4 ms·

That's just the wise defensible argument that everyone should be making regardless of truthiness, but imagine that you think a restaurant sucks and should die.

That's just the wise defensible argument that everyone should be making regardless of truthiness, but imagine that you think a restaurant sucks and should die. While it should be wrong to make false statements about businesses, it shouldn't be wrong to want a business to fail. The motivation for improvement or helping other customers should not be the only safe motivations to have. It should not be considered inherently immoral or unsavory to want some businesses to fail.

kelnos 4y ago
I think the issue is that it's harder to tease apart why you want to harm the business. Sure, you might say "they screwed me over, and I want to hurt them", but maybe you're lying, and it's really "they're of a race I don't like, and I want to hurt them" or even just "the owner was rude to me, and I want to hurt them". Those aren't defensible reasons to publicly attack someone, or their business. But if you claim that you just want to protect future potential customers from having a bad experience, that shows some level of emotional detachment from the experience that you yourself had, and makes it seem more likely that you're being reasonable instead of just lashing out, and possibly exaggerating or even lying. Certainly this isn't an iron-clad, 100% reliable heuristic, but it's not terrible. And on a higher level, I think we just need more positive process in the world. Trying to protect others is positive; getting revenge is negative. Revenge serves no useful purpose, and often the revenge seeker doesn't really find what they're looking for (emotionally) after getting revenge. It's just toxic all around. Now, that shouldn't be a legal consideration, I don't think, but from a social/society standpoint, maybe it's important.
- maerF0x0 4y ago
  This idea of "harm" is actually a really big issue in many current societies (at least Canada and United States) . There is no monetary value of "harm" unless there is a claim of financial loss. But those financial losses are often future presumed customers, the company essentially claims a right to future revenue. However if an injustice has been done to the customer the company rightfully should lose future revenue. I agree with you about ego driven revenge. But in fact to allow a bad actor to perpetuate is actually injustice and good people at lease care about, if not act to prevent, injustice. Just like (IANAL) most court items, the fact of the matters matters most, the intent is mostly about modifying the consequences. EDIT: this idea of "harm" is also what allows rights holders to go after Pirates by claiming that every download is a lost sale, which is clearly not true.
- threatofrain 4y ago
  I think that the standard should be on whether you made false harmful statements, and not whether you accidentally or nobly made harmful false statements, with little or no focus on mens rea. If I said that a restaurant is unsanitary and unsafe but my claims are false, does it really matter if I'm trying to protect other people but in the process I destroy a decent business? Alternatively, if I truthfully claim that a restaurant is unsanitary and unsafe but my claims are true, does it matter what my emotional underpinnings are? Our attention should be on whether harm was justified from verifiable facts and not on the flimsy assessment of individual psychology. Perhaps we find out that the Twitter whistleblower wants to harm the business because they're angry at Twitter's relationship to society. With a broad slate of issues to worry about, should we be directing our finite attention to the truthiness and weightiness of claims as verifiable by facts, or should we be focusing on individual psychology?
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > If I said that a restaurant is unsanitary and unsafe but my claims are false, does it really matter if I'm trying to protect other people but in the process I destroy the a decent business? Yes, it matters. The mental state limitations in (for instance) US law on defamation are about where the higher value of freedom of expression trumps the concerns motivating defamation law, which is why defamation requires at least simple negligence, and in some cases has a more stringent mens rea element. > Alternatively, if I truthfully claim that a restaurant is unsanitary and unsafe but my claims are true, does it matter what my emotional underpinnings are? Well, no, and that's why falsehood is also a required element.
    - threatofrain 4y ago
      I don't see a requirement for negligence or higher moral culpability in my reading, but I'm not a lawyer. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=46.&lawCode=CIV https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... As harmful speech to businesses is generally a civil matter, why should we desire mens rea? Why ought the search for relief hinge on whether someone was noble as opposed to whether they spoke falsely and harmfully? Every other person in society feels they are righteous in their mind.
deelowe 4y ago
The issue at hand is whether the individual intended to harm the business. Malicious intent matters a great deal in law. It's why there are different degrees of murder/manslaughter. To take your example to the extreme. It's OK to want to murder someone, but if you go out of your way to actually do it, you'll be booked for 1st degree. If instead, you run a stop sign and someone gets killed, the penalty will be much less.
TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
There are many reasons someone might want a restaurant to die that have nothing to do with the quality of the food or service - including racism, snobbery, property speculation, competition, and personal vendetta. It's hard to see how they're likely to benefit potential customers.

kelnos 4y ago

I think the issue is that it's harder to tease apart why you want to harm the business. Sure, you might say "they screwed me over, and I want to hurt them", but maybe you're lying, and it's really "they're of a race I don't like, and I want to hurt them" or even just "the owner was rude to me, and I want to hurt them". Those aren't defensible reasons to publicly attack someone, or their business. But if you claim that you just want to protect future potential customers from having a bad experience, that shows some level of emotional detachment from the experience that you yourself had, and makes it seem more likely that you're being reasonable instead of just lashing out, and possibly exaggerating or even lying. Certainly this isn't an iron-clad, 100% reliable heuristic, but it's not terrible. And on a higher level, I think we just need more positive process in the world. Trying to protect others is positive; getting revenge is negative. Revenge serves no useful purpose, and often the revenge seeker doesn't really find what they're looking for (emotionally) after getting revenge. It's just toxic all around. Now, that shouldn't be a legal consideration, I don't think, but from a social/society standpoint, maybe it's important.

maerF0x0 4y ago
This idea of "harm" is actually a really big issue in many current societies (at least Canada and United States) . There is no monetary value of "harm" unless there is a claim of financial loss. But those financial losses are often future presumed customers, the company essentially claims a right to future revenue. However if an injustice has been done to the customer the company rightfully should lose future revenue. I agree with you about ego driven revenge. But in fact to allow a bad actor to perpetuate is actually injustice and good people at lease care about, if not act to prevent, injustice. Just like (IANAL) most court items, the fact of the matters matters most, the intent is mostly about modifying the consequences. EDIT: this idea of "harm" is also what allows rights holders to go after Pirates by claiming that every download is a lost sale, which is clearly not true.
threatofrain 4y ago
I think that the standard should be on whether you made false harmful statements, and not whether you accidentally or nobly made harmful false statements, with little or no focus on mens rea. If I said that a restaurant is unsanitary and unsafe but my claims are false, does it really matter if I'm trying to protect other people but in the process I destroy a decent business? Alternatively, if I truthfully claim that a restaurant is unsanitary and unsafe but my claims are true, does it matter what my emotional underpinnings are? Our attention should be on whether harm was justified from verifiable facts and not on the flimsy assessment of individual psychology. Perhaps we find out that the Twitter whistleblower wants to harm the business because they're angry at Twitter's relationship to society. With a broad slate of issues to worry about, should we be directing our finite attention to the truthiness and weightiness of claims as verifiable by facts, or should we be focusing on individual psychology?
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > If I said that a restaurant is unsanitary and unsafe but my claims are false, does it really matter if I'm trying to protect other people but in the process I destroy the a decent business? Yes, it matters. The mental state limitations in (for instance) US law on defamation are about where the higher value of freedom of expression trumps the concerns motivating defamation law, which is why defamation requires at least simple negligence, and in some cases has a more stringent mens rea element. > Alternatively, if I truthfully claim that a restaurant is unsanitary and unsafe but my claims are true, does it matter what my emotional underpinnings are? Well, no, and that's why falsehood is also a required element.
  - threatofrain 4y ago
    I don't see a requirement for negligence or higher moral culpability in my reading, but I'm not a lawyer. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=46.&lawCode=CIV https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... As harmful speech to businesses is generally a civil matter, why should we desire mens rea? Why ought the search for relief hinge on whether someone was noble as opposed to whether they spoke falsely and harmfully? Every other person in society feels they are righteous in their mind.

deelowe 4y ago

The issue at hand is whether the individual intended to harm the business. Malicious intent matters a great deal in law. It's why there are different degrees of murder/manslaughter. To take your example to the extreme. It's OK to want to murder someone, but if you go out of your way to actually do it, you'll be booked for 1st degree. If instead, you run a stop sign and someone gets killed, the penalty will be much less.

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago

There are many reasons someone might want a restaurant to die that have nothing to do with the quality of the food or service - including racism, snobbery, property speculation, competition, and personal vendetta. It's hard to see how they're likely to benefit potential customers.