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I thought this was better than most essays in this vein. I do fundamentally disagree with the author. People can think poorly of you for whatever reason they w

• DeathRay2K 2y ago
  You’re wrong that a so-called “war on hate” doesn’t work. More correctly, it doesn’t work in the US because of the first amendment and the few limitations on it. Many other countries have robust anti-hate speech laws that are effective, although less so in the age of the internet. People broadly conform to the society in which they live, and the rules of the society are broadly set by the laws they adhere to. So in countries where hate speech is disallowed, people conform to a less hateful viewpoint as a rule, and hateful people are the exception. In the United States, it is clear that hatred is the norm as long as it is permitted by law and by leadership.
  • yodsanklai 2y ago
    > it doesn’t work in the US because of the first amendment and the few limitations on it. This isn't clear to me. For instance, Meta was free to forbid hate speech on their platforms, or not to promote it in their feed algorithms. I don't think first amendment would force them to authorize hate speech. They do it to align with power in place (freely or coerced, not clear), but it's not a legal enforcement. > So in countries where hate speech is disallowed, people conform to a less hateful viewpoint as a rule, and hateful people are the exception. There are hateful people in Europe too.
  • raincole 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • yodsanklai 2y ago
      Article is behind a paywall. I found another article https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/a-german-woman-said-she-was-raped-then-she-was-fined-27-000-1422618 https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/a-german-woman-said-she-was-... > The court did find the two men guilty of wrongly making and distributing the sex video and fined them 1,350 euros ($1,500) each. But it reserved its gravest punishment for Lohfink, levying her a fine of 24,000 euros for falsely accusing the men. If we're talking about the same story, it has nothing to do with "war on hate".
    • arp242 2y ago
      "Maja R was sentenced to a weekend in jail after her comments because she had a previous conviction for theft and had not attending the court hearing for the case." Whatever you can say about the suspended sentences, merely "given harsher sentence than rapist for calling him ‘pig’" is not true by your own article.
  • 331c8c71 2y ago
    > People broadly conform to the society in which they live, and the rules of the society are broadly set by the laws they adhere to Well this can work very differently from what you imagine I believe. Like late Soviet Union where certain things were said in public and other things were said in private or in "trusted environments". For years and years... From what I hear this is in part what goes on in large multinationals where the pressure to conform is quite tangible.
  • deleted 2y ago
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• Arainach 2y ago
  >The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred You can't forbid it but you can absolutely make it socially unacceptable. "Free speech" doesn't mean letting people spew hate and doing nothing; choosing not to hand them a megaphone, support their business, etc. is entirely valid.
  • ThrowawayR2 2y ago
    It became so socially unacceptable that its proponents won the US presidency and took control of Congress and globally famous business leaders are bending the knee to them without repercussion? What definition of "can absolutely" are you using?
    • ziddoap 2y ago
      It is less socially acceptable in some cultures, more in others. The fact that a gradient exists is proof that, under different circumstances, the social acceptableness of hatred can change.
    • Arainach 2y ago
      The popular vote does not determine what is right. The US elected an incredibly racist Richard Nixon by a Landslide in 1972, but that doesn't mean society couldn't make progress on making it unacceptable to use racial slurs in public.
    • lucb1e 2y ago
      I personally did not read the parent comment's saying of "can" as meaning "has been"
      • deleted 2y ago
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  • snowfarthing 2y ago
    There is a danger to hating something so much, that it goes underground. A major reason why President Trump won the first time around was because hatred against Trump and his supporters was so strong, that many people being polled were afraid to tell the pollsters who they were really voting for, for fear of being destroyed. This is a major reason why Trump outperformed his polling. In the meantime, when people are lied to by every avenue of culture, they are convinced everyone else believes in the lies, so they feel alone and in the minority, even though they may very well be in the majority. So long as this spell can be maintaned, the dictator can hold his grip on power. But what happens when that spell was broken? When something happens, and all of the sudden, everyone realizes they've been in the majority all along? This is how dictatorships topple -- and the toppling can happen very swiftly, as Ceausescu discovered in Romania. Elon Musk acquiring Twitter and taking out the censorship is what initially cracked the spell this time; and when Trump was elected not just by Electoral College, but by the Popular Vote, the spell was broken completely. It's why we're seeing so much change now, and why it's so rapid.
• giraffe_lady 2y ago
  The author isn't talking about abstract "hatred" in the sense of people's internal, personal experiences. They are talking about hate speech, a specific concrete act with external material consequences. > Adding on, the trans issue isn't simple. It really kind of is though.
  • wastle 2y ago
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• watwut 2y ago
  > There are real questions about bathrooms, women's sports, and when medical interventions are called for. Yes there are real questions, but there are also real answers. Currently, 99% of people asking questions have literally zero interest in answers. They do not care about what research say or whether there is harm or not. They ask questions to convince the audience about their political project. They do not care about whether medical interventions are good, bad, safe or unsafe. They want to convince you that that they are unsafe. They want to stop the interventions regardless of their impact. They do not care about safety of bathrooms, they want you to punish transgender people in the wrong bathroom. They do not care about women sports either, in fact they are the same people arguing against women sports whereever it matters. > People can think poorly of you for whatever reason they want. And it should be my god give right to call them sexist and racists if they think of me poorly because of those reasons. But somehow that is supposed to be a taboo. We are all supposed to pretend there is no sexism, that there was no historical sexism, so that someone feels good about themselves. Again and again, sjws pointed out someone is sexist/racist, there was an outrage in response, they were painted crazy stupid exaggerating. And I actually believe the response, multiple times. Except that it turned out, multiple times, that they were right all along.
  • Freak_NL 2y ago
    Besides, the whole bathroom thing is so old hat. You know what I hate in a bathroom? Other people. Of any gender. Thankfully, stalls have doors. I miss the days of Ally McBeal when unisex bathrooms were hip and the future.
    • watwut 2y ago
      In my local city there was conservative article about unisex bathroom putting framing it as transgender thing. The bathroom was unisex when I was a kid, when trans were universally mocked. Bathroom is unisex, cause there is exactly one toilette in a small cafe in a super old building.
    • samastur 2y ago
      Unisex bathrooms mean women get to clean the bathrooms again because men can't be bothered to aim or sit.
• robmccoll 2y ago
  > The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it. This is a myopic view. You are obviously correct that you cannot legislate that someone think in any particular way or otherwise force someone to change their minds, but the idea that collectively deciding that a viewpoint is not longer tolerated within the broader society and then making efforts to support that at all levels is ineffective and not worthwhile is absurd. Threats, physical violence, and murder have always been illegal, but used to occur with much higher frequency against many minority groups toward which society tolerated hatred and abuse. It's plainly obvious what changed is the idea that it would be brushed under the rug, that others would at worst turn a blind eye to the perpetrator if not support them, that there would be no real consequences whether legal or in social circles - this environment in which people act on impulse rather than thinking twice about what they're doing - went away. We must remember that progress isn't permanent, that civil rights must be maintained and won't protect themselves, and that there's probably someone out there that hates someone each of us loves and cares about for some arbitrary reason and would act on that if only society gave them permission.
• rexpop 2y ago
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  • wastle 2y ago
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    • hooverd 2y ago
      Do you think trans people should be allowed to exist in public society?
      • wastle 2y ago
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        • deleted 2y ago
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• otde 2y ago
  > If someone hates trans people, they can, and you can't stop them. The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it. It is disingenuous to suggest that anti-discrimination laws for trans people are attempting to legislate away the hatred held in people’s hearts, instead of access to healthcare, public facilities, protections against workplace discrimination — things you describe as having “real questions,” but which are, in fact, the parts of a full and dignified life that bigots would deny to trans people in particular. If you pretend like it’s trying to legislate “thoughtcrime,” it’s much easier to distinguish anti-discrimination laws for trans people from rulings like Obergefell or Brown v. Board — far easier to say “look, those were good, but this particular civil rights legislation is simply unreasonable.” To platform these beliefs is to afford them a legitimacy they do not deserve. To suggest that bigotry, when amplified, will be in some way countered or reduced is naïve beyond belief. Instead, it becomes easier for bigotry to find an audience of receptive listeners and willing conduits for further transmission.
• metabagel 2y ago
  > The whole "war on hate" thing was a bad idea; you can't forbid hatred. It predictably didn't work, and it's good that we're turning away from it. I don't understand any of this. It feels like you live in a different information bubble than mine. What was the "war on hate", and who is turning away from it? What would it mean to say that the "war on hate" worked? That there was no more hate, or that the situation improved somehow? What does it mean to say that it didn't work?
  • djur 2y ago
    I've literally never heard the phrase "war on hate" in my life.
• mempko 2y ago
  How can you disagree with the author, they are doing exactly what you suggested, firmly stating their opposition to PG's beliefs. It seems you didn't read their post. Also, yes, if someone hates you, you can definitely change their minds. The weapon in the war on hate is love. And there is a lot of love in the author's essay. Love for others in their position. So you too can join the War on Hate by showing love to the author and letting PG know he is wrong, so very wrong.
• mbs159 2y ago
  Hatred is extremely infectious, especially in difficult times. If you do not extinguish it, you can end up in a country like Nazi Germany, where it even became encouraged.
• Tainnor 2y ago
  > The proper response is -- in the spirit of the new era of free speech -- to firmly state your opposition to their beliefs. This doesn't really work because social networks are designed to amplify the most "engaging" things, which often means "controversial". Reasoned debate is often drowned out - this happens even here on HN for particularly controversial topics. If social media was just people following their friends and interacting with them (I remember when FB was basically like that), we maybe wouldn't be in this horrible polarised mess.