5 ms·

> But, I think unrestricted speech may be an insufficient value It looks like you are imagining that every speech has objective "value" which can be determined

by smsm42 9y ago

> But, I think unrestricted speech may be an insufficient value It looks like you are imagining that every speech has objective "value" which can be determined (maybe it's hard to do, but if we throw enough "big data" magic dust onto it we can get at least close) and then somehow speech can be sorted by value. I think it's completely wrong from the premise up. The value of the speech is a subjective measure. Some people value invitation of candidate X, some people value rants of Ms Y. In fact, if salaries of talk radio hosts and late night comedians tell us something, way more people value rants than measured, polite discussion. Thus I think "value" exists only in the eye of beholder, and trying to objectify it would only mean dismissing the values of part of the audience and emphasizing values of some other part of the audience. I can see why a site may want to do it and why one may want it to happen, if he or she happens to belong to the latter part, but I see no real justification for it.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
> Thus I think "value" exists only in the eye of beholder, and trying to objectify it would only mean dismissing the values of part of the audience and emphasizing values of some other part of the audience. And yet we need to do it. As you observed, "way more people value rants than measured, polite discussion", and I'd claim that this is a problem. The "value" may be subjective, but the consequences of both "kinds of speech" are real, and so it would be great to incentivize the kind that leads to a more stable, more just society, and disincentivize the one that causes thoughtless destruction. Yes, I'm aware that "disincentivize" is getting dangerously close to "ban", but I feel we need to try and walk that fine line, if we want to have a society that's better than just random.
- hnuser1234 9y ago
  What if I don't believe in trying to control people at such a low level? What if I think people should be allowed to be as ranty as they want without having to worry about being "disincentivized"?
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Then I'd like to talk with you, see if you have an alternative way of keeping the society from self-destructing.
    - hnuser1234 9y ago
      So we've got desires to identify with groups, and we've got desires to share criticisms of groups, and we struggle to find a balance. If we never criticize, we stagnate, if we never identify, we "self-destruct". We can come up with a "quick solution" as the notion of keeping more of our criticisms to ourselves, but that's certainly not a goal you want to pursue overzealously. You need to be able to share criticisms. We can tell people it's not attractive to be ranty, but I'm not very comfortable going further than that, at the risk of wandering into thought policing. Look at some modern political opinion, I'm sure you've seen it as much as me. Ranting is cool. Calling everything under the sun "problematic". The tricky thing is it's not always wrong. There's surely a nearly infinite list of "problems" one could identify, and some of them are truly important. But we just need to turn down the heat on the criticism for just a second. But you can't just ask bipartisans to listen to each other more. We need to make it less cool to be blindly partisan. We need to increase the value of being able to identify with anyone. And we need to make it really uncool to judge hundreds of millions of people you've never met with deep assumptions. I don't know, it's an interesting problem and I haven't thought of it this way very much. All I'm sure of is that this growing lack of interest in protecting free speech is about the only topic in modern politics that I give a shit about.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        > We can tell people it's not attractive to be ranty, but I'm not very comfortable going further than that, at the risk of wandering into thought policing. I don't want to see it going much further than that either. I was thinking more along the lines of making it so being thoughtful is "sexy" and being ranty isn't, the way today owning a car is "sexy" and smoking isn't. Free speech has its positive and negative consequences on stability and happiness; I do not want to fight free speech, I'm looking for ways to reduce the negative consequences. I'll protect your (and mine) right to rant about whatever you want, but I sure as hell would like the general policy discussion to involve less rants and more thoughtful cooperation.
- smsm42 9y ago
  > And yet we need to do it Who are "we"? And what is "it"? Do you just take on yourself the mantle of decider for the whole world who is worthy and who is not? Or how is it determined? Who is worthy to wear that mantle? I don't think any human is. > I'd claim that this is a problem Maybe human nature is a "problem". But what you're going to do, replace humanity with better species? Do you have one in mind? Beyond that, I don't see how declaring it "a problem" helps anything, unless there's a fix to this problem. History teaches me that all attempts to create a "new, better human race" didn't just end badly - they ended so awfully terrible that when people point at it, other people get offended that you dare to compare their ideas to that. So, we have to deal with what we have now - and had for millienia. Given what we did with it - well, not ideal, but certainly there have been some improvement. > it would be great to incentivize the kind that leads to a more stable, more just society How do you know what leads to more just society? Maybe rants would lead to more just society faster? As for stability, stability is only good when we're at the optimum. Are we? > I feel we need to try and walk that fine line, if we want to have a society that's better than just random. Which fine line? Everybody has their own fine line, that's the point. You could maybe find a bunch of people whose fine line is similar to your own, if you don't look too far into the future (and if you do, what you get is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4) - but pretending there's some line that's good for everybody is just willful blindness. And out of all possible ways of building a better society, I don't think dismissing people that have different views as something that doesn't matter is the best one to start with.
  - projektir 9y ago
    This post is basically saying the problem is not worth looking at because it's too scary...
    - smsm42 9y ago
      No it is not. It's saying if you're looking at something as if your private point of view is objective reality and dismissing the very existence of other points then the problem may not be where you looking for it.

by smsm42 9y ago

TeMPOraL 9y ago

> Thus I think "value" exists only in the eye of beholder, and trying to objectify it would only mean dismissing the values of part of the audience and emphasizing values of some other part of the audience. And yet we need to do it. As you observed, "way more people value rants than measured, polite discussion", and I'd claim that this is a problem. The "value" may be subjective, but the consequences of both "kinds of speech" are real, and so it would be great to incentivize the kind that leads to a more stable, more just society, and disincentivize the one that causes thoughtless destruction. Yes, I'm aware that "disincentivize" is getting dangerously close to "ban", but I feel we need to try and walk that fine line, if we want to have a society that's better than just random.

hnuser1234 9y ago
What if I don't believe in trying to control people at such a low level? What if I think people should be allowed to be as ranty as they want without having to worry about being "disincentivized"?
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Then I'd like to talk with you, see if you have an alternative way of keeping the society from self-destructing.
  - hnuser1234 9y ago
    So we've got desires to identify with groups, and we've got desires to share criticisms of groups, and we struggle to find a balance. If we never criticize, we stagnate, if we never identify, we "self-destruct". We can come up with a "quick solution" as the notion of keeping more of our criticisms to ourselves, but that's certainly not a goal you want to pursue overzealously. You need to be able to share criticisms. We can tell people it's not attractive to be ranty, but I'm not very comfortable going further than that, at the risk of wandering into thought policing. Look at some modern political opinion, I'm sure you've seen it as much as me. Ranting is cool. Calling everything under the sun "problematic". The tricky thing is it's not always wrong. There's surely a nearly infinite list of "problems" one could identify, and some of them are truly important. But we just need to turn down the heat on the criticism for just a second. But you can't just ask bipartisans to listen to each other more. We need to make it less cool to be blindly partisan. We need to increase the value of being able to identify with anyone. And we need to make it really uncool to judge hundreds of millions of people you've never met with deep assumptions. I don't know, it's an interesting problem and I haven't thought of it this way very much. All I'm sure of is that this growing lack of interest in protecting free speech is about the only topic in modern politics that I give a shit about.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      > We can tell people it's not attractive to be ranty, but I'm not very comfortable going further than that, at the risk of wandering into thought policing. I don't want to see it going much further than that either. I was thinking more along the lines of making it so being thoughtful is "sexy" and being ranty isn't, the way today owning a car is "sexy" and smoking isn't. Free speech has its positive and negative consequences on stability and happiness; I do not want to fight free speech, I'm looking for ways to reduce the negative consequences. I'll protect your (and mine) right to rant about whatever you want, but I sure as hell would like the general policy discussion to involve less rants and more thoughtful cooperation.
smsm42 9y ago
> And yet we need to do it Who are "we"? And what is "it"? Do you just take on yourself the mantle of decider for the whole world who is worthy and who is not? Or how is it determined? Who is worthy to wear that mantle? I don't think any human is. > I'd claim that this is a problem Maybe human nature is a "problem". But what you're going to do, replace humanity with better species? Do you have one in mind? Beyond that, I don't see how declaring it "a problem" helps anything, unless there's a fix to this problem. History teaches me that all attempts to create a "new, better human race" didn't just end badly - they ended so awfully terrible that when people point at it, other people get offended that you dare to compare their ideas to that. So, we have to deal with what we have now - and had for millienia. Given what we did with it - well, not ideal, but certainly there have been some improvement. > it would be great to incentivize the kind that leads to a more stable, more just society How do you know what leads to more just society? Maybe rants would lead to more just society faster? As for stability, stability is only good when we're at the optimum. Are we? > I feel we need to try and walk that fine line, if we want to have a society that's better than just random. Which fine line? Everybody has their own fine line, that's the point. You could maybe find a bunch of people whose fine line is similar to your own, if you don't look too far into the future (and if you do, what you get is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4) - but pretending there's some line that's good for everybody is just willful blindness. And out of all possible ways of building a better society, I don't think dismissing people that have different views as something that doesn't matter is the best one to start with.
- projektir 9y ago
  This post is basically saying the problem is not worth looking at because it's too scary...
  - smsm42 9y ago
    No it is not. It's saying if you're looking at something as if your private point of view is objective reality and dismissing the very existence of other points then the problem may not be where you looking for it.