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With or without that I expect governments to say "thank you for your unrealistic statement, we'll now ignore it and implement whatever we feel like. The standa

With or without that I expect governments to say "thank you for your unrealistic statement, we'll now ignore it and implement whatever we feel like. The standard of debate and progress of the UK Online Safety Bill offered ample evidence of an era in which complex, reasonable and nuanced debate, and appeal to the reasonability of governments, is over. Which is what this is all about really. Post classical democracy it's all about power, and who shouts the loudest. The voices in this impressive list of academics extolling the noble fight for Truth through free-speech seem like "the wind in dry grass". they, and yourself, are appealing to modes of argument and disputation the enemy no longer recognises. Already "censorship" seems too narrow a take of what's happening. It's about shaping the narrative, about shutting up your voice, and making sure the "right" ones get heard. The digital technological landscape is the battleground for this new epistemology. Truth, if it has a future, will either have to find a way outside the digital realm, or learn to celebrate its illegitimacy within it.

shadowgovt 3y ago
> Post classical democracy it's all about power, and who shouts the loudest. As opposed to previous eras of democracy?
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Previous eras of democracy often had some limitations on suffrage, and no round-the-clock media cycle that reached into every household. Under those circumstances, political debate was less sensitive to the loudness of the mob, and more sensitive to longform argument published and read among intellectuals. If you look at nascent American or European democracy, it is remarkable how much its tensions were negotiated by texts that seem emotionally balanced and complex indeed in the modern era of television, radio, and internet.
  - cedilla 3y ago
    Yeah, no. There was a lot of political violence in proto-democracies, especially around the topic of suffrage. If we just look at "limitation" of women's right to vote - Suffragettes would be called domestic terrorists today. It's not much more than nostalgia to think that in the good old times pens were mightier than sword. The nascent American democracy fought two wars to settle its tensions despite all the wise prose the elite wrote.
    - Tainnor 3y ago
      And in Weimar Germany, there were violent street clashes between Nazis, Communists and the Police, as well as assassinations, attempted coups, etc.
      - nonrandomstring 3y ago
        > in Weimar Germany, there were violent street clashes between Nazis, Communists and the Police, as well as assassinations, attempted coups, etc. Thanks for amplifying my point for me. When democracy broke down in those days you needed to pick up sticks, rocks and Molotov cocktails to silence those that disagree with you.. Today you just need to delete their DNS records. """ The most violent element in society is ignorance -- Emma Goldman """ It's not that there was a "golden age" of democracy, just that ways of disrupting the best efforts of reasonable people have changed. Censorship laws directed against "hate speech" and "disinformation" are just new manifestations of ignorance. They are a retreat from rationality. Truth must be fought for with more words, not less, tooth and nail every day, and it's very costly.
        shadowgovt 3y ago
        In the aftermath of the breakdown of German democracy and after the Nuremberg trials, Germany passed very strict laws against platforming fascists. How do we square that with the notion that laws against hate speech are a retreat from rationality?
        nonrandomstring 3y ago
        > In the aftermath of the breakdown of German democracy and after the Nuremberg trials, Germany passed very strict laws against platforming fascists. It's conceivable that those laws were a mistake. As I understand it, in the 1950s and 60s Germany went into a very psychologically "wounded" state, in which a generation felt unable to face the past. Since speaking about it was verboten, the children of that generation had no ground truth, nor any forum in which to seek one, and they were shut down whenever they raised questions. As a result paranoid currents began circulating in the culture of the 70s leading to Baader-Meinhof's Red Army Faction and other outspilling of unresolved guilt, accusation and anger. Of course it's a textbook case of what Freud would have named "repression". > How do we square that with the notion that laws against hate speech are a retreat from rationality? If you accept the premise of necessary of openness and public legibility then it doesn't need squaring. It is the essence of rationality, albeit uncomfortable and costly. So long as apples and oranges are not confused. One responds to speech with speech and to actions with actions. Unfortunately we live in an age best describes as "psychotic" - one strong definition of which is the inability to distinguish reality from fantasy. Technology plays a major part in this split. We also suffer a highly asymmetrical information-scape in which response to ugly ideas is not always possible. Again this is ironically exacerbated by technology that promised to ameliorate the problem by "connecting us all". In any case, the healthy mind does not mistake expressed feelings, wishes and fantasies or even blustering statements of "intent" (eg. "I'm going to f*king kill my mother in law") from actual reality and actions in the world. In this state of "sanity", free from fear, one is able to engage in reasonable disputation.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Well, as opposed to any time when it wasn't dying... because this is exactly how it dies. Democracy actually works with small causes and stable rules. Not at all with radicalism.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    How do we define radicalism in this context?
    - marcosdumay 3y ago
      Radicalism doesn't do this: > complex, reasonable and nuanced debate, and appeal to the reasonability
      - shadowgovt 3y ago
        In that case, American politics has been dominated by radicalism at least since the time we let one of our own vessels blowing up due to lax maintenance drag us into the Spanish-American War, if not longer. Politics is usually more about feelings than facts. The rational voter is a myth. We don't imagine Americans were mulling the issue of slavery by reading the great thinkers of the day in an era when 1 in 10 white men couldn't read, do we?
        marcosdumay 3y ago
        No, it has not. There have been radicalism popping up here or there, but it only dominates the politics some of the time. Usually, politics is about real details, not great abstract and non-negotiable things. And yeah, interesting that you put slavery here. The way the US handled it wasn't through democratic institutions. (You have a famous saying about how those institutions fail from time to time and people must help them die.)
- drewcoo 3y ago
  I would expect "classical democracy" to be ancient Greece. It's a strange redefining of terms. In a discussion about terminological abuse and language control, no less!
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    Your expectations are not definitions either, are they?

shadowgovt 3y ago

> Post classical democracy it's all about power, and who shouts the loudest. As opposed to previous eras of democracy?

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Previous eras of democracy often had some limitations on suffrage, and no round-the-clock media cycle that reached into every household. Under those circumstances, political debate was less sensitive to the loudness of the mob, and more sensitive to longform argument published and read among intellectuals. If you look at nascent American or European democracy, it is remarkable how much its tensions were negotiated by texts that seem emotionally balanced and complex indeed in the modern era of television, radio, and internet.
- cedilla 3y ago
  Yeah, no. There was a lot of political violence in proto-democracies, especially around the topic of suffrage. If we just look at "limitation" of women's right to vote - Suffragettes would be called domestic terrorists today. It's not much more than nostalgia to think that in the good old times pens were mightier than sword. The nascent American democracy fought two wars to settle its tensions despite all the wise prose the elite wrote.
  - Tainnor 3y ago
    And in Weimar Germany, there were violent street clashes between Nazis, Communists and the Police, as well as assassinations, attempted coups, etc.
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      > in Weimar Germany, there were violent street clashes between Nazis, Communists and the Police, as well as assassinations, attempted coups, etc. Thanks for amplifying my point for me. When democracy broke down in those days you needed to pick up sticks, rocks and Molotov cocktails to silence those that disagree with you.. Today you just need to delete their DNS records. """ The most violent element in society is ignorance -- Emma Goldman """ It's not that there was a "golden age" of democracy, just that ways of disrupting the best efforts of reasonable people have changed. Censorship laws directed against "hate speech" and "disinformation" are just new manifestations of ignorance. They are a retreat from rationality. Truth must be fought for with more words, not less, tooth and nail every day, and it's very costly.
      - shadowgovt 3y ago
        In the aftermath of the breakdown of German democracy and after the Nuremberg trials, Germany passed very strict laws against platforming fascists. How do we square that with the notion that laws against hate speech are a retreat from rationality?
        nonrandomstring 3y ago
        > In the aftermath of the breakdown of German democracy and after the Nuremberg trials, Germany passed very strict laws against platforming fascists. It's conceivable that those laws were a mistake. As I understand it, in the 1950s and 60s Germany went into a very psychologically "wounded" state, in which a generation felt unable to face the past. Since speaking about it was verboten, the children of that generation had no ground truth, nor any forum in which to seek one, and they were shut down whenever they raised questions. As a result paranoid currents began circulating in the culture of the 70s leading to Baader-Meinhof's Red Army Faction and other outspilling of unresolved guilt, accusation and anger. Of course it's a textbook case of what Freud would have named "repression". > How do we square that with the notion that laws against hate speech are a retreat from rationality? If you accept the premise of necessary of openness and public legibility then it doesn't need squaring. It is the essence of rationality, albeit uncomfortable and costly. So long as apples and oranges are not confused. One responds to speech with speech and to actions with actions. Unfortunately we live in an age best describes as "psychotic" - one strong definition of which is the inability to distinguish reality from fantasy. Technology plays a major part in this split. We also suffer a highly asymmetrical information-scape in which response to ugly ideas is not always possible. Again this is ironically exacerbated by technology that promised to ameliorate the problem by "connecting us all". In any case, the healthy mind does not mistake expressed feelings, wishes and fantasies or even blustering statements of "intent" (eg. "I'm going to f*king kill my mother in law") from actual reality and actions in the world. In this state of "sanity", free from fear, one is able to engage in reasonable disputation.
marcosdumay 3y ago
Well, as opposed to any time when it wasn't dying... because this is exactly how it dies. Democracy actually works with small causes and stable rules. Not at all with radicalism.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  How do we define radicalism in this context?
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    Radicalism doesn't do this: > complex, reasonable and nuanced debate, and appeal to the reasonability
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      In that case, American politics has been dominated by radicalism at least since the time we let one of our own vessels blowing up due to lax maintenance drag us into the Spanish-American War, if not longer. Politics is usually more about feelings than facts. The rational voter is a myth. We don't imagine Americans were mulling the issue of slavery by reading the great thinkers of the day in an era when 1 in 10 white men couldn't read, do we?
      - marcosdumay 3y ago
        No, it has not. There have been radicalism popping up here or there, but it only dominates the politics some of the time. Usually, politics is about real details, not great abstract and non-negotiable things. And yeah, interesting that you put slavery here. The way the US handled it wasn't through democratic institutions. (You have a famous saying about how those institutions fail from time to time and people must help them die.)
drewcoo 3y ago
I would expect "classical democracy" to be ancient Greece. It's a strange redefining of terms. In a discussion about terminological abuse and language control, no less!
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  Your expectations are not definitions either, are they?