4 ms·

Not all speech is useful speech and some speech should be shut down depending on the context. On Discord I've had people complain about me trying to stop people

Not all speech is useful speech and some speech should be shut down depending on the context. On Discord I've had people complain about me trying to stop people calling other people "fags" or "retards" and I have been called a SJW for stopping people just saying lies about trans people (which they always try to defend as if it's some sort of legitimate political opinion). Edit: It's generally kids saying these things and I get it that they often just don't know better but it's really night and day how much better things are if there are some boundaries.

komali2 7y ago
This is a big part of the discussion, I think, based on conversations with my conservative friends. They often complain about how they "can't say" certain words anymore. They'll make comments about how people are "too soft" these days. "Who feels pain from a word?" In your discord, they'd be the ones throwing around such words with reckless abandon. I can sympathize, because I've yet to find a word that causes me pain by any stretch of the word "pain." There's no phrase, sentence, or utterance that has bothered me. I've been called all manner of racial epithets, gender epithets, and even sexual orientation epithets. I just can't bring myself to give a shit - nobody trying to hurt me is worth my time and so I ignore them / move on / mock them / laugh in their face. I genuinely cannot put myself in the shoes of people who, for example, would feel a form of pain/offense at hearing the "n" word, for example. From my perspective, that would be just a great indication that whoever is using that word is not worth a millisecond of my time. HOWEVER, I'm a straight white male that makes 140,000$/year and have no diseases whatsoever. So when my black friends tell me that certain words cause them pain, I believe them, because everyone's different. I feel fear on rollercoasters to the point where I simply will not ride them. Some friends love rollercoasters. Objectively, I should not feel fear on rollercoasters. They are safer than hopping on my motorcycle for my 10 minute, 2 mile commute home. But, I do. So, I can take that experience and say "situations exist where I feel different emotions than other people do, for said situation." While I can't imagine what it feels like to hear a word and feel pain / offense, I can believe people when they tell me that a certain word makes them feel those negative emotions. I'm not sure how to convince other friends that it's worth the effort to apply this baseline level of mutual respect. I wish I knew why I'm willing to respect others' feelings around words so I could share this learning. I guess, to me, it's logical? If someone wants to be referred to as male despite "appearing" female, don't throw a fucking hissy fit, just do it, who gives a shit? If people are saying "it's not cool to call people retards anymore," just... don't... do it... what are you actually losing? The ability to be an asshole to people in a certain specific way?
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  > I'm not sure how to convince other friends that it's worth the effort to apply this baseline level of mutual respect. I'd say "because whatever else those people are, they're human, and therefore deserve a certain amount of respect", but I'm not sure even that would convince some people. If I was talking to someone on the right, I might even quote "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [humans] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator..." and then argue that "those people", being created by God, are worth a certain amount of respect just for that reason, without needing any other. I mean, if you're dealing with a right-wing atheist, it won't fly, but it might work as a general thing. Disclaimer: I just thought of this argument. I have never tried it out in real life, so I don't know what reaction it would get.
- lliamander 7y ago
  > They'll make comments about how people are "too soft" these days. Part of Dr. Haidt's point is that yes, people's psyche's have been made fragile by overprotection. I think he even tries to put some science behind that claim. Being a jerk isn't a good thing, and showing people respect is. But sometimes showing respect means expecting other people to demonstrate some resilience. It's how that resilience grows. Exposure therapy works for many things. Having resilience is especially important when other things are at stake, things like the truth. If we sacrifice our willingness to speak the truth for fear of causing others emotional pain, we sacrifice too much. Consider your fear for rollercoasters. I do not think it is right to mock you for it, nor to force you to ride one. Nor do I think you should be trapped by your fear, and I will laud you if you overcome it. I especially don't think that we should (hypothetically) remove all rollercoasters just because some people are afraid of them.
  - tdb7893 7y ago
    Resilience is fine but there needs to be a line somewhere. At a certain point you have to decide what's okay and what's not okay. A good example is prejudice against LGBT people or people of different races. A ton of people are prejudiced against those people and all of their beliefs are "true" to them (so trying to silence their message will be supressing truth to them) but I think it's okay as a society to decide that those views aren't okay. You should always be willing to speak your truth but society is allowed to reject it. It'll be wrong a decent amount of the time but it corrects over time through things like the civil rights movement or the rise of feminism. Interestingly in my experience being unable to reject ideas as a society actually slows down that progress as you'll then just always be relitigating past issues. Edit: I guess the question to me is "where do you draw the line" and the answer seems to be pretty obviously "you let people draw their own line" in like 98% of situations. Generally by paying attention or just asking people it's been a pretty easy rule to live by and people seem to appreciate it.

komali2 7y ago

This is a big part of the discussion, I think, based on conversations with my conservative friends. They often complain about how they "can't say" certain words anymore. They'll make comments about how people are "too soft" these days. "Who feels pain from a word?" In your discord, they'd be the ones throwing around such words with reckless abandon. I can sympathize, because I've yet to find a word that causes me pain by any stretch of the word "pain." There's no phrase, sentence, or utterance that has bothered me. I've been called all manner of racial epithets, gender epithets, and even sexual orientation epithets. I just can't bring myself to give a shit - nobody trying to hurt me is worth my time and so I ignore them / move on / mock them / laugh in their face. I genuinely cannot put myself in the shoes of people who, for example, would feel a form of pain/offense at hearing the "n" word, for example. From my perspective, that would be just a great indication that whoever is using that word is not worth a millisecond of my time. HOWEVER, I'm a straight white male that makes 140,000$/year and have no diseases whatsoever. So when my black friends tell me that certain words cause them pain, I believe them, because everyone's different. I feel fear on rollercoasters to the point where I simply will not ride them. Some friends love rollercoasters. Objectively, I should not feel fear on rollercoasters. They are safer than hopping on my motorcycle for my 10 minute, 2 mile commute home. But, I do. So, I can take that experience and say "situations exist where I feel different emotions than other people do, for said situation." While I can't imagine what it feels like to hear a word and feel pain / offense, I can believe people when they tell me that a certain word makes them feel those negative emotions. I'm not sure how to convince other friends that it's worth the effort to apply this baseline level of mutual respect. I wish I knew why I'm willing to respect others' feelings around words so I could share this learning. I guess, to me, it's logical? If someone wants to be referred to as male despite "appearing" female, don't throw a fucking hissy fit, just do it, who gives a shit? If people are saying "it's not cool to call people retards anymore," just... don't... do it... what are you actually losing? The ability to be an asshole to people in a certain specific way?

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
> I'm not sure how to convince other friends that it's worth the effort to apply this baseline level of mutual respect. I'd say "because whatever else those people are, they're human, and therefore deserve a certain amount of respect", but I'm not sure even that would convince some people. If I was talking to someone on the right, I might even quote "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [humans] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator..." and then argue that "those people", being created by God, are worth a certain amount of respect just for that reason, without needing any other. I mean, if you're dealing with a right-wing atheist, it won't fly, but it might work as a general thing. Disclaimer: I just thought of this argument. I have never tried it out in real life, so I don't know what reaction it would get.
lliamander 7y ago
> They'll make comments about how people are "too soft" these days. Part of Dr. Haidt's point is that yes, people's psyche's have been made fragile by overprotection. I think he even tries to put some science behind that claim. Being a jerk isn't a good thing, and showing people respect is. But sometimes showing respect means expecting other people to demonstrate some resilience. It's how that resilience grows. Exposure therapy works for many things. Having resilience is especially important when other things are at stake, things like the truth. If we sacrifice our willingness to speak the truth for fear of causing others emotional pain, we sacrifice too much. Consider your fear for rollercoasters. I do not think it is right to mock you for it, nor to force you to ride one. Nor do I think you should be trapped by your fear, and I will laud you if you overcome it. I especially don't think that we should (hypothetically) remove all rollercoasters just because some people are afraid of them.
- tdb7893 7y ago
  Resilience is fine but there needs to be a line somewhere. At a certain point you have to decide what's okay and what's not okay. A good example is prejudice against LGBT people or people of different races. A ton of people are prejudiced against those people and all of their beliefs are "true" to them (so trying to silence their message will be supressing truth to them) but I think it's okay as a society to decide that those views aren't okay. You should always be willing to speak your truth but society is allowed to reject it. It'll be wrong a decent amount of the time but it corrects over time through things like the civil rights movement or the rise of feminism. Interestingly in my experience being unable to reject ideas as a society actually slows down that progress as you'll then just always be relitigating past issues. Edit: I guess the question to me is "where do you draw the line" and the answer seems to be pretty obviously "you let people draw their own line" in like 98% of situations. Generally by paying attention or just asking people it's been a pretty easy rule to live by and people seem to appreciate it.