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Speech has consequences. If you make statements that are blatantly: - Racist - Anti LGBT - Anti Trans - Misogynistic Then don't be surprised when other peop

Speech has consequences. If you make statements that are blatantly: - Racist - Anti LGBT - Anti Trans - Misogynistic Then don't be surprised when other people call you out on it and you face consequences. We're not discussing some random philosophical pie in the sky question. Speech that oppresses minorities deny their fundamental right to exist. Wouldn't you fight back if someone wanted to take away your life?

travisoneill1 6y ago
Please give an example of speech taking someone's life.
- haswell 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy
- d_e_solomon 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard
- gerbal 6y ago
  Hate crimes spring to mind. People tell lies about minority groups, give themselves permission structures to justify violence, and vigilantes take it upon themselves to "fix" the problem with violence. A lot of people have been murdered on as a result of hate speech. Emit Till, Michael Donald, James Byrd are a few. Also, the Rwandan Genocide, historical Pogroms, lynchings, arguably the holocaust. It's pretty hard to get humans to murder their neightbors without inciting speech.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > It's pretty hard to get humans to murder their neightbors without inciting speech. Eh, I'm not so sure about that. En masse, with coordination? Maybe, but speech is mostly about coordination at that stage. Would you say that everybody ever saying something untruthful or hatefull about the GOP is responsible for some lunatic storming the base ball practice of some GOP members of Congress with a gun and shooting at them? Speech is certainly involved in the actual act of a pogrom, but it's not the driving force (unless your definition of speech gets really vague and everything ever said since the beginning of time is part of "the speech"). You don't have pogroms without previous animosity. Somebody saying something might spark the fire, but the wood has been there all along, soaked in gasoline.
    - gerbal 6y ago
      > You don't have pogroms without previous animosity. Somebody saying something might spark the fire, but the wood has been there all along, soaked in gasoline. That presumes the victimized communities have done anything to warrant violence. In the case of anti-jewish pogroms the inciting factor was often speech by newspapers and officials. How should we account for anti-semitic newspapers that made a good business of concocting lies about the crimes done by Jewish people in the community? Consider the Kishinev pogrom where "the Bessarabetz paper insinuated that children had been murdered by the Jewish community for the purpose of using their blood in the preparation of matzo for Passover"[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom
      - luckylion 6y ago
        > That presumes the victimized communities have done anything to warrant violence. No, it doesn't at all. It says that there is animosity, but not why it's there or whether it's valid or not. You might hate your neighbor because he's more successful than you, makes you feel inadequate with his good deeds, because he's literally Hitler or because he just so happens to look like somebody that wronged you. The fact that you hate him says nothing about whether that's justified. But your hate makes you susceptible to all kinds of suggestions for terrible actions against your neighbor. All it takes is for somebody to suggest burning down his house, or telling your that he has attacked another victim (or posted the wrong thing on Twitter to stay on topic!) > In the case of anti-jewish pogroms to inciting factor is speech by newspapers and officials. Doubtful. We'd have to look at the very first pogroms. If you're looking at the last 150 years, you're closing your eyes to the fact that pogroms against Jews were recurring events and anti-semitism was always around. That's a problem, because you'll be surprised how these peaceful neighbors can turn into violent murderers practically over night. When you consider that they weren't peaceful neighbors right up until they became murderers, but that there was just a light cover over the hate for a while, there are much fewer unexplainable actions. The rumors are the spark that I mentioned. The long-existing anti-semitism is the wood pile that is ready to be set ablaze.
        6y ago
PaulStatezny 6y ago
I'm not a hateful person nor a supporter of them, and I haven't read the article. But can you explain why you think someone saying hateful things to someone else "denies their fundamental right to exist"? This is a core argument that keeps getting spouted, and it's irrational nonsense. If I said, "all programmers are terrible, lazy people and they can all go to hell", that's a terrible thing to say. But it in no way affects your right to _exist_, let alone any other right. The burden is on you to give evidence, because it's total nonsense.
- d_e_solomon 6y ago
  There's this crazy fallacy that speech doesn't cause people to change behavior. If I influence people consistently by saying that Programmers are terrible people; convince a bunch of people that it's true; then policies that target programmers are much easier to make into law. Slavery existed in part because people thought black people were subhuman and plenty of people argued that quite publicly. Or consider a gay child whose teachers say that gay people are going to hell? Do you think that wouldn't have an impact? I really don't understand this idea that speech doesn't have consequences that cause disparate impact.
  - PaulStatezny 6y ago
    You're sidestepping my accusation. You said that hateful speech "denies [a person their] fundamental right to exist". You have not provided any evidence that this is true. What you _have_ done is argued that speech has consequences and that people can influence others. (Which nobody would disagree with.) You've also painted a theoretical picture where people go on a campaign to grow hate for a people group by spreading terrible propaganda, many buy into it, and the masses are turned against the people group. I never said this isn't possible, but it's certainly not an automatic outcome of hateful speech, and it doesn't support your assertion in question. At that point, their life is threatened because of the evil of these theoretical masses. I hate that I have to break it to you, but the masses of civilized society are not out to kill any people group, regardless of anyone's hateful speech. The speech is not the problem. The hearts of evil men and women are. You can't suppress speech enough to get rid of evil in the hearts of people.
superfist 6y ago
Ofcourse speech has consequences. But where is the line between critique or disagreement and hate speech? Right now more and more critique/disagreement = hate speach, especialy for those who can't deal with arguments or objective, inconvenient facts about reality.
- d_e_solomon 6y ago
  I struggle to come up with examples of people who raised "objective, convient facts" that suffered undue backlash. Most of the ones that get used are usually pretty terrible. Apologies - I deleted examples that went too far
anthonygd 6y ago
It's the "blatantly" part of that sentence which is causing backlash. It's extremely subjective. What's blatantly racist in your opinion could be blatantly anti-racist to someone else.
BitwiseFool 6y ago
Is canceling someone denying their right to exist? Hounding someone online and coercing their employers to fire them seems a lot more harmful than critical speech. And don't forget, that cancelled person's name will forever be associated with the controversy, making it very likely that person will also have a major barrier when trying to participate in society.
- d_e_solomon 6y ago
  Who will think of the poor racist who can't make a living because they yelled racist rhetoric?
  - BitwiseFool 6y ago
    As a society, we really should think of "the poor racist who can't make a living" rather than simply making them a persona non grata and discarding them. Do you think destroying someone's livelihood and reputation is the best way to change their views? Do you intend to punish, or to rehabilitate? Maybe you don't care about redeeming a racist (or some other deplorable) because you just want to send a message that such views are unacceptable. But all that does is create a radical with nothing left to lose.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      Honestly, we need both. In order to have a civil society, we can't have racists running around calling people the n-word and burning crosses on lawns, still less actually murdering people. That stuff is not acceptable, and we need very clearly to say (and enforce) that it's not acceptable. But we also need to change peoples' hearts, so that they don't want to do that kind of stuff - so that they regard the "other" as fully human, just like they themselves are. As you say, destroying their life isn't the best way to do that. (Neither is nagging, lecturing, and berating people.) Then how do we do it? The only thing I know that can change peoples' hearts that way is the gospel of Jesus Christ. (Note well: I did not say going to church - it's not the same thing.)
Minor49er 6y ago
Why must everything be black and white? There is no room to come together with that kind of division. For example, if you want trans people to seek mental help rather than take hormones and mutilate their healthy bodies, that's seen as anti-trans and automatically considered to be wrong.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > if you want trans people to seek mental help rather than take hormones and mutilate their healthy bodies, that's seen as anti-trans and automatically considered to be wrong. Well, no, basically everyone thinks that given the choice between the first without the second or the second without the first, they should do the first, ignoring your emotionally loaded description of the second option you present. If you think those are the the actual options, though, you are simply factually in error.
  - Minor49er 6y ago
    Ok, so what are the alternatives?
ekianjo 6y ago
> If you make statements that are blatantly: - Racist - Anti LGBT - Anti Trans - Misogynistic Then don't be surprised when other people call you out on it and you face consequences. Admitting this is even the case (which it isn't, as people recently are being cancelled for being just moderate, or for stuff they said when they were teenagers which is ridiculous), how can you justify having someone fired by a mob for something they SAID, therefore denying their livelihood? It's the equivalent of burning their home, since employment is what enables people to secure long term security for themselves and their family. So you are actively supporting denying the right to exist of people with whom you disagree with?
- d_e_solomon 6y ago
  """Admitting this is even the case (which it isn't, as people recently are being cancelled for being just moderate, or for stuff they said when they were teenagers which is ridiculous), how can you justify having someone fired by a mob for something they SAID, therefore denying their livelihood?"" Go into your bosses office and use an ethnic slur and tell me what happens. Speech has consequences and hate speech rightfully has more consequences.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Speech has consequences and hate speech rightfully has more consequences. And you define what "hate speech" is and how severe the "consequences" are supposed to be. If you feel that something that was said about you is hate speech and you feel that only beating up the person would be an adequate consequence, then by all means, go for it?
    - d_e_solomon 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
- foldr 6y ago
  >how can you justify having someone fired by a mob for something they SAID I don't follow this at all. Of course people can get fired for things they say. This happens all the time in cases that have nothing to do with hate speech or other controversial issues.
frogpelt 6y ago
If we all agreed on those terms you threw out, then you might have a point. But we don't. I don't agree with the new definition of racist. There was a time not long ago that dressing up as a black person for Halloween was maybe insensitive but it was not considered racist. Especially since only the people who saw you were affected. (Now everyone can see everything) Racist used to mean that you thought one race was superior or that one race was inferior. Now it means saying anything or doing anything that any segment of only one race's population considers offensive. Many on one side of the political aisle will stone-face claim that it is not possible to be racist towards white people because they are the majority. That indicates that the definition has changed. So, yes... we are discussing a philosophical pie in the sky because that's where the terms are being defined.

travisoneill1 6y ago

Please give an example of speech taking someone's life.

haswell 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy
d_e_solomon 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard
gerbal 6y ago
Hate crimes spring to mind. People tell lies about minority groups, give themselves permission structures to justify violence, and vigilantes take it upon themselves to "fix" the problem with violence. A lot of people have been murdered on as a result of hate speech. Emit Till, Michael Donald, James Byrd are a few. Also, the Rwandan Genocide, historical Pogroms, lynchings, arguably the holocaust. It's pretty hard to get humans to murder their neightbors without inciting speech.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > It's pretty hard to get humans to murder their neightbors without inciting speech. Eh, I'm not so sure about that. En masse, with coordination? Maybe, but speech is mostly about coordination at that stage. Would you say that everybody ever saying something untruthful or hatefull about the GOP is responsible for some lunatic storming the base ball practice of some GOP members of Congress with a gun and shooting at them? Speech is certainly involved in the actual act of a pogrom, but it's not the driving force (unless your definition of speech gets really vague and everything ever said since the beginning of time is part of "the speech"). You don't have pogroms without previous animosity. Somebody saying something might spark the fire, but the wood has been there all along, soaked in gasoline.
  - gerbal 6y ago
    > You don't have pogroms without previous animosity. Somebody saying something might spark the fire, but the wood has been there all along, soaked in gasoline. That presumes the victimized communities have done anything to warrant violence. In the case of anti-jewish pogroms the inciting factor was often speech by newspapers and officials. How should we account for anti-semitic newspapers that made a good business of concocting lies about the crimes done by Jewish people in the community? Consider the Kishinev pogrom where "the Bessarabetz paper insinuated that children had been murdered by the Jewish community for the purpose of using their blood in the preparation of matzo for Passover"[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > That presumes the victimized communities have done anything to warrant violence. No, it doesn't at all. It says that there is animosity, but not why it's there or whether it's valid or not. You might hate your neighbor because he's more successful than you, makes you feel inadequate with his good deeds, because he's literally Hitler or because he just so happens to look like somebody that wronged you. The fact that you hate him says nothing about whether that's justified. But your hate makes you susceptible to all kinds of suggestions for terrible actions against your neighbor. All it takes is for somebody to suggest burning down his house, or telling your that he has attacked another victim (or posted the wrong thing on Twitter to stay on topic!) > In the case of anti-jewish pogroms to inciting factor is speech by newspapers and officials. Doubtful. We'd have to look at the very first pogroms. If you're looking at the last 150 years, you're closing your eyes to the fact that pogroms against Jews were recurring events and anti-semitism was always around. That's a problem, because you'll be surprised how these peaceful neighbors can turn into violent murderers practically over night. When you consider that they weren't peaceful neighbors right up until they became murderers, but that there was just a light cover over the hate for a while, there are much fewer unexplainable actions. The rumors are the spark that I mentioned. The long-existing anti-semitism is the wood pile that is ready to be set ablaze.
      - 6y ago

PaulStatezny 6y ago

I'm not a hateful person nor a supporter of them, and I haven't read the article. But can you explain why you think someone saying hateful things to someone else "denies their fundamental right to exist"? This is a core argument that keeps getting spouted, and it's irrational nonsense. If I said, "all programmers are terrible, lazy people and they can all go to hell", that's a terrible thing to say. But it in no way affects your right to _exist_, let alone any other right. The burden is on you to give evidence, because it's total nonsense.

d_e_solomon 6y ago
There's this crazy fallacy that speech doesn't cause people to change behavior. If I influence people consistently by saying that Programmers are terrible people; convince a bunch of people that it's true; then policies that target programmers are much easier to make into law. Slavery existed in part because people thought black people were subhuman and plenty of people argued that quite publicly. Or consider a gay child whose teachers say that gay people are going to hell? Do you think that wouldn't have an impact? I really don't understand this idea that speech doesn't have consequences that cause disparate impact.
- PaulStatezny 6y ago
  You're sidestepping my accusation. You said that hateful speech "denies [a person their] fundamental right to exist". You have not provided any evidence that this is true. What you _have_ done is argued that speech has consequences and that people can influence others. (Which nobody would disagree with.) You've also painted a theoretical picture where people go on a campaign to grow hate for a people group by spreading terrible propaganda, many buy into it, and the masses are turned against the people group. I never said this isn't possible, but it's certainly not an automatic outcome of hateful speech, and it doesn't support your assertion in question. At that point, their life is threatened because of the evil of these theoretical masses. I hate that I have to break it to you, but the masses of civilized society are not out to kill any people group, regardless of anyone's hateful speech. The speech is not the problem. The hearts of evil men and women are. You can't suppress speech enough to get rid of evil in the hearts of people.

superfist 6y ago

Ofcourse speech has consequences. But where is the line between critique or disagreement and hate speech? Right now more and more critique/disagreement = hate speach, especialy for those who can't deal with arguments or objective, inconvenient facts about reality.

d_e_solomon 6y ago
I struggle to come up with examples of people who raised "objective, convient facts" that suffered undue backlash. Most of the ones that get used are usually pretty terrible. Apologies - I deleted examples that went too far

anthonygd 6y ago

It's the "blatantly" part of that sentence which is causing backlash. It's extremely subjective. What's blatantly racist in your opinion could be blatantly anti-racist to someone else.

BitwiseFool 6y ago

Is canceling someone denying their right to exist? Hounding someone online and coercing their employers to fire them seems a lot more harmful than critical speech. And don't forget, that cancelled person's name will forever be associated with the controversy, making it very likely that person will also have a major barrier when trying to participate in society.

d_e_solomon 6y ago
Who will think of the poor racist who can't make a living because they yelled racist rhetoric?
- BitwiseFool 6y ago
  As a society, we really should think of "the poor racist who can't make a living" rather than simply making them a persona non grata and discarding them. Do you think destroying someone's livelihood and reputation is the best way to change their views? Do you intend to punish, or to rehabilitate? Maybe you don't care about redeeming a racist (or some other deplorable) because you just want to send a message that such views are unacceptable. But all that does is create a radical with nothing left to lose.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Honestly, we need both. In order to have a civil society, we can't have racists running around calling people the n-word and burning crosses on lawns, still less actually murdering people. That stuff is not acceptable, and we need very clearly to say (and enforce) that it's not acceptable. But we also need to change peoples' hearts, so that they don't want to do that kind of stuff - so that they regard the "other" as fully human, just like they themselves are. As you say, destroying their life isn't the best way to do that. (Neither is nagging, lecturing, and berating people.) Then how do we do it? The only thing I know that can change peoples' hearts that way is the gospel of Jesus Christ. (Note well: I did not say going to church - it's not the same thing.)

Minor49er 6y ago

Why must everything be black and white? There is no room to come together with that kind of division. For example, if you want trans people to seek mental help rather than take hormones and mutilate their healthy bodies, that's seen as anti-trans and automatically considered to be wrong.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> if you want trans people to seek mental help rather than take hormones and mutilate their healthy bodies, that's seen as anti-trans and automatically considered to be wrong. Well, no, basically everyone thinks that given the choice between the first without the second or the second without the first, they should do the first, ignoring your emotionally loaded description of the second option you present. If you think those are the the actual options, though, you are simply factually in error.
- Minor49er 6y ago
  Ok, so what are the alternatives?

ekianjo 6y ago

> If you make statements that are blatantly: - Racist - Anti LGBT - Anti Trans - Misogynistic Then don't be surprised when other people call you out on it and you face consequences. Admitting this is even the case (which it isn't, as people recently are being cancelled for being just moderate, or for stuff they said when they were teenagers which is ridiculous), how can you justify having someone fired by a mob for something they SAID, therefore denying their livelihood? It's the equivalent of burning their home, since employment is what enables people to secure long term security for themselves and their family. So you are actively supporting denying the right to exist of people with whom you disagree with?

d_e_solomon 6y ago
"""Admitting this is even the case (which it isn't, as people recently are being cancelled for being just moderate, or for stuff they said when they were teenagers which is ridiculous), how can you justify having someone fired by a mob for something they SAID, therefore denying their livelihood?"" Go into your bosses office and use an ethnic slur and tell me what happens. Speech has consequences and hate speech rightfully has more consequences.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Speech has consequences and hate speech rightfully has more consequences. And you define what "hate speech" is and how severe the "consequences" are supposed to be. If you feel that something that was said about you is hate speech and you feel that only beating up the person would be an adequate consequence, then by all means, go for it?
  - d_e_solomon 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
foldr 6y ago
>how can you justify having someone fired by a mob for something they SAID I don't follow this at all. Of course people can get fired for things they say. This happens all the time in cases that have nothing to do with hate speech or other controversial issues.

frogpelt 6y ago

If we all agreed on those terms you threw out, then you might have a point. But we don't. I don't agree with the new definition of racist. There was a time not long ago that dressing up as a black person for Halloween was maybe insensitive but it was not considered racist. Especially since only the people who saw you were affected. (Now everyone can see everything) Racist used to mean that you thought one race was superior or that one race was inferior. Now it means saying anything or doing anything that any segment of only one race's population considers offensive. Many on one side of the political aisle will stone-face claim that it is not possible to be racist towards white people because they are the majority. That indicates that the definition has changed. So, yes... we are discussing a philosophical pie in the sky because that's where the terms are being defined.