> Why not take a cynical approach? Because things such as local maxima and minima exist, and "local" could be on timescales of decades or centuries. Also, wha

> Why not take a cynical approach? Because things such as local maxima and minima exist, and "local" could be on timescales of decades or centuries. Also, what metrics are we measuring by? GDP? Happiness? Scientific progress? Species expansion? It's entirely possible that reducing free expression results in a more stable but more stagnant society, and while that may have immediate benefits, could leave everyone in that society worse off on average than the alternative in a few decades. To be fair, it's entirely possible that too much free expression could do the same, and the optimal path is in the middle somewhere. I think this is often overlooked, and people think that more freedom of expression is always a good thing, which is odd, because I'm not sure anything taken to an extreme end of a spectrum is necessarily a good thing, and I'm not sure freedom of expression is any different.