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> Same is free speech: when actually exercising this right was about printing books of pamphlets that meant a certain level of financial and intellectual barrie

> Same is free speech: when actually exercising this right was about printing books of pamphlets that meant a certain level of financial and intellectual barrier to it, free speech was clearly all benefits and no risks. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but this is also a very dangerous approach in my opinion. What you seem to be saying is: "as long as only the well-off - and therefore likely to be educated - people had the means of mass expression, dangerous ideas could not proliferate". Should it be one group of people, preferably "us", who decides what the other groups are allowed to think and discuss? To me this is much more ripe for abuse than the other extreme. Doubly so because the dangers in free speech can be much better solved with education and removing the ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots. So I disagree vehemently that the solution is to limit free speech. That to me is akin to cutting off our own noses because we have a flu. The root of the problem is elsewhere. What does pretty much every malicious and totalitarian regime start with? 1. Ban free speech 2. Institute the concept of thought crimes 3. Limit education Concentrating knowledge and intelligence in the hands of a few, and reducing information and idea flow to the masses. Dangerous and radical ideas can proliferate mostly among marginalized groups who have been excluded from welfare for one reason or another. People who are gripped by existential fears and see little to no possibility of improvement or solution to their problems will naturally gravitate towards radical opinions because they have nothing to lose, no other options and nobody else listens to them. Banning their voice will do nothing just push them further away and radicalize them even more.

anovikov 6y ago
That's the thing: the concept of "human rights" was born in 1700s exactly because it was technologically limited to the people who invented it: the elites (more often then not, slaveholding elites!). It's just now it backfires because technology changed in the way everyone can use it. And then again, it is mass democracy, which was always a mistake, and if it didn't exist many of the problems we have now won't exist either, it's entirely fair if voting is limited to landowners who have land giving no less than $X annual rent, the way it was in late 1700s-early 1800s America. And even more so when we have massive social programs so democracy becomes a death trap of freeloaders voting for even more free stuff. What is the realistic exit from it? I believe that Chinese way relies too much on individual obedience so culturally impossible in any Western country. Returning to democracy for the elites and human rights for the (sub)elites too, is impossible because it's a catch-22: people won't vote for it. Maybe something like Putinism is a good way out: keep democracy on paper but make sure actual voting is irrelevant, keep free speech on paper but make sure "right" content is ranked better than "wrong" (this is how Russian social media, which is KGB-owned, works, after VK.com acquisition). Of course it can't also work without some countries remaining true democracies - just kept afloat, with their social programs, with massive amounts of stolen money - because the elites need safe places to live in, after all. This way, we will return to the "good old" American system of 200 years ago - except geographically, rather than racially, segregated.

anovikov 6y ago

That's the thing: the concept of "human rights" was born in 1700s exactly because it was technologically limited to the people who invented it: the elites (more often then not, slaveholding elites!). It's just now it backfires because technology changed in the way everyone can use it. And then again, it is mass democracy, which was always a mistake, and if it didn't exist many of the problems we have now won't exist either, it's entirely fair if voting is limited to landowners who have land giving no less than $X annual rent, the way it was in late 1700s-early 1800s America. And even more so when we have massive social programs so democracy becomes a death trap of freeloaders voting for even more free stuff. What is the realistic exit from it? I believe that Chinese way relies too much on individual obedience so culturally impossible in any Western country. Returning to democracy for the elites and human rights for the (sub)elites too, is impossible because it's a catch-22: people won't vote for it. Maybe something like Putinism is a good way out: keep democracy on paper but make sure actual voting is irrelevant, keep free speech on paper but make sure "right" content is ranked better than "wrong" (this is how Russian social media, which is KGB-owned, works, after VK.com acquisition). Of course it can't also work without some countries remaining true democracies - just kept afloat, with their social programs, with massive amounts of stolen money - because the elites need safe places to live in, after all. This way, we will return to the "good old" American system of 200 years ago - except geographically, rather than racially, segregated.