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>Platforms to speech is what gives these people power This just isn't true: these people already have power. When bad ideas already have a following, attemptin

>Platforms to speech is what gives these people power This just isn't true: these people already have power. When bad ideas already have a following, attempting to silence them isn't denying them power but reenforcing it as silencing becomes a rallying cry. Bad ideas fall to reasoned debate. Bad ideas thrive when they inherently have a subconscious or emotional appeal and are allowed to spread in isolated communities and are never challenged in open forums. Denying them platforms isn't going to stop the spread of these ideas (the internet is still a thing). It just passes up on another opportunity to challenge those ideas head on and gives the charlatans another instance of suppression to use as a rallying cry. Perhaps what students should insist on is instead of giving them an open platform to speak, invite them to a debate. Force them to defend their ideas under harsh scrutiny.

chetanahuja 10y ago
"Bad ideas fall to reasoned debate" Clearly not. Haven't we learnt anything from the recent victory of bad, horrible hateful ideas on the platform of media manipulation and louder-than-thou debating techniques?
- hackinthebochs 10y ago
  But what's the mechanism that allows bad ideas to spread? It's not that they're winning the debate, it's that they're avoiding the debate altogether. The mediums that spread these bad ideas tend to be bad at debate but good at spreading ideas with an inherently viral quality.
  - chetanahuja 10y ago
    Exactly. They're not on campus (or a CPAC meeting, or a TV show or whatever) for "reasoned debate". They're there to raise their profile and signal to others like them that these ideas are now acceptable to air in respectable forums. It's foolish for any of these organizations to be used in this manner.
vkou 10y ago
> Bad ideas fall to reasoned debate. No, they don't. For that to work, this requires the proponents of bad ideas to respond to logic, and for the acolytes of reprehensible ideas to be ashamed of what they are doing. The skinhead shouting "Hitler did nothing wrong" isn't going to back down when you call him out for what he is, and he isn't going to be convinced by logic, facts, or rationality. If he were, the second world war would have been called "World Rational Debate Competition, Part II." Likewise, the religious fundamentalist isn't going to back down, or stop preaching hate, just because you point out the absurdities and inconsistencies in his holy book, or the hypocrisy in his prattle. For some reason, though, liberals are falling head-over-heels to defend the right of the former to amplify his message. Freedom of political discourse is not fundamentally incompatible with zero tolerance of fascism - just like freedom of religion is not fundamentally incompatible with zero tolerance of violent fanaticism. What is fundamentally incompatible in a tolerant society, is toleration of intolerance.
- marricks 10y ago
  > For some reason, though, liberals are falling head-over-heels to defend the right of the former to amplify his message. I think this has to be the most galling thing to see among so many of my liberal (of course white) friends and family: coming out strongly to support Milo's right to speak at a college campus. A lot of them were pretty quiet too during BLM protests but they felt it was their civic duty to say everyone should have a right to speak their view. I know those people too, and they view themselves as very progressive, but when you decide to most vociferously defend the free speech of Nazi's over minority voices, what the hell have you become?
  - vkou 10y ago
    They probably didn't really like the BLM message (The parts that makes a lot of people feel deeply uncomfortable.) They almost certainly don't like Milo's message either, but, as the saying goes, "He isn't the one calling us a basket of deplorables." His advocacy will make problems for other people.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

chetanahuja 10y ago

"Bad ideas fall to reasoned debate" Clearly not. Haven't we learnt anything from the recent victory of bad, horrible hateful ideas on the platform of media manipulation and louder-than-thou debating techniques?

hackinthebochs 10y ago
But what's the mechanism that allows bad ideas to spread? It's not that they're winning the debate, it's that they're avoiding the debate altogether. The mediums that spread these bad ideas tend to be bad at debate but good at spreading ideas with an inherently viral quality.
- chetanahuja 10y ago
  Exactly. They're not on campus (or a CPAC meeting, or a TV show or whatever) for "reasoned debate". They're there to raise their profile and signal to others like them that these ideas are now acceptable to air in respectable forums. It's foolish for any of these organizations to be used in this manner.

vkou 10y ago

> Bad ideas fall to reasoned debate. No, they don't. For that to work, this requires the proponents of bad ideas to respond to logic, and for the acolytes of reprehensible ideas to be ashamed of what they are doing. The skinhead shouting "Hitler did nothing wrong" isn't going to back down when you call him out for what he is, and he isn't going to be convinced by logic, facts, or rationality. If he were, the second world war would have been called "World Rational Debate Competition, Part II." Likewise, the religious fundamentalist isn't going to back down, or stop preaching hate, just because you point out the absurdities and inconsistencies in his holy book, or the hypocrisy in his prattle. For some reason, though, liberals are falling head-over-heels to defend the right of the former to amplify his message. Freedom of political discourse is not fundamentally incompatible with zero tolerance of fascism - just like freedom of religion is not fundamentally incompatible with zero tolerance of violent fanaticism. What is fundamentally incompatible in a tolerant society, is toleration of intolerance.

marricks 10y ago
> For some reason, though, liberals are falling head-over-heels to defend the right of the former to amplify his message. I think this has to be the most galling thing to see among so many of my liberal (of course white) friends and family: coming out strongly to support Milo's right to speak at a college campus. A lot of them were pretty quiet too during BLM protests but they felt it was their civic duty to say everyone should have a right to speak their view. I know those people too, and they view themselves as very progressive, but when you decide to most vociferously defend the free speech of Nazi's over minority voices, what the hell have you become?
- vkou 10y ago
  They probably didn't really like the BLM message (The parts that makes a lot of people feel deeply uncomfortable.) They almost certainly don't like Milo's message either, but, as the saying goes, "He isn't the one calling us a basket of deplorables." His advocacy will make problems for other people.
deleted 10y ago
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