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You have to ask yourself why are we obsessed with free speech but you never hear anyone preaching free act? Why the arbitrary restriction to speech/expression?

You have to ask yourself why are we obsessed with free speech but you never hear anyone preaching free act? Why the arbitrary restriction to speech/expression? Ah, acts can cause harm to others; people can't just be allowed to do whatever they want, though they should be allowed to say whatever they want, because you can't harm other people by what you say, according to ... the "sticks and stones" principle. The entire idea of free speech really rests on something as shaky as the sticks and stones principle!

tsunamifury 3y ago
This has to be the single worst posted comment I’ve ever come across on Hackernews. Words force no one to act. You retain the agency to do what you want. That’s on you when you choose to act.
DiggyJohnson 3y ago
I don’t see that distinction as arbitrary at all. It seems like, among no other good or obvious options, exactly the place to put the line between free speech and restricted action. There is much “bad” free speech, but “bad” action is intolerable. The distinction between the results of bad speech and bad action are clear - even if it is unfortunately true that speech can inspire action.
- aragonite 3y ago
  > among no other good or obvious options It seems to me that there's an obvious alternative option. After all, if the reason we find the idea of free speech intuitively appealing is because we subscribe to some version of "speech can do no harm", why not just base everything upon the more fundamental harm principle ("one is free to V as long as V-ing causes no harm to others") which covers both the cases of speech and of act?
  - ellyagg 3y ago
    It's impossible to act in a world of limited resources without "harming" other people. The division between speech and action is practical under the circumstances.
  - nradov 3y ago
    What is "harm"? Please provide a clear definition that can be universally applied to everyone everywhere.
0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
Free speech lets us as a society determine which acts should be restricted. My objection to speech restrictionists is that they rarely give a robust mechanism for deciding which speech should be restricted, a mechanism that's hardened against people abusing it to further their narrow self-interest. Speech restrictionists also tend to ignore the "circular dependency problem": without anyone to defend a position, how do we know if that position is defensible? For example, suppose you live in a theocracy. You're an atheist. You start making your case for atheism. Just as you're about to make your case, the theocrats interrupt: "This speech is killing people. It's preventing them from reaching the blissful afterlife by converting them to atheism. This person is attempting eternal murder." And then throw you in jail. I'm in favor of a well-designed terms and conditions for a platform like Facebook. But I also think it's too easy for people to say: "I don't like what you said! You shouldn't be allowed to say it!" The de facto impact of that rhetoric essentially amounts to mob rule.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  > Speech restrictionists also tend to ignore the "circular dependency problem": without anyone to defend a position, how do we know if that position is defensible? For example, suppose you live in a theocracy. You're an atheist. You start making your case for atheism. Just as you're about to make your case, the theocrats interrupt: "This speech is killing people. It's preventing them from reaching the blissful afterlife by converting them to atheism. This person is attempting eternal murder." And then throw you in jail. How is that supposed to be specific to speech? This argument generalize to any prohibition: just because a dictator could use a law to put you in jail doesn't mean laws (or even jails) are inherently bad! As a extreme example: should we allow rape or pedophilia because religious leaders in power are known to put people in jail for their sexual behavior? Obviously being put in jail for what you do in your sexual life is terrible, right, but that doesn't mean that the law has no say in any human sexual behavior either… No right is absolute, it's always subject to the law. And all you can wish for is having a law for your country that sets the right balance between freedom and protection, and that's why democracy is important: so that the people can actually have a say on the balance, hopefully moving it to match the moral values of the society (though within the society there will always be debates on the balance, this is inevitable).
Almondsetat 3y ago
Because since we live in a post-enlightment society we believe that we should discuss everything, especially before doing something. We should be free to argue and discuss whatever whenever, but not do anything on a whim.
ozr 3y ago
This isn't the least bit shaky to well-adjusted adults.
- ben_w 3y ago
  For that to be true, you would have to deny the well-adjusted-ness of significant fractions of the population of Myanmar in recent years; of the persecutors of the Uyghur, the Yazidis, the Darfur genocide, the Effacer le tableau, the Hutus, the Rwandan genocide, Bosnian genocide, Isaaq genocide, Anfal genocide, … …, the forces responsible for, and senior to, the Mai Li massacre, … …, the general civilian population voting for the explicitly racist Nazi party, … Why? Because these things only happened as a result of the fact that speech is convincing. Best you can do here is say "those people are not well-adjusted", which is fine except for where the mal-adjustments come from: speech. Think about it in reverse: if speech had no power to change us, it would not even matter if it was free or not.
  - ellyagg 3y ago
    Speech policing isn't some magical panacea warding off conflict and violence. I can easily cite you historical exterminations at the hands of speech enforcers.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      I'm not claiming it is a panacea. I'm saying the absence isn't one either. The benefits and dangers of free speech are two sides of the same coin: the capacity to convince others to act in accordance with your beliefs. "Well adjusted adults" as a phrase can only point to those who are within the Overton Window of their society, regardless of whether that society calls for things I condemn, or not. This means that well-adjusted adults can, will, and have, formed lynch mobs upon hearing rumours that someone has eaten beef.
  - hobobaggins 3y ago
    Nearly all (or all) of these regimes practiced, by far, more speech censorship than the others in order to reduce contradicting views; so the causality in these examples is pointing in the wrong direction. To be more clear, these regimes arose because of the lack of freedom of speech, not because of the excess of it.
numpad0 3y ago
Because language is software, mind is hardware and acts are behavior, and we don't have toolings necessary to manipulate the software and it's dangerous to do things without proper toolings. Anyone on the topic of specifically freedom of speech and not general freedom are not real anarchists or anything of that sort if ... that is what you are after. But I'm not sure what your stance even is in the first place...
alephnerd 3y ago
> The entire idea of free speech really rests on something as shaky as the sticks and stones principle! The "Free Speech means I can say anything I want on any platform" stance is actually very new in the United States. This only started after the counterculture in the late 1960s-70s, when libertarian individualism (yes, the hippies had a very socially libertarian stance) in the New Left and the New Right lead to the revocation of laws such as the Fairness Doctrine, the Comstock Act, etc. Before the 1970s-80s, American Free Speech doctrine was much closer to what you see in Canada, the UK, or Germany today - you are free to criticize and protest against the US Govt, but that doesn't mean you are free from moderation or censorship on a private or public platform. Jurisprudence in the 70s-80s changed that by essentially removing the need for moderation, and that's how we have the irresponsible form of free speech that we have in the US today. I blame Boomers and Gen X.
- ellyagg 3y ago
  Violating speech laws you disagree with is literally protesting the government.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    It's essentially the paradox of tolerance. The solution to that paradox is to ignore it. To quote Chidi Anagonye, this is why people hate moral philosophy professors.
badpun 3y ago
> The entire idea of free speech really rests on something as shaky as the sticks and stones principle! I think that, rather, it rests on observation that restricting speech is basically jamming the communication in society, which creates ossification and prevents development.
amadeuspagel 3y ago
Indeed, you do have to ask yourself, you do have to learn something about this, rather then making up your own headcanon, and a good place to start is John Stuart Mill's Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2
npteljes 3y ago
What do you mean by not seeing the "free act" preaching? I believe that the American concept of freedom is precisely that, with free speech being just one, albeit particular, subset of that general freedom. Take the first amendment: all about free exercise of religion, the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly. And then, the fifth amendment is about being "Innocent Until Proven Guilty". So, free to act, until it's proven to be against the specifically forbidden things. I know that reality has much more nuance, but still, it's not the point. Freedom is speech is not alone.

tsunamifury 3y ago

This has to be the single worst posted comment I’ve ever come across on Hackernews. Words force no one to act. You retain the agency to do what you want. That’s on you when you choose to act.

DiggyJohnson 3y ago

I don’t see that distinction as arbitrary at all. It seems like, among no other good or obvious options, exactly the place to put the line between free speech and restricted action. There is much “bad” free speech, but “bad” action is intolerable. The distinction between the results of bad speech and bad action are clear - even if it is unfortunately true that speech can inspire action.

aragonite 3y ago
> among no other good or obvious options It seems to me that there's an obvious alternative option. After all, if the reason we find the idea of free speech intuitively appealing is because we subscribe to some version of "speech can do no harm", why not just base everything upon the more fundamental harm principle ("one is free to V as long as V-ing causes no harm to others") which covers both the cases of speech and of act?
- ellyagg 3y ago
  It's impossible to act in a world of limited resources without "harming" other people. The division between speech and action is practical under the circumstances.
- nradov 3y ago
  What is "harm"? Please provide a clear definition that can be universally applied to everyone everywhere.

0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago

Free speech lets us as a society determine which acts should be restricted. My objection to speech restrictionists is that they rarely give a robust mechanism for deciding which speech should be restricted, a mechanism that's hardened against people abusing it to further their narrow self-interest. Speech restrictionists also tend to ignore the "circular dependency problem": without anyone to defend a position, how do we know if that position is defensible? For example, suppose you live in a theocracy. You're an atheist. You start making your case for atheism. Just as you're about to make your case, the theocrats interrupt: "This speech is killing people. It's preventing them from reaching the blissful afterlife by converting them to atheism. This person is attempting eternal murder." And then throw you in jail. I'm in favor of a well-designed terms and conditions for a platform like Facebook. But I also think it's too easy for people to say: "I don't like what you said! You shouldn't be allowed to say it!" The de facto impact of that rhetoric essentially amounts to mob rule.

littlestymaar 3y ago
> Speech restrictionists also tend to ignore the "circular dependency problem": without anyone to defend a position, how do we know if that position is defensible? For example, suppose you live in a theocracy. You're an atheist. You start making your case for atheism. Just as you're about to make your case, the theocrats interrupt: "This speech is killing people. It's preventing them from reaching the blissful afterlife by converting them to atheism. This person is attempting eternal murder." And then throw you in jail. How is that supposed to be specific to speech? This argument generalize to any prohibition: just because a dictator could use a law to put you in jail doesn't mean laws (or even jails) are inherently bad! As a extreme example: should we allow rape or pedophilia because religious leaders in power are known to put people in jail for their sexual behavior? Obviously being put in jail for what you do in your sexual life is terrible, right, but that doesn't mean that the law has no say in any human sexual behavior either… No right is absolute, it's always subject to the law. And all you can wish for is having a law for your country that sets the right balance between freedom and protection, and that's why democracy is important: so that the people can actually have a say on the balance, hopefully moving it to match the moral values of the society (though within the society there will always be debates on the balance, this is inevitable).

Almondsetat 3y ago

Because since we live in a post-enlightment society we believe that we should discuss everything, especially before doing something. We should be free to argue and discuss whatever whenever, but not do anything on a whim.

ozr 3y ago

This isn't the least bit shaky to well-adjusted adults.

ben_w 3y ago
For that to be true, you would have to deny the well-adjusted-ness of significant fractions of the population of Myanmar in recent years; of the persecutors of the Uyghur, the Yazidis, the Darfur genocide, the Effacer le tableau, the Hutus, the Rwandan genocide, Bosnian genocide, Isaaq genocide, Anfal genocide, … …, the forces responsible for, and senior to, the Mai Li massacre, … …, the general civilian population voting for the explicitly racist Nazi party, … Why? Because these things only happened as a result of the fact that speech is convincing. Best you can do here is say "those people are not well-adjusted", which is fine except for where the mal-adjustments come from: speech. Think about it in reverse: if speech had no power to change us, it would not even matter if it was free or not.
- ellyagg 3y ago
  Speech policing isn't some magical panacea warding off conflict and violence. I can easily cite you historical exterminations at the hands of speech enforcers.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    I'm not claiming it is a panacea. I'm saying the absence isn't one either. The benefits and dangers of free speech are two sides of the same coin: the capacity to convince others to act in accordance with your beliefs. "Well adjusted adults" as a phrase can only point to those who are within the Overton Window of their society, regardless of whether that society calls for things I condemn, or not. This means that well-adjusted adults can, will, and have, formed lynch mobs upon hearing rumours that someone has eaten beef.
- hobobaggins 3y ago
  Nearly all (or all) of these regimes practiced, by far, more speech censorship than the others in order to reduce contradicting views; so the causality in these examples is pointing in the wrong direction. To be more clear, these regimes arose because of the lack of freedom of speech, not because of the excess of it.

numpad0 3y ago

Because language is software, mind is hardware and acts are behavior, and we don't have toolings necessary to manipulate the software and it's dangerous to do things without proper toolings. Anyone on the topic of specifically freedom of speech and not general freedom are not real anarchists or anything of that sort if ... that is what you are after. But I'm not sure what your stance even is in the first place...

alephnerd 3y ago

> The entire idea of free speech really rests on something as shaky as the sticks and stones principle! The "Free Speech means I can say anything I want on any platform" stance is actually very new in the United States. This only started after the counterculture in the late 1960s-70s, when libertarian individualism (yes, the hippies had a very socially libertarian stance) in the New Left and the New Right lead to the revocation of laws such as the Fairness Doctrine, the Comstock Act, etc. Before the 1970s-80s, American Free Speech doctrine was much closer to what you see in Canada, the UK, or Germany today - you are free to criticize and protest against the US Govt, but that doesn't mean you are free from moderation or censorship on a private or public platform. Jurisprudence in the 70s-80s changed that by essentially removing the need for moderation, and that's how we have the irresponsible form of free speech that we have in the US today. I blame Boomers and Gen X.

ellyagg 3y ago
Violating speech laws you disagree with is literally protesting the government.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  It's essentially the paradox of tolerance. The solution to that paradox is to ignore it. To quote Chidi Anagonye, this is why people hate moral philosophy professors.

badpun 3y ago

> The entire idea of free speech really rests on something as shaky as the sticks and stones principle! I think that, rather, it rests on observation that restricting speech is basically jamming the communication in society, which creates ossification and prevents development.

amadeuspagel 3y ago

Indeed, you do have to ask yourself, you do have to learn something about this, rather then making up your own headcanon, and a good place to start is John Stuart Mill's Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2

npteljes 3y ago

What do you mean by not seeing the "free act" preaching? I believe that the American concept of freedom is precisely that, with free speech being just one, albeit particular, subset of that general freedom. Take the first amendment: all about free exercise of religion, the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly. And then, the fifth amendment is about being "Innocent Until Proven Guilty". So, free to act, until it's proven to be against the specifically forbidden things. I know that reality has much more nuance, but still, it's not the point. Freedom is speech is not alone.