4 ms·

I don't understand this take. Were Boomers, for example, adamant defenders of free speech (on the whole)? Gen X might be an exception, but it seems to me that a

by saila 5y ago

I don't understand this take. Were Boomers, for example, adamant defenders of free speech (on the whole)? Gen X might be an exception, but it seems to me that all prior generations attempted to squelch speech and other rights more so than Gen Z and Millenials.

bradleyjg 5y ago
In the Boomer and GenX generations the right wing opposed free speech and the left wing fought for it. In Millennials and GenZ it’s the opposite. If you have a group that’s mixed in age but most made up of left of center people from their respective generations then you are likely to see all the would be censures in the younger half.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
api 5y ago
The change many people are noting is that opposition to free speech used to be largely confined to the religious right. It's now much more broad. I think part of it is the rise of online echo chambers. People act like the media they consume, and latter generations grew up with online circle jerks being the norm. Another factor is the rise of so much bad faith disinformation coupled with the extreme virality of bullshit on social media. It seems like the truth of a story is inversely proportional to its likelihood of being shared on Facebook. There's been a panic about the explosion of things like Qanon, neo-fascism, and anti-vaccine disinformation. I hear a lot of people questioning whether it's possible to have a liberal open society without... ironically... censorship. I don't think censorship can be the answer, but I don't know what the answer is. The last few years has left me utterly shocked at the gullibility of human beings. Do people even think at all or are we indeed just mindless "meme machines" whose central nervous systems are vectors for replicating patterns?
- zaarn 5y ago
  I think the answer is to view Free Speech as a positive right. Ie, something the state guarantees you have. As a logical consequence, the state must then also fight those who actively oppose you having the right to speak freely. Or any of your other rights. Those who seek to destroy your positive freedoms should have them taken away. Similarly, not being discriminated based on skin color or sex or gender is also a positive right in my view, so anyone who discriminates based on those categories should similarly be punished, otherwise their intolerance propagates. Censorship of those who seek to oppress is necessary to require freedom (or to put it another way, the paradox of intolerance is that you must be intolerant of those who are intolerant, to guarantee that maximum tolerance is not only possible but guaranteed over a long time frame). On the note of meme machines, I always liked to think that Memes ought to be studied in a university course, Memetics could become a serious field of study.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    > Censorship of those who seek to oppress is necessary to require freedom Besides the obvious, who defines what is oppressive? If we are censoring people then there should be due process at a minimum, so who writes those procedures and laws? How do we ensure they don’t become politicized?
    - zaarn 5y ago
      Oppressive is that which seeks removes your positive freedoms. Positive freedoms should be fairly uncontroversial, things like freedom of opinion, freedom to bodily autonomy, freedom to seek work, freedom to basic living conditions etc. To ensure they don't become politicized, any new positive freedom should require a 2/3rds approval by the government (and for the people in the US that means you need to figure out multi-party or this is gonna suck) and removing a positive freedom would require 3/4th approval by the government. The procedures and laws should be handled and drafted by a separated government branch, which is dedicated to protecting the freedoms granted by the constitution (as well as protecting the constitution of your country itself). They substitute prosecution in case of violations but do have to go through the same courts as everyone else. To ensure that this doesn't escalate for person-on-person disputes, generally they should only prosecute those who are threatening to oppress or have oppressed a group of people or a person for being part of a group of people under protection from the constitution (like their sex, gender, economic background or skin color).

by saila 5y ago

bradleyjg 5y ago

In the Boomer and GenX generations the right wing opposed free speech and the left wing fought for it. In Millennials and GenZ it’s the opposite. If you have a group that’s mixed in age but most made up of left of center people from their respective generations then you are likely to see all the would be censures in the younger half.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

api 5y ago

The change many people are noting is that opposition to free speech used to be largely confined to the religious right. It's now much more broad. I think part of it is the rise of online echo chambers. People act like the media they consume, and latter generations grew up with online circle jerks being the norm. Another factor is the rise of so much bad faith disinformation coupled with the extreme virality of bullshit on social media. It seems like the truth of a story is inversely proportional to its likelihood of being shared on Facebook. There's been a panic about the explosion of things like Qanon, neo-fascism, and anti-vaccine disinformation. I hear a lot of people questioning whether it's possible to have a liberal open society without... ironically... censorship. I don't think censorship can be the answer, but I don't know what the answer is. The last few years has left me utterly shocked at the gullibility of human beings. Do people even think at all or are we indeed just mindless "meme machines" whose central nervous systems are vectors for replicating patterns?

zaarn 5y ago
I think the answer is to view Free Speech as a positive right. Ie, something the state guarantees you have. As a logical consequence, the state must then also fight those who actively oppose you having the right to speak freely. Or any of your other rights. Those who seek to destroy your positive freedoms should have them taken away. Similarly, not being discriminated based on skin color or sex or gender is also a positive right in my view, so anyone who discriminates based on those categories should similarly be punished, otherwise their intolerance propagates. Censorship of those who seek to oppress is necessary to require freedom (or to put it another way, the paradox of intolerance is that you must be intolerant of those who are intolerant, to guarantee that maximum tolerance is not only possible but guaranteed over a long time frame). On the note of meme machines, I always liked to think that Memes ought to be studied in a university course, Memetics could become a serious field of study.
- tekknik 5y ago
  > Censorship of those who seek to oppress is necessary to require freedom Besides the obvious, who defines what is oppressive? If we are censoring people then there should be due process at a minimum, so who writes those procedures and laws? How do we ensure they don’t become politicized?
  - zaarn 5y ago
    Oppressive is that which seeks removes your positive freedoms. Positive freedoms should be fairly uncontroversial, things like freedom of opinion, freedom to bodily autonomy, freedom to seek work, freedom to basic living conditions etc. To ensure they don't become politicized, any new positive freedom should require a 2/3rds approval by the government (and for the people in the US that means you need to figure out multi-party or this is gonna suck) and removing a positive freedom would require 3/4th approval by the government. The procedures and laws should be handled and drafted by a separated government branch, which is dedicated to protecting the freedoms granted by the constitution (as well as protecting the constitution of your country itself). They substitute prosecution in case of violations but do have to go through the same courts as everyone else. To ensure that this doesn't escalate for person-on-person disputes, generally they should only prosecute those who are threatening to oppress or have oppressed a group of people or a person for being part of a group of people under protection from the constitution (like their sex, gender, economic background or skin color).