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Free speech is important. It also has nothing to do with me letting other people take up screen space on my monitor. Blocking people from my Twitter account is

by akerl_ 5y ago

Free speech is important. It also has nothing to do with me letting other people take up screen space on my monitor. Blocking people from my Twitter account isn’t curtailing their free speech.

systemvoltage 5y ago
Block nasty people. Blocking other people prevents you from exposure to other ideas than your own. The only person that loses is you. Probably feels good and comfy in nicely resonant echo chamber though. I block nasty people regardless of which echo chamber they belong to.
- akerl_ 5y ago
  I’m happy to engage in discussion with people whose opinions differ from my own. I’m also happy to carve out portions of my time and interaction where I’m not doing that. It’s totally possible and healthy to not always invite the full firehose of possible human discourse into my brain. And there’s always the part where Twitter is actively a horrible place for any kind of constructive conversation due to the character limit and the overwhelming desire of most participants to generate the most clicks/outrage possible.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    Yeah I mean it is natural to hang with your gang. We do that in real life, outside of the internet. But, the premise of this post is to nuke a tweet which is rather a good name for it. It would end up creating a worse exposure for the person blocking. They'll be left with the most perfect resonant chamber - this is how conspiracy theories and lies spread. Mentally conditioned to ignore facts and diverging opinions. Sure, go ahead and form a band with people you love to hang out with. Play music, enjoy life.
chrischen 5y ago
The principle of free speech is important because it allows those who have an open mind to take in any and all ideas. So if you choose to have a closed-mind, you're in principle going against the ideals of free speech and what it allows people to benefit from.
- akerl_ 5y ago
  Oh. Well then I guess I’m against free speech as you’re defining it. I’m in favor of everyone being free to speak their mind and share the opinions, without the government punishing them. I’m also in favor of individuals’ ability to absorb, ignore, retort, react, etc based on their own opinions of what people say. This includes both your ability to listen to any and all opinions at all times, and my ability to say I don’t want to have some content in my Twitter feed. Thankfully the law where I live (the US) defines free speech as aligning with my definition.
  - chrischen 5y ago
    I didn’t define free speech as forcing the absorption of all speech. Take this hypothetical: imagine a world where everyone blocked all speech they disagreed with. Would there still be a point to free speech (in practice)? What’s the point of being able to say what you want when anyone who could be potentially affected by it in practice can easily ignore you? If technology heads towards that direction then it can indeed create a world where speech is free in theory, but closed in practice. My point is that the spirit of free speech goes hand in hand with open mindedness. Without open mindedness (which means absorbing information even if you seem to initially disagree with it) free speech is moot. The reality is most disagreements and turnarounds in opinions do not happen easily because we think we are right, and that the opposing speech is automatically wrong. If it were so easy to filter out valid vs invalid speech we wouldn’t have disagreements of opinions.
    - detaro 5y ago
      I think most people have given "we should kill everyone like you" and other quality contributions all due consideration the first time they encountered it and asking them to absorb it again and again isn't doing much for overall open mindedness. Blocking such people is totally valid.
      - chrischen 5y ago
        Yes, but the problem is when you make it so easy to censor people, every statement can be treated as "we should kill everyone like you" without an afterthought. A controversial statement will always evoke such strong counter-opinions, until it is one day right. An environment that encourages easy blocking will encourage easy blocking of controversial ideas. Sometimes the truth is hard to hear, so if you make it easy for people to block things that are hard to hear you'll inevitably make it easy for people to block the truth. It's called an inconvenient truth for a reason. The convenience of blocking comes at a cost. We all think we are right and know exactly what to filter out and what not to, but that is definitely not generalizable across the population.

by akerl_ 5y ago

Free speech is important. It also has nothing to do with me letting other people take up screen space on my monitor. Blocking people from my Twitter account isn’t curtailing their free speech.

systemvoltage 5y ago

Block nasty people. Blocking other people prevents you from exposure to other ideas than your own. The only person that loses is you. Probably feels good and comfy in nicely resonant echo chamber though. I block nasty people regardless of which echo chamber they belong to.

akerl_ 5y ago
I’m happy to engage in discussion with people whose opinions differ from my own. I’m also happy to carve out portions of my time and interaction where I’m not doing that. It’s totally possible and healthy to not always invite the full firehose of possible human discourse into my brain. And there’s always the part where Twitter is actively a horrible place for any kind of constructive conversation due to the character limit and the overwhelming desire of most participants to generate the most clicks/outrage possible.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Yeah I mean it is natural to hang with your gang. We do that in real life, outside of the internet. But, the premise of this post is to nuke a tweet which is rather a good name for it. It would end up creating a worse exposure for the person blocking. They'll be left with the most perfect resonant chamber - this is how conspiracy theories and lies spread. Mentally conditioned to ignore facts and diverging opinions. Sure, go ahead and form a band with people you love to hang out with. Play music, enjoy life.

chrischen 5y ago

The principle of free speech is important because it allows those who have an open mind to take in any and all ideas. So if you choose to have a closed-mind, you're in principle going against the ideals of free speech and what it allows people to benefit from.

akerl_ 5y ago
Oh. Well then I guess I’m against free speech as you’re defining it. I’m in favor of everyone being free to speak their mind and share the opinions, without the government punishing them. I’m also in favor of individuals’ ability to absorb, ignore, retort, react, etc based on their own opinions of what people say. This includes both your ability to listen to any and all opinions at all times, and my ability to say I don’t want to have some content in my Twitter feed. Thankfully the law where I live (the US) defines free speech as aligning with my definition.
- chrischen 5y ago
  I didn’t define free speech as forcing the absorption of all speech. Take this hypothetical: imagine a world where everyone blocked all speech they disagreed with. Would there still be a point to free speech (in practice)? What’s the point of being able to say what you want when anyone who could be potentially affected by it in practice can easily ignore you? If technology heads towards that direction then it can indeed create a world where speech is free in theory, but closed in practice. My point is that the spirit of free speech goes hand in hand with open mindedness. Without open mindedness (which means absorbing information even if you seem to initially disagree with it) free speech is moot. The reality is most disagreements and turnarounds in opinions do not happen easily because we think we are right, and that the opposing speech is automatically wrong. If it were so easy to filter out valid vs invalid speech we wouldn’t have disagreements of opinions.
  - detaro 5y ago
    I think most people have given "we should kill everyone like you" and other quality contributions all due consideration the first time they encountered it and asking them to absorb it again and again isn't doing much for overall open mindedness. Blocking such people is totally valid.
    - chrischen 5y ago
      Yes, but the problem is when you make it so easy to censor people, every statement can be treated as "we should kill everyone like you" without an afterthought. A controversial statement will always evoke such strong counter-opinions, until it is one day right. An environment that encourages easy blocking will encourage easy blocking of controversial ideas. Sometimes the truth is hard to hear, so if you make it easy for people to block things that are hard to hear you'll inevitably make it easy for people to block the truth. It's called an inconvenient truth for a reason. The convenience of blocking comes at a cost. We all think we are right and know exactly what to filter out and what not to, but that is definitely not generalizable across the population.