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> Given a diverse enough population, your beliefs are almost certain to already be offensive to some sub group That is some top notch rationalization of hatefu

> Given a diverse enough population, your beliefs are almost certain to already be offensive to some sub group That is some top notch rationalization of hateful and racist speech and such a reductionist view of the issue. Let’s maybe take a step back and consider the reasons -why- someone may find a belief offensive rather than making some blanket statement about the issue. Let’s also consider that being offended by racism is not the same thing as being offended by someone calling you out for being racist.

davidivadavid 8y ago
It sounds like the sentence you're quoting is the one taking a step back, while you're reasoning from a very limited set of issues.
shawn 8y ago
Here’s an example. I think it’s not necessarily a good idea to encourage children to take puberty blockers, if they do any kind of irreversible effects. (I don’t know whether it’s reversible or not.) Is this hate speech? Some would say that it oppresses people who are just trying to raise their children how they see fit. It’s certainly ignorant, since I haven’t done the research to know how to feel. But that’s partly the point. It’s a tricky issue. But I’ve seen people get banned for less. A few decades ago, it wasn’t ok to say that gay people shouldn’t be shunned.
- pjc50 8y ago
  "Encourage" is a tremendously loaded word here, since you're making it sound like someone's trying to get them to try heroin, while a more neutral presentation would be "receive medical treatment prescribed by doctor in response to their psychological distress". > oppresses people who are just trying to raise their children how they see fit. I usually see this phrase in the context of people opposed to bans on smacking children... (I don't think either counts as hate speech as written, BTW, but similar things phrased more vehemently in a different context might.)
iamdave 8y ago
The quote doesn't seem even slightly remarkably contentious or incendiary, but you've somehow managed to make some sort of value statement about what was said and immediately made the association that the writer is rationalizing hatred for stating a pretty tame quantitative opinion. You've also described the quote as a 'reductionist view of the issue'. What issue? The decentralized archiving of content that some in a specific group of a certain segment of online denizens have deemed objectionable? Isn't this just proving exactly the point of the quote you're taking issue with? Where is the rationalization? How did you come to this conclusion? I'm curious what that logic ladder may look like.
- finaliteration 8y ago
  In the context of the article and other footnotes, it seems like the implication is, “someone is always going to be offended therefore we can’t label some things legitimately offensive and others not”. It’s a form of linguistic nihilism that comes up a lot during discussions about how “PC” things have become. The racism comment is an example and not necessarily directly targeted at the article, but more at what’s implied given the context (e.g. the comment about The NY Times article having the race changed from “white” to “black”).
  - iamdave 8y ago
    It’s a form of linguistic nihilism that comes up a lot during discussions about how “PC” things have become. And so your first response to engage this is to immediately play political-word-association and tie this service up with the worst elements of the "PC" divide, because of how some other groups, not even involved in the discussion right now, deploy bad-faith debate tactics? That doesn't seem at all any more helpful than whatever it is you're portending to have an issue with, at the core of a service like this.
white-flame 8y ago
You do seem to agree that the severity & background behind offensiveness is complex and subjective. Banning is binary, and so it never maps fully accurately to such complexity, especially when similarly complex/subjective humans and weak AI systems are involved. Obviously, the list of banned content will contain a complex spectrum of offensiveness, including some really blatant stuff but also some where the banning is very questionable or inconsistent with respect to that which was not banned. It is the latter which is most interesting to preserve and study, but cannot be mechanically separated from the former, citing the original problem of who to ban in the first place.
- finaliteration 8y ago
  > You do seem to agree that the severity & background behind offensiveness is complex and subjective. Banning is binary, and so it never maps fully accurately to such complexity, especially when similarly complex/subjective humans and weak AI systems are involved. I do agree with that. It’s not so much a commentary on my part about banning, but moreso about how the service is being presented given that sentence and the context around it. People shouldn’t be banned for absolutely any reason, but that doesn’t mean banning shouldn’t ever happen because “people will always find something offensive” (which is what seems to be implied by that particular footnote - though I could be wrong). The total relativism about speech and offensiveness is the thing with which I take issue.
  - white-flame 8y ago
    Nowhere in any of this is anybody saying "banning shouldn't ever happen". The only point presented is that banning is by nature a judgment call and the goalposts change over time. The primary implication is that the corpus of banned content includes generally agreeably banned content, arguably banned content, and a record of historical shifts in bannability.
    - finaliteration 8y ago
      > Nowhere in any of this is anybody saying "banning shouldn't ever happen". That's fair. I absolutely acknowledge that my emotional response is making me get ahead of myself (I have an axe to grind with linguistic and moral relativism in general) and my apologies for not crafting the most reasonable arguments, here. And don't get me wrong, I don't think the service is at all a bad idea. I just think that it could have been presented without falling back on the "Someone will always find something offensive and hate your label" comment.

davidivadavid 8y ago

It sounds like the sentence you're quoting is the one taking a step back, while you're reasoning from a very limited set of issues.

shawn 8y ago

Here’s an example. I think it’s not necessarily a good idea to encourage children to take puberty blockers, if they do any kind of irreversible effects. (I don’t know whether it’s reversible or not.) Is this hate speech? Some would say that it oppresses people who are just trying to raise their children how they see fit. It’s certainly ignorant, since I haven’t done the research to know how to feel. But that’s partly the point. It’s a tricky issue. But I’ve seen people get banned for less. A few decades ago, it wasn’t ok to say that gay people shouldn’t be shunned.

pjc50 8y ago
"Encourage" is a tremendously loaded word here, since you're making it sound like someone's trying to get them to try heroin, while a more neutral presentation would be "receive medical treatment prescribed by doctor in response to their psychological distress". > oppresses people who are just trying to raise their children how they see fit. I usually see this phrase in the context of people opposed to bans on smacking children... (I don't think either counts as hate speech as written, BTW, but similar things phrased more vehemently in a different context might.)

iamdave 8y ago

The quote doesn't seem even slightly remarkably contentious or incendiary, but you've somehow managed to make some sort of value statement about what was said and immediately made the association that the writer is rationalizing hatred for stating a pretty tame quantitative opinion. You've also described the quote as a 'reductionist view of the issue'. What issue? The decentralized archiving of content that some in a specific group of a certain segment of online denizens have deemed objectionable? Isn't this just proving exactly the point of the quote you're taking issue with? Where is the rationalization? How did you come to this conclusion? I'm curious what that logic ladder may look like.

finaliteration 8y ago
In the context of the article and other footnotes, it seems like the implication is, “someone is always going to be offended therefore we can’t label some things legitimately offensive and others not”. It’s a form of linguistic nihilism that comes up a lot during discussions about how “PC” things have become. The racism comment is an example and not necessarily directly targeted at the article, but more at what’s implied given the context (e.g. the comment about The NY Times article having the race changed from “white” to “black”).
- iamdave 8y ago
  It’s a form of linguistic nihilism that comes up a lot during discussions about how “PC” things have become. And so your first response to engage this is to immediately play political-word-association and tie this service up with the worst elements of the "PC" divide, because of how some other groups, not even involved in the discussion right now, deploy bad-faith debate tactics? That doesn't seem at all any more helpful than whatever it is you're portending to have an issue with, at the core of a service like this.

white-flame 8y ago

You do seem to agree that the severity & background behind offensiveness is complex and subjective. Banning is binary, and so it never maps fully accurately to such complexity, especially when similarly complex/subjective humans and weak AI systems are involved. Obviously, the list of banned content will contain a complex spectrum of offensiveness, including some really blatant stuff but also some where the banning is very questionable or inconsistent with respect to that which was not banned. It is the latter which is most interesting to preserve and study, but cannot be mechanically separated from the former, citing the original problem of who to ban in the first place.

finaliteration 8y ago
> You do seem to agree that the severity & background behind offensiveness is complex and subjective. Banning is binary, and so it never maps fully accurately to such complexity, especially when similarly complex/subjective humans and weak AI systems are involved. I do agree with that. It’s not so much a commentary on my part about banning, but moreso about how the service is being presented given that sentence and the context around it. People shouldn’t be banned for absolutely any reason, but that doesn’t mean banning shouldn’t ever happen because “people will always find something offensive” (which is what seems to be implied by that particular footnote - though I could be wrong). The total relativism about speech and offensiveness is the thing with which I take issue.
- white-flame 8y ago
  Nowhere in any of this is anybody saying "banning shouldn't ever happen". The only point presented is that banning is by nature a judgment call and the goalposts change over time. The primary implication is that the corpus of banned content includes generally agreeably banned content, arguably banned content, and a record of historical shifts in bannability.
  - finaliteration 8y ago
    > Nowhere in any of this is anybody saying "banning shouldn't ever happen". That's fair. I absolutely acknowledge that my emotional response is making me get ahead of myself (I have an axe to grind with linguistic and moral relativism in general) and my apologies for not crafting the most reasonable arguments, here. And don't get me wrong, I don't think the service is at all a bad idea. I just think that it could have been presented without falling back on the "Someone will always find something offensive and hate your label" comment.