3 ms·

We don't have slaves anymore. At least not in Western societies. So I am not sure how it's relevant - sure, people in the past had got a lot of things wrong. Th

by smsm42 5y ago

We don't have slaves anymore. At least not in Western societies. So I am not sure how it's relevant - sure, people in the past had got a lot of things wrong. They thought diseases come from bad smells, eating arsenic can cure you, and yes - some of them also thought owning slaves is ok. Now we know better about these things. We don't have slavery anymore - at least in the West (curiously, nobody seems to give a tweet about it still existing in other parts of the world?) That doesn't mean they got everything wrong - some things they did get right, even though they came short in implementing them - just as we do. They were imperfect people - just as we are. It doesn't mean because there was slavery in the past we can't have free speech now - that makes no sense. It's just a collection of non-sequiturs - "founders were imperfect by our ideals 250 years forward, we should reject literally everything that was done" - and what? > Public discourse has been dominated by white, rich men since the inception of the US, and history is full of examples of active suppression of speech by women and minorities. And to fix that, we need more active suppression of speech, surely? Makes total sense, right? Because if rich, white men suppressed speech, and it was bad, then if we have now rich people, a small number of whom would be not white, not male and one or two maybe even non-binary transgender - if those people would be actively suppressing speech, then of course it'd be great. What a bunch of nonsense! > I just really don't wanna go "back to the good old times" either. Nobody wants that. Where would you get the idea? Of course people that want free speech don't mean they want to give up antibiotics and painkillers, stop driving cars, forgo electricity, never have a proper dental work, and do any other things that were done 250 years ago that we don't do anymore. Why would they? They just want to speak freely and discuss the ideas freely. It's not and never been the package deal - either we have slavery and free speech, or we have neither. In fact, it is the opposite - of course, if we have slavery, we can't have full freedom, as you correctly noted, free speech has to be free for everybody - any gender, any race, any societal stature. Big Tech is completely opposed to this.

LordDragonfang 5y ago
>We don't have slaves anymore. At least not in Western societies. The US still explicitly allows slavery in its constitution, actually, so that's incorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat... It is absolutely not a coincidence that immediately after the passage of the 13th amendment, the incarceration of people of color skyrocketed following the passage of numerous racially-targeted "black codes". It's also not a coincidence that the majority of the current incarcerated population are people of color, it's a direct legacy of that system. Sure, you can't explicitly write racially targeted laws anymore, but applying an ounce of critical theory shows how the laws can be enforced along racial lines. >And to fix that, we need more active suppression of speech, surely? Note that no one actually suggested this as the solution. It's always very telling that when someone of privilege is told that society has not, actually, been equitable in its supposed ideals (in this case free speech) the first reaction is always, "So instead you want to oppress and censor me??" instead of attempting to engage with the idea that maybe we should be structuring things so they're not oppressing anyone. The best explanation I've seen of this phenomenon is that when someone has lived in an privileged and elevated position for their whole life, any calls for equity seem like an attack on your position.
- kortilla 5y ago
  > The best explanation I've seen of this phenomenon is that when someone has lived in an privileged and elevated position for their whole life, any calls for equity seem like an attack on your position. Ah yes, the old “there can’t possibly be a flaw in my idea, it’s just your own insecurity” argument.
- smsm42 5y ago
  Penal labor and slavery are two very different things, and confusing them doesn't make any sense. Both have nothing to do with free speech - it looks like you're just grasping for arguments to say "US is bad". What's the point? > applying an ounce of critical theory shows how the laws can be enforced along racial lines. Laws certainly can be applied in a racist way - though you don't need any "critical theory" (which in most instances is a bunch of insane pseudo-scientific drivel anyway) to know that. Of course people can be racist and apply laws in racist ways, and there should be safeguards against that, as against any other abuse of law for purposes the law is not intended for. There's no contradiction with free speech. > Note that no one actually suggested this as the solution. That's patently false - a REAL LOT of people - including prominent politicians (lately one Hillary Clinton, for example), business tycoons, CEOs and C* of major companies, prominent press and culture figures, professors and government functionaries - are suggesting exactly that as a solution. And not just suggesting - implementing. Thorough and comprehensive speech suppression and censorship, in the name of correcting some past wrongs and preventing some future ones, real or invented. It is not ever about equal enforcement - nobody objects to equal enforcement of laws, but the solution they are pushing is not equality, it's censorship and suppression. > the first reaction is always, "So instead you want to oppress and censor me??" Because they DO want to oppress and censor me, and they are not hiding it either - they are saying it openly and boldly. They call for censorship and speech suppression all the time - and not only calling for it, they has been doing it for years, with much success and they aren't going to stop. It's not something I imagine might be happening in some distant future, it's something that has been already happening for decades. All major social media platforms are strictly censored now, all academia research is censored now, all mainstream news and entertainment is censored right now. The only reason the government is not censoring directly is the First Amendment does not let them, but they work around it by just asking their operatives in Big Tech to do it for them, and those are glad to oblige. Most of the political, academia, big tech, entertainment and press establishment are 100% in on censorship. There are some resistance to it, but those are outside mainstream, the mainstream is all censorship, all the time, and more of it. > The best explanation I've seen of this phenomenon is that when someone has lived in an privileged and elevated position for their whole life, any calls for equity seem like an attack on your position. That's one of the example of insane drivel I referred to above. Every time some argument is challenged, the response is "oh, you're just saying that because your privilege is attacked". You know nothing about me, you know nothing about my experience, your argument contradicts basic facts and makes no logical sense - but all that is irrelevant, because you always have this mega-argument - just say "privileged" and everything you say is automatically right and everything the "privileged" say is automatically wrong, no logic or connection to facts is needed. > maybe we should be structuring things so they're not oppressing anyone. Yeah, maybe we shouldn't have censorship, for example? Try to convince somebody in Big Tech of that... So far I see not much progress on this.

by smsm42 5y ago

LordDragonfang 5y ago

>We don't have slaves anymore. At least not in Western societies. The US still explicitly allows slavery in its constitution, actually, so that's incorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat... It is absolutely not a coincidence that immediately after the passage of the 13th amendment, the incarceration of people of color skyrocketed following the passage of numerous racially-targeted "black codes". It's also not a coincidence that the majority of the current incarcerated population are people of color, it's a direct legacy of that system. Sure, you can't explicitly write racially targeted laws anymore, but applying an ounce of critical theory shows how the laws can be enforced along racial lines. >And to fix that, we need more active suppression of speech, surely? Note that no one actually suggested this as the solution. It's always very telling that when someone of privilege is told that society has not, actually, been equitable in its supposed ideals (in this case free speech) the first reaction is always, "So instead you want to oppress and censor me??" instead of attempting to engage with the idea that maybe we should be structuring things so they're not oppressing anyone. The best explanation I've seen of this phenomenon is that when someone has lived in an privileged and elevated position for their whole life, any calls for equity seem like an attack on your position.

kortilla 5y ago
> The best explanation I've seen of this phenomenon is that when someone has lived in an privileged and elevated position for their whole life, any calls for equity seem like an attack on your position. Ah yes, the old “there can’t possibly be a flaw in my idea, it’s just your own insecurity” argument.
smsm42 5y ago
Penal labor and slavery are two very different things, and confusing them doesn't make any sense. Both have nothing to do with free speech - it looks like you're just grasping for arguments to say "US is bad". What's the point? > applying an ounce of critical theory shows how the laws can be enforced along racial lines. Laws certainly can be applied in a racist way - though you don't need any "critical theory" (which in most instances is a bunch of insane pseudo-scientific drivel anyway) to know that. Of course people can be racist and apply laws in racist ways, and there should be safeguards against that, as against any other abuse of law for purposes the law is not intended for. There's no contradiction with free speech. > Note that no one actually suggested this as the solution. That's patently false - a REAL LOT of people - including prominent politicians (lately one Hillary Clinton, for example), business tycoons, CEOs and C* of major companies, prominent press and culture figures, professors and government functionaries - are suggesting exactly that as a solution. And not just suggesting - implementing. Thorough and comprehensive speech suppression and censorship, in the name of correcting some past wrongs and preventing some future ones, real or invented. It is not ever about equal enforcement - nobody objects to equal enforcement of laws, but the solution they are pushing is not equality, it's censorship and suppression. > the first reaction is always, "So instead you want to oppress and censor me??" Because they DO want to oppress and censor me, and they are not hiding it either - they are saying it openly and boldly. They call for censorship and speech suppression all the time - and not only calling for it, they has been doing it for years, with much success and they aren't going to stop. It's not something I imagine might be happening in some distant future, it's something that has been already happening for decades. All major social media platforms are strictly censored now, all academia research is censored now, all mainstream news and entertainment is censored right now. The only reason the government is not censoring directly is the First Amendment does not let them, but they work around it by just asking their operatives in Big Tech to do it for them, and those are glad to oblige. Most of the political, academia, big tech, entertainment and press establishment are 100% in on censorship. There are some resistance to it, but those are outside mainstream, the mainstream is all censorship, all the time, and more of it. > The best explanation I've seen of this phenomenon is that when someone has lived in an privileged and elevated position for their whole life, any calls for equity seem like an attack on your position. That's one of the example of insane drivel I referred to above. Every time some argument is challenged, the response is "oh, you're just saying that because your privilege is attacked". You know nothing about me, you know nothing about my experience, your argument contradicts basic facts and makes no logical sense - but all that is irrelevant, because you always have this mega-argument - just say "privileged" and everything you say is automatically right and everything the "privileged" say is automatically wrong, no logic or connection to facts is needed. > maybe we should be structuring things so they're not oppressing anyone. Yeah, maybe we shouldn't have censorship, for example? Try to convince somebody in Big Tech of that... So far I see not much progress on this.