4 ms·
>Unlimited free speech allows bigots and fascists to spread their poison unobstructed, which demonstrably helps them to recruit more people into their white sup
by godshatter 5y ago
>Unlimited free speech allows bigots and fascists to spread their poison unobstructed, which demonstrably helps them to recruit more people into their white supremacist, genocidal, and anti-democratic movements. Meanwhile, as a cost to maintain this "principle", thousands (and more) of real people are being hurt or killed, or having their livelihoods destroyed, simply because of the way they were born.
In my opinion, the best way to give credence to these kinds of beliefs is to drive them underground. Now you have people whispering from the bushes about the topic to people they think might be swayed to join them and no one is around to counter what they are saying. The best way to keep people from believing these kinds of things is to let their proponents speak, and then call them on it. Joe Gullible will at least be able to see both sides.
Similarly, the best way to unlearn bigotry is to converse with people you are bigoted towards about a range of topics. Eventually you learn that they are just people, like everyone else. The same thing could happen with politics if we stopped being shoved into bubbles (or willingly building them up).
Unfortunately, advertisers don't want to place ads where contentious discussions occur and big companies don't want to lose advertising revenue, so here we are.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y agoYou’re making the appeal again that people actually respond to new information and change their opinions based on evidence. This isn’t true so the argument that driving something underground is bad because there’s no one to argue against it is a moot argument- people wouldn’t respond to rational evidence-based reasoning anyways.
- godshatter 5y agoWhy do you say that people don't change their opinions based on evidence? I've seen it happen. Hell, I've done it myself. Even the people posting in favor of these sorts of topics cite "evidence", for different values of the word "evidence". White supremacists talk about "color" on "color" crime stats, flat earthers mention the horizon not appearing curved (had to look one up), climate "deniers" point to sunspot cycles, anti-vaxxers reference that one autism study, etc, etc. Obviously people do change their opinions based on evidence. They just don't necessarily look for evidence against the topic, mainly, or don't question the evidence provided. These are things they might be exposed to if the conversations weren't banned or relegated to "bubbles". There is also the potential problem of censoring people who actually do hold a valid evidence-based opinion on a topic, it's just not one that's politically en vogue currently. Not to mention all the topics where it isn't clear what the truth is, despite a plethora of evidence for and against, and the person in charge holds a strong opinion on it. What I'm saying, I guess, is "citation needed". Show me your evidence that people don't change their opinions based on evidence and maybe I'll change my opinion on this topic :)
- wussboy 5y agoJonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind”, any of Dan Ariely’s work.