressive. > Even they are not silenced by the government, so even their free speech is being protected. They are very much being silenced by the government. See the Twitter Files for just one piece of evidence. You aren't aware of it because of course, evidence of suppression is the first thing that…
I will certainly not start wasting my time defining these terms - I'm sure most of us agree close enough who we mean here. Hint: it's not "anyone who isn't an extreme progressive", as for example Dick Cheney is not alt right.
> They are very much being silenced by the government. See the Twitter Files for just one piece of evidence.
This is nothing new. See Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky. However, everything that's being censored in Twitter is still freely publishable on an independent forum - the government will not persecute the publisher. Free speech doesn't mean any garbage must be tolerated in all platforms. It just means government won't come after you for trying to get it out wherever you can.
> Regardless, the reason the government is usually treated as special in these discussions it because it was previously assumed that the government was the only entity that could systematically suppress speech. That isn't the case any longer.
The government is clearly a special case, since it's the only of its kind - and at least on paper should serve its people. Private corporations have only the shareholders to please.
> Fundamentally you won't be able morally to complain if one day the left is being systematically censored, cancelled and driven underground, because as you admit, that is your own goal too.
But I am already unhappy that many inconvenient topics are not highlighted in the media! It's just simply not a freedom of speech issue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Firing someone over speech is not even a speech act. It's censorship.
Must a business remain associated with an individual who goes against their “brand” and whose views may be costing them sales?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Different debate. Those authors were not restricted from publishing their books. The Florida issue is about what kind of material is suitable for children to access.
It's actually not. You can make the same distinction by saying web commenters aren't restricted from writing whatever posts they want, and the debate is about what kind of material is suitable for centralized websites to facilitate. Really, the larger ideal of free speech is about the desired orthogonality of distribution channels versus content, and general tolerance for things we dislike. We see the results of its…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how it would be worrying. The alt right are basically the only major suppressed group in the Western world at the moment, and I have no problem with that. Even they are not silenced by the government, so even their free speech is being protected. However, people generally don't like what they say, and want to silence or ignore them - without government involvement. Of course free speech would be extremely…
> The alt right are basically the only major suppressed group in the Western world at the moment, and I have no problem with that. Reminds me of this quote from a man for all seasons: William Roper : So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law! Sir Thomas More : Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? William Roper : Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that! Sir Tho…