4 ms·

Expressing opinions vs making specific threats is a very clear thick line for me, and yet somehow whenever I read about takedowns and such it seems many people

Expressing opinions vs making specific threats is a very clear thick line for me, and yet somehow whenever I read about takedowns and such it seems many people have trouble making the distinction. “I hate x and wish they had never been born” Is not “I am coming to your house tomorrow with a weapon” Yet people treat them similarly. From there it just becomes “anything that scares me is a threat.” Then, it becomes obvious that people are in general scared of cultures and attitudes very different from their own. And so there’s no tolerant chaos anymore. It’s a Motte and Bailey argument. Very few people support doxxing and/or incitements to violence. But it is amazing how much censorship happens in the pursuit of curbing such threats.

Mirioron 7y ago
I would like to echo your statement. I've always found it bizarre how people conflate insults with threats. In the vast majority of cases we can draw a very distinct line between the two. On top of that, it's not like this has any less ambiguity in meatspace.
CoolGuySteve 7y ago
In some psychology class long ago, I learned that one of the most self destructive things someone can do is perceive emotions as information. As in "That made me mad so what they did was clearly wrong". A lot of therapy is geared to shifting people away from that cognitive error. But that concept is thrown out the window when it comes to Twitter/Facebook/etc. I can't count how many times I've read "I'm literally shaking now" used as an indictment against someone else's perceived transgression. I think out of all the twitter cliches, that one makes me roll my eyes the most.
- dboreham 7y ago
  Unfortunately this is kind of how the human brain works. It presumably evolved from a simpler design that only had "emotions", adding a higher level processing function that began as something very simple, evolving over a long time into the complex neocortex we have now. The primitive emotional brain is still present, with an imperfect "interface" to the newer brain.

Mirioron 7y ago

I would like to echo your statement. I've always found it bizarre how people conflate insults with threats. In the vast majority of cases we can draw a very distinct line between the two. On top of that, it's not like this has any less ambiguity in meatspace.

CoolGuySteve 7y ago

In some psychology class long ago, I learned that one of the most self destructive things someone can do is perceive emotions as information. As in "That made me mad so what they did was clearly wrong". A lot of therapy is geared to shifting people away from that cognitive error. But that concept is thrown out the window when it comes to Twitter/Facebook/etc. I can't count how many times I've read "I'm literally shaking now" used as an indictment against someone else's perceived transgression. I think out of all the twitter cliches, that one makes me roll my eyes the most.

dboreham 7y ago
Unfortunately this is kind of how the human brain works. It presumably evolved from a simpler design that only had "emotions", adding a higher level processing function that began as something very simple, evolving over a long time into the complex neocortex we have now. The primitive emotional brain is still present, with an imperfect "interface" to the newer brain.