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> Allowing Free speech still is the hill I'd like to die on At this rate it will be the hill that the civilization dies on. The whole "absolute free speech is

> Allowing Free speech still is the hill I'd like to die on At this rate it will be the hill that the civilization dies on. The whole "absolute free speech is a sacrosanct human rights for everyone" is an ideal that simply would not scale with the 21st century civilization. Most users around here grew up firmly believing that value, and it is further reinforced by American/Western exceptionalism, so I can see how this comment will be very negatively received. But we can all agree that freedom isn't free, at one point in the future the cost would be so high that the whole civilization would be facing a "give me freedom or give me death" moment. I can't predict whether that moment will come in the form of an anti-science misinformation campaign during a pandemic that is far more serious than even Covid or a mentally deranged, conspiracy theory supporting leader who has full control of the nuclear arsenal, but that moment will come one day. The second law of thermal dynamics applies to more than just physical systems, entropy also plays similar role in a complex society that is getting ever more complex. Before our species can attain the ability to modularize our own society through interplanetary colonization to ensure survival, we have to face the very uncomfortable truth that we have to put in more rules and checks into our existing society to ensure the entropy doesn't snowball out of control too fast. That means we have to put everything on the table and re-exam all of our values, because there is no value to speak of in a dead world. The unfortunate thing is it's very difficult to have this conversation, even with very intelligent people, without everyone getting emotional. After all a lot of these beliefs and values are something we hold very dear, and maybe that is the ultimate tragedy of our world.

nullc 6y ago
I don't follow your argument. Free Speech doesn't mean that anyone has an obligation to listen. You can solve being saturated by noise on the listening side much better than on the sending side... much better because the listeners needs are diverse, because listeners must be robust against adversarial inputs (or otherwise the first madman with a random number generator floods you out), because the listeners time/sanity is what is at stake so that's where the incentives are, and so on. The fight against entropy should be all of our missions but it can be accomplished without forcefully silencing people.
- andrewprock 6y ago
  "Free Speech doesn't mean that anyone has an obligation to listen" Quite. And those who have no obligation to listen include Facebook and Twitter. They are absolutely under no obligation to deliver any message you wish to send.
  - nullc 6y ago
    You won't get much disagreement from me on that basis though I wish that was the reasoning they gave-- rather than the transparently false statements about leaked documents. I'm also dubious about applying that to private messages: Twitter isn't a party to those messages, interception of the content is an unlawful wiretap. Without unlawfully monitoring the content of the users private community it's not clear to me how they could be suppressing the content.
    - andrewprock 6y ago
      They are free to do whatever they want with any message on their platform, private or public. If they were regulated as a common carrier, this would not be the case. I believe that Twitter and Facebook have no desire to be regulated as common carriers. There is no way this is an unlawful wiretap, as they own and operate the wires.
      - nullc 6y ago
        This is absolutely not true under federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2511.) (also apparently CA PC 631). It doesn't matter who owns the facilities. Except for certain narrow exceptions (warrants, government officers, jails, incidental operations necessary for maintenance) any unauthorized third party interception of a private communication is unlawful. Common carrier status is relevant for liability but is irrelevant for § 2511.
        andrewprock 6y ago
        I think you are confusing a Twitter DM with a private communication. Note that Twitter is not intercepting your DMs, they are the ones transmitting and storing them.
tomjen3 6y ago
It should be the hill that civilization dies on, because without free speech there is no civilization. Without free speech corruption will grow and societies will decay because there is nothing to stop the rot before it spreads.
- Cookingboy 6y ago
  As long as there is people and society there will be a civilization one way or the other. You may not like that civilization, but saying a specie cannot survive unless we adhere to democracy and free speech is the product of your upbringing but not the product of objective reality.
- partiallypro 6y ago
  You could even make the argument that China and Russia are actively feeding into things like this in order to make people anti-free speech/thought and cause internal strife/erosion because our eroding institutions (including free speech) gives them a leg up globally to set their own agendas in motion.
  - Cookingboy 6y ago
    The very fact that is successful just further reinforces my point doesn't it? If we see different countries as competing organisms, obviously in the 21st century China would have a leg over us precisely because of things like their government would shut down any anti-mask speech or movement at the first sight. Imagine a terrorist cell just unleashed a biological weapon that's far more deadly than Covid. Which country do you think will fare better in this scenario, China or the U.S.? Would Americans still be arguing about the superiority of democracy and free speech if a majority of the people died?
    - partiallypro 6y ago
      You could make this argument about any totalitarian regime vs a free society, so no.
closeparen 6y ago
This sounds nice in abstract. Let's walk it two steps towards the concrete: 1) Our elected officials suppressing the voices they believe are most dangerous to our society. 2) Donald Trump shutting down The New York Times. This seems like a move that would jumpstart the entropy snowball, not slow it down.
- Cookingboy 6y ago
  As far as entropy goes, if we actually have a "supreme leader" then it would actually drastically lower entropy. It would be a shitty society to live in unless we are talking about a benevolent AI or something, but entropy would indeed be low. Btw my original comment wasn't about the danger of free speech, it's about the danger of absolutely unchecked free speech from all aspects of society.
cambalache 6y ago
And yet,here you are, freely spouting non-sense, misinterpreting the second law of "thermal dynamics" and arguing for a very strict and highly-self-convenient notion of freedom of speech. I still wish you can express your views all over the internet without the risk of being cancelled.
- Cookingboy 6y ago
  >I still wish you can express your views all over the internet without the risk of being cancelled. I don't, especially if me spreading nonsense directly causes harm to a large number of people and the society. I do not believe my unlimited free speech rights is of higher priority the health and wellbeing of the overall society. The whole "individual rights always triumphs over the interest of the society" is exactly the type of American exceptionalism I mentioned. It's a very strange notion in many cultures (and no doubt you'd say those cultures are inferior) and it's more or less another symptom of a culture that worships narcissistic behavior.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    You are just one guy in the Internet, relax, dont give yourself too much importance. While people fight to stop the "tin-foil brigade" to have their loony youtube channels, they enshrine Hollywood actors, Silicon Valley neo-barons and politicians, whose opinions are ACTUALLY dangerous and influential, and yet none of them will be cancelled.isnt it curious?
    - Cookingboy 6y ago
      The whole point of my comment is I am not important, and neither are you, so both of us should shut up if our speech materially hurt the society. > Silicon Valley neo-barons and politicians, whose opinions are ACTUALLY dangerous and influential, and yet none of them will be cancelled.isnt it curious? I see you failed on reading comprehension. They should be cancelled if they are proven to be dangerous to the society, such as anti-mask movement or anti-vaccine movement. I don't know why you are trying to trivialize "tin-foil brigade" when it literally killed many people this year.

nullc 6y ago

I don't follow your argument. Free Speech doesn't mean that anyone has an obligation to listen. You can solve being saturated by noise on the listening side much better than on the sending side... much better because the listeners needs are diverse, because listeners must be robust against adversarial inputs (or otherwise the first madman with a random number generator floods you out), because the listeners time/sanity is what is at stake so that's where the incentives are, and so on. The fight against entropy should be all of our missions but it can be accomplished without forcefully silencing people.

andrewprock 6y ago
"Free Speech doesn't mean that anyone has an obligation to listen" Quite. And those who have no obligation to listen include Facebook and Twitter. They are absolutely under no obligation to deliver any message you wish to send.
- nullc 6y ago
  You won't get much disagreement from me on that basis though I wish that was the reasoning they gave-- rather than the transparently false statements about leaked documents. I'm also dubious about applying that to private messages: Twitter isn't a party to those messages, interception of the content is an unlawful wiretap. Without unlawfully monitoring the content of the users private community it's not clear to me how they could be suppressing the content.
  - andrewprock 6y ago
    They are free to do whatever they want with any message on their platform, private or public. If they were regulated as a common carrier, this would not be the case. I believe that Twitter and Facebook have no desire to be regulated as common carriers. There is no way this is an unlawful wiretap, as they own and operate the wires.
    - nullc 6y ago
      This is absolutely not true under federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2511.) (also apparently CA PC 631). It doesn't matter who owns the facilities. Except for certain narrow exceptions (warrants, government officers, jails, incidental operations necessary for maintenance) any unauthorized third party interception of a private communication is unlawful. Common carrier status is relevant for liability but is irrelevant for § 2511.
      - andrewprock 6y ago
        I think you are confusing a Twitter DM with a private communication. Note that Twitter is not intercepting your DMs, they are the ones transmitting and storing them.

tomjen3 6y ago

It should be the hill that civilization dies on, because without free speech there is no civilization. Without free speech corruption will grow and societies will decay because there is nothing to stop the rot before it spreads.

Cookingboy 6y ago
As long as there is people and society there will be a civilization one way or the other. You may not like that civilization, but saying a specie cannot survive unless we adhere to democracy and free speech is the product of your upbringing but not the product of objective reality.
partiallypro 6y ago
You could even make the argument that China and Russia are actively feeding into things like this in order to make people anti-free speech/thought and cause internal strife/erosion because our eroding institutions (including free speech) gives them a leg up globally to set their own agendas in motion.
- Cookingboy 6y ago
  The very fact that is successful just further reinforces my point doesn't it? If we see different countries as competing organisms, obviously in the 21st century China would have a leg over us precisely because of things like their government would shut down any anti-mask speech or movement at the first sight. Imagine a terrorist cell just unleashed a biological weapon that's far more deadly than Covid. Which country do you think will fare better in this scenario, China or the U.S.? Would Americans still be arguing about the superiority of democracy and free speech if a majority of the people died?
  - partiallypro 6y ago
    You could make this argument about any totalitarian regime vs a free society, so no.

closeparen 6y ago

This sounds nice in abstract. Let's walk it two steps towards the concrete: 1) Our elected officials suppressing the voices they believe are most dangerous to our society. 2) Donald Trump shutting down The New York Times. This seems like a move that would jumpstart the entropy snowball, not slow it down.

Cookingboy 6y ago
As far as entropy goes, if we actually have a "supreme leader" then it would actually drastically lower entropy. It would be a shitty society to live in unless we are talking about a benevolent AI or something, but entropy would indeed be low. Btw my original comment wasn't about the danger of free speech, it's about the danger of absolutely unchecked free speech from all aspects of society.

cambalache 6y ago

And yet,here you are, freely spouting non-sense, misinterpreting the second law of "thermal dynamics" and arguing for a very strict and highly-self-convenient notion of freedom of speech. I still wish you can express your views all over the internet without the risk of being cancelled.

Cookingboy 6y ago
>I still wish you can express your views all over the internet without the risk of being cancelled. I don't, especially if me spreading nonsense directly causes harm to a large number of people and the society. I do not believe my unlimited free speech rights is of higher priority the health and wellbeing of the overall society. The whole "individual rights always triumphs over the interest of the society" is exactly the type of American exceptionalism I mentioned. It's a very strange notion in many cultures (and no doubt you'd say those cultures are inferior) and it's more or less another symptom of a culture that worships narcissistic behavior.
- cambalache 6y ago
  You are just one guy in the Internet, relax, dont give yourself too much importance. While people fight to stop the "tin-foil brigade" to have their loony youtube channels, they enshrine Hollywood actors, Silicon Valley neo-barons and politicians, whose opinions are ACTUALLY dangerous and influential, and yet none of them will be cancelled.isnt it curious?
  - Cookingboy 6y ago
    The whole point of my comment is I am not important, and neither are you, so both of us should shut up if our speech materially hurt the society. > Silicon Valley neo-barons and politicians, whose opinions are ACTUALLY dangerous and influential, and yet none of them will be cancelled.isnt it curious? I see you failed on reading comprehension. They should be cancelled if they are proven to be dangerous to the society, such as anti-mask movement or anti-vaccine movement. I don't know why you are trying to trivialize "tin-foil brigade" when it literally killed many people this year.