9 ms·

Very fascinating. You argue that millennials favor restrictions on hate speech because they have not experienced anything like Hitler. Yet Germany censors hat

by danhak 9y ago

Very fascinating. You argue that millennials favor restrictions on hate speech because they have not experienced anything like Hitler. Yet Germany censors hate speech precisely because of that history.

ekanes 9y ago
Hate speech is always a problem. "let's kill all the $value" isn't the type of free speech that most people are trying to preserve.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- white-flame 9y ago
  That's where the distinction between "hate" and "violence" comes in. (at least in the USA) "Let's kill all the $X" is a call for violence. "I hate $X" isn't. It's hateful, but observably some values of $X are currently acceptable while others aren't, depending on what direction the popular outrage trends are heading. Should "I hate the rich/politicians/corporations/nazis/capitalists/white males/etc" be illegal speech? That's quite a can of worms. These free speech arguments are sort of like the government wanting secure encryption, except that the they should still be able to break it. Encryption is either secure for both legal and illegal uses, or it isn't. In the same way, it's semantically unresolvable to have legally-protected free speech for acceptable speech only. Any argument for free speech necessarily empowers unacceptable speech, and any argument against free speech necessarily criminalizes acceptable speech.
  - didibus 9y ago
    Or you know, we could setup a powerful system of laws and judges, with multiple recourse to overrule and get decisions reevaluated, where details of a particular case could be thoroughly analysed, and debated, with a professional representative on either side, and we could eventually rule what seems to be the most reasonable given the concrete case. Honestly, this isn't a computer algorithm. We have the capacity to judge different speech in different contexts.
    - kirillkh 9y ago
      I'd rather have a specific system of rules governing what I can and cannot say than discover post factum that what I said was illegal based on lawyers' consensus. While realistically such consensus is required in some cases anyway due to the imprecise nature of lawmaking, we should still strive for clear ruleset as a baseline, precisely so that the little guy is as informed of his rights as he reasonably can be.
      - didibus 9y ago
        Sure, there could be common guidelines. I'm also talking civil, bad speech could maybe get you fined, or banned from certain public speaking facilities, if proven by court of law that you acted inappropriately. I mean we have these already, and we manage just fine. Defamation and public indecency for example. And it doesn't need go very far. Inciting violence, threats to ones well being or insults towards a group, spoken to a crowd, say 10+ people, either verbally, or written, or gestured. That would include any medium which assumed an audience of more then 10 people. Yes, I'd include online forums, tweets, etc in that. Like, I can't think of any socially relevent commentary that needs you say things of that sort, unless its because you're basically rebuting against someone else doing the same. And again, don't need to jail people, a fine would be a good start. You can even express very inappropriate ideas without resorting to these. For example: "If X were truly less intelligent, it could be that this alone would explain why they are poorer overall, and so, no amount of extra care would help, because their intelligence is an innate limitation." No insults, no threats, no violence. Yet still incredibly controversial. Now the people you'd say this to might be tempted to insult you back, but if they did, they'd be fined, so instead they'd also have to be civil. For example: "That's true, but there's no proof that X are innately less intelligent, and there's known examples of Xs which have demonstrated higher then average intelligence, so its a moot argument, and one that seems to imply a certain innate bias against X from Y. If it were true, and this shows it, that Y had an innate racism against X, then its possible Y wants to keep X poor." Please prove me otherwise, but I don't see what's so hard about enforcing some civility in speech when expressed to a sizable audience.
        9y ago
yahna 9y ago
Maybe millenials think that this whole "if you don't let white supremacists march through the streets with guns then democracy will fail" is a rather silly notion.
Brendinooo 9y ago
I do like getting my arguments vetted on this site! Thanks. These arguments aren't really sequential; maybe only one is true. Maybe for three different people, each argument is true for one of 'em. So, I don't think the connections you made in my argument are really what I meant. The more I think about it, it's very possible that the kinds of freedoms that were restricted because of WWII and the Cold War normalized the idea of restricting freedoms in defense of a certain ideology. After all, what looks better in historical hindsight: the ACLU in Skokie or Japanese internment? I have a feeling that pinpointing a singular cause is impossible, if there even is a singular cause. Still worth discussing, but good to have the discussion framed with that in mind.

by danhak 9y ago

ekanes 9y ago

Hate speech is always a problem. "let's kill all the $value" isn't the type of free speech that most people are trying to preserve.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
white-flame 9y ago
That's where the distinction between "hate" and "violence" comes in. (at least in the USA) "Let's kill all the $X" is a call for violence. "I hate $X" isn't. It's hateful, but observably some values of $X are currently acceptable while others aren't, depending on what direction the popular outrage trends are heading. Should "I hate the rich/politicians/corporations/nazis/capitalists/white males/etc" be illegal speech? That's quite a can of worms. These free speech arguments are sort of like the government wanting secure encryption, except that the they should still be able to break it. Encryption is either secure for both legal and illegal uses, or it isn't. In the same way, it's semantically unresolvable to have legally-protected free speech for acceptable speech only. Any argument for free speech necessarily empowers unacceptable speech, and any argument against free speech necessarily criminalizes acceptable speech.
- didibus 9y ago
  Or you know, we could setup a powerful system of laws and judges, with multiple recourse to overrule and get decisions reevaluated, where details of a particular case could be thoroughly analysed, and debated, with a professional representative on either side, and we could eventually rule what seems to be the most reasonable given the concrete case. Honestly, this isn't a computer algorithm. We have the capacity to judge different speech in different contexts.
  - kirillkh 9y ago
    I'd rather have a specific system of rules governing what I can and cannot say than discover post factum that what I said was illegal based on lawyers' consensus. While realistically such consensus is required in some cases anyway due to the imprecise nature of lawmaking, we should still strive for clear ruleset as a baseline, precisely so that the little guy is as informed of his rights as he reasonably can be.
    - didibus 9y ago
      Sure, there could be common guidelines. I'm also talking civil, bad speech could maybe get you fined, or banned from certain public speaking facilities, if proven by court of law that you acted inappropriately. I mean we have these already, and we manage just fine. Defamation and public indecency for example. And it doesn't need go very far. Inciting violence, threats to ones well being or insults towards a group, spoken to a crowd, say 10+ people, either verbally, or written, or gestured. That would include any medium which assumed an audience of more then 10 people. Yes, I'd include online forums, tweets, etc in that. Like, I can't think of any socially relevent commentary that needs you say things of that sort, unless its because you're basically rebuting against someone else doing the same. And again, don't need to jail people, a fine would be a good start. You can even express very inappropriate ideas without resorting to these. For example: "If X were truly less intelligent, it could be that this alone would explain why they are poorer overall, and so, no amount of extra care would help, because their intelligence is an innate limitation." No insults, no threats, no violence. Yet still incredibly controversial. Now the people you'd say this to might be tempted to insult you back, but if they did, they'd be fined, so instead they'd also have to be civil. For example: "That's true, but there's no proof that X are innately less intelligent, and there's known examples of Xs which have demonstrated higher then average intelligence, so its a moot argument, and one that seems to imply a certain innate bias against X from Y. If it were true, and this shows it, that Y had an innate racism against X, then its possible Y wants to keep X poor." Please prove me otherwise, but I don't see what's so hard about enforcing some civility in speech when expressed to a sizable audience.
      - 9y ago

yahna 9y ago

Maybe millenials think that this whole "if you don't let white supremacists march through the streets with guns then democracy will fail" is a rather silly notion.

Brendinooo 9y ago

I do like getting my arguments vetted on this site! Thanks. These arguments aren't really sequential; maybe only one is true. Maybe for three different people, each argument is true for one of 'em. So, I don't think the connections you made in my argument are really what I meant. The more I think about it, it's very possible that the kinds of freedoms that were restricted because of WWII and the Cold War normalized the idea of restricting freedoms in defense of a certain ideology. After all, what looks better in historical hindsight: the ACLU in Skokie or Japanese internment? I have a feeling that pinpointing a singular cause is impossible, if there even is a singular cause. Still worth discussing, but good to have the discussion framed with that in mind.