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If your idea can win in the marketplace of ideas, then free speech is the answer. If your idea loses in the marketplace of ideas, you ban the speech you dislik

If your idea can win in the marketplace of ideas, then free speech is the answer. If your idea loses in the marketplace of ideas, you ban the speech you dislike until your idea wins in the *marketplace of ideas. If any group is busy saying - out loud - that they need to ban what you can see and hear, maybe we should start asking some critical questions.

kurthr 4y ago
If by win, you mean paid SEO of propaganda with brigading by fake accounts. But wait, you used the word free? How is paid propaganda free? The way astroturf is grass? Are corporations canceling me by not sufficiently promoting my political agenda on their ad supported site, because my content makes people not want to buy anything associated with it? Just asking questions.
chowells 4y ago
A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea every person has is actively chosen based on analysis of alternatives. Given that applies to about 0% of beliefs for most people, I'd say the idea has some flaws. If you immediately reject that, you're not very open to external ideas, are you? If you don't immediately reject it, you see how a market can be subverted to serve purposes that it was never intended to or constructed to resist. Either way, the idea of a marketplace of ideas is paradoxical in the extremes. And once you acknowledge the idea needs to be softened to avoid self-contradiction, you end up back at the question of what constitutes abuse. That's the exact same question people are wrestling with now. And because it's inherently an expression of a power struggle, you need to be aware of whose power you're supporting. I recommend siding against authoritarians and fascists, but that's just my idea.
- freedomben 4y ago
  I think your premise is flawed: > A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea every person has is actively chosen based on analysis of alternatives. What is required is exposure to alternatives. It's not a perfect nor an instantaneous process, but it absolutely works. I've changed my position many times based on rational argumentation. If they are never exposed to the alternatives, the majority of people will just continue believing in what they already believe, of which the bulk comes from upbringing.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    The marketplace of ideas can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
  - jacobolus 4y ago
    What is required is people arguing in good faith and telling the truth. Systematic omnipresent bad-faith argument appealing to strong emotions and flat-out lying about basic facts can easily overwhelm people’s reasoning, empathy, and capacity for independent fact checking.
    - hiptobecubic 4y ago
      It blows my mind that we're still trying to explain this to people after watching the last few years unfold.
    - freedomben 4y ago
      The problem is, when somebody is disagreeing with you it's extremely tempting to declare them "in bad faith" or "flat out lying." For example the "Lab Leak Theory" was banned as disinformation and people mentioning it were roundly mocked and disparaged (I was somewhat guilty of mocking those people also because it seemed too conspiratorial to me and many of the "usual" conspiracy nuts were all too eager to jump on Lab Leak). But then we found out that it was actually more plausible than it seemed. However the accounts of people honestly trying to make the case had long been banned already, and there was nowhere to go to get their reputations back. So I fully agree that "Systematic omnipresent bad-faith argument appealing to strong emotions and flat-out lying" is poison to the mind, but I think it's also reached for way too quickly and can and has been abused to silence opinions we don't like.
      - jacobolus 4y ago
        The “lab leak theory” was propounded by a bunch of people who did flat out lie, and made all sorts of bad faith claims (including e.g. Fox News commentators, predictable anti-China trolls, and fringe conspiracy nutters [not mutually exclusive categories]). They well deserved to be mocked and disparaged, and without them the conversation would have been dramatically healthier and more productive. There were also serious people asking legitimate questions, but those got much less media-circus attention and their commentary was much less self assured, full of caveats and explicit attention to the speculative/hypothetical nature of the claims involved. Those were part of a more scholarly/careful conversation (still ongoing) and were answered carefully and respectfully. One of the biggest problems for anyone asking careful serious questions is the likelihood that they’d be mischaracterized and amplified by the crazies and then interpreted by the general public according to that mischaracterization and roped into some broader political fight. > found out that it was actually more plausible than it seemed It was always plausible, as scientists have maintained from the start. It still today (if you listen to conversations among experts and look into the details) seems unlikely, and the “natural origin” theory has somewhat more convincing evidentiary support. But the Chinese government’s reflexive secrecy has made it impossible for independent analysts to gather the information needed to prove or disprove the theory.
- tonguez 4y ago
  “A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea every person has is actively chosen based on analysis of alternatives.” nah
pixl97 4y ago
Paradox of intolerance alarms are going off in my head for some reason.
MereInterest 4y ago
First off, ideas are not a marketplace. Every useful idea has some call to action as part of it. That call to action may be a call to raise or lower taxes, a call to install bike lanes, a call to write more books about race car driving. These actions are frequently incompatible, and so they must be communally chosen. This is in contrast to a free market, where each individual can choose between available options. Second, even if ideas are treated as a market, movements can have disproportionate power compared to their "market share". The level of group support required to implement a policy depends on the specific policy. If 5% of people support defecating in the local lake, and 95% of people support the idea of swimming in the lake and using indoor plumbing, the result is not a swimmable lake. In the same way, a violent movement with very low popular support is unlikely to win any elections, but can still make it entirely unsafe for that movement's targets. Third, personal anecdote time. A few years ago after watching the "Alt-Right Playbook" [0], a YouTube series about recruitment and radicalization tactics used by the alt-right, YouTube recommended that I watch Nazi propaganda. I do not say that in any exaggeration. The video title had the phrase "The Jewish Question", and I was expecting a history on how that phrase had been used in racist fearmongering. It was instead exactly that same racist fearmongering. Even if I were to hold that all speech is permissible without repercussion, there is still a world of difference between allowing Nazi propaganda to exist, and active promotion of propaganda of that same propaganda. TL;DR: Ideas are not a marketplace, and lack of promotion is not the same as silencing. [0] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbAN...
atoav 4y ago
Who decides the architectonic layout of that marketplace and could it not have some sort of influence on the success or failure of said idea? Or lets ask differently: how could there ever be a neutral layout to said market place, which is without influence of the powers at play in any given situation?

kurthr 4y ago

If by win, you mean paid SEO of propaganda with brigading by fake accounts. But wait, you used the word free? How is paid propaganda free? The way astroturf is grass? Are corporations canceling me by not sufficiently promoting my political agenda on their ad supported site, because my content makes people not want to buy anything associated with it? Just asking questions.

chowells 4y ago

A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea every person has is actively chosen based on analysis of alternatives. Given that applies to about 0% of beliefs for most people, I'd say the idea has some flaws. If you immediately reject that, you're not very open to external ideas, are you? If you don't immediately reject it, you see how a market can be subverted to serve purposes that it was never intended to or constructed to resist. Either way, the idea of a marketplace of ideas is paradoxical in the extremes. And once you acknowledge the idea needs to be softened to avoid self-contradiction, you end up back at the question of what constitutes abuse. That's the exact same question people are wrestling with now. And because it's inherently an expression of a power struggle, you need to be aware of whose power you're supporting. I recommend siding against authoritarians and fascists, but that's just my idea.

freedomben 4y ago
I think your premise is flawed: > A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea every person has is actively chosen based on analysis of alternatives. What is required is exposure to alternatives. It's not a perfect nor an instantaneous process, but it absolutely works. I've changed my position many times based on rational argumentation. If they are never exposed to the alternatives, the majority of people will just continue believing in what they already believe, of which the bulk comes from upbringing.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  The marketplace of ideas can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
- jacobolus 4y ago
  What is required is people arguing in good faith and telling the truth. Systematic omnipresent bad-faith argument appealing to strong emotions and flat-out lying about basic facts can easily overwhelm people’s reasoning, empathy, and capacity for independent fact checking.
  - hiptobecubic 4y ago
    It blows my mind that we're still trying to explain this to people after watching the last few years unfold.
  - freedomben 4y ago
    The problem is, when somebody is disagreeing with you it's extremely tempting to declare them "in bad faith" or "flat out lying." For example the "Lab Leak Theory" was banned as disinformation and people mentioning it were roundly mocked and disparaged (I was somewhat guilty of mocking those people also because it seemed too conspiratorial to me and many of the "usual" conspiracy nuts were all too eager to jump on Lab Leak). But then we found out that it was actually more plausible than it seemed. However the accounts of people honestly trying to make the case had long been banned already, and there was nowhere to go to get their reputations back. So I fully agree that "Systematic omnipresent bad-faith argument appealing to strong emotions and flat-out lying" is poison to the mind, but I think it's also reached for way too quickly and can and has been abused to silence opinions we don't like.
    - jacobolus 4y ago
      The “lab leak theory” was propounded by a bunch of people who did flat out lie, and made all sorts of bad faith claims (including e.g. Fox News commentators, predictable anti-China trolls, and fringe conspiracy nutters [not mutually exclusive categories]). They well deserved to be mocked and disparaged, and without them the conversation would have been dramatically healthier and more productive. There were also serious people asking legitimate questions, but those got much less media-circus attention and their commentary was much less self assured, full of caveats and explicit attention to the speculative/hypothetical nature of the claims involved. Those were part of a more scholarly/careful conversation (still ongoing) and were answered carefully and respectfully. One of the biggest problems for anyone asking careful serious questions is the likelihood that they’d be mischaracterized and amplified by the crazies and then interpreted by the general public according to that mischaracterization and roped into some broader political fight. > found out that it was actually more plausible than it seemed It was always plausible, as scientists have maintained from the start. It still today (if you listen to conversations among experts and look into the details) seems unlikely, and the “natural origin” theory has somewhat more convincing evidentiary support. But the Chinese government’s reflexive secrecy has made it impossible for independent analysts to gather the information needed to prove or disprove the theory.
tonguez 4y ago
“A marketplace of ideas only works if every single idea every person has is actively chosen based on analysis of alternatives.” nah

pixl97 4y ago

Paradox of intolerance alarms are going off in my head for some reason.

MereInterest 4y ago

First off, ideas are not a marketplace. Every useful idea has some call to action as part of it. That call to action may be a call to raise or lower taxes, a call to install bike lanes, a call to write more books about race car driving. These actions are frequently incompatible, and so they must be communally chosen. This is in contrast to a free market, where each individual can choose between available options. Second, even if ideas are treated as a market, movements can have disproportionate power compared to their "market share". The level of group support required to implement a policy depends on the specific policy. If 5% of people support defecating in the local lake, and 95% of people support the idea of swimming in the lake and using indoor plumbing, the result is not a swimmable lake. In the same way, a violent movement with very low popular support is unlikely to win any elections, but can still make it entirely unsafe for that movement's targets. Third, personal anecdote time. A few years ago after watching the "Alt-Right Playbook" [0], a YouTube series about recruitment and radicalization tactics used by the alt-right, YouTube recommended that I watch Nazi propaganda. I do not say that in any exaggeration. The video title had the phrase "The Jewish Question", and I was expecting a history on how that phrase had been used in racist fearmongering. It was instead exactly that same racist fearmongering. Even if I were to hold that all speech is permissible without repercussion, there is still a world of difference between allowing Nazi propaganda to exist, and active promotion of propaganda of that same propaganda. TL;DR: Ideas are not a marketplace, and lack of promotion is not the same as silencing. [0] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbAN...

atoav 4y ago

Who decides the architectonic layout of that marketplace and could it not have some sort of influence on the success or failure of said idea? Or lets ask differently: how could there ever be a neutral layout to said market place, which is without influence of the powers at play in any given situation?