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>and that ludicrous fascist and racist views are publicly exposed to ridicule I agree, but putting those views on a platform where they are heard more than the

>and that ludicrous fascist and racist views are publicly exposed to ridicule I agree, but putting those views on a platform where they are heard more than the views of the people they're attacking is absolute horse shit. Why is it perfectly fine to give platforms to people spouting Nazi talking points, or transphobia/homophobia/racism, but the minorities those people are saying should be killed aren't given anywhere near as high a platform by universities? If you're going to give a platform to people spouting bigotry and bullshit, you have to give even more of a platform to the people peacefully talking about why they shouldn't be killed just for being alive.

matthewmacleod 9y ago
I completely agree with you. The underlying reason is that students love to be “edgy” and “controversial” - part of the experience of student politics sure enough, but maybe lacking some wisdom.
- PrimHelios 9y ago
  I think that edgy and controversial attitude is why colleges should let students have debate clubs, or clubs where students with differing opinions can hash things out calmly. A speaker, on the other hand, is not spreading a different viewpoint, it's putting a viewpoint above every other viewpoint. Forcing unis to allow conservative speakers under a threat of a fine is the government literally enforcing a viewpoint in a way that indoctrinates students. I'm a left-leaning centrist libertarian socialist, and I'd have no problem going to talks presented by far-left or far-right speakers, but a talk given by someone saying I'm subhuman, deserve to be raped, or should be killed for who I am? That's fucked up. The government shouldn't be forcing colleges to allow speakers spouting that kind of thing. If this was the government trying to enforce and NPR-style "no political bias" rule for public colleges, that would be awesome, but this isn't what's going on. The first paragraph of the article makes it clear they want to force colleges to let transphobes speak. Hell, the article itself even seems to have a huge bias for this law, juxtaposing shitty beliefs with left-wing beliefs to push a narrative: "Asked about cases where students had tried to deny speaking slots to Tatchell, a gay rights campaigner, and Greer, a feminist writer, over their views on transgender issues".
observation 9y ago
> Why is it perfectly fine to give platforms to people spouting Nazi talking points, or transphobia/homophobia/racism, but the minorities those people are saying should be killed aren't given anywhere near as high a platform by universities? You've provided an objective benchmark. Please list the occasions this has happened. I have yet to hear a political leader say that. I think you might find those people under Youtube comment sections and on 4chan but I've yet to hear of "kill minority x" as a part of somebody's platform. I don't think you're going to be able to find anybody who isn't obscure to the point other far rightists haven't heard of him. Leftists and Rightists interpret the same information completely differently sometimes, when Donald Trump was an anti-Semite, unquestionably, I remember that. I have a follow up question. What do you make of this: https://twitter.com/douglaskmurray/status/616194188489682944 https://twitter.com/douglaskmurray/status/616194188489682944 Douglas Murray claims genuine terrorists, people who have been arrested for plotting to murder people, have been lecturing inside a year in UK colleges, it looks like 20 of them have been arrested or killed fighting in Syria and another 80+ are affiliated. "Last year, there were 123 speeches by extremists, which featured claims such as 'the West is waging a war against Islam'. There were also 145 events in 2013 and 132 in 2012. While the far Right hosted a handful of events, the lists were overwhelmingly dominated by Islamic speakers." It appears to me that the shoe is quite on the other foot when presented with this information.
- PrimHelios 9y ago
  >Please list the occasions this has happened. Milo Yiannopoulos advocates for practices that would literally kill people, in addition to advocating for pedophilia and getting very close to Nazi talking points. >Leftists and Rightists interpret the same information completely differently Good thing I'm a centrist. >What do you make of this: Completely irrelevant. This has nothing to do with what we're talking about. However, I feel just the same as allowing right-wing extremists.
  - observation 9y ago
    > Milo Yiannopoulos advocates for practices that would literally kill people, in addition to advocating for pedophilia and getting very close to Nazi talking points. You should be able to post some links illustrating this. I expect he says a lot of things that sound like that but which really aren't on closer inspection. Traditionally the political wings produce fan fiction of the other side and heavily paraphrase whatever the other side says. Are you aware that Milo Yiannopoulos does not claim to be on the far right and they don't think he is either? His political orientation is best described troll-wing.
LV-426 9y ago
I've seen some strange downvoting here, but what's this about? They simply argue that hate speakers should not be given as much time as their targets/potential victims/people not advocating hate, and their post is virtually white. And none of the people who downvoted put their name to it by making an argument/reply/rebuttal.
- LV-426 9y ago
  Hah. The pro hate-speech brigade are trying to bury my free-speech now, but still too spineless and (quite rightly) ashamed to put their names to it.
- PrimHelios 9y ago
  It's Hacker News, where everything is somehow free speech and if you disagree with extremist conservatism, you're the enemy! /sarcasm In all seriousness though, HN has an echo chamber, it's the inverse of Reddit. Reddit and HN function very similarly with their voting systems, and everyone knows Reddit is an extreme-left shithole, but HN is getting more conservative, I've definitely seen a lot more comments that are low-effort and look like they could be from T_D now that Reddit is banning a fuck-ton of them for brigading. Give it a few years and I guarantee this becomes T_Dv2 (or at least a lot more like /pol/).
  - LV-426 9y ago
    Yes, it's sad that while so much is discouraged here, far-right/racist comments or voting by certain users is tolerated. Seems like I have at least one such user following me around now, downvoting my comments (my anti-racist comments anyway) in different threads. We'll see if they anonymously announce themselves with this post too. Edit: And right on cue, the test produces a result: mere minutes after making this post - two more downvotes, including a post already downvoted. So either someone is keeping themselves awake 24/7 to religiously reload a dead thread, or my comments page, using multiple accounts to downvote (which while completely insane is still flattering), or it's a bot with no limit (for reasons that can only be guessed at) that checks for new posts and downvotes automatically. (Perhaps more tests are needed, I can then write a Medium and submit the results here.) Either way it's an interestingly hostile response to someone commenting about far-right/racist users at Hackernews.

matthewmacleod 9y ago

I completely agree with you. The underlying reason is that students love to be “edgy” and “controversial” - part of the experience of student politics sure enough, but maybe lacking some wisdom.

PrimHelios 9y ago
I think that edgy and controversial attitude is why colleges should let students have debate clubs, or clubs where students with differing opinions can hash things out calmly. A speaker, on the other hand, is not spreading a different viewpoint, it's putting a viewpoint above every other viewpoint. Forcing unis to allow conservative speakers under a threat of a fine is the government literally enforcing a viewpoint in a way that indoctrinates students. I'm a left-leaning centrist libertarian socialist, and I'd have no problem going to talks presented by far-left or far-right speakers, but a talk given by someone saying I'm subhuman, deserve to be raped, or should be killed for who I am? That's fucked up. The government shouldn't be forcing colleges to allow speakers spouting that kind of thing. If this was the government trying to enforce and NPR-style "no political bias" rule for public colleges, that would be awesome, but this isn't what's going on. The first paragraph of the article makes it clear they want to force colleges to let transphobes speak. Hell, the article itself even seems to have a huge bias for this law, juxtaposing shitty beliefs with left-wing beliefs to push a narrative: "Asked about cases where students had tried to deny speaking slots to Tatchell, a gay rights campaigner, and Greer, a feminist writer, over their views on transgender issues".

observation 9y ago

> Why is it perfectly fine to give platforms to people spouting Nazi talking points, or transphobia/homophobia/racism, but the minorities those people are saying should be killed aren't given anywhere near as high a platform by universities? You've provided an objective benchmark. Please list the occasions this has happened. I have yet to hear a political leader say that. I think you might find those people under Youtube comment sections and on 4chan but I've yet to hear of "kill minority x" as a part of somebody's platform. I don't think you're going to be able to find anybody who isn't obscure to the point other far rightists haven't heard of him. Leftists and Rightists interpret the same information completely differently sometimes, when Donald Trump was an anti-Semite, unquestionably, I remember that. I have a follow up question. What do you make of this: https://twitter.com/douglaskmurray/status/616194188489682944 https://twitter.com/douglaskmurray/status/616194188489682944 Douglas Murray claims genuine terrorists, people who have been arrested for plotting to murder people, have been lecturing inside a year in UK colleges, it looks like 20 of them have been arrested or killed fighting in Syria and another 80+ are affiliated. "Last year, there were 123 speeches by extremists, which featured claims such as 'the West is waging a war against Islam'. There were also 145 events in 2013 and 132 in 2012. While the far Right hosted a handful of events, the lists were overwhelmingly dominated by Islamic speakers." It appears to me that the shoe is quite on the other foot when presented with this information.

PrimHelios 9y ago
>Please list the occasions this has happened. Milo Yiannopoulos advocates for practices that would literally kill people, in addition to advocating for pedophilia and getting very close to Nazi talking points. >Leftists and Rightists interpret the same information completely differently Good thing I'm a centrist. >What do you make of this: Completely irrelevant. This has nothing to do with what we're talking about. However, I feel just the same as allowing right-wing extremists.
- observation 9y ago
  > Milo Yiannopoulos advocates for practices that would literally kill people, in addition to advocating for pedophilia and getting very close to Nazi talking points. You should be able to post some links illustrating this. I expect he says a lot of things that sound like that but which really aren't on closer inspection. Traditionally the political wings produce fan fiction of the other side and heavily paraphrase whatever the other side says. Are you aware that Milo Yiannopoulos does not claim to be on the far right and they don't think he is either? His political orientation is best described troll-wing.

LV-426 9y ago

I've seen some strange downvoting here, but what's this about? They simply argue that hate speakers should not be given as much time as their targets/potential victims/people not advocating hate, and their post is virtually white. And none of the people who downvoted put their name to it by making an argument/reply/rebuttal.

LV-426 9y ago
Hah. The pro hate-speech brigade are trying to bury my free-speech now, but still too spineless and (quite rightly) ashamed to put their names to it.
PrimHelios 9y ago
It's Hacker News, where everything is somehow free speech and if you disagree with extremist conservatism, you're the enemy! /sarcasm In all seriousness though, HN has an echo chamber, it's the inverse of Reddit. Reddit and HN function very similarly with their voting systems, and everyone knows Reddit is an extreme-left shithole, but HN is getting more conservative, I've definitely seen a lot more comments that are low-effort and look like they could be from T_D now that Reddit is banning a fuck-ton of them for brigading. Give it a few years and I guarantee this becomes T_Dv2 (or at least a lot more like /pol/).
- LV-426 9y ago
  Yes, it's sad that while so much is discouraged here, far-right/racist comments or voting by certain users is tolerated. Seems like I have at least one such user following me around now, downvoting my comments (my anti-racist comments anyway) in different threads. We'll see if they anonymously announce themselves with this post too. Edit: And right on cue, the test produces a result: mere minutes after making this post - two more downvotes, including a post already downvoted. So either someone is keeping themselves awake 24/7 to religiously reload a dead thread, or my comments page, using multiple accounts to downvote (which while completely insane is still flattering), or it's a bot with no limit (for reasons that can only be guessed at) that checks for new posts and downvotes automatically. (Perhaps more tests are needed, I can then write a Medium and submit the results here.) Either way it's an interestingly hostile response to someone commenting about far-right/racist users at Hackernews.