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> How many grains of sand would you need to have a heap? My point exactly. If you want to say that a private service becomes a "town square" when its size exce

> How many grains of sand would you need to have a heap? My point exactly. If you want to say that a private service becomes a "town square" when its size exceeds some number of grains of sand, then you have to say what that number is, and justify it. That's not possible; so probably the idea that there should be a threshold is wrong. Either every private service is a common carrier; or none is.

josephcsible 4y ago
> That's not possible; so probably the idea that there should be a threshold is wrong. Either every private service is a common carrier; or none is. The whole point of the sorites paradox is that this isn't the case. It is possible to make a distinction between two different classes of things even if the boundary can't be specified with infinite precision.
- gfodor 4y ago
  Yep, you can choose thresholds based upon if you care more about Type I or II error. In this case, it should be easy to argue we should be setting the bar very high to be considered a public square. But it definitely should include Twitter and Facebook.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  It's not a question of precision; nobody cares whether it's 10M commenters, or 10 million and one. It's that without a clear, agreed rule, then everyone can draw the line wherever they like. If it's drawn by legislators or judges, there'll always be lots of people who think it should be drawn elsewhere. No rule based on counting grains of sand is ever going to gain consensus.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    How much more dangerous is it for someone who's 15 years and 364 days old to drive than it is for someone who's exactly 16 years old? Or for someone who's 20 years and 364 days old to drink than it is for someone who's exactly 21 years old? Why would an arbitrary line for this be any more contentious than those arbitrary lines? We don't say "since there's not an obvious line for when you're mature enough to drive, either everybody can or nobody can."

josephcsible 4y ago

> That's not possible; so probably the idea that there should be a threshold is wrong. Either every private service is a common carrier; or none is. The whole point of the sorites paradox is that this isn't the case. It is possible to make a distinction between two different classes of things even if the boundary can't be specified with infinite precision.

gfodor 4y ago
Yep, you can choose thresholds based upon if you care more about Type I or II error. In this case, it should be easy to argue we should be setting the bar very high to be considered a public square. But it definitely should include Twitter and Facebook.
denton-scratch 4y ago
It's not a question of precision; nobody cares whether it's 10M commenters, or 10 million and one. It's that without a clear, agreed rule, then everyone can draw the line wherever they like. If it's drawn by legislators or judges, there'll always be lots of people who think it should be drawn elsewhere. No rule based on counting grains of sand is ever going to gain consensus.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  How much more dangerous is it for someone who's 15 years and 364 days old to drive than it is for someone who's exactly 16 years old? Or for someone who's 20 years and 364 days old to drink than it is for someone who's exactly 21 years old? Why would an arbitrary line for this be any more contentious than those arbitrary lines? We don't say "since there's not an obvious line for when you're mature enough to drive, either everybody can or nobody can."