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So you accept that the "public" town square was highly discriminatory, suppressed non-conformist thought, was consistently violent, and oppressive to people of

So you accept that the "public" town square was highly discriminatory, suppressed non-conformist thought, was consistently violent, and oppressive to people of minority racial groups? ...and you want more of that? Gotta start to question your motives here, friend. Not seeing any real upside to this, and I'm starting to wonder if the goal is maybe to take the voice away from the people who are, for the first time, finally getting a say in how the world is governed, because you don't like what's being said.

coldtea 5y ago
>So you accept that the "public" town square was highly discriminatory, suppressed non-conformist thought, was consistently violent, and oppressive to people of minority racial groups? No, but nice strawman. I only accept (rather, I know, don't have to "accept" or not "accept" as hand given) that the public square was at the main representative of the general sentiment, but also the space to discuss and break from it. It hasn't been always and/or globaly "consistently violent, and oppressive to people of minority racial groups". Often it was more progressive than the elites towards those groups, who had more of a chance to discuss their ills and suggestions in the public square than in the "englightened" spaces of the rich, the government/powerful, and the upper-middle class, which peddled more in the conformist ideas of the time, were the ones who actually profitted from slavery - and of course the ones that owned plantations... >Not seeing any real upside to this, and I'm starting to wonder if the goal is maybe to take the voice away from the people who are, for the first time, finally getting a say in how the world is governed, because you don't like what's being said. You got it backwards. You don't like things being said. I don't like things not allowed to be said.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  The "public" town square as you've described it has literally never existed. You're asking to return to a time that simply never happened. You talk about strawmen, but you've invented from whole cloth a concept from history that simply did not exist. In classic conservative fashion, you want to "go back" to some idealized era of history that didn't in any way look the way your rose colored glasses seem to tell you it did, and you completely throw out the outright racist, sexist attitudes that pervaded literally everything happening in prior centuries. Just logistically, how did these "public" town squares function? Were they periodic meetings? Did people just walk to the center of town and start shouting? Who spent their time in these town squares, when they could be working/providing for their family? Since they didn't actually exist in history, there's nowhere I can look this up, and I'm curious about what you think happened historically. Setting aside this made-up "town square" concept for a moment, you really seem to want to allow some speech, but to not allow other speech, and that is really the problem here. If you want to allow all speech, then you necessarily must allow for speech that (successfully) calls for the "cancelling" of people who speak, as well. In other words, either you support Twitter's ability to express itself through the banning some users for their speech (which it does exceedingly sparingly to begin with, people are not banned for ideas, but for specific expressions of those ideas), or you only selectively support free speech. You don't get to have it both ways.
- HereIGoAgain 5y ago
  Very well put. (all of it) It's astounding how many people can't look past the little things they don't like in order to see the ridiculous level of danger that comes from an anti-speech POV.. ESPECIALLY for minorities and other so-called marginalized groups. I mean we are at the point of critical thought where "all i need to do is stop people with the wrong opinions from talking" is seen as a sane, healthy and safe POV! What if YOU aren't the one making the decision though?
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    The position that Twitter can’t ban people is the anti-speech position. Only one side of the argument wants people to say anything they want, once you realize association is a form of speech. The side that supports Twitter’s expression of speech is closer to “everyone gets a say” than the side forcing Twitter to publish content it doesn’t want to. You still get to speak, just not on Twitter. You don’t get to trample on Twitter’s rights. That’s anti-speech.

coldtea 5y ago

>So you accept that the "public" town square was highly discriminatory, suppressed non-conformist thought, was consistently violent, and oppressive to people of minority racial groups? No, but nice strawman. I only accept (rather, I know, don't have to "accept" or not "accept" as hand given) that the public square was at the main representative of the general sentiment, but also the space to discuss and break from it. It hasn't been always and/or globaly "consistently violent, and oppressive to people of minority racial groups". Often it was more progressive than the elites towards those groups, who had more of a chance to discuss their ills and suggestions in the public square than in the "englightened" spaces of the rich, the government/powerful, and the upper-middle class, which peddled more in the conformist ideas of the time, were the ones who actually profitted from slavery - and of course the ones that owned plantations... >Not seeing any real upside to this, and I'm starting to wonder if the goal is maybe to take the voice away from the people who are, for the first time, finally getting a say in how the world is governed, because you don't like what's being said. You got it backwards. You don't like things being said. I don't like things not allowed to be said.

TameAntelope 5y ago
The "public" town square as you've described it has literally never existed. You're asking to return to a time that simply never happened. You talk about strawmen, but you've invented from whole cloth a concept from history that simply did not exist. In classic conservative fashion, you want to "go back" to some idealized era of history that didn't in any way look the way your rose colored glasses seem to tell you it did, and you completely throw out the outright racist, sexist attitudes that pervaded literally everything happening in prior centuries. Just logistically, how did these "public" town squares function? Were they periodic meetings? Did people just walk to the center of town and start shouting? Who spent their time in these town squares, when they could be working/providing for their family? Since they didn't actually exist in history, there's nowhere I can look this up, and I'm curious about what you think happened historically. Setting aside this made-up "town square" concept for a moment, you really seem to want to allow some speech, but to not allow other speech, and that is really the problem here. If you want to allow all speech, then you necessarily must allow for speech that (successfully) calls for the "cancelling" of people who speak, as well. In other words, either you support Twitter's ability to express itself through the banning some users for their speech (which it does exceedingly sparingly to begin with, people are not banned for ideas, but for specific expressions of those ideas), or you only selectively support free speech. You don't get to have it both ways.
HereIGoAgain 5y ago
Very well put. (all of it) It's astounding how many people can't look past the little things they don't like in order to see the ridiculous level of danger that comes from an anti-speech POV.. ESPECIALLY for minorities and other so-called marginalized groups. I mean we are at the point of critical thought where "all i need to do is stop people with the wrong opinions from talking" is seen as a sane, healthy and safe POV! What if YOU aren't the one making the decision though?
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  The position that Twitter can’t ban people is the anti-speech position. Only one side of the argument wants people to say anything they want, once you realize association is a form of speech. The side that supports Twitter’s expression of speech is closer to “everyone gets a say” than the side forcing Twitter to publish content it doesn’t want to. You still get to speak, just not on Twitter. You don’t get to trample on Twitter’s rights. That’s anti-speech.