6 ms·

Free speech absolutism misses the forest for the trees. Free speech isn't the Ur-state of a just society, it's a means to an end, and the end is the reduction o

Free speech absolutism misses the forest for the trees. Free speech isn't the Ur-state of a just society, it's a means to an end, and the end is the reduction of suffering. When free speech reduces suffering, it's a good tool and should be applied. When free speech increases suffering -- and there can be no doubt that G*b increases suffering -- then it's inappropriate. Consequently, this is a Bad Post, and a really Bad Look, from Epik.

s9w 8y ago
> and there can be no doubt that G*b increases suffering It's a free speech platform - nothing else. You could make similar and even more convincing arguments against facebook, twitter, bread, sugar, smoking, etc...
- sagichmal 8y ago
  > It's a free speech platform - nothing else. First, it's not "nothing [more than] a free speech platform", the owner himself promotes on Twitter the anti-semitic and hate-driven propaganda that defines G-b's archetypal demographic. Second, in society, at the macro scale, we judge things by their consequence, not their intent. If G-b was a "free speech platform" that only made the news when it put on a three-day symposium for the re-assessment of building height regulations in eastern seaboard urban centers (i.e. actual political positions) then nobody would have any issue with hosting them. But that's not what they are, their effect on society is not benign, and society is correct and just to judge and react to their non-benign influence. Absolute tolerance isn't a moral precept, it's a peace treaty for a functioning society. Society has both stake and authority to sequester those who subvert it, or use it in bad faith. In the same way, free speech isn't a moral absolute, it's a means to an end, a tool, useful in some (many!) circumstances, and corruptible in the same way that tolerance can be. Society has both stake and authority to squelch those who abuse it, too.
  - s9w 8y ago
    The owners personal opinions have nothing to do with this. Gab contains things which people like you don't like. Every website contains contents that other people don't like. Gab is nothing special, besides allowing a bit more of the legal spectrum of ideas. Again: Gab a free speech platform - nothing else.
    - sagichmal 8y ago
      > Gab contains things which people like you don't like. “Building heights should be subject to fewer regulations regarding line-of-sight access to green space” is a thing that some people like which I don’t like. Antisemitism is something different in both degree and kind. Putting them into the same bucket, to treat them in the same way, is disingenuous and wrong.
      - pochamago 8y ago
        I don't agree. If I genuinely believed all of the claims made about Jews on sites like Gab,I think it would make a great deal of sense to be anti semitic. And I think that these people genuinely believe the things they write. Within that context it seems fairly clear that the solution is not to feed their persecution complex, but to continually engage with them in the most honest way possible
      - s9w 8y ago
        antisemitism is legal. antisemitism is as much a part of Gab as other "bad" things are part of Twitter or HN.
        sagichmal 8y ago
        > antisemitism is legal We’re not really talking about legal systems, though, we’re talking about ethical systems, and antisemitism is undoubtedly unethical.
Bantros 8y ago
Increases the suffering of who exactly, and by what measure?
manfredo 8y ago
This is reasonable logic at face value, but it fails to account for the fact that many segments of society disagree on what is and is not inflicting suffering on society. Plenty of States seem to think that BLM inflicts suffering, and have attempted to curb it with "Blue Lives Matter" legislation. Some people think that abortion is suffering tantamount to murder. A few have even been willing to commit acts of violence in an attempt to curb it - it's not far fetched to think that many would try and censor pro-choice speech. Saying that we should tolerate speech, except for bad speech is not supporting free speech. Who knows when the censor will decide that your views inflict suffering? If we don't trust a democracy to enact reasonable censorship (outside of narrow cases like issuing credible snd specific threats, breaching classified secrets, etc.) then why should we trust private corporations accountable to no one but their shareholders?
- sagichmal 8y ago
  > This . . . fails to account for the fact that many segments of society disagree on what is and is not inflicting suffering on society. That's fine, we can hash it out. Throwing up our hands at even the concept of ethical judgment is both an abdication of our moral responsibility, and ceding the playing field to the worst among us.
  - db48x 8y ago
    No, your moral responsibility is to counter hate with love, understanding, and education. If all you do is burn any words you don't like then you can't win; all you can do is hide the problem.
    - sagichmal 8y ago
      > If all you do is burn any words you don't like Nobody is burning words. We are collectively stopping inarguably deleterious hate from spreading, by removing the soap box and megaphone. And, "hiding the problem" in this way, de-platforming brokers of hate, does work. Hateful people aren't born, they're bred, and platforms like G*b are how it happens. Your perspective on how to best counter hate is anachronistic and counter-effective.
basic1 8y ago
I'd also say in a healthy society you should be seeing a larger spectrum of ideas and more things you disagree with.
- sagichmal 8y ago
  > I'd also say in a healthy society you should be seeing a larger spectrum of ideas and more things you disagree with. Nothing is gained, by any one or in any sense, by exposure to the idea of (say) antisemitism. I'm not made better or more resilient by seeing it expressed in the open; Jews aren't made better or stronger by having to face it; those who perpetrate it aren't made lesser or more pathetic by having their views "exposed to sunlight". It strictly makes our society worse. We don't need to grit our teeth and endure its presence in deference to the abstract and false optima of "free speech". We can, and indeed are ethically obliged to, recognize it as deleterious to civil society, and use the levers of power that we the people have to quietly, powerfully, and unapologetically say: this is not something that we tolerate.
  - lliamander 8y ago
    But once you ban antisemitism (or racism, sexism, etc.) it becomes possible to censor ideas simply by labeling as such, even when such a label is inappropriate. > We can, and indeed are ethically obliged to, recognize it as deleterious to civil society, and use the levers of power that we the people have to quietly, powerfully, and unapologetically say: this is not something that we tolerate. I suspect that among "we the people" the position you advocate for is in the minority, even among the populations you feel you are protecting.
    - sagichmal 8y ago
      > But once you ban antisemitism (or racism, sexism, etc.) it becomes possible to censor ideas simply by labeling as such, even when such a label is inappropriate. This is transparently specious reasoning, because it can be used without modification to delegitimize any law or restriction. It's OK to say action X is appropriate in context A but not in context B. It's OK to legislate on those differences, even if the difference between A and B is not always perfectly discernable. We can deal with that ambiguity as a species. Not always perfectly, but that's OK. As long as we're always reducing suffering, or trying to, we're making forward progress.
lakerogers 8y ago
It seems to me that using a few isolated incidents to push for widespread censorship and financial excommunication is exactly missing the forest for the trees. Furthermore, even if you think this is a principled stand, how does that justify censoring the discussion itself? Appealing to an axiomatic consensus that this is a "bad post" and a "bad look" is just populism in disguise. There is no doubt that freedom necessarily increases suffering too, as it provides more opportunity for abuse, but we generally accept this, the same way we accept that having a Justice system opens the door to malicious prosecution or perps walking free. It takes a special kind of arrogance to think you can judge adequately what the second and third order effects of a policy will be, and even more arrogance that you know better than centuries of enlightenment values.
- sagichmal 8y ago
  > It seems to me that using a few isolated incidents to push for widespread censorship Nobody is pushing for widespread censorship. We are de-platforming specific sites that breed hate, which is our ethical responsibility as a moral species.
  - wild_preference 8y ago
    Which social media platforms don't breed hate?
  - DuskStar 8y ago
    > Nobody is pushing for widespread censorship. We are de-platforming specific sites that breed hate Excuse me, but what kind of Orwellian doublespeak is this? How is de-platforming sites NOT censorship? And since you seem to want every registrar to join in the de-platforming, how is it not widespread? "Nobody is pushing for genocide. We are removing specific populations that harm society." Or "Nobody is pushing for widespread censorship of birth control methods. We are restricting the distribution of specific material that is harmful to the fabric of society."
    - sagichmal 8y ago
diabhuma 8y ago
The illiberal intolerance of your reply increased my suffering.
- sagichmal 8y ago
  > The illiberal intolerance of your reply increased my suffering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
  - lliamander 8y ago
    > What is tolerance nowadays? Is it a moral virtue in the possessor, or is it a recognition of a necessity arising from an equilibrium of parties? It often seems to me that we speak as if it was the first, when actually it is the second. My liberalism admits to everyone the right to his own opinion and imposes on me the duty of teaching him what is best; but I am by no means sure that that is the genuine conviction of all my liberal friends. French liberalism does not convince me that it is universal. I am not quite sure how Frederick Harrison or Cotter Morrison would deal with me if they were in a majority. The possession of a clear and definite ideal of society seems to me dangerous to its possessors. The Mediaeval Church had such an ideal: the result was the Inquisition, which was generally approved by the common consciousness. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/acton-acton-creighton-correspondence http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/acton-acton-creighton-corr...
  - basic1 8y ago
    Preemptive self-defense, the Bush Doctrine of tolerance.
lliamander 8y ago
Gab's issue (as far as I can tell) is that they have issues curbing explicitly illegal behavior (such threats of violence). But your view on free speech as it relates to suffering is nebulous and myopic. The crux of free speech is this: do we trust people to judge the words and ideas of others for themselves, or do we not? If you believe that you have the capacity (and responsibility) to judge ideas for yourself, then you must grant other people the right to express those ideas.
- sagichmal 8y ago
  > The crux of free speech is this: do we trust people to judge the words and ideas of others for themselves, or do we not? This is a free-speech-centric view of the world, and my claim is that this is (at least) an insufficient, and (at most) the wrong perspective for shaping society. The correct and highest thing to optimize for is not the maximization of free speech, but the minimization of suffering.
  - lliamander 8y ago
    Of course, such calculations of suffering are invariably nebulous and highly subjective. The question is, in your pursuit of the ideal society, will you allow the general population the dignity of their own rational minds? Or will you deny them even that? Every optimization problem has its boundary conditions. Do you know what yours are?
    - sagichmal 8y ago
      > The question is, in your pursuit of the ideal society, will you allow the general population the dignity of their own rational minds? Or will you deny them even that? Stop generalizing and stop grandstanding. I'm not talking about denying human beings autonomy or freedom of mind. I'm talking about de-platforming agents of hate and intolerance. The distance between the latter and the former is the width of an ocean, not a three-foot slippery-slope, and we can (and are ethically obliged to) do things to stop the one without inevitably leading to the other.
frotak 8y ago
In all earnestness I am curious what your definition of "suffering" is. Is your position that there is physical violence that has been done that would not have been done had Gab not been available? If that is your position do you have evidence to support it? Or merely that the propagation of certain ideas is itself a form of "suffering"?
oceanplexian 8y ago
The point of free speech isn't to reduce suffering or make for a more just society (At least in the United States). The point is to protect the natural rights of the individual, and consequently those of minorities, against those of the collective. Not the other way around.

s9w 8y ago

> and there can be no doubt that G*b increases suffering It's a free speech platform - nothing else. You could make similar and even more convincing arguments against facebook, twitter, bread, sugar, smoking, etc...

sagichmal 8y ago
> It's a free speech platform - nothing else. First, it's not "nothing [more than] a free speech platform", the owner himself promotes on Twitter the anti-semitic and hate-driven propaganda that defines G-b's archetypal demographic. Second, in society, at the macro scale, we judge things by their consequence, not their intent. If G-b was a "free speech platform" that only made the news when it put on a three-day symposium for the re-assessment of building height regulations in eastern seaboard urban centers (i.e. actual political positions) then nobody would have any issue with hosting them. But that's not what they are, their effect on society is not benign, and society is correct and just to judge and react to their non-benign influence. Absolute tolerance isn't a moral precept, it's a peace treaty for a functioning society. Society has both stake and authority to sequester those who subvert it, or use it in bad faith. In the same way, free speech isn't a moral absolute, it's a means to an end, a tool, useful in some (many!) circumstances, and corruptible in the same way that tolerance can be. Society has both stake and authority to squelch those who abuse it, too.
- s9w 8y ago
  The owners personal opinions have nothing to do with this. Gab contains things which people like you don't like. Every website contains contents that other people don't like. Gab is nothing special, besides allowing a bit more of the legal spectrum of ideas. Again: Gab a free speech platform - nothing else.
  - sagichmal 8y ago
    > Gab contains things which people like you don't like. “Building heights should be subject to fewer regulations regarding line-of-sight access to green space” is a thing that some people like which I don’t like. Antisemitism is something different in both degree and kind. Putting them into the same bucket, to treat them in the same way, is disingenuous and wrong.
    - pochamago 8y ago
      I don't agree. If I genuinely believed all of the claims made about Jews on sites like Gab,I think it would make a great deal of sense to be anti semitic. And I think that these people genuinely believe the things they write. Within that context it seems fairly clear that the solution is not to feed their persecution complex, but to continually engage with them in the most honest way possible
    - s9w 8y ago
      antisemitism is legal. antisemitism is as much a part of Gab as other "bad" things are part of Twitter or HN.
      - sagichmal 8y ago
        > antisemitism is legal We’re not really talking about legal systems, though, we’re talking about ethical systems, and antisemitism is undoubtedly unethical.

Bantros 8y ago

Increases the suffering of who exactly, and by what measure?

manfredo 8y ago

This is reasonable logic at face value, but it fails to account for the fact that many segments of society disagree on what is and is not inflicting suffering on society. Plenty of States seem to think that BLM inflicts suffering, and have attempted to curb it with "Blue Lives Matter" legislation. Some people think that abortion is suffering tantamount to murder. A few have even been willing to commit acts of violence in an attempt to curb it - it's not far fetched to think that many would try and censor pro-choice speech. Saying that we should tolerate speech, except for bad speech is not supporting free speech. Who knows when the censor will decide that your views inflict suffering? If we don't trust a democracy to enact reasonable censorship (outside of narrow cases like issuing credible snd specific threats, breaching classified secrets, etc.) then why should we trust private corporations accountable to no one but their shareholders?

sagichmal 8y ago
> This . . . fails to account for the fact that many segments of society disagree on what is and is not inflicting suffering on society. That's fine, we can hash it out. Throwing up our hands at even the concept of ethical judgment is both an abdication of our moral responsibility, and ceding the playing field to the worst among us.
- db48x 8y ago
  No, your moral responsibility is to counter hate with love, understanding, and education. If all you do is burn any words you don't like then you can't win; all you can do is hide the problem.
  - sagichmal 8y ago
    > If all you do is burn any words you don't like Nobody is burning words. We are collectively stopping inarguably deleterious hate from spreading, by removing the soap box and megaphone. And, "hiding the problem" in this way, de-platforming brokers of hate, does work. Hateful people aren't born, they're bred, and platforms like G*b are how it happens. Your perspective on how to best counter hate is anachronistic and counter-effective.

basic1 8y ago

I'd also say in a healthy society you should be seeing a larger spectrum of ideas and more things you disagree with.

sagichmal 8y ago
> I'd also say in a healthy society you should be seeing a larger spectrum of ideas and more things you disagree with. Nothing is gained, by any one or in any sense, by exposure to the idea of (say) antisemitism. I'm not made better or more resilient by seeing it expressed in the open; Jews aren't made better or stronger by having to face it; those who perpetrate it aren't made lesser or more pathetic by having their views "exposed to sunlight". It strictly makes our society worse. We don't need to grit our teeth and endure its presence in deference to the abstract and false optima of "free speech". We can, and indeed are ethically obliged to, recognize it as deleterious to civil society, and use the levers of power that we the people have to quietly, powerfully, and unapologetically say: this is not something that we tolerate.
- lliamander 8y ago
  But once you ban antisemitism (or racism, sexism, etc.) it becomes possible to censor ideas simply by labeling as such, even when such a label is inappropriate. > We can, and indeed are ethically obliged to, recognize it as deleterious to civil society, and use the levers of power that we the people have to quietly, powerfully, and unapologetically say: this is not something that we tolerate. I suspect that among "we the people" the position you advocate for is in the minority, even among the populations you feel you are protecting.
  - sagichmal 8y ago
    > But once you ban antisemitism (or racism, sexism, etc.) it becomes possible to censor ideas simply by labeling as such, even when such a label is inappropriate. This is transparently specious reasoning, because it can be used without modification to delegitimize any law or restriction. It's OK to say action X is appropriate in context A but not in context B. It's OK to legislate on those differences, even if the difference between A and B is not always perfectly discernable. We can deal with that ambiguity as a species. Not always perfectly, but that's OK. As long as we're always reducing suffering, or trying to, we're making forward progress.

lakerogers 8y ago

It seems to me that using a few isolated incidents to push for widespread censorship and financial excommunication is exactly missing the forest for the trees. Furthermore, even if you think this is a principled stand, how does that justify censoring the discussion itself? Appealing to an axiomatic consensus that this is a "bad post" and a "bad look" is just populism in disguise. There is no doubt that freedom necessarily increases suffering too, as it provides more opportunity for abuse, but we generally accept this, the same way we accept that having a Justice system opens the door to malicious prosecution or perps walking free. It takes a special kind of arrogance to think you can judge adequately what the second and third order effects of a policy will be, and even more arrogance that you know better than centuries of enlightenment values.

sagichmal 8y ago
> It seems to me that using a few isolated incidents to push for widespread censorship Nobody is pushing for widespread censorship. We are de-platforming specific sites that breed hate, which is our ethical responsibility as a moral species.
- wild_preference 8y ago
  Which social media platforms don't breed hate?
- DuskStar 8y ago
  > Nobody is pushing for widespread censorship. We are de-platforming specific sites that breed hate Excuse me, but what kind of Orwellian doublespeak is this? How is de-platforming sites NOT censorship? And since you seem to want every registrar to join in the de-platforming, how is it not widespread? "Nobody is pushing for genocide. We are removing specific populations that harm society." Or "Nobody is pushing for widespread censorship of birth control methods. We are restricting the distribution of specific material that is harmful to the fabric of society."
  - sagichmal 8y ago

diabhuma 8y ago

The illiberal intolerance of your reply increased my suffering.

sagichmal 8y ago
> The illiberal intolerance of your reply increased my suffering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- lliamander 8y ago
  > What is tolerance nowadays? Is it a moral virtue in the possessor, or is it a recognition of a necessity arising from an equilibrium of parties? It often seems to me that we speak as if it was the first, when actually it is the second. My liberalism admits to everyone the right to his own opinion and imposes on me the duty of teaching him what is best; but I am by no means sure that that is the genuine conviction of all my liberal friends. French liberalism does not convince me that it is universal. I am not quite sure how Frederick Harrison or Cotter Morrison would deal with me if they were in a majority. The possession of a clear and definite ideal of society seems to me dangerous to its possessors. The Mediaeval Church had such an ideal: the result was the Inquisition, which was generally approved by the common consciousness. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/acton-acton-creighton-correspondence http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/acton-acton-creighton-corr...
- basic1 8y ago
  Preemptive self-defense, the Bush Doctrine of tolerance.

lliamander 8y ago

Gab's issue (as far as I can tell) is that they have issues curbing explicitly illegal behavior (such threats of violence). But your view on free speech as it relates to suffering is nebulous and myopic. The crux of free speech is this: do we trust people to judge the words and ideas of others for themselves, or do we not? If you believe that you have the capacity (and responsibility) to judge ideas for yourself, then you must grant other people the right to express those ideas.

sagichmal 8y ago
> The crux of free speech is this: do we trust people to judge the words and ideas of others for themselves, or do we not? This is a free-speech-centric view of the world, and my claim is that this is (at least) an insufficient, and (at most) the wrong perspective for shaping society. The correct and highest thing to optimize for is not the maximization of free speech, but the minimization of suffering.
- lliamander 8y ago
  Of course, such calculations of suffering are invariably nebulous and highly subjective. The question is, in your pursuit of the ideal society, will you allow the general population the dignity of their own rational minds? Or will you deny them even that? Every optimization problem has its boundary conditions. Do you know what yours are?
  - sagichmal 8y ago
    > The question is, in your pursuit of the ideal society, will you allow the general population the dignity of their own rational minds? Or will you deny them even that? Stop generalizing and stop grandstanding. I'm not talking about denying human beings autonomy or freedom of mind. I'm talking about de-platforming agents of hate and intolerance. The distance between the latter and the former is the width of an ocean, not a three-foot slippery-slope, and we can (and are ethically obliged to) do things to stop the one without inevitably leading to the other.

frotak 8y ago

In all earnestness I am curious what your definition of "suffering" is. Is your position that there is physical violence that has been done that would not have been done had Gab not been available? If that is your position do you have evidence to support it? Or merely that the propagation of certain ideas is itself a form of "suffering"?

oceanplexian 8y ago

The point of free speech isn't to reduce suffering or make for a more just society (At least in the United States). The point is to protect the natural rights of the individual, and consequently those of minorities, against those of the collective. Not the other way around.