5 ms·

What's a free speech bro?

jjoonathan 3y ago
Me, before I saw forum after forum after forum fall to the Nazi Bar Problem. (The term is newer than my formative experiences, but it's the best concise explanation of the dynamic I know.)
- joshstrange 3y ago
  I think a good number of us here, myself included, fell for this trap at some point. It appeals to the "simple solutions" part of our brains and is very black/white thinking. Thankfully most of us grew out of it, others... well yeah.
  - jjoonathan 3y ago
    I wouldn't call it a "trap," I think fairness and simplicity are perfectly reasonable goals to aspire to. It's just that in this case I have seen an abundance of evidence that people start to jump ship long before a max-fair judicial process starts to correct the course, so it is a highly unfortunate fact of the universe that a good captain must have an itchy trigger finger on the ban button with all the false positives and collateral damage that entails.
vkou 3y ago
Charitably? Someone who believes that because we can't tell some kinds of good speech from some kinds of bad speech, we should give up trying. It makes about as much sense as eating a moldy blue cheese once, enjoying it[1], and deciding that from now on, you won't turn your nose at eating whatever putrescent, rotting garbage is put in front of you, regardless of how sick it makes you. ---- Less charitably? Someone who can very much tell the difference between good and bad speech, but is cynically promoting bad speech, for selfish reasons. [1] Despite a general understanding that moldy food is not suitable for eating.
- kyleyeats 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - vkou 3y ago
    1. I've never once mentioned gender, I don't think that's a very good-faith interpretation of my response. 2. If you're actually confused on this subject, and are asking in good faith, I would recommend starting your research with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance It will provide you with a rough frame of taking this argument to an extreme, by demonstrating that various groups of people need to set some kind of non-zero, practical limits for behaviours they permit. This particular group of people sets very particular, practical limits for those behaviours, enforced by the moderation team.
    - kyleyeats 3y ago
      You don't think 'bro' is gendered? It was a charitable interpretation. You think it's the permissible form of sexism. The paradox of tolerance is what I'm operating off of too. My conclusion is that you can't hate the hateful without being hateful yourself. What's your conclusion? That you're always automatically on the right side so it's okay to be intolerant? Where's the paradox for you? It's a 'you can't have your cake and eat it too' thing. What are you giving up, exactly? You shift very subtly from talking about beliefs to behaviors here. I'm specifically asking about beliefs, because the behavior in question here is the expression of beliefs. You're speaking out here against a group. Why shouldn't you be deplatformed? Why should we tolerate your intolerance?
      - cmh89 3y ago
        >The paradox of tolerance is what I'm operating off of too. My conclusion is that you can't hate the hateful without being hateful yourself. What's your conclusion? That you're always automatically on the right side so it's okay to be intolerant? You don't seem to understand what the paradox of tolerance is. You're also creating a strawman. No one thinks hate is inherently bad. Lots of people deserve to be hated for their actions. What people are opposed to is hate for people's immutable characteristics, backgrounds, or harmless life choices. >You're speaking out here against a group. Why shouldn't you be deplatformed? Why should we tolerate your intolerance? I'm not OP but it's because we're humans with brains who can make distinctions between groups that have odious opinion and those who don't. Your arguments are really basic and if you're really curious you could spend some time reading about this subject instead of making arguments that would sound profound to a college freshman.
sorokod 3y ago
I'll give this a shot: An XXX bro is someone who aggressively promotes XXX as a common good while actually motivated by promotion of a narrow agenda. Often associated with individuals that know next to nothing about XXX
Pyramus 3y ago
From what I've learned here on HN someone who thinks that "free speech" is absolute - their right to free speech outshines the personal rights of others. So instead of discussing where my rights end and your rights start, they will argue that no line should be drawn. In addition, from what I understand, they seem to think that democracy is a consequence of "free speech", not the other way around.
- theultdev 3y ago
  How does free speech infringe on other's rights? If you include spam, well that's not speech, usually not even by humans. Spam is a form of censorship by [D]DoS. If you include threats, well that's an action, not speech, and it's illegal, because of the action.
  - cmh89 3y ago
    Threats are by definition not an action.
  - Pyramus 3y ago
    Not sure I understand your post, both spam and threats are speech (at least in the US), so maybe something was lost in translation? Here are some of the limits of free speech in the US: > Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, false statements of fact, and commercial speech such as advertising. Defamation that causes harm to reputation is a tort and also an exception to free speech. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_ex... And here some examples from Germany (translated via DeepL): > the protection of personal honour against insult or defamation, the disclosure of information classified as secret, the limits of morality and the protection of minors, the limits of public safety, unfair competition by discrediting the goods or services of a competitor, the unauthorised disclosure of copyrighted information, racial discrimination https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meinungsfreiheit#Grenzen_(Schranken)_der_Meinungsfreiheit:_Art._5_Abs._2_GG https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meinungsfreiheit#Grenzen_(Schr...

Me, before I saw forum after forum after forum fall to the Nazi Bar Problem. (The term is newer than my formative experiences, but it's the best concise explanation of the dynamic I know.)

joshstrange 3y ago
I think a good number of us here, myself included, fell for this trap at some point. It appeals to the "simple solutions" part of our brains and is very black/white thinking. Thankfully most of us grew out of it, others... well yeah.
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  I wouldn't call it a "trap," I think fairness and simplicity are perfectly reasonable goals to aspire to. It's just that in this case I have seen an abundance of evidence that people start to jump ship long before a max-fair judicial process starts to correct the course, so it is a highly unfortunate fact of the universe that a good captain must have an itchy trigger finger on the ban button with all the false positives and collateral damage that entails.

vkou 3y ago

Charitably? Someone who believes that because we can't tell some kinds of good speech from some kinds of bad speech, we should give up trying. It makes about as much sense as eating a moldy blue cheese once, enjoying it[1], and deciding that from now on, you won't turn your nose at eating whatever putrescent, rotting garbage is put in front of you, regardless of how sick it makes you. ---- Less charitably? Someone who can very much tell the difference between good and bad speech, but is cynically promoting bad speech, for selfish reasons. [1] Despite a general understanding that moldy food is not suitable for eating.

kyleyeats 3y ago
[flagged]
- vkou 3y ago
  1. I've never once mentioned gender, I don't think that's a very good-faith interpretation of my response. 2. If you're actually confused on this subject, and are asking in good faith, I would recommend starting your research with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance It will provide you with a rough frame of taking this argument to an extreme, by demonstrating that various groups of people need to set some kind of non-zero, practical limits for behaviours they permit. This particular group of people sets very particular, practical limits for those behaviours, enforced by the moderation team.
  - kyleyeats 3y ago
    You don't think 'bro' is gendered? It was a charitable interpretation. You think it's the permissible form of sexism. The paradox of tolerance is what I'm operating off of too. My conclusion is that you can't hate the hateful without being hateful yourself. What's your conclusion? That you're always automatically on the right side so it's okay to be intolerant? Where's the paradox for you? It's a 'you can't have your cake and eat it too' thing. What are you giving up, exactly? You shift very subtly from talking about beliefs to behaviors here. I'm specifically asking about beliefs, because the behavior in question here is the expression of beliefs. You're speaking out here against a group. Why shouldn't you be deplatformed? Why should we tolerate your intolerance?
    - cmh89 3y ago
      >The paradox of tolerance is what I'm operating off of too. My conclusion is that you can't hate the hateful without being hateful yourself. What's your conclusion? That you're always automatically on the right side so it's okay to be intolerant? You don't seem to understand what the paradox of tolerance is. You're also creating a strawman. No one thinks hate is inherently bad. Lots of people deserve to be hated for their actions. What people are opposed to is hate for people's immutable characteristics, backgrounds, or harmless life choices. >You're speaking out here against a group. Why shouldn't you be deplatformed? Why should we tolerate your intolerance? I'm not OP but it's because we're humans with brains who can make distinctions between groups that have odious opinion and those who don't. Your arguments are really basic and if you're really curious you could spend some time reading about this subject instead of making arguments that would sound profound to a college freshman.

sorokod 3y ago

I'll give this a shot: An XXX bro is someone who aggressively promotes XXX as a common good while actually motivated by promotion of a narrow agenda. Often associated with individuals that know next to nothing about XXX

Pyramus 3y ago

From what I've learned here on HN someone who thinks that "free speech" is absolute - their right to free speech outshines the personal rights of others. So instead of discussing where my rights end and your rights start, they will argue that no line should be drawn. In addition, from what I understand, they seem to think that democracy is a consequence of "free speech", not the other way around.

theultdev 3y ago
How does free speech infringe on other's rights? If you include spam, well that's not speech, usually not even by humans. Spam is a form of censorship by [D]DoS. If you include threats, well that's an action, not speech, and it's illegal, because of the action.
- cmh89 3y ago
  Threats are by definition not an action.
- Pyramus 3y ago
  Not sure I understand your post, both spam and threats are speech (at least in the US), so maybe something was lost in translation? Here are some of the limits of free speech in the US: > Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, false statements of fact, and commercial speech such as advertising. Defamation that causes harm to reputation is a tort and also an exception to free speech. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_ex... And here some examples from Germany (translated via DeepL): > the protection of personal honour against insult or defamation, the disclosure of information classified as secret, the limits of morality and the protection of minors, the limits of public safety, unfair competition by discrediting the goods or services of a competitor, the unauthorised disclosure of copyrighted information, racial discrimination https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meinungsfreiheit#Grenzen_(Schranken)_der_Meinungsfreiheit:_Art._5_Abs._2_GG https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meinungsfreiheit#Grenzen_(Schr...