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You're absolutely right that the Bay Area offers more freedom than India or China in terms of safely espousing your views. In our lack of government-imposed res
by alehul 9y ago
You're absolutely right that the Bay Area offers more freedom than India or China in terms of safely espousing your views. In our lack of government-imposed restrictions, however, we've come to restrict ourselves as a society, and many believe that we've taken these restrictions too far.
America has progressed through openness to ideological diversity, and through healthily engaging in debate. We're lucky that those who have created/promoted controversial technologies and ideas have been able to so legally, but what is it worth if they're never engaged with? What is all of our ethnic diversity worth if everyone, full of unique perspectives, is forced to tiptoe around most subjects?
It's great to have freedom of speech, but its societal value is substantially diminished when we aren't willing to communicate with the people it protects.
> UK allowed one Egyptian preacher to openly preach hatred and violence
As a side note, our freedom of speech in the US is more hard-wired and extensive than that of the UK, and even we don't allow speech that directly incites violence.
- Kalium 9y agoWith the caveat that "incitement" is quite carefully defined.
- jdtang13 9y agoNo, not true. The Bay Area is ideologically safer in only two regards: you can criticize the city, and you can criticize the government. If you have personal beliefs that are even a tiny bit different from orthodoxy, Beijing is a far safer place.
- dmode 9y agoReally ? Do you openly discuss LGBT rights in Beijing ? What about rights of Uighur folks in China ? Do you discuss that in Beijing ? What about Tibetian rights ? Is that discussed ?
- jdtang13 9y agoYes. You can talk to people in Beijing, especially college students, about these issues and more. One of my friends is an ethnic minority in China and talked about these issues with Han Chinese folk with no negative consequences. Many young people in China are also ready to talk about LGBT issues. There is no problem. As long as you don't try to subvert the government or anything, you can talk about it.
- p_eter_p 9y agoAs long as you don't try to do anything about it, you can discuss whatever you want?
- backpropaganda 9y agoYeah. That's precisely the idea behind "freedom of speech", that even if you're restricted in doing a lot of things, the restrictions on talking about is as little as possible. Talking about it influences opinions, and when critical mass is reached, even autocratic governments sometimes are forced to abide by the consensus of their people. Noone's claiming that China is a better or more progressive country btw, just that in this very specific regard, US is worse than China.
- alehul 9y agoI meant government-protected physical safety; I should've clarified. As I said in the rest of my post, I agree with you that there's more room for ideological diversity without being ostracized in many other places.