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Random thoughts: - Freedom and democracy are different things, if some people think democracy isn't that important, it does not mean they do not value freedom.

Random thoughts: - Freedom and democracy are different things, if some people think democracy isn't that important, it does not mean they do not value freedom. - Maybe the millenials are "not open to diverse opinions", but maybe they're just sick of bullshit. "Free Speech" can be interpreted in different ways (and each country in the world does that).

namelost 9y ago
> - Freedom and democracy are different things, if some people think democracy isn't that important, it does not mean they do not value freedom. e.g. Switzerland's infamous vote to ban minarets[1]. A lot of European countries seem to have a problem with religious freedom, despite being very democratic. Contrast with the undemocratic Singapore where people of different religions coexist relatively harmoniously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_minaret_referendum,_2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_minaret_referendum,_2009
asabjorn 9y ago
Various collapsed democracies can testament that defining away the free part of free speech to be a path to authoritarianism, and the first step towards collapse is punishing opinions that disagrees with dogma (e.g Venezuela). In the end it leads to a less efficient country driven by dogma instead of progress. I think this line of thinking stems from the belief that democracy is the default state, and that it can withstand suppressing voices that disagrees with the dogma someone fights for.
mabub24 9y ago
I disagree with your first thought. I'll say this as someone who is unabashedly a fan of democracy. I love democracy (I would call myself a "democrat" except for the connotation with the American party). I think devaluing democracy exhibits a profound devaluation of freedom. Democracy is more than just casting a vote. Many non-democracies have elections. Democracies are an elegant and fragile relationship between civic will and laws. The outcome of a desire for freedom is democracy. You don't start with democracy or install it, people create it and protect it with laws that protect personal freedoms. Most countries with alternate political systems have citizens with less freedoms and rule by law rather than rule of law: you end up with legalism, like in China. If people feel that democracy is failing them than I would suggest that that exemplifies a shift in profound ideas about freedom that leads to democracy. From the perspective of a relatively functioning democracy, all other political systems should look worse, should look less free.
- Bromskloss 9y ago
  > I think devaluing democracy exhibits a profound devaluation of freedom. Doesn't that depend on what you would have instead? You could have either a more concentrated power and a less concentrated power.
  - mabub24 9y ago
    You could have a more concentrated power, or a less concentrated power. Democracy is remarkably flexible in some ways. Consider the shifts from majority to minority governments, the parliamentary system vs. the presidential system, referendums, etc. But in other ways, it is not. Too concentrated and you easily become technocratic or authoritarian, to unconcentrated and you lose the expression of civic will that emerges from elections that "build", so to speak, to national levels and allow amazing things to be done in democracies. Personally, I'm a bigger fan of parliamentary democracies than presidential. I also believe a sore point for many towards democracy (particularly the idea that democracy is mob rule, or that votes are meaningless) is actually over "first past the post" voting rules. Luckily, we can make democracies better. It's purposely hard to change them, for good reason, but unlike other systems, they are flexible. But, I think if you would rather have a system that is less democratic then that loss of democracy is a loss of freedom at the disproportionate expense of someone else. We call that undemocratic.
    - Bromskloss 9y ago
      Just to clarify, since I see that my comment was a bit unclear: By "have instead" I meant "have instead of democracy". An alternative with more concentrated power, and less freedom, would be having a dictator who decides everything. More free, with less concentrated power, would be an absence of government and everyone following their own wills. (I do not intend this comment as a value judgement one way or the other.)
- Veratyr 9y ago
  I disagree with most of this. Democracy is merely a form of government. People can be free and not democratically governed. Yes a functional society must have laws but say you have two societies with the same set of laws, one generated by dictatorial benevolent AI overlords and one generated by democracy. Are the people in the AI-governed society less free, even when subject to the same rules and restrictions? I think no, they're not less free. That would mean that democracy is important to freedom only if it's the only way to generate that set of rules and I don't think it is. The right dictator can come up with the same rules as a democratic government.
ithilglin909 9y ago
Being sick of bullshit is fine. Having the government regulate bull-shitting is a huge step towards tyranny.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Having the government regulate bull-shitting is a huge step towards tyranny. And yet, we've had libel and slander laws forever. The government has never not regulated bullshitting, all serious debate is over the precise boundaries, not whether it should be done. Maybe Millenials are just more honest about it, and decline to label regulation that does only what they are happy with as “Free Speech”.
  - ithilglin909 9y ago
    I don’t disagree that saying we have “Free Speech” in America is a bit of an overstatement, but the article wasn’t taking about millennials simple wanting to do away with the phrase “Free Speech”. It states many would be in favor of regulating speech simply for its capacity to offend.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > It states many would be in favor of regulating speech simply for its capacity to offend No, it doesn't. It says that many are in favor of colleges regulating some on-campus speech that is deliberately offensive. Even to the extent that the colleges are public and thus even relevant to “free speech” considerations, that's a combination of context and intent to offend, not mere capacity to offend, that is at issue. (It separately says that many would support the government regulating “certain types of offensive speech”, which does not provide enough information to support that the basis is mere capacity to offend; the types of things that constitute per se defamation are arguably a “certain type of offensive speech”, for instance; vague categories are good for getting big scary numbers, but weak for supporting concrete conclusions.)
      - asabjorn 9y ago
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Freedom and democracy are different things, if some people think democracy isn't that important, it does not mean they do not value freedom. Democracy is a form of freedom (freedom from government in which one is not a participant), and clearly a form of freedom important in the historical American concept of freedom (though, to be fair, it's not just Millenials for whom that had weakened, with the colonial America’s signature protest against norepresentative dictates being co-opted ss a symbol for political forces that are opposed to taxation rather than it’s imposition by nonrepresentative means.)
- didibus 9y ago
  Freedom must be balanced with notions of human rights. Maybe a lot of younger generations see a loss of balance. Maybe they see that a lot of the current freedoms of speech and behavior come at too high a cost on the protections for human rights. Things like targeted hate speech, mass shootings, etc. Like you want freedom from government, but you also don't want oppression by the majority. Not saying that's necessarily the case, but could be.

namelost 9y ago

> - Freedom and democracy are different things, if some people think democracy isn't that important, it does not mean they do not value freedom. e.g. Switzerland's infamous vote to ban minarets[1]. A lot of European countries seem to have a problem with religious freedom, despite being very democratic. Contrast with the undemocratic Singapore where people of different religions coexist relatively harmoniously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_minaret_referendum,_2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_minaret_referendum,_2009

asabjorn 9y ago

Various collapsed democracies can testament that defining away the free part of free speech to be a path to authoritarianism, and the first step towards collapse is punishing opinions that disagrees with dogma (e.g Venezuela). In the end it leads to a less efficient country driven by dogma instead of progress. I think this line of thinking stems from the belief that democracy is the default state, and that it can withstand suppressing voices that disagrees with the dogma someone fights for.

mabub24 9y ago

I disagree with your first thought. I'll say this as someone who is unabashedly a fan of democracy. I love democracy (I would call myself a "democrat" except for the connotation with the American party). I think devaluing democracy exhibits a profound devaluation of freedom. Democracy is more than just casting a vote. Many non-democracies have elections. Democracies are an elegant and fragile relationship between civic will and laws. The outcome of a desire for freedom is democracy. You don't start with democracy or install it, people create it and protect it with laws that protect personal freedoms. Most countries with alternate political systems have citizens with less freedoms and rule by law rather than rule of law: you end up with legalism, like in China. If people feel that democracy is failing them than I would suggest that that exemplifies a shift in profound ideas about freedom that leads to democracy. From the perspective of a relatively functioning democracy, all other political systems should look worse, should look less free.

Bromskloss 9y ago
> I think devaluing democracy exhibits a profound devaluation of freedom. Doesn't that depend on what you would have instead? You could have either a more concentrated power and a less concentrated power.
- mabub24 9y ago
  You could have a more concentrated power, or a less concentrated power. Democracy is remarkably flexible in some ways. Consider the shifts from majority to minority governments, the parliamentary system vs. the presidential system, referendums, etc. But in other ways, it is not. Too concentrated and you easily become technocratic or authoritarian, to unconcentrated and you lose the expression of civic will that emerges from elections that "build", so to speak, to national levels and allow amazing things to be done in democracies. Personally, I'm a bigger fan of parliamentary democracies than presidential. I also believe a sore point for many towards democracy (particularly the idea that democracy is mob rule, or that votes are meaningless) is actually over "first past the post" voting rules. Luckily, we can make democracies better. It's purposely hard to change them, for good reason, but unlike other systems, they are flexible. But, I think if you would rather have a system that is less democratic then that loss of democracy is a loss of freedom at the disproportionate expense of someone else. We call that undemocratic.
  - Bromskloss 9y ago
    Just to clarify, since I see that my comment was a bit unclear: By "have instead" I meant "have instead of democracy". An alternative with more concentrated power, and less freedom, would be having a dictator who decides everything. More free, with less concentrated power, would be an absence of government and everyone following their own wills. (I do not intend this comment as a value judgement one way or the other.)
Veratyr 9y ago
I disagree with most of this. Democracy is merely a form of government. People can be free and not democratically governed. Yes a functional society must have laws but say you have two societies with the same set of laws, one generated by dictatorial benevolent AI overlords and one generated by democracy. Are the people in the AI-governed society less free, even when subject to the same rules and restrictions? I think no, they're not less free. That would mean that democracy is important to freedom only if it's the only way to generate that set of rules and I don't think it is. The right dictator can come up with the same rules as a democratic government.

ithilglin909 9y ago

Being sick of bullshit is fine. Having the government regulate bull-shitting is a huge step towards tyranny.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Having the government regulate bull-shitting is a huge step towards tyranny. And yet, we've had libel and slander laws forever. The government has never not regulated bullshitting, all serious debate is over the precise boundaries, not whether it should be done. Maybe Millenials are just more honest about it, and decline to label regulation that does only what they are happy with as “Free Speech”.
- ithilglin909 9y ago
  I don’t disagree that saying we have “Free Speech” in America is a bit of an overstatement, but the article wasn’t taking about millennials simple wanting to do away with the phrase “Free Speech”. It states many would be in favor of regulating speech simply for its capacity to offend.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > It states many would be in favor of regulating speech simply for its capacity to offend No, it doesn't. It says that many are in favor of colleges regulating some on-campus speech that is deliberately offensive. Even to the extent that the colleges are public and thus even relevant to “free speech” considerations, that's a combination of context and intent to offend, not mere capacity to offend, that is at issue. (It separately says that many would support the government regulating “certain types of offensive speech”, which does not provide enough information to support that the basis is mere capacity to offend; the types of things that constitute per se defamation are arguably a “certain type of offensive speech”, for instance; vague categories are good for getting big scary numbers, but weak for supporting concrete conclusions.)
    - asabjorn 9y ago

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Freedom and democracy are different things, if some people think democracy isn't that important, it does not mean they do not value freedom. Democracy is a form of freedom (freedom from government in which one is not a participant), and clearly a form of freedom important in the historical American concept of freedom (though, to be fair, it's not just Millenials for whom that had weakened, with the colonial America’s signature protest against norepresentative dictates being co-opted ss a symbol for political forces that are opposed to taxation rather than it’s imposition by nonrepresentative means.)

didibus 9y ago
Freedom must be balanced with notions of human rights. Maybe a lot of younger generations see a loss of balance. Maybe they see that a lot of the current freedoms of speech and behavior come at too high a cost on the protections for human rights. Things like targeted hate speech, mass shootings, etc. Like you want freedom from government, but you also don't want oppression by the majority. Not saying that's necessarily the case, but could be.