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The ability to smear through accusation, without proof, without due process, and without the presumption of innocence has always been the province of tyrants in

The ability to smear through accusation, without proof, without due process, and without the presumption of innocence has always been the province of tyrants in power and the tool of would-be tyrants trying to gain power. Those who accuse and un-person are the villains throughout history. In the past, people were smeared as sexually loose, as belonging to the "wrong" religion, or as having the "wrong" sexual orientation. In the past, people were smeared as being of the "wrong" racial background. Always be wary of those who smear to enforce their power. A free society is one, where people and ideas can show up, be given a chance, and stand or fall on their character and merits. Evil is recognizable in its epistemological hazards: - Don't ask questions. - Don't read or hear the heretical opinion. - Don't associate with the "wrong" people. The side of good, the side of the long arc of justice, is the side of rational argument and of principles. The side of justice is the one saying, "hear me out." It's the side of evil which uses vilification, seeks to silence, and uses fear against questions.

minikites 8y ago
>A free society is one, where people and ideas can show up, be given a chance, and stand or fall on their character and merits. How do you square this with the recent surge in flat Earth and anti-vaccination beliefs? The merits of truth aren't guaranteed to win this battle.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  The anti-vaxxers are to a large extent caused by the recent rise of anti-rationalist "burn the heretics" nonsense: http://www.mysuncoast.com/2019/03/19/it-made-me-feel-really-sick-mother-describes-harassment-by-anti-vaccine-activists/ http://www.mysuncoast.com/2019/03/19/it-made-me-feel-really-... Anti-vaxxers are what you get when you use death threats and not civil discourse.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    Wait, am I being unclear or are the downvotes from anti-vaxxers? The anti-vaxxers send death threats to people who correct their erroneous claims. That's how you shut down reasoned discourse -- by having fervent zealots attack anyone who contradicts them. Obviously attacking people who disagree with you is the opposite of them having free speech. It suppresses the speech of anyone not willing to be subject to the threats and allows the erroneous information to proliferate unchallenged. So the problem isn't that the anti-vaxxers got to speak their piece, it's that they're caught up in a subculture that suppresses dissent. Then their subculture declares that two times two equals six and anybody who tries to show otherwise is attacked, which deprives them of reasoned debate as a method for correcting misconceptions, and so the misconceptions persist.
    - anon1385 8y ago
      You're getting downvoted because you're dangerously wrong. Yes some anti-vaxers send threats, but the idea that they have managed to silence the mainstream scientific opinion on vaccines is ludicrous. That information is widely available to everybody. I bet you can't find a single anti-vaxer who isn't aware of what the mainstream position on vaccine safety is. Being opposed to the orthodox position is a big part of the appeal! Also anti-vax isn't something new. It dates back to at least the mid 90s and the original Wakefield paper. There were no cult like organisations pushing it at that time. What did exist was a mainstream media willing to push the story for many years, even long after they knew the original paper was faulty. The problem wasn't born out of fervent zealots, it was created by con artists and co-conspirators in the media who exploited liberal ideas of "free speech" and "media balance" to knowingly spread a conspiracy for their own financial gain. There was no "subculture" at the time. I'm not sure you can even really say there is one now, given that anti-vax is one of the conspiracy theories that has wide appeal across different groups (i.e. it exists across the left/liberal/conservative/right political spectrum). You are trying to push your own ideological position (more "free speech" is good and will solve the problem) onto an issue, and it doesn't fit what actually happened at all, or what we know about how conspiracy theories spread (it's not a lack of counter-information, because conspiracy theories by definition include the fact that they are being suppressed by central authority).
      - zimpenfish 8y ago
        > Also anti-vax isn't something new. It dates back to at least the mid 90s Back to the dawn of vaccines themselves, indeed. https://www.historyofvaccines.org/index.php/content/articles/history-anti-vaccination-movements https://www.historyofvaccines.org/index.php/content/articles...
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        The way free speech works isn't that nobody is ever wrong, it's that the debate ultimately leads to the truth. People who don't understand science don't trust random scientists, and there is a reason for that -- anyone can put on a lab coat and say whatever they want. You have to consider the source and actually read the research and determine if it's credible. Most people don't have the training for that, and many of the others don't have the time, but that's not a problem as long as you trust someone who does. Your brother in law is a chemist and you trust his opinion; he trusts the CDC's. When your trusted chemist and your trusted nurse disagree, they get together and hash it out and if they're both being reasonable then one ultimately convinces the other. The problem comes when you introduce a culture of attacking rather than debating people. Because you're not going to silence the CDC, but you may very well silence the brother in law, and then you create a group of people who don't trust anyone providing the true facts because everyone within their in-group is being silenced. Which is why, despite a century of various fringe anti-vax misinformation, it's only now, in the climate of filter bubbles and deplatforming, that enough people believe it to compromise herd immunity and allow diseases like measles to stage a comeback.
- narag 8y ago
  The merits of truth aren't guaranteed to win this battle. Winning a battle is an unfortunate metaphor for public debate or democracy in general. After all, what we want is to discuss options without violence. Someone has to win elections, right. But that doesn't make the losing option wrong, just not as popular. There are many options that I consider wrong, or very wrong, that are "winning" right now. I accept that situation, at least while there's no need for me to adopt them. What I find scary is what stcredzero points: that many ideas "win" by despicable means.
  - minikites 8y ago
    >After all, what we want is to discuss options without violence. One side of this debate is inherently violent. People are dying from easily preventable diseases. >What I find scary is what stcredzero points: that many ideas "win" by despicable means. Anti-vaccination beliefs are already winning by despicable means because those with virtuous means choose to do nothing.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      One side of this debate is inherently violent. People are dying from easily preventable diseases. It's dangerous to call someone having a natural biological reaction to a pathogen, "violent." That label should be reserved for people taking intentional physical action to do other people harm. Anti-vaxxers simply don't fit that category. One can argue that they are being irresponsible. Vaccines, viruses, and diseases are all tangible and physical. It's entirely reasonable to make laws and regulations around those things. If we start saying that people having ideas is "violent," then we are creating "thoughtcrime" and opening the door to incredible levels of tyranny. Anti-vaccination beliefs are already winning by despicable means because those with virtuous means choose to do nothing. As far as I can tell, anti-vax beliefs are thoroughly discredited.
    - lobotryas 8y ago
      But the pro-vaxx side DOES do something. Everything from debate to memes are used to either disprove or mock the anti-vaxx side. The overall point is that we need to defend our ideas through speech and not through IG/FB censoring anti-vaxx speech.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  How do you square this with the recent surge in flat Earth and anti-vaccination beliefs? People should be free to believe what they want to believe. That's a pretty fundamental level of freedom. The merits of truth aren't guaranteed to win this battle. There's no guarantee of that. Once the argument is won, legislation can follow.
orionblastar 8y ago
Thought Police from 1984.
- int_19h 8y ago
  Orwell wrote plenty of non-fiction on the subject of censorship, as well. This was supposed to be a preface to the "Animal Farm", but I think it makes excellent reading on its own, and its generic points are even more salient today than they were back when it was written: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-freedom-of-the-press/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... "If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves." "At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals. ... Both publicly and privately you were warned that it was ‘not done’. What you said might possibly be true, but it was ‘inopportune’ and played into the hands of this or that reactionary interest." "... there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought." "These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you. Make a habit of imprisoning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the process won’t stop at Fascists." (Ironically, the preface itself was soft-censored in the original publication of "Animal Farm", and it took 25 more years for it to see print.)
gdy 8y ago
"The ability to smear through accusation, without proof, without due process, and without the presumption of innocence has always been the province of tyrants in power and the tool of would-be tyrants trying to gain power. Those who accuse and un-person are the villains throughout history." You are being pretty harsh on #metoo and #believeher, aren't you?
minikites 8y ago
Another thought occurred to me, can free speech survive speech that attacks free speech? If so, there's nothing to worry about. If not, then you enter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance where speech arguing against the freedom of speech must be banned and we agree there must be limits on speech to protect itself.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Another thought occurred to me, can free speech survive speech that attacks free speech? Free Speech does just fine against other speech. It's administrative dirty tricks on campus, and the use of corporate force through de-platforming which creates a de facto regime of top-down censorship -- which we have to worry about in 2019. Noam Chomsky called such behavior out in the 80's in the media of the day. Such behavior fits the "propaganda model" described in Manufacturing Consent. In 2019, it's not the government we have to worry about in terms of free speech. It's powerful corporations and the established media misinforming people and stacking the deck.
- int_19h 8y ago
  Sure, since speech that attacks free speech cannot silence it. Fists and bullets do that, not words.
lobotryas 8y ago
The really sad thing is that people will upvote/agree with you and the turn around to praise those who deplatform or otherwise silence the perceived opposition. Heck, some things have become so heated that there can only be one right answer, ex: global warming. If you dare voice anything other than slavish obedience to this notion. If you DARE question anything about it - from the models/assumptions used to the moralizing - then you are branded an outcast and castigated.

minikites 8y ago

>A free society is one, where people and ideas can show up, be given a chance, and stand or fall on their character and merits. How do you square this with the recent surge in flat Earth and anti-vaccination beliefs? The merits of truth aren't guaranteed to win this battle.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
The anti-vaxxers are to a large extent caused by the recent rise of anti-rationalist "burn the heretics" nonsense: http://www.mysuncoast.com/2019/03/19/it-made-me-feel-really-sick-mother-describes-harassment-by-anti-vaccine-activists/ http://www.mysuncoast.com/2019/03/19/it-made-me-feel-really-... Anti-vaxxers are what you get when you use death threats and not civil discourse.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  Wait, am I being unclear or are the downvotes from anti-vaxxers? The anti-vaxxers send death threats to people who correct their erroneous claims. That's how you shut down reasoned discourse -- by having fervent zealots attack anyone who contradicts them. Obviously attacking people who disagree with you is the opposite of them having free speech. It suppresses the speech of anyone not willing to be subject to the threats and allows the erroneous information to proliferate unchallenged. So the problem isn't that the anti-vaxxers got to speak their piece, it's that they're caught up in a subculture that suppresses dissent. Then their subculture declares that two times two equals six and anybody who tries to show otherwise is attacked, which deprives them of reasoned debate as a method for correcting misconceptions, and so the misconceptions persist.
  - anon1385 8y ago
    You're getting downvoted because you're dangerously wrong. Yes some anti-vaxers send threats, but the idea that they have managed to silence the mainstream scientific opinion on vaccines is ludicrous. That information is widely available to everybody. I bet you can't find a single anti-vaxer who isn't aware of what the mainstream position on vaccine safety is. Being opposed to the orthodox position is a big part of the appeal! Also anti-vax isn't something new. It dates back to at least the mid 90s and the original Wakefield paper. There were no cult like organisations pushing it at that time. What did exist was a mainstream media willing to push the story for many years, even long after they knew the original paper was faulty. The problem wasn't born out of fervent zealots, it was created by con artists and co-conspirators in the media who exploited liberal ideas of "free speech" and "media balance" to knowingly spread a conspiracy for their own financial gain. There was no "subculture" at the time. I'm not sure you can even really say there is one now, given that anti-vax is one of the conspiracy theories that has wide appeal across different groups (i.e. it exists across the left/liberal/conservative/right political spectrum). You are trying to push your own ideological position (more "free speech" is good and will solve the problem) onto an issue, and it doesn't fit what actually happened at all, or what we know about how conspiracy theories spread (it's not a lack of counter-information, because conspiracy theories by definition include the fact that they are being suppressed by central authority).
    - zimpenfish 8y ago
      > Also anti-vax isn't something new. It dates back to at least the mid 90s Back to the dawn of vaccines themselves, indeed. https://www.historyofvaccines.org/index.php/content/articles/history-anti-vaccination-movements https://www.historyofvaccines.org/index.php/content/articles...
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      The way free speech works isn't that nobody is ever wrong, it's that the debate ultimately leads to the truth. People who don't understand science don't trust random scientists, and there is a reason for that -- anyone can put on a lab coat and say whatever they want. You have to consider the source and actually read the research and determine if it's credible. Most people don't have the training for that, and many of the others don't have the time, but that's not a problem as long as you trust someone who does. Your brother in law is a chemist and you trust his opinion; he trusts the CDC's. When your trusted chemist and your trusted nurse disagree, they get together and hash it out and if they're both being reasonable then one ultimately convinces the other. The problem comes when you introduce a culture of attacking rather than debating people. Because you're not going to silence the CDC, but you may very well silence the brother in law, and then you create a group of people who don't trust anyone providing the true facts because everyone within their in-group is being silenced. Which is why, despite a century of various fringe anti-vax misinformation, it's only now, in the climate of filter bubbles and deplatforming, that enough people believe it to compromise herd immunity and allow diseases like measles to stage a comeback.
narag 8y ago
The merits of truth aren't guaranteed to win this battle. Winning a battle is an unfortunate metaphor for public debate or democracy in general. After all, what we want is to discuss options without violence. Someone has to win elections, right. But that doesn't make the losing option wrong, just not as popular. There are many options that I consider wrong, or very wrong, that are "winning" right now. I accept that situation, at least while there's no need for me to adopt them. What I find scary is what stcredzero points: that many ideas "win" by despicable means.
- minikites 8y ago
  >After all, what we want is to discuss options without violence. One side of this debate is inherently violent. People are dying from easily preventable diseases. >What I find scary is what stcredzero points: that many ideas "win" by despicable means. Anti-vaccination beliefs are already winning by despicable means because those with virtuous means choose to do nothing.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    One side of this debate is inherently violent. People are dying from easily preventable diseases. It's dangerous to call someone having a natural biological reaction to a pathogen, "violent." That label should be reserved for people taking intentional physical action to do other people harm. Anti-vaxxers simply don't fit that category. One can argue that they are being irresponsible. Vaccines, viruses, and diseases are all tangible and physical. It's entirely reasonable to make laws and regulations around those things. If we start saying that people having ideas is "violent," then we are creating "thoughtcrime" and opening the door to incredible levels of tyranny. Anti-vaccination beliefs are already winning by despicable means because those with virtuous means choose to do nothing. As far as I can tell, anti-vax beliefs are thoroughly discredited.
  - lobotryas 8y ago
    But the pro-vaxx side DOES do something. Everything from debate to memes are used to either disprove or mock the anti-vaxx side. The overall point is that we need to defend our ideas through speech and not through IG/FB censoring anti-vaxx speech.
stcredzero 8y ago
How do you square this with the recent surge in flat Earth and anti-vaccination beliefs? People should be free to believe what they want to believe. That's a pretty fundamental level of freedom. The merits of truth aren't guaranteed to win this battle. There's no guarantee of that. Once the argument is won, legislation can follow.

orionblastar 8y ago

Thought Police from 1984.

int_19h 8y ago
Orwell wrote plenty of non-fiction on the subject of censorship, as well. This was supposed to be a preface to the "Animal Farm", but I think it makes excellent reading on its own, and its generic points are even more salient today than they were back when it was written: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-freedom-of-the-press/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... "If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves." "At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals. ... Both publicly and privately you were warned that it was ‘not done’. What you said might possibly be true, but it was ‘inopportune’ and played into the hands of this or that reactionary interest." "... there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought." "These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you. Make a habit of imprisoning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the process won’t stop at Fascists." (Ironically, the preface itself was soft-censored in the original publication of "Animal Farm", and it took 25 more years for it to see print.)

gdy 8y ago

"The ability to smear through accusation, without proof, without due process, and without the presumption of innocence has always been the province of tyrants in power and the tool of would-be tyrants trying to gain power. Those who accuse and un-person are the villains throughout history." You are being pretty harsh on #metoo and #believeher, aren't you?

minikites 8y ago

Another thought occurred to me, can free speech survive speech that attacks free speech? If so, there's nothing to worry about. If not, then you enter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance where speech arguing against the freedom of speech must be banned and we agree there must be limits on speech to protect itself.

stcredzero 8y ago
Another thought occurred to me, can free speech survive speech that attacks free speech? Free Speech does just fine against other speech. It's administrative dirty tricks on campus, and the use of corporate force through de-platforming which creates a de facto regime of top-down censorship -- which we have to worry about in 2019. Noam Chomsky called such behavior out in the 80's in the media of the day. Such behavior fits the "propaganda model" described in Manufacturing Consent. In 2019, it's not the government we have to worry about in terms of free speech. It's powerful corporations and the established media misinforming people and stacking the deck.
int_19h 8y ago
Sure, since speech that attacks free speech cannot silence it. Fists and bullets do that, not words.

lobotryas 8y ago

The really sad thing is that people will upvote/agree with you and the turn around to praise those who deplatform or otherwise silence the perceived opposition. Heck, some things have become so heated that there can only be one right answer, ex: global warming. If you dare voice anything other than slavish obedience to this notion. If you DARE question anything about it - from the models/assumptions used to the moralizing - then you are branded an outcast and castigated.