7 ms·

It's only freedom of speech if it protects speech which is actually controversial. This isn't high school. People should have the right to give offense and beha

It's only freedom of speech if it protects speech which is actually controversial. This isn't high school. People should have the right to give offense and behave antisocially, if for no other reason than because there is no one who can be trusted with the power to determine what falls into these extremely arbitrary and subjective categories. Yes we should tolerate the speech of white supremacists and other hateful characters, because the alternative is to see reasonable statements lumped in with them. Where we should draw a clear and sharp line is at violence. "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." - William Blackstone "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall

8note 5y ago
The question is, what do you do when they gain power?
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  Armed conflict seems to be the only way to displace tyrants from power.
- tekknik 5y ago
  Counter their arguments better so they don’t.
  - snugghash 5y ago
    The core problem here is that our technology for discourse is basically twitter and "voting with likes". The algorithms are optimized for attention and likes, so the mob wins - not the best argument. IF we fixed THAT problem (with new technology, an early one is https://www.kialo.com/tour https://www.kialo.com/tour, but it's not good enough), we can have what you want. Right now, we're effectively the same tech level as the 1900s (perhaps in a more dangerous way) w.r.t finding truth or the "right" arguments
    - tekknik 5y ago
      I’ve never been a fan of voting with likes either. I’d be all in for legislatively banning up and down vote systems. You will get minimal traction here though as the political left use these content voting systems to focus effort and gamify division.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  You prevent them from gaining power by winning debates against them and demonstrating to everyone why they're wrong. I mean have you actually seen the "science" used to claim even the existence of different races? It's all misleading statistics and pseudoscience. You group a bunch of people together based on geographical origin and then observe some differences in the averages between the two groups, ignoring that the differences within each "race" are larger than the differences between "races," and that the lines are being drawn arbitrarily, and that even the measured averages could be different as a result of environment or culture rather than genetics. There is no way for a Nazi to win that on the facts because the facts are against them. Which is why they have so little actual support. There are probably more trolls pretending to be Nazis than there are actual Nazis. They're used as the boogeyman specifically because there is such widespread agreement that they're wrong.
  - gm3dmo 5y ago
    >There are probably more trolls pretending to be Nazis than there are actual Nazis. "We are what we pretend to be." --- Kurt Vonnegut
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      Cute, but trivially falsifiable. Wearing a Freddy Krueger mask on Halloween doesn't make you Freddy Krueger. And to the extent that it is true, it implies that we should stop using Nazis as the boogeyman. Because trolls are going to use whatever will get a rise out of people. Best not have it be this that they summon up.
      - gm3dmo 5y ago
        >Cute, but trivially falsifiable. Wearing a Freddy Krueger mask on Halloween doesn't make you Freddy Krueger. That is true enough for most, but not all. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Gonzalez_(spree_killer) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Gonzalez_(spree_kille... Daniel clearly could not separate the Freddy mask from fiction and made it a tragic reality.
    - 5y ago

8note 5y ago

The question is, what do you do when they gain power?

thegrimmest 5y ago
Armed conflict seems to be the only way to displace tyrants from power.
tekknik 5y ago
Counter their arguments better so they don’t.
- snugghash 5y ago
  The core problem here is that our technology for discourse is basically twitter and "voting with likes". The algorithms are optimized for attention and likes, so the mob wins - not the best argument. IF we fixed THAT problem (with new technology, an early one is https://www.kialo.com/tour https://www.kialo.com/tour, but it's not good enough), we can have what you want. Right now, we're effectively the same tech level as the 1900s (perhaps in a more dangerous way) w.r.t finding truth or the "right" arguments
  - tekknik 5y ago
    I’ve never been a fan of voting with likes either. I’d be all in for legislatively banning up and down vote systems. You will get minimal traction here though as the political left use these content voting systems to focus effort and gamify division.
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
You prevent them from gaining power by winning debates against them and demonstrating to everyone why they're wrong. I mean have you actually seen the "science" used to claim even the existence of different races? It's all misleading statistics and pseudoscience. You group a bunch of people together based on geographical origin and then observe some differences in the averages between the two groups, ignoring that the differences within each "race" are larger than the differences between "races," and that the lines are being drawn arbitrarily, and that even the measured averages could be different as a result of environment or culture rather than genetics. There is no way for a Nazi to win that on the facts because the facts are against them. Which is why they have so little actual support. There are probably more trolls pretending to be Nazis than there are actual Nazis. They're used as the boogeyman specifically because there is such widespread agreement that they're wrong.
- gm3dmo 5y ago
  >There are probably more trolls pretending to be Nazis than there are actual Nazis. "We are what we pretend to be." --- Kurt Vonnegut
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    Cute, but trivially falsifiable. Wearing a Freddy Krueger mask on Halloween doesn't make you Freddy Krueger. And to the extent that it is true, it implies that we should stop using Nazis as the boogeyman. Because trolls are going to use whatever will get a rise out of people. Best not have it be this that they summon up.
    - gm3dmo 5y ago
      >Cute, but trivially falsifiable. Wearing a Freddy Krueger mask on Halloween doesn't make you Freddy Krueger. That is true enough for most, but not all. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Gonzalez_(spree_killer) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Gonzalez_(spree_kille... Daniel clearly could not separate the Freddy mask from fiction and made it a tragic reality.
  - 5y ago