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The "ignore voices you don't like" argument completely fails to account for the effect of those voices on the millions of people around you, and the effect of t

The "ignore voices you don't like" argument completely fails to account for the effect of those voices on the millions of people around you, and the effect of their changed actions as a result, on you in turn. It's like saying "pretend you're the only person in the world."

nostromo 6y ago
Censorship still isn't the answer. If you don't like the way other people are thinking, you have to have a conversation with them and try to change their views the hard way. Censorship may even protect people with views you find objectionable -- because that person is shielded from having disagreements with others.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  > If you don't like the way other people are thinking, you have to have a conversation with them and try to change their views the hard way. Again, that’s not how people work. “The marketplace of ideas” is an idealism, a mini-utopia. It does not account for known and unpatched vulnerabilities in human psychology - and a fix from the vendor is not expected any time soon.
  - nostromo 6y ago
    It is how people work, as evidenced over and over again by a widening view of compassion for others. Just look at the past 20 years and the success of the gay rights movement. Views changed because of millions of one-on-one conversations between people who disagreed on gay marriage. No censorship was required for progress. In fact, censorship would have been counterproductive, as I believe it is here. It's no coincidence that the countries with the least free speech also tend to be the most regressive on civil rights and some of the worst places to be an ethnic minority.
    - grasshopperpurp 6y ago
      >It's no coincidence that the countries with the least free speech also tend to be the most regressive on civil rights and some of the worst places to be an ethnic minority. Feels like this is an attempt to simplify something complex. Most Western European countries have more restrictions on speech than the US, but many of them do a better job of upholding civil rights. Just today someone posted a thread about the broken bail system in the US - for example.
      - nostromo 6y ago
        It's not a perfect correlation, but even if you just look in Europe, the countries with more freedom of speech have more civil liberties. It's also worth noting that only half of the EU member states have legal gay marriage -- something that all Americans have access to.
    - heylook 6y ago
      Political change of this magnitude happens because different people are voting, not because the same person changed their mind. Literally it’s because the old people died before they could pass 100% of their bigotry to the next generation.
      - nostromo 6y ago
        This isn't true. Approval for gay marriage has gone up for all generations. It's now at 45% approval among people born before 1945, up from just 17% in 2003. https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/ https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-ga...
        whoisburbansky 6y ago
        Thanks for linking to the poll, I had no idea that that was what the distribution of support for same sex marriage across ages looked like. Fascinating that almost two thirds of Catholics and Protestants support same sex marriage, would never have guessed that. Even more surprising to me was that the trend line basically goes up over time no matter which way you slice and dice by demographic or religious affiliation or church attendance.
  - filoleg 6y ago
    > Again, that’s not how people work. I agree with you that this is not exactly how people work, but I believe the parent comment was going in the right direction, they just went just a bit off the mark. To quote what they said. >> If you don't like the way other people are thinking, you have to have a conversation with them and try to change their views the hard way. So yes, while having a conversation with someone who is strongly holding onto some insane beliefs is unlikely to help that specific person, however, it definitely helps with steering other people (who observed that exchange and who are a bit more on the fence) in the right direction and away from those insane views. You don't even need to go far to find examples of that working, just look at HN. While the views here won't normally be as insane as an average "hot take" on FB, there were definitely some heated arguments (about higher-level fundamental ideas, not technical matters) that swayed my opinion one way or the other, despite those arguments clearly not really changing the minds of people actually involved in those arguments. Yes, this is just anecdata and not a peer-reviewed study, but I have a belief that this experience is not that uncommon at all.
- glasss 6y ago
  > If you don't like the way other people are thinking, you have to have a conversation with them and try to change their views the hard way. You and I have a right to not do anything with those people. But for the sake of discussion, I'm willing to do that with people where we disagree on reasonable things. I'm not willing to have a civil discourse with people that adamantly refuse to believe facts and think I'm a part of a larger conspiracy. Does that mean censorship of all of these people / ideas is the answer? I don't think so. But I know that if I ran a platform where people were discussing holocaust denial I would ban them. I'm willing to admit I might be a hypocrite on that front, but alas I am a human.
- whoisburbansky 6y ago
  How does this work with people who are dead set from the beginning to refuse to listen to what you have to say, and refuse to reason in good faith?
amadeuspagel 6y ago
Sure, the effects of speech on the real world has always been the reason for censorship. "Ignore voices you don't like" isn't a refutation of that old and honest argument in favor of censorship, it's a refutation of the new and dishonest argument that censorship actually protects freedom of speech.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  > censorship actually protects freedom of speech I believe it does. And I don’t believe it’s a dishonest argument. But I sincerely respect your position (to use the cliché: I understand where you’re coming from...). And I agree to disagree. Will you agree to disagree with me, though?
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    Yes.
- skrowl 6y ago
  > it's a refutation of the new and dishonest argument that censorship actually protects freedom of speech Once you convince people that the other side is evil and your side must win at all costs, they'll rationalize any behavior. This includes censoring and de-platforming voices that don't agree with them. After you've convinced yourself that "I believe that we should hire whoever is the most qualified, regardless of their ethnicity" or "I believe that all lives matter equally, none more than any other" are HATE SPEECH, it's very easy to convince yourself to ban people with those opinions from being able to speak their opinion. This is why throwing around "Nazi!", "White Supremacist!" for people not actually exhibiting those behaviors is so dangerous. Once you de-humanize someone, it's easier to convince yourself to take away their human rights (like free speech).
  - throwaway2048 6y ago
    Just to reground the rhetoric, we are talking about facebook removing posts by people that try to convince others that one of the largest genocides in human history didn't happen, not about all that other stuff.

nostromo 6y ago

Censorship still isn't the answer. If you don't like the way other people are thinking, you have to have a conversation with them and try to change their views the hard way. Censorship may even protect people with views you find objectionable -- because that person is shielded from having disagreements with others.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
> If you don't like the way other people are thinking, you have to have a conversation with them and try to change their views the hard way. Again, that’s not how people work. “The marketplace of ideas” is an idealism, a mini-utopia. It does not account for known and unpatched vulnerabilities in human psychology - and a fix from the vendor is not expected any time soon.
- nostromo 6y ago
  It is how people work, as evidenced over and over again by a widening view of compassion for others. Just look at the past 20 years and the success of the gay rights movement. Views changed because of millions of one-on-one conversations between people who disagreed on gay marriage. No censorship was required for progress. In fact, censorship would have been counterproductive, as I believe it is here. It's no coincidence that the countries with the least free speech also tend to be the most regressive on civil rights and some of the worst places to be an ethnic minority.
  - grasshopperpurp 6y ago
    >It's no coincidence that the countries with the least free speech also tend to be the most regressive on civil rights and some of the worst places to be an ethnic minority. Feels like this is an attempt to simplify something complex. Most Western European countries have more restrictions on speech than the US, but many of them do a better job of upholding civil rights. Just today someone posted a thread about the broken bail system in the US - for example.
    - nostromo 6y ago
      It's not a perfect correlation, but even if you just look in Europe, the countries with more freedom of speech have more civil liberties. It's also worth noting that only half of the EU member states have legal gay marriage -- something that all Americans have access to.
  - heylook 6y ago
    Political change of this magnitude happens because different people are voting, not because the same person changed their mind. Literally it’s because the old people died before they could pass 100% of their bigotry to the next generation.
    - nostromo 6y ago
      This isn't true. Approval for gay marriage has gone up for all generations. It's now at 45% approval among people born before 1945, up from just 17% in 2003. https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/ https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-ga...
      - whoisburbansky 6y ago
        Thanks for linking to the poll, I had no idea that that was what the distribution of support for same sex marriage across ages looked like. Fascinating that almost two thirds of Catholics and Protestants support same sex marriage, would never have guessed that. Even more surprising to me was that the trend line basically goes up over time no matter which way you slice and dice by demographic or religious affiliation or church attendance.
- filoleg 6y ago
  > Again, that’s not how people work. I agree with you that this is not exactly how people work, but I believe the parent comment was going in the right direction, they just went just a bit off the mark. To quote what they said. >> If you don't like the way other people are thinking, you have to have a conversation with them and try to change their views the hard way. So yes, while having a conversation with someone who is strongly holding onto some insane beliefs is unlikely to help that specific person, however, it definitely helps with steering other people (who observed that exchange and who are a bit more on the fence) in the right direction and away from those insane views. You don't even need to go far to find examples of that working, just look at HN. While the views here won't normally be as insane as an average "hot take" on FB, there were definitely some heated arguments (about higher-level fundamental ideas, not technical matters) that swayed my opinion one way or the other, despite those arguments clearly not really changing the minds of people actually involved in those arguments. Yes, this is just anecdata and not a peer-reviewed study, but I have a belief that this experience is not that uncommon at all.
glasss 6y ago
> If you don't like the way other people are thinking, you have to have a conversation with them and try to change their views the hard way. You and I have a right to not do anything with those people. But for the sake of discussion, I'm willing to do that with people where we disagree on reasonable things. I'm not willing to have a civil discourse with people that adamantly refuse to believe facts and think I'm a part of a larger conspiracy. Does that mean censorship of all of these people / ideas is the answer? I don't think so. But I know that if I ran a platform where people were discussing holocaust denial I would ban them. I'm willing to admit I might be a hypocrite on that front, but alas I am a human.
whoisburbansky 6y ago
How does this work with people who are dead set from the beginning to refuse to listen to what you have to say, and refuse to reason in good faith?

amadeuspagel 6y ago

Sure, the effects of speech on the real world has always been the reason for censorship. "Ignore voices you don't like" isn't a refutation of that old and honest argument in favor of censorship, it's a refutation of the new and dishonest argument that censorship actually protects freedom of speech.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
> censorship actually protects freedom of speech I believe it does. And I don’t believe it’s a dishonest argument. But I sincerely respect your position (to use the cliché: I understand where you’re coming from...). And I agree to disagree. Will you agree to disagree with me, though?
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  Yes.
skrowl 6y ago
> it's a refutation of the new and dishonest argument that censorship actually protects freedom of speech Once you convince people that the other side is evil and your side must win at all costs, they'll rationalize any behavior. This includes censoring and de-platforming voices that don't agree with them. After you've convinced yourself that "I believe that we should hire whoever is the most qualified, regardless of their ethnicity" or "I believe that all lives matter equally, none more than any other" are HATE SPEECH, it's very easy to convince yourself to ban people with those opinions from being able to speak their opinion. This is why throwing around "Nazi!", "White Supremacist!" for people not actually exhibiting those behaviors is so dangerous. Once you de-humanize someone, it's easier to convince yourself to take away their human rights (like free speech).
- throwaway2048 6y ago
  Just to reground the rhetoric, we are talking about facebook removing posts by people that try to convince others that one of the largest genocides in human history didn't happen, not about all that other stuff.