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I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it

261 points by breck 4y ago

belltaco 4y ago
> Voltaire? François-Marie Arouet? S. G. Tallentyre? Evelyn Beatrice Hall? Ignazio Silone? Douglas Young? Norbert Guterman? There was no online social media back then.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
This has always been my view of speech. I believe that every human being has The right to speak their mind without fear of government reprisal. I wish it also meant a right to speak your mind free from the judgment of your employer, or university, but that is a slippery slope. Just because I will defend a person's right to speak their mind no matter what, does not mean I have to listen to it, or agree with it. I wrestle with this, because if I had an opinion, pick any social issue, I don't think an employer should be allowed to fire me because of that. However, we have freedom of association, and a business may not want to associate with someone who has opinions counter to their own.
- eddieroger 4y ago
  > However, I understand we have freedom of association, and a business may not want to associate with someone who has opinions counter to their own. That's really the heart of it, isn't it? Forget employer for a moment - if you said something really offensive to one of your friends, and they decided to stop being your friend, you'd be upset, but should they be allowed to no longer be your friend? Of course they should. People get to choose with whom they associate, and companies (who are not people, but that's a different post) get to choose who they hire, because those people are a reflection of them. Freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences.
  - leereeves 4y ago
    There's also the freedom to criticize and choose not to associate with a company that fires people for expressing their opinion.
    - b112 4y ago
      This is actually key, and I think the primary part here should be, as long as there is sufficient competition in the marketplace. Look at Google. Now try to never ever touch code they touch, information they curated a bit, or anything they do. Good luck with that! Try your best, you will be tainted. Somehow. Someway. A key example? Try to email people, without Google/Gmail/Workplace bring the result often. Google is the de facto monopoly of many things, and you are forced to touch them, even if you try not to. So in such a case, well... I don't know. But there is no choice.
      - diordiderot 4y ago
        Funny how this is the only scenario where the right cares about anti-trust
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - Overtonwindow 4y ago
    It is. There is no freedom from consequences, unless you are a politician maybe. I think if America continues on its current path, people will increase exclusive association into "us versus them." I don't think that will help us in the long term.
  - puffoflogic 4y ago
    > Freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences. Freedom from consequences is the only possible thing freedom of speech could be, other than not having your mouth sewn shut. What you meant to say was, what we value is freedom of speech from government consequences, not private actors. And that is a value judgement, not definitional. The incorrect statement you used is spread by people trying to hide the former as the latter.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Well, in the US, "Freedom of speech" is often used in the context of the US constitution so, while it is indeed freedom from consequences, it's freedom from consequences in the narrow sense of freedom from the consequence of the government using its police power to imprison you for saying something. ADDED: In other situations the degree of saying whatever you want is very context-dependent and also dependent on what consequences you're willing to suffer.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - tomohelix 4y ago
    The problem comes when the very act of non-association with someone effectively silences them. If everyone is allowed to speak through a megaphone, except people with certain ideologies because the megaphone maker refuses to do business with them, then you can argue that is a form of censorship, or at least, have the effect of censorship. This can happen to anything and anyone, regardless of whether such ideologies are correct or not. What we would end up with are echo chambers. And I sincerely believe that those are the cause of many social issues right now.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      Are all views valid and should be listened to? In order to ensure free speech do we all have to thoughtfully engage with white supremacists or pederasts? Seems to me free speech is my having a choice who I associate with as well.
      - tomohelix 4y ago
        Not all views is valid. And nobody should be forced to associate with someone they don't like. But I don't consider corporations "people". And they should not have the prerogative to choose what views they will amplify. That is what I meant by non-association can become censorship. A person can't do that. But a large corporation providing a public service can.
        SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        Ah, OK - I missed that you were talking about corporations. So can we rephrase this by saying that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube should be fine with white supremacists and people who argue for pederasty on their platforms? I struggle with this at the extremes.
        tomohelix 4y ago
        There are hate speech laws they can follow. That should cover the extremes. And if they don't, then it is the failure of the legislation. Just like how you can't go to walmart and insult everyone you see. It would actually be illegal to retaliate against those people. But call the cops and they can be dealt with. At least with the laws, there is more checks and balances. It isn't perfect, but it is better than giving private entities massive power to control opinions.
  - Georgelemental 4y ago
    How far do you take freedom of association though? Should a company be able to discriminate based on race? Refuse to hire women unless they have sex with the CEO? Etc…
    - Jcowell 4y ago
      > Should a company be able to discriminate based on race? Question like these are pointless since they’re already solved. The American Law system already said no at the highest point possible.
      - nostromo 4y ago
        But that's the point. Employers are already quite limited in how they can disassociate with employees. You can divorce someone because they didn't want to have sex with you. And you can decide not to be friends with people of a certain race. But employers do not have those rights under US law. So it would also seem fine if you also couldn't be fired due to political beliefs. We already have a framework for dealing with these issues.
        livueta 4y ago
        I've always thought the whole 'protected categories' thing was made a little odd by the inclusion of religion, given the obvious nexus between religious beliefs and political positions, e.g. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. Political opinions receiving protection iff colored by a religious belief is pretty asymmetric. To maintain logical consistency, either both or neither.
        torstenvl 4y ago
        Just to be clear, the implications of what you're suggesting would be the immediate legalization of anti-Semitism in the workplace. Are you sure that's better?
        livueta 4y ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - idi_amin 4y ago
    >Freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences. "There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech."
  - refurb 4y ago
    “Not free of consequences” is a cop out. What are consequences? Being ignored? Sure. Being physically beaten? That’s a consequence too.
    - eddieroger 4y ago
      There are also assault and battery laws in place to deal with this.
  - sattoshi 4y ago
    > Freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences. How I hate the proliferation of this idiotic phrase. Freedom of speech is a concept, an ideal. Not whatever the US constitution says. The idea is that powerful forces won’t punish you for speaking your mind. If saying “I don’t like blue party” gets you fired, debanked and slandered in the media; it’s not really freedom of speech. You also have “freedom to murder”, but you need to suffer the consequences. A freedom like that is no freedom at all.
- throwaway1777 4y ago
  Yeah all too often people forget the first amendment applies to the government not to companies or ordinary people.
  - ralusek 4y ago
    Freedom of speech is an ethic, the first amendment applies to political bodies.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  What does it mean to speak your mind? Does lying count? Is it your right to lie under oath?
- alldayeveryday 4y ago
  > we have freedom of association, and a business may not want to associate with someone who has opinions counter to their own. Yes and no. Take the Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled in the baker's favor on the grounds that forcing him to bake the cake would violate his religious freedoms. I wonder, if the baker had refused purely as a personal preference not to do business with gay couples (freedom of association), would the court have ruled differently? As far as I know the Supreme Court has not yet weighed in on such a question.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >a business may not want to associate with someone who has opinions counter to their own I'm not sure it's so much that exactly as businesses don't want employees who make a lot of other employees uncomfortable or who hold loud (whether deliberately or because social media made something go viral) opinions or make stupid jokes in public that get associated with the company and cause PR issues. The fact is that if someone employs/sponsors/advertises with/etc. you they can and will cut ties fast if you embarrass them.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Question really is what counts as association? Is being partnered and prominently showing branding for example such thing? Or what about being able to buy things and services from? Later is actually more critical point. Let's take some minority group. We generally think that discriminating against them for being member of group is wrong and should be illegal. But what if we took stance that we do not discriminate against the group, but against those that voice they should have equal rights? Entirely fine surely for many people now? Effect would be same, other one is just due to their speech.
- drewbeck 4y ago
  > However, we have freedom of association, and a business may not want to associate with someone who has opinions counter to their own. I think this part is why there’s so much angst about this these days: businesses have captured a huge part of our commons and our support systems, pieces that might have been (or could be) the purview of government at other times. If we’re all paying dues to BigCorp in order to live, is it fair to say “businesses can choose to not associate with whomever they want”?
  - livueta 4y ago
    This line of thought always reminds me of Marsh v. Alabama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama > a state trespassing statute could not be used to prevent the distribution of religious materials on a town's sidewalk even though the sidewalk was part of a privately-owned company town Are we at that point of broad-spectrum BigCo dominance yet? I'd say probably not, but sometimes it just seems like a matter of time.
maybeitshim 4y ago
"I disapprove of what you say but i will defend to the death your right to say it" Hahaha this reminds of a Romanian politician who had returned to Romania after the revolution and wanted to become president. He was recognizable by his style of wearing a bowtie amongst a sea of ties. He used to utter this same quote to the people but it fell on deaf ears because people wanted products not rights. He never won and is all but forgotten even in the country he wanted to steer in the right direction.
- archon1410 4y ago
  The politician referred to here is Ion Rațiu.[1][2][3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Ra%C8%9Biu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Ra%C8%9Biu [2] https://transylvaniantours.com/ion-ratiu/ https://transylvaniantours.com/ion-ratiu/ [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/Romania/comments/9m3sds/voiam_s%C4%83_v%C4%83_reamintesc_ce_a_zis_ion_ra%C8%9Biu_voi/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Romania/comments/9m3sds/voiam_s%C4%...
xoa 4y ago
Ken White, a well known former prosecutor turned defense lawyer and first amendment law expert/speaker (amongst other things), did an interesting article towards the end of last year talking about the importance of being clear about terminology in these discussions ("In Defense Of Free Speech Pedantry" [0]). I think that's very important in these online debates because "freedom of speech" has become a somewhat overloaded that people can use to mean different things. I tend to think of "Free Speech" specifically in terms of what he calls Free Speech Rights (FSR), the actual legal rights afforded by the 1st Amendment, 14th Amendment and subsequent court rulings and precedent, with what people do with it and my own opinions a separate sphere. A lot of people though are bringing in what he terms Free Speech Culture and Speech Decency as well. Just because we legally can do something doesn't mean it's good to exercise that power. Norms sometimes should be challenged, but also are usually worth a bit of thought and discretion. And legal FSR apply to everyone and preserves a forever ongoing cycle of discussion and culture, that's part of the point, and in turn protect criticism and counter criticism, exclusion as well as inclusion. The right to speak necessarily entails the right to not speak. I don't know if his proposed terms will ultimately catch on and make the most sense, but I do think it's worth some effort in being more precise with our language because FSR vs FSC and SD involves extremely different applications of power and risk, and separating out the domains can help everyone think more clearly about the topic. In the case of this classic saying, it involves all of them in a compact manner. Someone can think speech is just plain wrong, disgusting and evil even, but not want to see force used upon the speaker or any other speaker for a variety of good reasons. ---- 0: https://popehat.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-free-speech-pedantry https://popehat.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-free-speech-ped...
- jawns 4y ago
  I've been watching some First Amendment Auditing videos, and it is amazing the degree of ignorance there is not only among the public, but also public servants, including police officers, who should absolutely know that constitutionally protected activity can't be turned into a crime just because someone finds it unpalatable. In fact, that's precisely the reason why First Amendment protections exist. We wouldn't need them if there weren't speech, religions, journalists, or protests that some people didn't want. I understand your point about "just because you can doesn't mean you should," but on the other hand, we will never know whether constitutional protections have real force unless we see that they work for rights that other people would rather we not exercise.
bedhead 4y ago
[flagged]
- tomrod 4y ago
  Content-wise, I'm surprised to hear "woke" being applied to right-wing Americans. I guess it makes sense with the book bannings, attacks on public education, refusal to govern as a coalition, and more.
roody15 4y ago
Quote sadly has not held up will in the last couple decades. We are now led by a louder more extreme minority that aggressively police’s discussion points. For example I am mostly liberal and was a fan of Bernie Sanders. However in my personal case I don’t believe transgender and gender identity roles are something that should be pressed on still developing minors. The problem here is you may agree or not agree but the point I am making is just my view on this equals bigot / hater .. etc. Any deviation from a strict all or nothing approach is silenced through bullying and harassment. No room or in there is not even any desire for real discussion … it is just accept these things as “truth” or be labeled some form of hater. It wasn’t so long ago that real discussion still happened on platforms like reddit and others …now it is curated to the point of nonsense.
- greenhorn360 4y ago
  So you want to raise children without gender?
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
    That sound you hear is OPs point flying over your head
  - omgomgomgomg 4y ago
    Well, I sometimes wish I was born an eagle because I like travelling, flying and chasing the sun. I am not going to try to have a surgery to make it happen. There is nobody with no gender, there are rarities with natural double gender features, but strictly speaking, nature assigns a gender during early pregnancy. All the ideas about gender changes occur to people later on and based on personal feelings/factors. The mind is something that develops by education and experience, not genetic urges as far I am aware. If schools and parents would educate kids saying theres no such thing like gender and you get to choose and society lets the promoters of such go rampant, I imagine this would not lead to a net positive outcome.
    - simonsaysso 4y ago
Oras 4y ago
These days you can offend people by saying anything. Talking to people became kind of a mine field. Such quotes are close to fiction.
- greenhorn360 4y ago
  Like saying what? I dont feel like this talking to hardly anyone
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
antirez 4y ago
I friend of mine used to say: I disapprove of what you say, but I would kill myself to avoid hearing it again.
- SapporoChris 4y ago
  I always heard it as: "I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to go fuck yourself"
RavlaAlvar 4y ago
[flagged]
mellosouls 4y ago
In recent years has become the rather less inspirational: "I disapprove of what you say and I will do what I can with a mob to ruin your reputation and career as an example to make sure nobody else says it"
- greenhorn360 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - gotoeleven 4y ago
    https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk-rowling-transgender-comments-controversy https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk...
    - kredd 4y ago
      I read the “citation needed” comment as “in real life people don’t care, it’s just chronically online people that rush from one boycott to another”. Which I think applies to JK Rowling as well, since the new Harry Potter game is making a bank and supermajority of people simply don’t care.
    - greenhorn360 4y ago
      She's spending millions of dollars funding anti trans political organizations. That's a bit beyond simple speech. Her life sure was ruined by that mob though. Such a shame she's poor now and no one is buying her new game. Do you have an example of this: 1.) Actually happening 2.) Happening because of only speech
      - seiferteric 4y ago
        Who is she funding?
      - idlewords 4y ago
        Kathleen Stock is a good example, an academic philosopher run out of a job in 2021 and consistently harassed ever since for her philosophical stance on the relationship between sex and gender. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/28/sussex-professor-kathleen-stock-resigns-after-transgender-rights-row https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/28/sussex-profess...
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
A lot of these quotes are actually inventions of translators or researchers. Another one that I'm pretty sure was not actually said by Aristotle (and that I love), is: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
- boredhedgehog 4y ago
  I would differentiate between inventions and encapsulations. It's one thing to adorn any random idea with a famous name to give it more traction. But to summarize the thoughts of an influential thinker with a pithy saying, even if he didn't actually say it, is usually not harmful and a normal part of localization.
- divbzero 4y ago
  Reminds me of this quote from another philosopher though I can’t remember which one: “It’s not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me.”
  - JieJie 4y ago
    —Bruce Wayne https://phind.com/search?q=who+said%2C+“It’s+not+who+I+am+underneath+but+what+I+do+that+defines+me.” https://phind.com/search?q=who+said%2C+“It’s+not+who+I+am+un...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    > "What you do speaks so loudly, I can't hear what you're saying." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
  - snapcaster 4y ago
    Mewtwo?
- Amorymeltzer 4y ago
trabant00 4y ago
The idea was useful in the past when humanity was still experimenting with different ideas about morality, forms of government, religion, philosophy, etc. Now that we have settled all that there is no need any more to allow wrong think and wrong speech. /S In seriousness though, this fight is not new at all. The fact that somebody felt the need to state that quote means the same debate existed back then.
- int_19h 4y ago
  "One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that ‘bourgeois liberty’ is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought." - George Orwell, "The Freedom of the Press" (1945)
jimjimjim 4y ago
to the death? really? What about your family? your dependents? Sorry love, it looks like you'll have to pay the mortgage.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  not his own death, of course.
fromseashore 4y ago
[dead]
blindriver 4y ago
I've always been a free speech absolutist. I don't think there's any speech, including hate speech, that I would ban. If I don't like it, I can offer my own opinions and try to educate people, but banning speech outright is wrong. The problem that has occurred is that some people on the extremes now think "All the other people/children are so stupid that they will get tricked into believe all these lies. We should shut down that speech so that these poor idiots don't fall into this trap." This is thinking that I strongly disagree with. Some people may believe hate speech but I think that's a reflection of who they are, ie. they will probably believe it with or without the convincing. I personally believe that most people are smarter than this and banning speech based on "protect the children!" is a terrible excuse that both the left and right are using nowadays (more by the right a decade ago). There is no system better than complete free speech, because it allows the most amount of information to be passed back and forth and gives people the opportunity to decide for themselves.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  I suspect the theory is if one controls others' speech, thereby one also controls their thoughts. Is this really true? How many people adjust their speech to fit in, and change their thoughts to match?
  - rexpop 4y ago
    This is certainly true to some degree, or else all advertising expenditure is wasted.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      Right. But curiously enough, advertising, broadly speaking, tries to either 1) make you lust for something the advertised good/service claims to provide, or 2) makes you fear something the advertised good/service claims to mitigate. I'm yet to see any advertisement try to get you to buy something under threat of repercussions, or threat of being dehumanized. This last category is what GP is asking about, so advertising can serve at best as weak evidence that it doesn't work (or else it would be used in ads).
deanCommie 4y ago
Independent of the other threads here (talking about freedom from prosecution from government vs private companies vs individual reputation) And everyone talking about their own limitations on free speech (I support Bernie Sanders, but I draw the line at Trans rights) I think it's also worth noting the changes in expectations of magnitude of reactions and reprisal for free speech today vs say Voltaire's age. Reputation and shame used to drive so much of our public discourse. Whenever you hear about people challenging each other over some disagreement or disapproval, it's always the most benign stuff. In that context, saying "not only will I not challenge you to a dual for disagreeing with me, but I will actually fight to PROTECT your right to say it" is pretty revolutionary stuff. We should ask Voltaire (or whoever was actually responsible) if he would feel the same way if the person who he disapproved of was a person of significant means and power and was calling for the destruction of Voltaire's life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness. So when people today scream about cancel culture because of some heinous shit they said about black or trans people, then use this quote to suggest that we should be defending to the death their right to call for systemic discrimination and repression of others....it's just not the same.
Biganon 4y ago
> Voltaire? François-Marie Arouet? Ha! Voltaire is François-Marie Arouet! Oh dear!
einpoklum 4y ago
Some fashionable variants on that maxim these days: * I disapprove of what you say and will label you a terrorist / communist / traitor / Putin-puppet / etc. regardless of whether those epithets actually have anything to do with it. * I disapprove of what you say and will demand you be silenced or canceled in the name of creating a safe friendly environment. * I disapprove of what you say and use my social media company connections to make sure the algorithm suppresses you. Eh, why even bother? They probably do it automatically already anyway and just direct everybody to safe vetted opinions.
skeeter2020 4y ago
>> I don't think there's any speech, including hate speech, that I would ban How many times do we have to experience a charismatic (or just populist) leader using hate speech to compel great evil though? I don't want to wait until after the act to try and hold them accountable.
- ed25519FUUU 4y ago
  It’s interesting that some people see freedom of speech as a weapon to commit crime, and others see freedom of speech as a weapon to prevent crime.
korroziya 4y ago
[flagged]
- dang 4y ago
  I wrote about this the other day, in case anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34929565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34929565. Btw HN has a single organizing value: intellectual curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), so the question of how to relate to "free speech" or any similar concept reduces to: how does it relate to optimizing an internet forum for intellectual curiosity? It's not hard to derive some interesting consequences once you reframe the question that way.
karaterobot 4y ago
I'm sure everybody read the article before commenting, but just to summarize: Voltaire probably never specifically gave this quote, it probably comes from a historian writing about him. Likely due some ambiguous quotation marks, people took it as a direct quote and ran with it.
- daxfohl 4y ago
  "I don't care what you say, but I will defend to the death my right to comment on what I think you might have said."
  - selcuka 4y ago
    I don't care what the article says, nor will I read it, but I will defend to the death my right to comment on it.
    - teawrecks 4y ago
      I don't article what the defend says, but I will read your comment to the death my right to care it.
      - jonhohle 4y ago
        In Soviet Russia, the article defends YOU!
    - bilbo0s 4y ago
      I realize you intend it as a joke, but it's sad how much your quote sums up HN commentary. It hits uncomfortably close to home.
      - lostlogin 4y ago
        In fairness though, it’s frequent that I learn more from the comments than the article, even when I read the article.
neverrroot 4y ago
This! This is what freedom of speech is really about!
refurb 4y ago
The rationale for free speech is easy to articulate - “if you restrict speech you open the door for your opponents to do the same”. Everybody wants to restrict speech they dont like, but with that comes the ability for others to restrict speech you do like. Hence, the optimal outcome is no or minimal restriction.
- trgn 4y ago
  While I agree with this, it's sadly a game theoretic reasoning, that is to say, fearful, relativistic, utilitarian. Again, not being dismissive at all, but it says something about the state of our thinking and quality of our ideals, when we cannot make arguments on absolute grounds anymore. Or if we do, they seem quaint, passe, naive.
rqtwteye 4y ago
I really hate it that so many people these feel the need to immediately push back when somebody says something they don't agree with. I remember years ago you could have a discussion and express your opinion and it was fine. Now with a lot of people it's better to say nothing.
- samtp 4y ago
  > I remember years ago you could have a discussion and express your opinion and it was fine. I also remember when racism, xenophobia, slandering women, and generally ignorant talk was accepted and chuckled at. Thankfully, women are now expected to express opinions at dinner parties and minorities aren't run out of town for having the audacity to exist in the same neighborhood.
  - SheepSlapper 4y ago
    It only took 7 minutes for someone to come in and do... almost exactly what the above poster was describing. There's no way this isn't a simulation.
    - csallen 4y ago
      Hacker News is a discussion forum. Not only that, but it's one where the culture is defined by a contrarian-yet-intellectual spirit. It's the last place anyone should come to share opinions without expecting a response, likely a critical one.
      - TeMPOraL 4y ago
        > It's the last place anyone should come to share opinions without expecting a response, likely a critical one. Sure, but this topic is "special" in the sense that the response GP is complaining about is about the most uncritical, non-contrarian, obvious possible one. If you view conversations as a multiplayer gradient descent, then making an accusation - even an implied and/or non-specific - of racism, sexism, bigotry and associated "sins", is like making a huge sinkhole on the optimization surface: a very deep local minimum, nearly impossible to walk out of. It's so easy for anyone to do this, and the effect is both immediate and so obvious, that when someone does that, it's hard not to see it as a deliberate attempt at shutting down the conversation. It's equivalent of someone pulling a gun in the middle of what the other person thought was friendly sparring.
phendrenad2 4y ago
My observation about free speech: It's a cyclical thing. "I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is one side, and "People must be protected from wrongthink" is the other side. Our democratic societies cycle back and forth between them, like clockwork. Often in the process, the "left" and "right" side of the traditional political spectrum swap stances on free speech (sometimes multiple times). In the 1950s, when McCarthyism was rampant, it was the left that wanted the right to free expression, even if it meant protecting communist agitators. Now, it's the left that wants strict rules on what can be said, because Trumpism made them think that wrongthink itself is a threat to democracy. It'll swap back, in time. It always does.
wcarron 4y ago
This thread is an exercise in accepting disappointment in your fellow man.
permo-w 4y ago
today’s issues with free speech boil down to that historically there were huge barriers to communicating with a mass audience, and now there are not, and how we deal with the consequences of that
fennecfoxy 4y ago
It's a silly idea, anyway. People's right to free speech should be defended, for instance no more Galileo being silenced by the Church because empirical evidence fractured their fragile beliefs. But at the same time, people can't just say _anything_. If society was still allowed to be legally publicly homophobic, I'd still be told to my face by various people that I'm a: monster, pedophile, going to hell, sissy and all manner of cruel insults & jokes just because I'm gay. That wears someone down, after a while.
- recuter 4y ago
  Frankly, my dear, I no longer care.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
codeddesign 4y ago
Today’s left leaners: “I disapprove with what you say, so I will get angry and harass until you agree with me”

261 points by breck 4y ago

> Voltaire? François-Marie Arouet? S. G. Tallentyre? Evelyn Beatrice Hall? Ignazio Silone? Douglas Young? Norbert Guterman? There was no online social media back then.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

This has always been my view of speech. I believe that every human being has The right to speak their mind without fear of government reprisal. I wish it also meant a right to speak your mind free from the judgment of your employer, or university, but that is a slippery slope. Just because I will defend a person's right to speak their mind no matter what, does not mean I have to listen to it, or agree with it. I wrestle with this, because if I had an opinion, pick any social issue, I don't think an employer should be allowed to fire me because of that. However, we have freedom of association, and a business may not want to associate with someone who has opinions counter to their own.

eddieroger 4y ago
> However, I understand we have freedom of association, and a business may not want to associate with someone who has opinions counter to their own. That's really the heart of it, isn't it? Forget employer for a moment - if you said something really offensive to one of your friends, and they decided to stop being your friend, you'd be upset, but should they be allowed to no longer be your friend? Of course they should. People get to choose with whom they associate, and companies (who are not people, but that's a different post) get to choose who they hire, because those people are a reflection of them. Freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences.
- leereeves 4y ago
  There's also the freedom to criticize and choose not to associate with a company that fires people for expressing their opinion.
  - b112 4y ago
    This is actually key, and I think the primary part here should be, as long as there is sufficient competition in the marketplace. Look at Google. Now try to never ever touch code they touch, information they curated a bit, or anything they do. Good luck with that! Try your best, you will be tainted. Somehow. Someway. A key example? Try to email people, without Google/Gmail/Workplace bring the result often. Google is the de facto monopoly of many things, and you are forced to touch them, even if you try not to. So in such a case, well... I don't know. But there is no choice.
    - diordiderot 4y ago
      Funny how this is the only scenario where the right cares about anti-trust
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Overtonwindow 4y ago
  It is. There is no freedom from consequences, unless you are a politician maybe. I think if America continues on its current path, people will increase exclusive association into "us versus them." I don't think that will help us in the long term.
- puffoflogic 4y ago
  > Freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences. Freedom from consequences is the only possible thing freedom of speech could be, other than not having your mouth sewn shut. What you meant to say was, what we value is freedom of speech from government consequences, not private actors. And that is a value judgement, not definitional. The incorrect statement you used is spread by people trying to hide the former as the latter.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Well, in the US, "Freedom of speech" is often used in the context of the US constitution so, while it is indeed freedom from consequences, it's freedom from consequences in the narrow sense of freedom from the consequence of the government using its police power to imprison you for saying something. ADDED: In other situations the degree of saying whatever you want is very context-dependent and also dependent on what consequences you're willing to suffer.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tomohelix 4y ago
  The problem comes when the very act of non-association with someone effectively silences them. If everyone is allowed to speak through a megaphone, except people with certain ideologies because the megaphone maker refuses to do business with them, then you can argue that is a form of censorship, or at least, have the effect of censorship. This can happen to anything and anyone, regardless of whether such ideologies are correct or not. What we would end up with are echo chambers. And I sincerely believe that those are the cause of many social issues right now.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    Are all views valid and should be listened to? In order to ensure free speech do we all have to thoughtfully engage with white supremacists or pederasts? Seems to me free speech is my having a choice who I associate with as well.
    - tomohelix 4y ago
      Not all views is valid. And nobody should be forced to associate with someone they don't like. But I don't consider corporations "people". And they should not have the prerogative to choose what views they will amplify. That is what I meant by non-association can become censorship. A person can't do that. But a large corporation providing a public service can.
      - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        Ah, OK - I missed that you were talking about corporations. So can we rephrase this by saying that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube should be fine with white supremacists and people who argue for pederasty on their platforms? I struggle with this at the extremes.
        tomohelix 4y ago
        There are hate speech laws they can follow. That should cover the extremes. And if they don't, then it is the failure of the legislation. Just like how you can't go to walmart and insult everyone you see. It would actually be illegal to retaliate against those people. But call the cops and they can be dealt with. At least with the laws, there is more checks and balances. It isn't perfect, but it is better than giving private entities massive power to control opinions.
- Georgelemental 4y ago
  How far do you take freedom of association though? Should a company be able to discriminate based on race? Refuse to hire women unless they have sex with the CEO? Etc…
  - Jcowell 4y ago
    > Should a company be able to discriminate based on race? Question like these are pointless since they’re already solved. The American Law system already said no at the highest point possible.
    - nostromo 4y ago
      But that's the point. Employers are already quite limited in how they can disassociate with employees. You can divorce someone because they didn't want to have sex with you. And you can decide not to be friends with people of a certain race. But employers do not have those rights under US law. So it would also seem fine if you also couldn't be fired due to political beliefs. We already have a framework for dealing with these issues.
      - livueta 4y ago
        I've always thought the whole 'protected categories' thing was made a little odd by the inclusion of religion, given the obvious nexus between religious beliefs and political positions, e.g. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. Political opinions receiving protection iff colored by a religious belief is pretty asymmetric. To maintain logical consistency, either both or neither.
        torstenvl 4y ago
        Just to be clear, the implications of what you're suggesting would be the immediate legalization of anti-Semitism in the workplace. Are you sure that's better?
        livueta 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- idi_amin 4y ago
  >Freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences. "There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech."
- refurb 4y ago
  “Not free of consequences” is a cop out. What are consequences? Being ignored? Sure. Being physically beaten? That’s a consequence too.
  - eddieroger 4y ago
    There are also assault and battery laws in place to deal with this.
- sattoshi 4y ago
  > Freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences. How I hate the proliferation of this idiotic phrase. Freedom of speech is a concept, an ideal. Not whatever the US constitution says. The idea is that powerful forces won’t punish you for speaking your mind. If saying “I don’t like blue party” gets you fired, debanked and slandered in the media; it’s not really freedom of speech. You also have “freedom to murder”, but you need to suffer the consequences. A freedom like that is no freedom at all.
throwaway1777 4y ago
Yeah all too often people forget the first amendment applies to the government not to companies or ordinary people.
- ralusek 4y ago
  Freedom of speech is an ethic, the first amendment applies to political bodies.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
What does it mean to speak your mind? Does lying count? Is it your right to lie under oath?
alldayeveryday 4y ago
> we have freedom of association, and a business may not want to associate with someone who has opinions counter to their own. Yes and no. Take the Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled in the baker's favor on the grounds that forcing him to bake the cake would violate his religious freedoms. I wonder, if the baker had refused purely as a personal preference not to do business with gay couples (freedom of association), would the court have ruled differently? As far as I know the Supreme Court has not yet weighed in on such a question.
ghaff 4y ago
>a business may not want to associate with someone who has opinions counter to their own I'm not sure it's so much that exactly as businesses don't want employees who make a lot of other employees uncomfortable or who hold loud (whether deliberately or because social media made something go viral) opinions or make stupid jokes in public that get associated with the company and cause PR issues. The fact is that if someone employs/sponsors/advertises with/etc. you they can and will cut ties fast if you embarrass them.
Ekaros 4y ago
Question really is what counts as association? Is being partnered and prominently showing branding for example such thing? Or what about being able to buy things and services from? Later is actually more critical point. Let's take some minority group. We generally think that discriminating against them for being member of group is wrong and should be illegal. But what if we took stance that we do not discriminate against the group, but against those that voice they should have equal rights? Entirely fine surely for many people now? Effect would be same, other one is just due to their speech.
drewbeck 4y ago
> However, we have freedom of association, and a business may not want to associate with someone who has opinions counter to their own. I think this part is why there’s so much angst about this these days: businesses have captured a huge part of our commons and our support systems, pieces that might have been (or could be) the purview of government at other times. If we’re all paying dues to BigCorp in order to live, is it fair to say “businesses can choose to not associate with whomever they want”?
- livueta 4y ago
  This line of thought always reminds me of Marsh v. Alabama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama > a state trespassing statute could not be used to prevent the distribution of religious materials on a town's sidewalk even though the sidewalk was part of a privately-owned company town Are we at that point of broad-spectrum BigCo dominance yet? I'd say probably not, but sometimes it just seems like a matter of time.

maybeitshim 4y ago

"I disapprove of what you say but i will defend to the death your right to say it" Hahaha this reminds of a Romanian politician who had returned to Romania after the revolution and wanted to become president. He was recognizable by his style of wearing a bowtie amongst a sea of ties. He used to utter this same quote to the people but it fell on deaf ears because people wanted products not rights. He never won and is all but forgotten even in the country he wanted to steer in the right direction.

archon1410 4y ago
The politician referred to here is Ion Rațiu.[1][2][3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Ra%C8%9Biu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Ra%C8%9Biu [2] https://transylvaniantours.com/ion-ratiu/ https://transylvaniantours.com/ion-ratiu/ [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/Romania/comments/9m3sds/voiam_s%C4%83_v%C4%83_reamintesc_ce_a_zis_ion_ra%C8%9Biu_voi/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Romania/comments/9m3sds/voiam_s%C4%...

xoa 4y ago

Ken White, a well known former prosecutor turned defense lawyer and first amendment law expert/speaker (amongst other things), did an interesting article towards the end of last year talking about the importance of being clear about terminology in these discussions ("In Defense Of Free Speech Pedantry" [0]). I think that's very important in these online debates because "freedom of speech" has become a somewhat overloaded that people can use to mean different things. I tend to think of "Free Speech" specifically in terms of what he calls Free Speech Rights (FSR), the actual legal rights afforded by the 1st Amendment, 14th Amendment and subsequent court rulings and precedent, with what people do with it and my own opinions a separate sphere. A lot of people though are bringing in what he terms Free Speech Culture and Speech Decency as well. Just because we legally can do something doesn't mean it's good to exercise that power. Norms sometimes should be challenged, but also are usually worth a bit of thought and discretion. And legal FSR apply to everyone and preserves a forever ongoing cycle of discussion and culture, that's part of the point, and in turn protect criticism and counter criticism, exclusion as well as inclusion. The right to speak necessarily entails the right to not speak. I don't know if his proposed terms will ultimately catch on and make the most sense, but I do think it's worth some effort in being more precise with our language because FSR vs FSC and SD involves extremely different applications of power and risk, and separating out the domains can help everyone think more clearly about the topic. In the case of this classic saying, it involves all of them in a compact manner. Someone can think speech is just plain wrong, disgusting and evil even, but not want to see force used upon the speaker or any other speaker for a variety of good reasons. ---- 0: https://popehat.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-free-speech-pedantry https://popehat.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-free-speech-ped...

jawns 4y ago
I've been watching some First Amendment Auditing videos, and it is amazing the degree of ignorance there is not only among the public, but also public servants, including police officers, who should absolutely know that constitutionally protected activity can't be turned into a crime just because someone finds it unpalatable. In fact, that's precisely the reason why First Amendment protections exist. We wouldn't need them if there weren't speech, religions, journalists, or protests that some people didn't want. I understand your point about "just because you can doesn't mean you should," but on the other hand, we will never know whether constitutional protections have real force unless we see that they work for rights that other people would rather we not exercise.

bedhead 4y ago

[flagged]

tomrod 4y ago
Content-wise, I'm surprised to hear "woke" being applied to right-wing Americans. I guess it makes sense with the book bannings, attacks on public education, refusal to govern as a coalition, and more.

roody15 4y ago

Quote sadly has not held up will in the last couple decades. We are now led by a louder more extreme minority that aggressively police’s discussion points. For example I am mostly liberal and was a fan of Bernie Sanders. However in my personal case I don’t believe transgender and gender identity roles are something that should be pressed on still developing minors. The problem here is you may agree or not agree but the point I am making is just my view on this equals bigot / hater .. etc. Any deviation from a strict all or nothing approach is silenced through bullying and harassment. No room or in there is not even any desire for real discussion … it is just accept these things as “truth” or be labeled some form of hater. It wasn’t so long ago that real discussion still happened on platforms like reddit and others …now it is curated to the point of nonsense.

greenhorn360 4y ago
So you want to raise children without gender?
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
  That sound you hear is OPs point flying over your head
- omgomgomgomg 4y ago
  Well, I sometimes wish I was born an eagle because I like travelling, flying and chasing the sun. I am not going to try to have a surgery to make it happen. There is nobody with no gender, there are rarities with natural double gender features, but strictly speaking, nature assigns a gender during early pregnancy. All the ideas about gender changes occur to people later on and based on personal feelings/factors. The mind is something that develops by education and experience, not genetic urges as far I am aware. If schools and parents would educate kids saying theres no such thing like gender and you get to choose and society lets the promoters of such go rampant, I imagine this would not lead to a net positive outcome.
  - simonsaysso 4y ago

Oras 4y ago

These days you can offend people by saying anything. Talking to people became kind of a mine field. Such quotes are close to fiction.

greenhorn360 4y ago
Like saying what? I dont feel like this talking to hardly anyone
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

antirez 4y ago

I friend of mine used to say: I disapprove of what you say, but I would kill myself to avoid hearing it again.

SapporoChris 4y ago
I always heard it as: "I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to go fuck yourself"

RavlaAlvar 4y ago

[flagged]

mellosouls 4y ago

In recent years has become the rather less inspirational: "I disapprove of what you say and I will do what I can with a mob to ruin your reputation and career as an example to make sure nobody else says it"

greenhorn360 4y ago
[flagged]
- gotoeleven 4y ago
  https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk-rowling-transgender-comments-controversy https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk...
  - kredd 4y ago
    I read the “citation needed” comment as “in real life people don’t care, it’s just chronically online people that rush from one boycott to another”. Which I think applies to JK Rowling as well, since the new Harry Potter game is making a bank and supermajority of people simply don’t care.
  - greenhorn360 4y ago
    She's spending millions of dollars funding anti trans political organizations. That's a bit beyond simple speech. Her life sure was ruined by that mob though. Such a shame she's poor now and no one is buying her new game. Do you have an example of this: 1.) Actually happening 2.) Happening because of only speech
    - seiferteric 4y ago
      Who is she funding?
    - idlewords 4y ago
      Kathleen Stock is a good example, an academic philosopher run out of a job in 2021 and consistently harassed ever since for her philosophical stance on the relationship between sex and gender. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/28/sussex-professor-kathleen-stock-resigns-after-transgender-rights-row https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/28/sussex-profess...

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

A lot of these quotes are actually inventions of translators or researchers. Another one that I'm pretty sure was not actually said by Aristotle (and that I love), is: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

boredhedgehog 4y ago
I would differentiate between inventions and encapsulations. It's one thing to adorn any random idea with a famous name to give it more traction. But to summarize the thoughts of an influential thinker with a pithy saying, even if he didn't actually say it, is usually not harmful and a normal part of localization.
divbzero 4y ago
Reminds me of this quote from another philosopher though I can’t remember which one: “It’s not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me.”
- JieJie 4y ago
  —Bruce Wayne https://phind.com/search?q=who+said%2C+“It’s+not+who+I+am+underneath+but+what+I+do+that+defines+me.” https://phind.com/search?q=who+said%2C+“It’s+not+who+I+am+un...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  > "What you do speaks so loudly, I can't hear what you're saying." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
- snapcaster 4y ago
  Mewtwo?
Amorymeltzer 4y ago

trabant00 4y ago

The idea was useful in the past when humanity was still experimenting with different ideas about morality, forms of government, religion, philosophy, etc. Now that we have settled all that there is no need any more to allow wrong think and wrong speech. /S In seriousness though, this fight is not new at all. The fact that somebody felt the need to state that quote means the same debate existed back then.

int_19h 4y ago
"One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that ‘bourgeois liberty’ is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought." - George Orwell, "The Freedom of the Press" (1945)

jimjimjim 4y ago

to the death? really? What about your family? your dependents? Sorry love, it looks like you'll have to pay the mortgage.

quickthrower2 4y ago
not his own death, of course.

fromseashore 4y ago

[dead]

blindriver 4y ago

I've always been a free speech absolutist. I don't think there's any speech, including hate speech, that I would ban. If I don't like it, I can offer my own opinions and try to educate people, but banning speech outright is wrong. The problem that has occurred is that some people on the extremes now think "All the other people/children are so stupid that they will get tricked into believe all these lies. We should shut down that speech so that these poor idiots don't fall into this trap." This is thinking that I strongly disagree with. Some people may believe hate speech but I think that's a reflection of who they are, ie. they will probably believe it with or without the convincing. I personally believe that most people are smarter than this and banning speech based on "protect the children!" is a terrible excuse that both the left and right are using nowadays (more by the right a decade ago). There is no system better than complete free speech, because it allows the most amount of information to be passed back and forth and gives people the opportunity to decide for themselves.

WalterBright 4y ago
I suspect the theory is if one controls others' speech, thereby one also controls their thoughts. Is this really true? How many people adjust their speech to fit in, and change their thoughts to match?
- rexpop 4y ago
  This is certainly true to some degree, or else all advertising expenditure is wasted.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    Right. But curiously enough, advertising, broadly speaking, tries to either 1) make you lust for something the advertised good/service claims to provide, or 2) makes you fear something the advertised good/service claims to mitigate. I'm yet to see any advertisement try to get you to buy something under threat of repercussions, or threat of being dehumanized. This last category is what GP is asking about, so advertising can serve at best as weak evidence that it doesn't work (or else it would be used in ads).

deanCommie 4y ago

Independent of the other threads here (talking about freedom from prosecution from government vs private companies vs individual reputation) And everyone talking about their own limitations on free speech (I support Bernie Sanders, but I draw the line at Trans rights) I think it's also worth noting the changes in expectations of magnitude of reactions and reprisal for free speech today vs say Voltaire's age. Reputation and shame used to drive so much of our public discourse. Whenever you hear about people challenging each other over some disagreement or disapproval, it's always the most benign stuff. In that context, saying "not only will I not challenge you to a dual for disagreeing with me, but I will actually fight to PROTECT your right to say it" is pretty revolutionary stuff. We should ask Voltaire (or whoever was actually responsible) if he would feel the same way if the person who he disapproved of was a person of significant means and power and was calling for the destruction of Voltaire's life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness. So when people today scream about cancel culture because of some heinous shit they said about black or trans people, then use this quote to suggest that we should be defending to the death their right to call for systemic discrimination and repression of others....it's just not the same.

Biganon 4y ago

> Voltaire? François-Marie Arouet? Ha! Voltaire is François-Marie Arouet! Oh dear!

einpoklum 4y ago

Some fashionable variants on that maxim these days: * I disapprove of what you say and will label you a terrorist / communist / traitor / Putin-puppet / etc. regardless of whether those epithets actually have anything to do with it. * I disapprove of what you say and will demand you be silenced or canceled in the name of creating a safe friendly environment. * I disapprove of what you say and use my social media company connections to make sure the algorithm suppresses you. Eh, why even bother? They probably do it automatically already anyway and just direct everybody to safe vetted opinions.

skeeter2020 4y ago

>> I don't think there's any speech, including hate speech, that I would ban How many times do we have to experience a charismatic (or just populist) leader using hate speech to compel great evil though? I don't want to wait until after the act to try and hold them accountable.

ed25519FUUU 4y ago
It’s interesting that some people see freedom of speech as a weapon to commit crime, and others see freedom of speech as a weapon to prevent crime.

korroziya 4y ago

[flagged]

dang 4y ago
I wrote about this the other day, in case anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34929565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34929565. Btw HN has a single organizing value: intellectual curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), so the question of how to relate to "free speech" or any similar concept reduces to: how does it relate to optimizing an internet forum for intellectual curiosity? It's not hard to derive some interesting consequences once you reframe the question that way.

karaterobot 4y ago

I'm sure everybody read the article before commenting, but just to summarize: Voltaire probably never specifically gave this quote, it probably comes from a historian writing about him. Likely due some ambiguous quotation marks, people took it as a direct quote and ran with it.

daxfohl 4y ago
"I don't care what you say, but I will defend to the death my right to comment on what I think you might have said."
- selcuka 4y ago
  I don't care what the article says, nor will I read it, but I will defend to the death my right to comment on it.
  - teawrecks 4y ago
    I don't article what the defend says, but I will read your comment to the death my right to care it.
    - jonhohle 4y ago
      In Soviet Russia, the article defends YOU!
  - bilbo0s 4y ago
    I realize you intend it as a joke, but it's sad how much your quote sums up HN commentary. It hits uncomfortably close to home.
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      In fairness though, it’s frequent that I learn more from the comments than the article, even when I read the article.

neverrroot 4y ago

This! This is what freedom of speech is really about!

refurb 4y ago

The rationale for free speech is easy to articulate - “if you restrict speech you open the door for your opponents to do the same”. Everybody wants to restrict speech they dont like, but with that comes the ability for others to restrict speech you do like. Hence, the optimal outcome is no or minimal restriction.

trgn 4y ago
While I agree with this, it's sadly a game theoretic reasoning, that is to say, fearful, relativistic, utilitarian. Again, not being dismissive at all, but it says something about the state of our thinking and quality of our ideals, when we cannot make arguments on absolute grounds anymore. Or if we do, they seem quaint, passe, naive.

rqtwteye 4y ago

I really hate it that so many people these feel the need to immediately push back when somebody says something they don't agree with. I remember years ago you could have a discussion and express your opinion and it was fine. Now with a lot of people it's better to say nothing.

samtp 4y ago
> I remember years ago you could have a discussion and express your opinion and it was fine. I also remember when racism, xenophobia, slandering women, and generally ignorant talk was accepted and chuckled at. Thankfully, women are now expected to express opinions at dinner parties and minorities aren't run out of town for having the audacity to exist in the same neighborhood.
- SheepSlapper 4y ago
  It only took 7 minutes for someone to come in and do... almost exactly what the above poster was describing. There's no way this isn't a simulation.
  - csallen 4y ago
    Hacker News is a discussion forum. Not only that, but it's one where the culture is defined by a contrarian-yet-intellectual spirit. It's the last place anyone should come to share opinions without expecting a response, likely a critical one.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      > It's the last place anyone should come to share opinions without expecting a response, likely a critical one. Sure, but this topic is "special" in the sense that the response GP is complaining about is about the most uncritical, non-contrarian, obvious possible one. If you view conversations as a multiplayer gradient descent, then making an accusation - even an implied and/or non-specific - of racism, sexism, bigotry and associated "sins", is like making a huge sinkhole on the optimization surface: a very deep local minimum, nearly impossible to walk out of. It's so easy for anyone to do this, and the effect is both immediate and so obvious, that when someone does that, it's hard not to see it as a deliberate attempt at shutting down the conversation. It's equivalent of someone pulling a gun in the middle of what the other person thought was friendly sparring.

phendrenad2 4y ago

My observation about free speech: It's a cyclical thing. "I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is one side, and "People must be protected from wrongthink" is the other side. Our democratic societies cycle back and forth between them, like clockwork. Often in the process, the "left" and "right" side of the traditional political spectrum swap stances on free speech (sometimes multiple times). In the 1950s, when McCarthyism was rampant, it was the left that wanted the right to free expression, even if it meant protecting communist agitators. Now, it's the left that wants strict rules on what can be said, because Trumpism made them think that wrongthink itself is a threat to democracy. It'll swap back, in time. It always does.

wcarron 4y ago

This thread is an exercise in accepting disappointment in your fellow man.

permo-w 4y ago

today’s issues with free speech boil down to that historically there were huge barriers to communicating with a mass audience, and now there are not, and how we deal with the consequences of that

fennecfoxy 4y ago

It's a silly idea, anyway. People's right to free speech should be defended, for instance no more Galileo being silenced by the Church because empirical evidence fractured their fragile beliefs. But at the same time, people can't just say _anything_. If society was still allowed to be legally publicly homophobic, I'd still be told to my face by various people that I'm a: monster, pedophile, going to hell, sissy and all manner of cruel insults & jokes just because I'm gay. That wears someone down, after a while.

recuter 4y ago
Frankly, my dear, I no longer care.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

codeddesign 4y ago

Today’s left leaners: “I disapprove with what you say, so I will get angry and harass until you agree with me”