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I don’t usually post here (more interested in the articles than the discourse over them), but this is something that really resonated with me. To paraphrase Car

I don’t usually post here (more interested in the articles than the discourse over them), but this is something that really resonated with me. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, the suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of engineering. We don’t know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our disciplines. The history of the study of engineering shows us clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often insufficient for the changing future, and that fundamental insights into new possibilities can arise from the most unexpected sources. All of us are entitled to our opinions on the healthiness of the Commons Clause, but if history has taught us anything, censoring the mere _idea_ of it for being in conflict with one’s personal ideology is the greater injustice, and will accomplish nothing in the long run. Might its adoption hurt some people? Maybe. Might it help some people? Also maybe. But shooting it down before it has the chance to do either feels wrong.

_jal 8y ago
> censoring the mere _idea_ Nobody is censoring anything, in either a precise or a fuzzy sense[1]. Conflating criticism and censorship is (a) a category error, (b) a really pernicious notion, and (c) confuses people and derails discourse. A core principle of free speech is that the answer to bad speech is more speech. Mislabeling criticism censorship attempts to delegitimize that answer, and thus paradoxically attacking the very notion purportedly being defended. Please don't do that. [1] Insert private-citizens-cannot-censor distinction here beside an acknowledgment that the word is used informally with wider applicability.
- da_chicken 8y ago
  > [1] Insert private-citizens-cannot-censor distinction here beside an acknowledgment that the word is used informally with wider applicability. That's not "usage" that's wider applicability, it's accuracy. You are no less censored if your boss threatens your livelihood than if your government threatens your freedom or Twitter bans your account. Tyranny is tyranny, and censorship is censorship. No matter the cause for a voice to be excluded from public discourse, it's exclusion is censorship. The only distinction is that government censorship is explicitly illegal under the United States Constitution. Nevertheless, the First Amendment is not a comprehensive definition of censorship nor is the Bill of Rights a complete expression of all human rights. If you want something that's closer to one of those, please refer to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights[1]. The concept of censorship as well as the ideals free expression, freedom and liberty extend well beyond the scope of a mere government law or institution. No, not all censorship is illegal. The state can't make all censorship illegal because that power is too easily abused -- you yourself are discussing the difference between criticism and censorship right here. However, we should not mistake the wisdom of proscribing our government from acting as judge over free expression as a unique or defining characteristic of what it means to censor or silence another's right to free expression. [1]: http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
  - lodi 8y ago
    > You are no less censored if your boss threatens your livelihood than if your government threatens your freedom or Twitter bans your account. Of course I'm less censored by my boss than by my government. My boss doesn't have a monopoly on my potential sources of income, but my government does have a monopoly on my citizenship; I simply can't move to another country without the permission of both governments. My boss can't persuade me with anything but a temporary lack of income; my government can (legally!) persuade me with a long list of effective arguments, ultimately ending in a gun barrel.
    - da_chicken 8y ago
      If you're vaporized in an nuclear explosion, are you more or less dead than if you suffer an aortic dissection? No. You're still dead. If the government threatens you with political imprisonment, are you more or less silent than if your boss threatens you with termination and legal proceedings? No. You're still unable to voice your opinion. Don't mistake the amount of power brought to bear to coerce with the outcome of acquiescence. Dead is dead. Silent is silent. The ideal of free speech says that restricting the flow of ideas is harmful and immoral in and of itself. Yes, we need additional protection against government tyranny. That's why it is illegal. But "it's not against the Constitution" doesn't make an action right or just. "It's not illegal according to the Constitution" is perhaps the weakest defense I can possibly think of. If that's the best thing you can say about your actions, you're not really endorsing yourself. Congratulations. You haven't done something so stupendously wrong that we wrote it down a couple hundred years ago and made everybody working in one country's government promise not to do it anymore. If we're to judge you by the strictest letter of a document explicitly intended to proscribe one government's power, you're doing great. And we just nevermind that if you were acting on behalf of the government, it would be illegal? We just ignore the ideal of free speech in lieu of a single embodiment of it? It's like a CS student saying, "It doesn't segfault on compile. I deserve an A." Well, not segfaulting during compile is the bare minimum. Well done. You wrote a program that's syntactically valid and results in a binary output file. It might be incorrect, it might be insecure, it might be buggy, it might be incomplete, it might be less efficient than bogosort, it might perform trivial work, it might even be completely useless, but at least it does so within the basic rules of the OS! You managed not to do something illegal. That doesn't mean you're doing something right.
- wrs 8y ago
  Normally I’d agree, but in fact this post is not just criticism, it’s a demand for self-censorship. That is, stop talking about this, and don’t ever talk about it again. >The only solution is to bury the Common Clause project. Kill the website and GitHub repository, and we can try to forget this ever happened.
  - mindcrime 8y ago
    Having made a similar comment myself, I feel pretty confident in saying that that is mostly just intentional hyperbole, used to emphasize the seriousness of the issue. Although the OP of the bit you quoted there may choose to disagree. Personally I'm not advocating any kind of "censorship", self or otherwise, in any literal sense. But I do want everyone to understand the extent to which I think this "clause" is an abomination and a threat to the entire Open Source movement.
  - binomialxenon 8y ago
    I don't think it's about censorship so much as it's thinking ahead and realizing how huge of a threat this clause could be towards free software. The author is (IMO, rightly) concerned about this and wants to limit how much damage is caused by it.
    - ummonk 8y ago
      That's pretty much the driving force behind all censorship - thinking ahead and realizing how huge of a threat the information in question is.
  - fasquoika 8y ago
    That still isn't censorship, or even anything approaching censorship, because the author has no power to actually do those things. It's still just a suggestion, albeit a pretty strongly worded one
    - wrs 8y ago
      That's why I said "self-censorship". Basically, not just criticizing (that's more speech), but to tell the person who disagrees that they need to stop talking.
mindcrime 8y ago
It's not being "censored". A lot of us are just saying it's a fucking stupid idea, that's all.
opportune 8y ago
Get off your free speech soapbox, nobody is saying that this person has no right to discuss this idea, we are just saying it is a terrible idea. This is a ridiculous non-argument
- dang 8y ago
  Personal swipes and name-calling will get you banned here. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting to HN, we'd appreciate it.

_jal 8y ago

> censoring the mere _idea_ Nobody is censoring anything, in either a precise or a fuzzy sense[1]. Conflating criticism and censorship is (a) a category error, (b) a really pernicious notion, and (c) confuses people and derails discourse. A core principle of free speech is that the answer to bad speech is more speech. Mislabeling criticism censorship attempts to delegitimize that answer, and thus paradoxically attacking the very notion purportedly being defended. Please don't do that. [1] Insert private-citizens-cannot-censor distinction here beside an acknowledgment that the word is used informally with wider applicability.

da_chicken 8y ago
> [1] Insert private-citizens-cannot-censor distinction here beside an acknowledgment that the word is used informally with wider applicability. That's not "usage" that's wider applicability, it's accuracy. You are no less censored if your boss threatens your livelihood than if your government threatens your freedom or Twitter bans your account. Tyranny is tyranny, and censorship is censorship. No matter the cause for a voice to be excluded from public discourse, it's exclusion is censorship. The only distinction is that government censorship is explicitly illegal under the United States Constitution. Nevertheless, the First Amendment is not a comprehensive definition of censorship nor is the Bill of Rights a complete expression of all human rights. If you want something that's closer to one of those, please refer to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights[1]. The concept of censorship as well as the ideals free expression, freedom and liberty extend well beyond the scope of a mere government law or institution. No, not all censorship is illegal. The state can't make all censorship illegal because that power is too easily abused -- you yourself are discussing the difference between criticism and censorship right here. However, we should not mistake the wisdom of proscribing our government from acting as judge over free expression as a unique or defining characteristic of what it means to censor or silence another's right to free expression. [1]: http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
- lodi 8y ago
  > You are no less censored if your boss threatens your livelihood than if your government threatens your freedom or Twitter bans your account. Of course I'm less censored by my boss than by my government. My boss doesn't have a monopoly on my potential sources of income, but my government does have a monopoly on my citizenship; I simply can't move to another country without the permission of both governments. My boss can't persuade me with anything but a temporary lack of income; my government can (legally!) persuade me with a long list of effective arguments, ultimately ending in a gun barrel.
  - da_chicken 8y ago
    If you're vaporized in an nuclear explosion, are you more or less dead than if you suffer an aortic dissection? No. You're still dead. If the government threatens you with political imprisonment, are you more or less silent than if your boss threatens you with termination and legal proceedings? No. You're still unable to voice your opinion. Don't mistake the amount of power brought to bear to coerce with the outcome of acquiescence. Dead is dead. Silent is silent. The ideal of free speech says that restricting the flow of ideas is harmful and immoral in and of itself. Yes, we need additional protection against government tyranny. That's why it is illegal. But "it's not against the Constitution" doesn't make an action right or just. "It's not illegal according to the Constitution" is perhaps the weakest defense I can possibly think of. If that's the best thing you can say about your actions, you're not really endorsing yourself. Congratulations. You haven't done something so stupendously wrong that we wrote it down a couple hundred years ago and made everybody working in one country's government promise not to do it anymore. If we're to judge you by the strictest letter of a document explicitly intended to proscribe one government's power, you're doing great. And we just nevermind that if you were acting on behalf of the government, it would be illegal? We just ignore the ideal of free speech in lieu of a single embodiment of it? It's like a CS student saying, "It doesn't segfault on compile. I deserve an A." Well, not segfaulting during compile is the bare minimum. Well done. You wrote a program that's syntactically valid and results in a binary output file. It might be incorrect, it might be insecure, it might be buggy, it might be incomplete, it might be less efficient than bogosort, it might perform trivial work, it might even be completely useless, but at least it does so within the basic rules of the OS! You managed not to do something illegal. That doesn't mean you're doing something right.
wrs 8y ago
Normally I’d agree, but in fact this post is not just criticism, it’s a demand for self-censorship. That is, stop talking about this, and don’t ever talk about it again. >The only solution is to bury the Common Clause project. Kill the website and GitHub repository, and we can try to forget this ever happened.
- mindcrime 8y ago
  Having made a similar comment myself, I feel pretty confident in saying that that is mostly just intentional hyperbole, used to emphasize the seriousness of the issue. Although the OP of the bit you quoted there may choose to disagree. Personally I'm not advocating any kind of "censorship", self or otherwise, in any literal sense. But I do want everyone to understand the extent to which I think this "clause" is an abomination and a threat to the entire Open Source movement.
- binomialxenon 8y ago
  I don't think it's about censorship so much as it's thinking ahead and realizing how huge of a threat this clause could be towards free software. The author is (IMO, rightly) concerned about this and wants to limit how much damage is caused by it.
  - ummonk 8y ago
    That's pretty much the driving force behind all censorship - thinking ahead and realizing how huge of a threat the information in question is.
- fasquoika 8y ago
  That still isn't censorship, or even anything approaching censorship, because the author has no power to actually do those things. It's still just a suggestion, albeit a pretty strongly worded one
  - wrs 8y ago
    That's why I said "self-censorship". Basically, not just criticizing (that's more speech), but to tell the person who disagrees that they need to stop talking.

mindcrime 8y ago

It's not being "censored". A lot of us are just saying it's a fucking stupid idea, that's all.

opportune 8y ago

Get off your free speech soapbox, nobody is saying that this person has no right to discuss this idea, we are just saying it is a terrible idea. This is a ridiculous non-argument

dang 8y ago
Personal swipes and name-calling will get you banned here. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting to HN, we'd appreciate it.