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In reality, when hate speech speakers congregate, they eventually end up being forced to stop by an ever-growing collective of people who will not tolerate hate

In reality, when hate speech speakers congregate, they eventually end up being forced to stop by an ever-growing collective of people who will not tolerate hate speech; with speech, courts, laws, and violence. In the world you describe with telepathy, we would know instantly who was thinking hate speech, and be able to identify them and protect those they hate from them, and prevent them from congregating into cancerous hate mobs. Some would argue that this is thoughtcrime enforcement, which is an expected outcome from granting telepathy to all. That is, in a nutshell, correct: peer enforcement of group morality in a telepathic society would, by definition, put the “thought” in “thoughtcrime”. However, in today’s non-telepathic world, we cannot easily identify those who use hate speech online and protect others from their hate. This is presenting many difficulties not addressed by your telepathic example, and is the core of the problem that must be addressed.

jimmygrapes 5y ago
Someone else has probably said this already, but I think what you'd find is that none of the people who think themselves morally pure enough to gather against "hate" are anywhere near as pure as they think, and might even find themselves targets of an equally powerful hypothetical thought mob.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  That’s correct. However, purity is not relevant; only hate and non-hate is. The only requirement is to have non-haters that hate the haters. Everything else is specific variable details per social group and per person. “A bunch of haters grouped together and started hating on people that they hated; the non-haters said “stop that”, and when the haters refused, the non-haters violently stopped them.” This describes a variety of wars in human history, for example World War II. The non-haters aren’t “pure”, they don’t always succeed, sometimes they attempt non-violence first — but the tendency of societies to act in alignment with that description remains consistent across human history. (ps. Humanity’s skills at balancing cognitive dissonance come into play quite strongly here, as being in the position of “non-hater” while also hating “haters” is definitely at tension with itself. I suppose the dissonance is balanced by over the tipping point of societal benefit versus personal benefit, but that’s not an area I’ve studied as closely yet; individual psychology is less interesting to me.)

jimmygrapes 5y ago

Someone else has probably said this already, but I think what you'd find is that none of the people who think themselves morally pure enough to gather against "hate" are anywhere near as pure as they think, and might even find themselves targets of an equally powerful hypothetical thought mob.

floatingatoll 5y ago
That’s correct. However, purity is not relevant; only hate and non-hate is. The only requirement is to have non-haters that hate the haters. Everything else is specific variable details per social group and per person. “A bunch of haters grouped together and started hating on people that they hated; the non-haters said “stop that”, and when the haters refused, the non-haters violently stopped them.” This describes a variety of wars in human history, for example World War II. The non-haters aren’t “pure”, they don’t always succeed, sometimes they attempt non-violence first — but the tendency of societies to act in alignment with that description remains consistent across human history. (ps. Humanity’s skills at balancing cognitive dissonance come into play quite strongly here, as being in the position of “non-hater” while also hating “haters” is definitely at tension with itself. I suppose the dissonance is balanced by over the tipping point of societal benefit versus personal benefit, but that’s not an area I’ve studied as closely yet; individual psychology is less interesting to me.)