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I remember the days, just 15 years or so ago on Slashdot, people from a similar community as ours would have in their signature the quote: "I disapprove of wha

I remember the days, just 15 years or so ago on Slashdot, people from a similar community as ours would have in their signature the quote: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I wonder how things changed so quickly and where this may lead us...

beaconstudios 6y ago
My guess, Internet commentariat shifted away from live-and-let-live attitudes like (actual) liberalism or (actual) libertarianism. Don't know why, but I see an awful lot more busybodies on here, reddit etc than before. I suspect regression to the mean, aka eternal September, since the Internet and Internet social networks stopped being niche thanks to social media and the startup boom.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  I think that the type of intellect is the issue. Why? At the start, only highly technical types dominated the Internet. Other types existed, but were the minority. And at the start, the Internet had more, tech only content. Sure, there were funny memes, other silly things, but cat videos didn't take up 99.99% of all non-porn traffic. This type of personality tends to do lots of research, read a lot, where as most of the population never picks up a book, and very rarely reads. And while the Internet forces the average Joe to read, reading a headline is all they do. And can even tolerate. (Note that UN national literary rates, are based upon what a 7th grader can read. An average one too, not a particularly bright one.) Couple this with tiny smartphone displays, where a three paragraph news article looks like a massive wall of text... And, no text reflow in mainline phone browsers due to agendas... And most Internet commentators aren't even able to listen, or understand, the other side. One of the most popular communication methods forces tiny little sentences, forcing even the highly literate to write like Captain Kirk, in halting, disjointed sentences! Then, couple all of this with something else readers / those who enjoy learning, do? Why, they learn history! The history of why you never do this or that, or why thing $x leads to bad outcomes time and time again, which provides significant context to the world. In short? The Internet now belongs to the masses, and that is why it changed.
  - beaconstudios 6y ago
    I think we're describing the same effect. Our conclusions about regression to the mean are identical, and I believe the people who most want to learn are also most likely to be of a live-and-let-live persuasion, because they want to be left alone to explore information at their own discretion, and hate for the information available to them to be limited. It's basically a bargain - "I'll leave you to do what you want to do if you let me do the same".
atoav 6y ago
As someone who grew up in a right wing province of southern Austria with neo nazis (and old original nazis) nextdoors I can tell you precisely what changed. Fighting for the other persons right to speak their thought is a good and noble thing as long as the other person doesn't fight against your right to say what you like and as long as their words don't turn into actions. The more of this happens the more tolerance becomes a luxury only those not directly involved can afford. Let us substitute something else for right wing/fascist extremism for a moment: Dschihadism. When do we stop tolerating Dschihadists? And when do we start treating every Dschihadist as a potential terrorist, which should be surveilled, silenced, imprisoned and ultimately even killed? The answer is very clear: when the frequency with which people violate other peoples fundamental rights in the Name of Dschihadism starts to rise too much. Be it their children or women who are at times forbidden basic human rights, be it the victims of their violent attacks. This is way beyond being just speech, this is anti-humanistic ideology and it should be stopped just at the point where words become actions. Now if you ask how things changed so quickly: A significant part of the US public came closer to these actions (with a strongly visible part trying to stop the counting of a democratic election with violence). During the Trump years it wasn't just speech that was problematic. People got killed, people got attacked, people got their rights violated in many ways based on that speech. And there is a threshold beyond which tolerance makes you complicit. Don't become the kind of person that tolerates the NSDAP party rise while closing your eyes to all the clearly visible actions that follow their Brandreden (=German for "inflamatory speech"). You can totally say something I don't agree with and I will fight for your right to do it, but as soon as you step over the line and violate other peoples rights, you waived your right to be tolerated by me.
- UweSchmidt 6y ago
  I can agree with your examples of truly extreme and hostile behaviour (even though the level of which hasn't changed much in the last 15 years where I noticed the change? In fact, the post-9/11 dschihadism scare was, in retrospect, overblown and of course exploited politically) OP however just seem to hint vaguely to unwanted opinions that should lead to loss of work, implicitly handing the power to a social media mob (or possibly organized groups posing as such) that enforces unwritten rules and targets people with precarious employment or small influencers who depend on their sponsors. I'd prefer if we'd spell it out in a law and keep the enforcement to the courts, thanks!
vbezhenar 6y ago
I still hold that opinion (except part about death), but who cares. You need to make a poll regularly if you want some kind of conclusive evidence that public opinion changes. Otherwise you're making conclusions based on few comments here and there.
lmarcos 6y ago
> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Paradox: if I say: "I don't want freedom of speech for anybody but myself". Why would anyone defend my point of view? I don't think all ideas are defendable, but then I cannot make a list of what ideas deserve to be defended are what not: this always seemed to me like the notion of love (you don't know how to define it, besides the chemical reactions in our body, you don't know how it got into you, but you'll know when it happens to you).
- pedrocr 6y ago
  That's not a paradox. People will not defend your point of view, they will defend your right to express it even though they think you're wrong.
- yaml-ops-guy 6y ago
  This is a remarkably disingenuous distortion of what the phrase actually states: disapproving with a statement should not in good faith be equated with denying one the agency to express it--unless one is hiding cards up their sleeves about their motives.
- africanboy 6y ago
  they would defend your right to say it, not to put your idea into practice. if you ask me I would defend your right to express that opinion, but I would also expect that if you ever come close to having the power to make it real, you would be stopped.
jokethrowaway 6y ago
I blame the education system, the government and other authoritarian institutions which instill in young people weakness and a constant need to appeal to authority. Young people seems to believe freedom is a solved problem - something you memorised in history class - and are blind to the evil authoritarian regimes of our times (like China, North Korea, Cuba): they don't realise we're one step away from those realities and edging closer every day.
- oblio 6y ago
  > China, North Korea, Cuba Freedom is not a solved problem, but your examples don't help your cause as much as you think. None of those countries ever had anything close to a working democracy. Or a large middle class, for that matter. And in the developed democracies another lesson has been forgotten: prosperity beats freedom/liberty. Empty bellies don't care how they get filled, be it from a dictator's hand or from a well paid job in a market economy functioning under the rule of law of a democracy. That's what's eroding democracy. The hollowing out of the middle class. Not "freeze peach", though that part having issues isn't helping either.
UncleMeat 6y ago
> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." People say this, but I've never seen it. Free speech absolutists weren't out there defending protest rights, lgbt activism, or union advocacy. The speech rights of the powerless have been consistently crushed by the powerful while the first amendment is used as a power defense of those who seek to harden existing power structures. This quote often feels like a justification to support the speech rights of bigots while dodging the question of moral responsibility.
- matt-attack 6y ago
  > I’ve never seen it A Jewish lawyer at the ACLU famously fought for the rights of Nazis to demonstrate in Skokie, Il. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_...
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    The other way around. What I want is to see a Nazi free speech absolutist defending the rights of Jewish people.
    - stormdennis 6y ago
      And what about the Palestinians?
      - UncleMeat 6y ago
        What do you mean? My claim is that "free speech absolutism" is more consistently used to protect the rights of those belonging to traditional power structures than the rights of the downtrodden. I am skeptical of it as a viable ideology when there are populations who enjoy the benefit of this ideology who'd waste no time throwing me in prison if they were granted a legislative majority. This is why I don't find examples of historically oppressed groups (Jewish people) defending the rights of historically powerful groups (white supremacists) to be a compelling argument that free speech absolutism will actually protect my rights if it came to that.
bckr 6y ago
I don't mean it should be illegal to hire someone based on what they say. I mean that people should face the social consequences of holding and sharing opinions that sound similar to "all $identity_group should receive $abuse".
krelian 6y ago
One possible reason is the advent of social media demonstrating how free speech coupled with easy access to large amount of the population can make free speech dangerous very quickly. It is easy to tell a lie, much more difficult to disprove it.

beaconstudios 6y ago

My guess, Internet commentariat shifted away from live-and-let-live attitudes like (actual) liberalism or (actual) libertarianism. Don't know why, but I see an awful lot more busybodies on here, reddit etc than before. I suspect regression to the mean, aka eternal September, since the Internet and Internet social networks stopped being niche thanks to social media and the startup boom.

bbarnett 6y ago
I think that the type of intellect is the issue. Why? At the start, only highly technical types dominated the Internet. Other types existed, but were the minority. And at the start, the Internet had more, tech only content. Sure, there were funny memes, other silly things, but cat videos didn't take up 99.99% of all non-porn traffic. This type of personality tends to do lots of research, read a lot, where as most of the population never picks up a book, and very rarely reads. And while the Internet forces the average Joe to read, reading a headline is all they do. And can even tolerate. (Note that UN national literary rates, are based upon what a 7th grader can read. An average one too, not a particularly bright one.) Couple this with tiny smartphone displays, where a three paragraph news article looks like a massive wall of text... And, no text reflow in mainline phone browsers due to agendas... And most Internet commentators aren't even able to listen, or understand, the other side. One of the most popular communication methods forces tiny little sentences, forcing even the highly literate to write like Captain Kirk, in halting, disjointed sentences! Then, couple all of this with something else readers / those who enjoy learning, do? Why, they learn history! The history of why you never do this or that, or why thing $x leads to bad outcomes time and time again, which provides significant context to the world. In short? The Internet now belongs to the masses, and that is why it changed.
- beaconstudios 6y ago
  I think we're describing the same effect. Our conclusions about regression to the mean are identical, and I believe the people who most want to learn are also most likely to be of a live-and-let-live persuasion, because they want to be left alone to explore information at their own discretion, and hate for the information available to them to be limited. It's basically a bargain - "I'll leave you to do what you want to do if you let me do the same".

atoav 6y ago

As someone who grew up in a right wing province of southern Austria with neo nazis (and old original nazis) nextdoors I can tell you precisely what changed. Fighting for the other persons right to speak their thought is a good and noble thing as long as the other person doesn't fight against your right to say what you like and as long as their words don't turn into actions. The more of this happens the more tolerance becomes a luxury only those not directly involved can afford. Let us substitute something else for right wing/fascist extremism for a moment: Dschihadism. When do we stop tolerating Dschihadists? And when do we start treating every Dschihadist as a potential terrorist, which should be surveilled, silenced, imprisoned and ultimately even killed? The answer is very clear: when the frequency with which people violate other peoples fundamental rights in the Name of Dschihadism starts to rise too much. Be it their children or women who are at times forbidden basic human rights, be it the victims of their violent attacks. This is way beyond being just speech, this is anti-humanistic ideology and it should be stopped just at the point where words become actions. Now if you ask how things changed so quickly: A significant part of the US public came closer to these actions (with a strongly visible part trying to stop the counting of a democratic election with violence). During the Trump years it wasn't just speech that was problematic. People got killed, people got attacked, people got their rights violated in many ways based on that speech. And there is a threshold beyond which tolerance makes you complicit. Don't become the kind of person that tolerates the NSDAP party rise while closing your eyes to all the clearly visible actions that follow their Brandreden (=German for "inflamatory speech"). You can totally say something I don't agree with and I will fight for your right to do it, but as soon as you step over the line and violate other peoples rights, you waived your right to be tolerated by me.

UweSchmidt 6y ago
I can agree with your examples of truly extreme and hostile behaviour (even though the level of which hasn't changed much in the last 15 years where I noticed the change? In fact, the post-9/11 dschihadism scare was, in retrospect, overblown and of course exploited politically) OP however just seem to hint vaguely to unwanted opinions that should lead to loss of work, implicitly handing the power to a social media mob (or possibly organized groups posing as such) that enforces unwritten rules and targets people with precarious employment or small influencers who depend on their sponsors. I'd prefer if we'd spell it out in a law and keep the enforcement to the courts, thanks!

vbezhenar 6y ago

I still hold that opinion (except part about death), but who cares. You need to make a poll regularly if you want some kind of conclusive evidence that public opinion changes. Otherwise you're making conclusions based on few comments here and there.

lmarcos 6y ago

> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Paradox: if I say: "I don't want freedom of speech for anybody but myself". Why would anyone defend my point of view? I don't think all ideas are defendable, but then I cannot make a list of what ideas deserve to be defended are what not: this always seemed to me like the notion of love (you don't know how to define it, besides the chemical reactions in our body, you don't know how it got into you, but you'll know when it happens to you).

pedrocr 6y ago
That's not a paradox. People will not defend your point of view, they will defend your right to express it even though they think you're wrong.
yaml-ops-guy 6y ago
This is a remarkably disingenuous distortion of what the phrase actually states: disapproving with a statement should not in good faith be equated with denying one the agency to express it--unless one is hiding cards up their sleeves about their motives.
africanboy 6y ago
they would defend your right to say it, not to put your idea into practice. if you ask me I would defend your right to express that opinion, but I would also expect that if you ever come close to having the power to make it real, you would be stopped.

jokethrowaway 6y ago

I blame the education system, the government and other authoritarian institutions which instill in young people weakness and a constant need to appeal to authority. Young people seems to believe freedom is a solved problem - something you memorised in history class - and are blind to the evil authoritarian regimes of our times (like China, North Korea, Cuba): they don't realise we're one step away from those realities and edging closer every day.

oblio 6y ago
> China, North Korea, Cuba Freedom is not a solved problem, but your examples don't help your cause as much as you think. None of those countries ever had anything close to a working democracy. Or a large middle class, for that matter. And in the developed democracies another lesson has been forgotten: prosperity beats freedom/liberty. Empty bellies don't care how they get filled, be it from a dictator's hand or from a well paid job in a market economy functioning under the rule of law of a democracy. That's what's eroding democracy. The hollowing out of the middle class. Not "freeze peach", though that part having issues isn't helping either.

UncleMeat 6y ago

> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." People say this, but I've never seen it. Free speech absolutists weren't out there defending protest rights, lgbt activism, or union advocacy. The speech rights of the powerless have been consistently crushed by the powerful while the first amendment is used as a power defense of those who seek to harden existing power structures. This quote often feels like a justification to support the speech rights of bigots while dodging the question of moral responsibility.

matt-attack 6y ago
> I’ve never seen it A Jewish lawyer at the ACLU famously fought for the rights of Nazis to demonstrate in Skokie, Il. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_...
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  The other way around. What I want is to see a Nazi free speech absolutist defending the rights of Jewish people.
  - stormdennis 6y ago
    And what about the Palestinians?
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      What do you mean? My claim is that "free speech absolutism" is more consistently used to protect the rights of those belonging to traditional power structures than the rights of the downtrodden. I am skeptical of it as a viable ideology when there are populations who enjoy the benefit of this ideology who'd waste no time throwing me in prison if they were granted a legislative majority. This is why I don't find examples of historically oppressed groups (Jewish people) defending the rights of historically powerful groups (white supremacists) to be a compelling argument that free speech absolutism will actually protect my rights if it came to that.

bckr 6y ago

I don't mean it should be illegal to hire someone based on what they say. I mean that people should face the social consequences of holding and sharing opinions that sound similar to "all $identity_group should receive $abuse".

krelian 6y ago

One possible reason is the advent of social media demonstrating how free speech coupled with easy access to large amount of the population can make free speech dangerous very quickly. It is easy to tell a lie, much more difficult to disprove it.