Free speech vs harmful speech
Freedom of speech is important in that censorship can be abused by powerful institutions as a tool to disenfranchise certain people, making them less influential. If liberals and their ideas such as freedom, democracy, human rights are censored, their messages will not reach everyone. However, on the same coin, if fascist, Nazi, racist, and other hateful speech are censored, their toxic can be contained.
Some speech harms society, some speech hurts society, most speech does neither. The question is who should stem the flood of harmful speech? Well, it depends on the domain. In the public domain, the government can do something about harmful speech. But here's the key question, can we trust them? Governments have been known not to act in the interest of the people. As for the private domain (such as here in the philosophy forum), it's really the owners [s]pejorative[/s] prerogative. Your house, your rules. For example, I see nothing wrong with YouTube banning Alex Jones form their website.
So it comes down to two questions:
In the public domain, can we trust the government to censor "harmful" speech?
In the private domain, do you agree that what can be said is the owner's [s]pejorative[/s] prerogative?
Some speech harms society, some speech hurts society, most speech does neither. The question is who should stem the flood of harmful speech? Well, it depends on the domain. In the public domain, the government can do something about harmful speech. But here's the key question, can we trust them? Governments have been known not to act in the interest of the people. As for the private domain (such as here in the philosophy forum), it's really the owners [s]pejorative[/s] prerogative. Your house, your rules. For example, I see nothing wrong with YouTube banning Alex Jones form their website.
So it comes down to two questions:
In the public domain, can we trust the government to censor "harmful" speech?
In the private domain, do you agree that what can be said is the owner's [s]pejorative[/s] prerogative?
Comments (194)
I don't see how a speech act is any different to any other act, some are what a society thinks are good, some bad, and some so bad they need prohibition. I can't say as I've ever really 'got' free-speech as a principle in its own right. I don't get the value, to liberals, of also allowing racists and fascists a free platform. I've heard the argument that these speakers are only more powerful when pushed underground and the best way to diminish them is free open rational debate, but if that were the case then why would they want to speak at all, knowing what was going to happen. Are we suggesting that somehow all racists also don't understand the true effect of public debate, that would be a bit of an odd coincidence.
Basically, if some hate group wants to promote their message it is at least likely that this is because they think it will have some effect which furthers their agenda. Since most people in society don't want their agenda furthered, it's seems reasonable to prevent the action likely to cause it to be.
Of course governments can abuse this power. But if you live in a country which is suppressing basic human rights and you're trying to rouse some kind of rebellion to overthrow them, their ability to prevent you from printing a pamphlet is probably the least of your problems. Of all the laws and government suppression you intend to overcome in the course of your revolution, contacting and enthusing others is the easiest hurdle.
A philosopher, like you, would recognize sound logic and see truth from falsity. You're, well, trained to do so. I'm not saying all philosophers are perfect in this regard but if there's a class of people who can be trusted to be rational, it's philosophers. At least in theory.
The rest, non-philosophers, don't know the difference between a good argument and bad one. We're beset by our biases and are perfect targets for the manipulative and toxic who, in all probability, are themselves victims of their own biases. We're like children, naive may be, but also wrong and this combination leads to toxic behavior.
I heard somewhere, teach/learn how to think, rather than what to think.
If all of us were taught critical thinking and we were competent therein then we would recognize a bad argument and disbelieve what it entails. We wouldn't be moved by Nazis, or other harmful ideology.
The positive aspect would be we would formulate good arguments to make our case and, that way, hit the bullseye of truth or thereabouts.
What I'm saying is, if we were all critical thinkers (paradoxically we don't do justice to the ''sapiens'' in the name of our species, homo sapiens) there would be no need to discuss the pros and cons of free speech. The good reasoners would see through the veil of lies and bad logic and no one would be there to put forth bad arguments and evil ideology.
One could say that we, as a group, haven't attained the status of critical thinkers as yet. So, provisionally, to err on the side of caution, censorship is necessary.
Where we're failing is teaching people to be rational so they have the tools to separate truth from lies.
We need censorship (as of now), yes, but we need to become rational more. Once all become rational, censorship would automatically become redundant.
With censorship we're treating people as children and rightly so since they lack the thinking tools to defend themselves from bad logic.
Absolutely, and that is why James Watson was stripped of his titles and had his Twitter account restricted, because he is those things.
Quoting Isaac
And one of those hate-groups is called the "family" apparently, triggering a meltdown at Google.
The thing is that we, as a group, will never attain the status of being "critical thinkers", achieve a discourse where people are so informed, knowledged and critical that they can spot what is true and what is false, what is acceptable and what isn't. That is a fact.
And there are many reasons for this, not only because some people aren't thinkers.
Well according to Vox, James Watson has a whole history of making sexist and racist comments.
that´s Athena, who´s having this as her January personal cause... It should not be a cause, but something we take for granted, but here we are, back in the dark Modern Age!
What would you do with these texts?
My personal answer is that no book must be banned, not even the Mein Kampff or Mao Red Book or Madonna´s five books for children. But all books, sacred or not for some people, must be open to any kind of criticism and mockery; and they are not to be taught in schools or in kid libraries if they incite to violence or defend theories about the social and physical world that are discredited by Science.
:gasp: Yes.
Quoting DiegoT
No because I don't think Qurans are generally harmful. You say the Quran incites violence, but the vast majority of Muslims are not violent. I think banning religious books will do more harm than good.
Nazism came to power because of limited free speech not because of free speech. When your party controls the airwaves, controls the conversation, and what is allowed to be talked about, you become the very thing you claim you want to prevent.
Quoting Purple Pond
The question is, What do you mean by "harmful"? Nazi Germany had a robust economy before Hitler started WW2. The society wasn't harmed by fascism. Jews were, and any other group that wasn't pure German.
Declaring speech "harmful" is a way if limiting speech that you don't agree with. You have to explain why it is harmful. You have to use your own words to combat hate (illogical) speech. It is illogical because to ask to treat anyone different than yourself - to declare yourself as having special rights that others don't have - is hypocritical and therefore illogical. It is quite easy to counter hate speech with logic. All that is necessary is that the hate speech can't limit other's freedom to speak and counter other speech.
The answer isn't to limit free speech. The answer is MORE free speech. Allow everyone a say. Use your own words to argue against illogical speech. Let everyone listen to what is said. Let them hear hate speech AND the counter to it. Let people the freedom to not only speak, but to listen to every and any idea and the counter to those ideas. That is how we will evolve, or progress, in our thinking as a society.
The Quran is pretty successful at inciting violence. Where shall we begin, the greatest genocide in human history, or perhaps a more recent genocide? Or shall we stick to terrorism?
This topic is a hot potato that should be a healthy meal of discussion since it's one of the most important topics of our current times.
I think that whenever a government bans someone's speech it should be on solid grounds of hate-speech. By hate-speech I mean talks in public about harming others, proposing limitations of other people's freedom on non-solid grounds for such limitations (meaning, limitations based on ethnicity, gender etc.). It should actually be somewhat obvious when this is happening and when someone is having a speech with reasonable arguments that can be held in a discussion. If someone blatantly say that "those people" should be limited in their freedom as people and there is no reason for it other than things like gender or ethnicity, it's pretty obvious its hate speech. This also applies to when extreme left voices speak about white men without anything other than that they are white men as their argument.
If anyone is unclear on what harmful speech is, it should be obvious that when anyone criticizes a group of people without any other reason than that they are different in ethnicity, gender or culture, it is hate speech. Any criticism against a group of people should be based on solid reasonable arguments that can't be disputed easily.
Let's say a "terrorist group" is being blamed, criticized and disliked by a society. What is the reason? Is it because these people are fighting for rights by having debates and discussions? That they protest by not eating? That they sit outside government buildings and speak out about their situations? If that is the case they are not terrorists and society is blaming this group based on nothing more than hate of this group, therefore hateful and harmful speech about this group is being held by the public and should not be accepted. If they are fighting against society because society is attacking them. If society kills civilians in this group and they are fighting back while the government brands them as terrorists because of this, then, even so, does not equal branding them as terrorists since they act like rebels fighting for their right to live and exist. Then the discussion should reflect this truth of the situations rather than using hate-speech to brand them as lower than society. This form is a way for governments to reduce these groups to a level where society can hate them and therefore win over the public by sheer manipulation. If this group, however, inflict damage and harm by a doctrine of violence, killing and torturing not out of the need to survive as a group, not out of a need to be able to live in peace, but by invading and killing based on religious texts, domination ideas etc. then they are terrorists and should be condemned by society. The form of these groups should inform how we speak about them and inform if our speech is hate-speech and harmful or truthful to the group's nature.
There are situations when things get muddied, but in most cases, it's blatantly easy to spot what is hate-speech and what is not. Not being able to do so means having an inability to deduce reality outside of staining it with personal values not applicable to society as a whole.
So, governments should make laws about hate-speech out of this parameter. Going further than this will infringe on freedom of speech and loosening it will invite a pandemic of racism and hate. As an example, the racism of Trump has made it easier for racist groups to speak publically with their racism. This, in turn, has led to an increase in violence towards minority groups since racism isn't as frowned upon as before. The balance should be obvious on a government level.
However, what is considered ok and not in society should be informed by the people themselves. It's how we move forward as a society. We aren't using certain words anymore since they are considered derogatory against certain groups. This isn't applied by laws and governments, but by culture and the people in order to minimize harm and include everyone into society. Where the line is drawn is set by public discussions.
As an example of something that I believe will be considered unwanted in public speaking because of its regular use in derogatory talk about a group is "CIS men". Its use today is not to describe a regular male whose identity is male in society, which is a fine description to use when talking about genders, but it has instead turned into a derogatory use as a way of turning the tables of hate. Its use is not really used in the way it's intended, or in the way it's supposed to be used, but rather has turned into a popular derogatory word about white men. This word is still accepted today but may become a word that is considered derogatory and harmful to the group of white men and banned for keeping any rational discourse about gender, free of derogatory hate-speech.
Neither of this is censorship. It's not censoring anything since all it does is steering discussions into being rational to the core of the subject matter and not stained with irrational hate between groups or individuals. It should be obvious when limitations of free speech are harmful and become the starting point for totalitarian societies and when there are too few limitations and throws society into a chaos of crime, racism, and hate between groups of people. The result of not enough limitations are pretty obvious, but too many only use totalitarian states as their measurement for free speech, which is a rather limited and narrow point of view.
I don't even agree with dropping free speech but why would you say something so clearly false as a means to support free speech? Nazis came to power using street violence, inciting fear and unrest, and taking advantage of a more fragile state of the public mind after the first War and a terrible economy. Not because muh free speech was limited.
Quoting Harry Hindu
And Jews aren't part of the society? Further, how is the Nazi destruction of civil liberties and personal property not harmful? Like come on, everything you're saying is making hyper-idealized scenarios the reason why one ought to maintain free speech
Falsehood, is another matter entirely. Honest error seems innocent unless reckless, but deliberate falsehood and deception by misleading, should attract consequences commensurate with the damage they do.
Yes, I realized later I was being too optimistic. Anyway, let's cross our fingers in a philosophical way and hope for the best.
:ok: :up:
I advocate freedom of speech, but I don´t think we can save the Nazi regime at all. True, they gave us the technology and scientists to reach the Moon; the first laws to protect the environment (Ecology is a word coined by a Nazi), Goebbels taught us how to win elections, and they also invented sex dolls. However, I think we can accept the good things without taking the whole pack, that was hell on Earth. Fourteen million people died in the death camps, with the help of IBM by the way; six of them Jews, but in reality you had there all kind of people: prisoners of war, dissidents, homosexuals, disabled people, Gipsies, Catholics, all kind of people: most of them citizens of Germany. Only Muslims were spared, because the Arab world was allied with Hitler and many Muslims volunteered to serve in the German SS.
Precisely because the Nazi regime was nightmarish, I don´t want censorship. If people can´t handle "dangerous messages", let´s give them the skills and means to criticize them, and let´s let them do it publicly.
Like Dasein, and other vocabulary introduced by everyone's favorite Nazi. Another of those good things Nazis did.
Go back and read what I wrote. I never claimed that Nazis came to power ONLY by limiting free speech. They used violence against anyone who spoke negatively about the party. THAT is limiting free speech. My response was to the narrow scope of the OP where limiting hate speech - like fascism - actually works against the freedom of speech. Many political parties have used violence, incite unrest and take advantage of people's fears, not just Nazis. Many political parties want to restrict personal freedoms, not just Nazis. Many politicians refer to their opponents as hostiles, which is inciting violence and unrest here in the US.
The OP was asking whether or not limiting free speech was permissible in certain circumstances. I was saying it isn't permissible in any circumstance. Let all ideas be expressed, and then let those ideas be open for criticism and falsification. My point was that it wasn't by allowing free speech that Nazis came to power. It was by limiting it, but not just limiting free speech - but that would be beyond the scope of this thread - get it?
Quoting MindForged
Again, go back and read the post. That isn't what I was saying. I said the best way to combat Nazism is by letting them express their ideas and then expose their ideas to criticism. Not only that, but it's always nice to be able to know what your neighbors think and where they stand.
The whole gist of freedom of speech, by the way, is that it protects the ability to say things that upset people, that are controversial, that make people uncomfortable--sometimes extremely so. The idea of freedom of speech would never have arisen otherwise.
No. The law is well developed in the area of slander and defamation related to private causes of action against private harm. As to whether the government would have the right to stop offensive speech generally (like advocating Nazism), in the US they don't. It's protected free speech.Quoting Purple Pond
Yes. Considering I have the right to even deny you entry into my home, it'd be a strange rule requiring me to let you stay there after you insult my family under a "once you're there, you're there" rule.
There should be no right of recovery and no right for me to stop this behavior?
Just to add to @Hanover's examples, what about a sustained written and verbal campaign of intimidation aimed at psychologically torturing a vulnerable target? Fine and dandy? Or should it be recognized for what it is, i.e. a purposeful attempt to do harm, and treated as such?
Millennia? 400 million doesn't matter to you because they are Indian?
Don't mention the Yazidi either.
Quoting Mr Phil O'Sophy
Christians are being genocided in the Middle East by Muslims. No one cares about the Christians.
Just Google it.
Quoting Mr Phil O'Sophy
Christianity is 600 years older than Islam.
Quoting Mr Phil O'Sophy
They may pay the jizya.
Aesthetic, functions of language; but not the phatic function when it is related to the comitting of crimes.
Do you apply the same critical approach to all books? Because I wonder what must be written in a volume to make you think that is not really ok for children to read and memorize and think that is God´s sacred word.
Correct. What there should be instead is a culture that doesn't believe things just because someone claims them. When you're officially prohibited from saying such things, then people tend to believe claims like that whether they're true or not. When we instead have a milieu where anyone is allowed to say whatever they like, then people don't believe things when all there is to them is a claim. That's bad news for religions, sleazy salespeople, con men, slanderers, false accusers, politicians, etc.--and even for people claiming what's essentially nonsense in the name of philosophy, science, etc. (which happens all the time, including right here in River City), and that's good news for us as a culture.
Yes. Fine and dandy. How is speech going to intimidate you? Not that intimidation should be illegal in any event. But if speech is intimidating you, you need to reassess how you're parsing speech.
Haha. Let's see the empirical data on that. (Notice how much power a mere claim has? You're just claiming nonsense.)
Re the old lady, why would speech intimidate her? It's just sounds.
And let's not forget the effects of bullying. https://www.stopbullying.gov/at-risk/effects/index.html
You're the one making the claim. If you want me to think it's not just bullshit, you need to present the evidence for it, at which point I'll examine the evidence . . .and tell you the problems with it, because it's not actually possible (partially due to the ethics of it) to do the sorts of experiments that would be required to establish causality for these things--not to mention that you're on a philosophy board and you're apparently unfamiliar with the problem of establishing causality in general a la Hume.
The psychological abuse study, for one says from the start that it includes "harsh nonphysical punishments." I'm not sure how they're defining that, and I can give you all of the details re the problems with the study re why it doesn't at all support what you want it to support when I have more time, but I'm also not going to waste my time with that if you're not interested in learning what the issues would be in this regard. If you want to learn and you demonstrate that, then I'll spend the time on it.
Are you being unwillfully ignorant? I said from the start "I don't agree that any speech can be harmful, at least not in a manner that suggests control of speech."
So I didn't say that speech can't be harmful unqualified. How in the world are you supposed to be able to read a study (such as you referenced) and reach reasonable conclusions about it when you can't even get such a simple sentence right?
I don't frame any moral stances on "harm," because it's too vague of a term that potentially anyone could apply to anything, depending on their psychological status, their psychological fragility, etc. Hence why I qualified that statement in the way that I did. So I did not say that "words can never cause anyone any harm ever" unqualified.
There´s a huge difference: we teach science with experiments and examples that allow children understand that what they are being taught is real, we don´t ask them to have faith or tell them that a place of eternal punishment exists for those who fail to understand how seeds grow or the heart keeps our blood moving.
I haven´t read it. Is there any call to kill infidels in that book? what makes it inadequate for children? I believe it was written by a monk and talks about sex and religion.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Quoting Christoffer
I am much closer to Terrapin Station's position than Christoffer's.
I'm not in favor of banning hate speech. I am a member of a group which many people dislike, loathe, hate, disparage, ridicule, consider inherently disordered, sinful, etc. -- gay men. Gay men have come in for what Christoffer calls "hate speech" because we prefer to have sex with other men; often display our preference publicly, and sometimes parody women (drag). Some gay men are swishy. Not only do gay men like having sex with other men, we quite often have sex with many other men. We are also (sometimes) well organized.
Don't I want protection from hate speech? No, not particularly. I do not require that people must think homosexuality and homosexual activity equal, desirable, and deserving of respect. What I want is not to be physically attacked by someone who dislikes gays. Say what you want. Words won't hurt me but clubs and rocks are another matter.
Why should I tolerate hate speech? Banning hate speech isn't just a slippery slope on the way to widespread censorship and censorious policing of expression. It makes law out of some version of politeness. The rules of etiquette should not rule speech. Banning is a restriction on appropriate (as well as inappropriate) speech: There are groups who "are different in ethnicity, gender or culture" and who deserve criticism. For instance, gay men can be appropriately criticized for practicing promiscuous unsafe sex. Young black men - and perhaps urban black culture as a whole -- can be appropriately criticized for the amount of black-on-black violence. Very conservative white men can be criticized for their fondness for the Confederate Cause and for engaging in sometimes violent demonstrations. Young, privileged leftist white men and women (and other ethnicities) can also be criticized for sometimes violent demonstrations and for attacking people for having what are often rather innocuous opinions.
I want to be free to criticize people and their cultures whatever their ethnicity or sex. Promiscuous high risk sex among gay men, promiscuous high risk gun use resulting in deaths, beating up blacks and Jews, or shutting down discussion on campuses are all worthy of criticism. I want to be free to publicly criticize rich people, whether they are male or female, black or white, gay or straight, Christian or Muslim, or atheists. A rich black woman is no more above criticism than a rich white man.
We either have free speech, or we don't.
What I thought you were suggesting was that this was what was done after they took power. That was my mistake.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I think this is the main thing I found startling, and I'm not even advocating for further free speech restrictions on this basis. This makes a number of huge assumptions based on idealized notions of rationality. You seem to think that Nazis (or fascists and the extreme-right more generally) honestly present and articulate their views and people weigh those in a fairly unbiased manner. That's surely not true, just take even lesser right wingers like the standard GOP talking points on any number of issues. Illegal immigration is framed in terms of diseased immoral peasants and/or an invasion by a foreign army storming over the border to commit rape, theft, murder, drug sales and steal jobs, all supposedly more than the citizens of the country. And what does this do to so-called the typical conservative and their views (or even so-called independents, I suspect)? Do they think these claims through? Or do they instead swallow them more or less whole because they already agree with the conclusion that they don't want any more illegal immigrants? They've already started down the path to fascism, and even falling short of that they're made into a useful bloc to prop up those with extreme RW ideologies, arguments be damned. Arguments against them are immediately seen a the political machinations of liberals who hate America and want white people to be a minority.
This holds for any number of issues, people of every ideology don't really listen to the other side (not that this is always unwarranted). People have their views and generally hold to them pretty strongly, with change coming often for personal reasons, not rational arguments in a public forum or with the neighbors. I mean I ask you, how often have you changed a significant political view based just on an argument someone gave you? Or how often have you seen people you know change in this way? Maybe one thinks themself out of some things but I suspect that's because we value our own discovered insights over the arguments of others. This is why I think it's a mistake to found belief in very liberal free speech on the basis of the counterfactual idealizations to be off base. They aren't true and they make it too easy to argue against it. Why not just argue for the principle of the thing itself? (Not that I'm coming down on you here, just trying to explain why I find it weird).
Your scenario may seem bizarre, wild, extreme... but actually it isn't all that far out. Some people will engage in this sort of behavior--not all that often, but not rarely either. Some of them are deranged, some of them are hateful bastards. Some of them are besides themselves with rage (over god knows what). What can the police do?
The police are usually not without recourse. He could be ordered to lower his voice. He could be told to move. He could be accused of being a public nuisance, disturbing the peace, blocking a public sidewalk, interfering with a government function (education) or some such thing. The police might act on their own, but more likely they would act on the basis of a complaint from the public.
His speech, per se, isn't the problem, here. It's the loud volume at that particular place. The same thing would probably happen to him if he were at the same location, screaming verses from the Koran or the Bible, Tropic of Cancer. or Paradise Lost. Behavior like this seems deranged.
Adults have, on a number of occasions, arrived at schools being integrated to scream epithets at the black children entering the school. They were protesting a change in policy to which they were very opposed. Were the children in those situations totally traumatized by hearing bad things screamed at them? Not too traumatized, because black parents had prepared their children for what would happen at the school. It's one thing to have people screaming at you and you don't know why, and quite another to know exactly why they are screaming at you.
Quoting Mr Phil O'Sophy
If the principle of freedom of speech is not protected in its practice, then it will eventually be whittled back to "the principle of convenient, allowable speech" which is not free speech.
Quoting Mr Phil O'Sophy
There are limitations on speech: "The Court ruled unanimously that the First Amendment, though it protects freedom of expression, does not protect dangerous speech. In the decision, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that no free speech safeguard would cover someone "falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic."
Aggressive speech is not the same as dangerous speech (at least as I understand "aggressive" and "dangerous".) It's quite possible that a Neo-Nazi might yell at some people ""You old Jews should've been made into soap." Or "Hitler knew what to do with cripples!" yelled at someone in a wheel chair. Very offensive and provocative, certainly. But probably protected.
In 1977 The American Civil Liberties Union defended the American National Socialist (Nazi) Party in its bid to hold a march in Skokie, IL, a Jewish suburb of Chicago where many Holocaust survivors lived. It is a celebrated First Amendment case, which the National Socialists won -- in a decision by the Supreme Court.
The Nazis were a very small group. There was also a black-and-white racial issue lurking in the background (the National Socialists said they were protecting white communities from encroaching blacks).
So, should a group of Moslems wish to march through a gay community carrying signs that homosexuals were doomed to hell, you would have that right.
So, it's fine and dandy to psychologically torture vulnerable targets with threats and intimidation and that shouldn't be controlled. It's their own fault because they should just... what? Toughen up? You don't understand psychology and you don't understand humans. Typical of an ideological absolutist stuck in their favourite meme.
Look, if you're going to consider legally controlling anything, you look at intention and effect. So, for example, if the intention of a man who regularly calls a young woman living alone and threatens to come to her apartment and torture her to death is to destroy her mental health and cause her suffering, and the result is her mental health is damaged and she suffers, why would we not legally protect the victim? What advantage would occrue to society in not allowing the law to step in in extreme cases? The point here is that your hand waving cannot make the reality that speech can seriously harm and is often intended to seriously harm go away. You need to deal with that and then justify why these cases—where the level of malicious intent and potential harm is high—do not merit attention by the law when even minor physical assaults that cause no lasting harm do. You haven't done that and so as yet you have no case.
I know. And that's how it should be, which is what I'm arguing in contrast to the absolutist position.
So how is it any different from your attempt now to control people by social pressure? You're a free speech absolutist and you're arguing on a public forum with the obvious intent of convincing others so that there will be more free speech in society. If a option to increase free speech arose in some manner, I presume you'd use what power you have to bring it about, right? I don't understand why you think controlling what other people say is a bad thing, but controlling what they do isn't.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Do you have any evidence for this at all? You seem to be hanging quite a lot on this empirical claim without any support being advanced for it.
First off, if S says, "It should be legal to murder others*," that doesn't imply that S doesn't understand anything. You're concluding that just in case x is understood by any arbitrary S, then S will reach moral conclusion y about x. That's false, however.
(*Ignoring the Aspieish counter that murder is conventionally defined as illegal killing.)
It's really the second half of my post that's most important. I see you hand waving on the issue of potential harm through verbal means. Speech acts are nonetheless acts and acts (wrt legal responsibility) need to be assessed in terms of harm and intention to harm, no?
We've had a ton of evidence of it lately with all of the sexual assault/rape claims that have no evidence other than a claim, but where accusers are believed by virtue of making an accusation, and where people have commented that if the claims weren't true, the accusers would be in hot water themselves legally.
I don't frame any moral stance simply on the notions of harm or suffering. They're way too vague, and people can feel harmed or feel that they're suffering in response to any arbitrary thing, which would wind up making everything illegal. (If one feels that it's sufficient to make something morally problematic and to suggest it should be prohibited if someone feels harmed or feels they're suffering because of it.)
Additionally, speech can't be shown to be causal to any particular harm, because regardless of the speech in question, we could take two different people and expose them to the same speech and they'd react completely differently. That's not how causality works. If hitting one billiard ball in manner x "causes" another billiard ball to smoothly roll into pocket y, but hitting another billiard ball in manner x "causes" a third similarly positioned billiard ball to bounce in the opposite direction, then hitting a billiard ball in manner x isn't the cause of the subsequent actions after all--something else is the cause.
With speech, how someone parses it, the meaning they assign, etc. (and you have to have a correct ontology of meaning for this) are all far more important factors.
No, that's not about causality. Holy moly must you have problems understanding logic if you're reading conditionals as causal statements.
Not that I'm endorsing Hume's views, by the way, which is another reading comprehension fail on your part. I'm just saying that you're on a philosophy board and you're apparently unfamiliar with those issues.
In people saying what I just noted. I couldn't care less if you're familiar with that or believe it, so I'm not going to go searching for quotes online.
Quoting Mr Phil O'Sophy
Should anyone be surprised that your response here has nothing to do with understanding logic?
If it snows tomorrow, then Tom will do a painting of Bozo the Clown.
You think that's claiming that the snow will cause Tom to do a painting of Bozo the Clown, so that Tom couldn't choose to do otherwise?
Logical refutation of what statement?
You can't understand five-word sentences I type. I'm not going to type longer things that you won't understand just because you typed more.
And as I just said, I couldn't care less what you believe.
I said, "If you want me to think it's not just bullshit"--well, maybe you don't care what I think.
As I noted after that, it was a set-up anyway, because it's not possible to causally demonstrate that speech is causal to such things. There are a number of reasons for that, including both ethical and logistical problems with executing the sorts of experiments that would be necessary.
"physical assault can't be shown to be causal to any particular harm, because regardless of the assault in question, we could take two different people and expose them to the same assault and they'd react completely differently."
Your idea as expressed above seems to the core of your case, but can you see now how the argument fails to make any clear distinction between harmful speech acts and other types of harmful acts which I presume you are not calling to be legalized? Also, you seem to reject the general principle that the complement of the accordance of rights is the burden of responsibilities including legal responsibilities. Where do you stand on that? If you think rights in the case of speech acts should be accorded without any legal responsibilities at all, you've again made no case for that except the failed argument above.
Which isn't true. If you punch two different people with equal force etc. in the same spot, they're not going to react completely differently. There will be similar physical effects. That would only be analogous if the punch results in one person bruising and the other person, say, getting rid of an old scar, with no other observable effect.
If you anthropomorphize a ladle, the ladle will serve you.
We'd not be talking about how the person chooses (or habitually) responds to someone attempting to punch them. We're talking about what happens to their body when punched.
They're not going to have a completely different reaction, so that, as I said, they may only get rid of an old scar. Regardless of who they are, the punch is going to have a similar effect on their body. It's not going to be an identical effect--hence why I didn't say identical, just similar. The punch is going to affect skin, muscle, etc. cells in similar ways, regardless of who they are. The difference is going to be of degree of effect, not type of effect.
Yes I did. I wrote this: "Which isn't true. If you punch two different people with equal force etc. in the same spot, they're not going to react completely differently. There will be similar physical effects."
It's got to be that you're being dishonest. You can't possibly be that stupid to not be able to see the next sentence from what you quoted.
Quoting Mr Phil O'Sophy
Okay, so what happens, re skin cells, muscle cells, etc. when you punch an MMA fighter with, say, a 5,000 newton force, where that's completely different than what happens to skin cells, muscle cells, etc. when you punch someone else with a 5,000 newton force?
Which part do you disagree with:
Two people's bodies can react completely differently to the same speech act.
Two people's bodies can not react completely differently to the same "physical" force, such as a punch, a knife stab, etc.?
You must disagree with one of those (given your comment above, that is)
This is obviously false unless the word "completely" is mercilessly gerrymandered to fit your pre-determined position. I was going to give an example to explain why but I don't believe anyone but you at this point would continue to argue on the, to put it charitably, extremely tenuous basis you have been to try to establish the distinction you want to. So, we've probably said enough.
Completely differently--not anything in common, not at all the same type of reaction.
Versus a difference in degree, but not type of effect.
A woman says to her husband, who doesn't at all understand German:
"Ich hasse dich. Ich habe seit zehn Jahren eine Affäre mit deinem Bruder. Dein Bruder ist der kleine Joey's Vater."
Does that hurt her husband? If speech is causal to harm, how could that not harm her husband (while it could maybe harm a husband who speeks German)? What are the physical differences in each case?
Give an example of two people's bodies acting completely differently to the same "physical" force a la a punch, knife stab, etc.
Do a bit of reading. Words can have lasting physical effects in some circumstances*. That those circumstances may be more limited than the effects of physical trauma is a matter of degree not type therefore there is no justification for the absolute cleavage of speech acts from physical acts re the principle of rights and (legal) responsibilities.
*E.g. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-new-brain/201010/sticks-and-stones-hurtful-words-damage-the-brain
Quoting Terrapin Station
Tiresome. Do you not realize that a punch in the stomach of x power that could be enough to cause serious damage to the organs of, and even kill, a child may have little or no discernible physical effect on a professional boxer, for example?
Anyway, I'm done.
I don't realize this because it's false. A punch of x newtons that can kill a child is not going to have zero effect on a professional boxer. That punch of x newtons still affects the skin cells, muscle cells etc. of the professional boxer. Heck, rubbing an emery board on your arm lightly is going to have a physical effect on the skin of your arm that we can see if we examine your skin cells closely--we do this sort of thing in forensics all the time.
Quoting Baden
If this were true, then we could peg the exact physical effect in question, where that physical effect necessarily obtains in everyone subjected to the speech act in some degree, akin to being able to examine skin cells and see that there was a force applied.
So what physical effect are you claiming there for speech acts?
You'd have to be claiming some effect due to the soundwaves (for example) reaching your ears, proceding through your eardrums, etc., and for some speech to be okay and other speech to not be okay, you'd need to be claiming that certain combinations of phonemes have the effect that's not okay whereas other combinations of phonemes are okay, etc. That's what's physically going on during speech acts, at least insofar as the "perp's" actions go.
This is a dubious empirical claim. You're saying that if we allow people to lie with impunity, we will have a more dependable society because the heightened level of distrust will result in a more cautious populous. If everyone lives in fear of fraud, no one will be defrauded is your argument. As we know there are certainly societies where there are insufficient defamation laws or they do have them and there is limited enforcement of them, so you will need to produce the data supportive of your claim, which I've noted is an empirical claim, not simply a thought experiment.
All of this assumes, of course, that the reason that everyone's trust level is artificially high is because of the anti-defamation laws and such. That is, you have to buy into the also dubious suggestion that I, for example, am able to dupe people because they think to themselves, "Well, Hanover won't lie because he knows there's a defamation suit on the horizon for him." What I suspect is that most don't actually know what the defamation laws say. The real reason people don't lie, cheat, and steal, has less to do with government rules than personal morality, and regardless of what the laws say, fraud will continue to exist because some people will always be trustful based upon the assumption that others feel similarly morally bound.
And, while I may be beating this one to death, I'll also point out that your position goes far beyond simply permitting otherwise actionable defamation, but you seem to allow any and all types of false statements to be made without there being any form of relief available for the person lied to. That would abolish not only defamation suits, but also contractual suits, meaning that we could no longer contract with one another for anything with any expectation the other person would uphold his end of the bargain. The consequence of that would not be the ironically more honest society you envision, but it would be that no business transaction could be expected to occur.
I'd not allow contractual fraud, but that's an issue of contractual law, not a speech issue.
What is the distinction, that one is uttered and one written? What of oral contracts? Why should I be expected to trust a statement that meets the definition of a contract (offer, acceptance, and consideration) as opposed to a statement that is missing one of those elements? It seems that if a more trustworthy populous is forged by allowing lying with impunity, we should allow lying in contracts, which are really just a particular type of speech act.
Contracts are formal agreements that each party is going to offer something in exchange for something else.
I said that in my post, so I'm not sure why you're repeating it. The question I asked was what makes dishonest contractual utterances properly subject to regulation but not non-contractual utterances. You felt compensation for damages were not appropriate for utterances generally, but you've now asserted a contracts exception and I'm asking why. Is there something in principle different about them, or is this just an ad hoc correction to your general anarchist rule related to free speech?
We should allow lying under oath too. What possible good could it do to put legal pressure on folks to tell the truth in a court of law? :chin:
Properly? What sort of question is that? I'm not saying anything about "properly."
Yes you are. You're saying that it's improper to regulate free speech generally, but that it's proper to regulate contracts specifically. Since contracts are a form of speech, I'm asking why the general category is not properly regulated but why a subcategory of that same class is properly regulated.
Where am I saying that?
As to where you're saying its improper to regulate free speech generally:
Quoting Terrapin Station
As to where you're saying it is proper to regulate contracts specifically:
Quoting Terrapin Station
Do you not have a similar ability to scroll up and see what you've previously said? I was giving you the benefit of the doubt with regard to whether you were truly trying to alleviate confusion as opposed to being purposefully evasive. I'm thinking I was being too generous
You may as well try and nail some jello to a wall.
But I didn't use the word "proper" anywhere, and that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying what I am/am not in favor of (well, and what I'd do "if I were king").
Just to point out, this is ending up discriminating against people for speaking at all about differences in ethnicity, gender, or culture. There is no clear line what constitutes criticism and what not.
Nor did I quote you as having said "proper," so I'm not sure what you're defending yourself against, nor am I even sure you know what you're defending yourself against. If you think I have in substance misstated something you've said, then point that out. At this point, your response is a silly quibble over form, arguing that a particular word in my post didn't appear in your post so it must be an inaccurate account of what you said.
The portion of your post beginning with the word "and" is entirely unresponsive to anything discussed, and suggests I thought something other than the views you were expressing were someone other than your own.
To clarify, a compliment is a reverse criticism. That really is the problem that keeps this debate going.
If you were to ask me if moral stances have anything to do with what's "proper," I'd say "No."
But that's not what I asked. Are you now going to start posing random questions to yourself and answering them?
If you asked me what kind of shirt I was wearing, I'd say red.
Anyway, this agreement leads to a language that is formed outside of that deal. This secular space is a result but an undetermined one. It is a measure of law but more one of custom. If we cannot hammer out a way not to incite each other in our immediate dealings with each other, then the original deal is off.
Now there have been many times in our history where that cancellation happened, especially in small communities where the private is stronger than the public ethos. The arbiter of what is permitted can serve either master. I support the public ethos but I don't think I can wave a wand and assure it will win all that confronts it.
I hope that doesn't help.
I wasn't aiming to retype/rephrase what you asked. I was commenting on the notion of "proper" and whether I was saying anything about it. Weird that that might be difficult to figure out.
I already answered this. Re contracts, it's not any sort of speech restriction. It's not stopping anyone from saying anything they want to say. It's just that I'd enforce contracts--if you promise A in exchange for B and do not deliver, there would be legal repercussions.
I couldn't care less if you think that's reasonable or not. There's no reason for me to care what your assessments would be of my stances, especially given how you've behaved towards me so far.
No law literally and physically stops speech, but all speech regulation, whether it be anti-defamation law or contractual law, imposes legal repercussions when violated. You've not presented a meaningful distinction between the two.
The prohibition isn't against speech. It's against promising something and not delivering it. Not sure why that wouldn't be a clear distinction to you, but you can say it isn't. It's not as if I can force people to (say they) understand things they (say they) don't understand.
That shows that people believe certain types of claims. What I asked is if you had any evidence for the claim below.
"When you're officially prohibited from saying such things, then people tend to believe claims like that whether they're true or not. When we instead have a milieu where anyone is allowed to say whatever they like, then people don't believe things when all there is to them is a claim."
Paraphrasing - When free-speech is restricted then people believe claims. When free-speech is unrestricted then people no longer just believe claims.
Evidence for this assertion would require at least some controlled studies. Otherwise you're just guessing.
No, it's not. You are taking one part of my text out of context and doesn't read into the nuances of the entirety of it. This is usually the way these discussions go; the nuances get thrown out the window to make a point instead of actually understanding the argument someone said before answering.
What I added was that compliments constitute reverse criticism, which is the actual source of the problem 's perpetuation. It is actually impossible to stop discrimination for that reason.
Promising something isn't speech? What is it, a rabbit?
Counterexamples to consider: Defamatory speech aimed at a particular person, as in me destroying your reputation and causing you to lose your job based entirely upon lies, me refusing to honor an oral contract with you, or me causing imminent danger to the public by yelling fire in a crowded theater.
The examples you provided were all of the same sort. They were generalized ideological statements, and they are generally allowed in Western democracies, regardless of their offensiveness. An exception to that would be Germany's limitation on advocacy of Nazism, but that is understandable, considering their particular history.
Refusing to honor an oral contract isn't quite a matter of free speech, though? That's a legal matter. Oral contracts can be legally binding, as far as I am aware.
The example of the theater is an interesting one. Should someone be fined for yelling 'fire' in a theater even if it doesn't cause panic? Again, I think such a person should be punished for the physical consequences of his actions and not for the utterance of a word. For example, if in the panic people get hurt, clearly the person who yelled should be punished, but not because he uttered a word, but because of disturbing the peace, or causing bodily harm, etc.
And let the neo-nazis demonstrate, even in Germany. Suppressing their opinions won't change them, and letting them demonstrate gives them a (semi-)harmless way of venting their anger, which I think is actually an important thing.
Is not @metoo at least sometimes exactly this? Suppose a former employee (10 years ago) makes this accusation: "Hanover required oral sex from me before he would give me a recommendation, and then he told a prospective employer that I give great head." (Well... she did get a good recommendation, after all. Ungrateful woman!)
The lady posts this on twitter, and a day later your boss fires you. "We can't tolerate your appalling and disgusting sexist behavior and your presence here damages our company. Get lost, creep."
You say the lady is a liar and you never did any such thing, and never would, but you are still disgraced and out of a job. So, two people are at fault here: The lying lady whose false tweet cost you your job and reputation, and your employer who fired you on the basis of a completely unsubstantiated claim which was a lie.
I suspect that some of the @metoo claims are at least exaggerated, if not outright false. But the point is, employers are not obligated to act on these claims, whether they are true or not. It isn't so much a problem of free speech, as it is people who are willing to admit what they hear on the street as sworn testimony and convene themselves as the jury to render a verdict and sentence.
Maybe Tom, Dick, or Harry did paw Betsy 10 years ago, but what does that have to do with his job as a faceless functionary at XYZ corporation? So it isn't just Betsy that is playing fast and loose with the truth. It's XYZ Corp. as well.
But this can't even possibly be the case. People hear a range of differing accounts of reality, so how can they possibly just "believe everything they hear"
Not entirely. Obviously there's a logical problem with saying that people believe everything they're told (in that they can't possibly when told, for example, two obviously contradictory things). But actually I think there's a deeper problem when regarding how such gullible people as you describe choose which of the two contradictory things they're told they are going to believe. The strong evidence from psychology is that they will believe whichever conforms to their existing world view, even in the face of quite startling lack of rational support.
Given the above, I don't see how learning that people do not always tell the truth (as if anyone even thought they did) would make any difference at all.
In a world where speech is unregulated, people could not trust others to speak truthfully. In such circumstances, the overwhelming psychological evidence is that they would select whichever possible truth most conforms to their world view.
In a world where speech was strongly regulated and people felt that whatever was said had at least some element of truth (otherwise it wouldn't be allowed) the overwhelming psychological evidence is that they would select whichever possible truth most conforms to their world view.
I don't see any evidence to support the argument that people's reactions would be any different in either case.
What happened to the part after the word "and"?
A self inflicted wound. Ive noticed and mentioned you seem to have alot of patience for the moronic and observe you wasting time engaging that way but if rather than a virtue this is something that you’ve just done without noticing the futility then two questions: whose actually being moronic and why don’t you go away?
So no knowledge of a better philosophy board?
Well not if I tell you about it and you show up
Just stop engaging with people who you think arent worth engaging with. If that's everyone, then how can you possibly think anyone here is going to lead you to some philisophical promised land where everyones as brilliant as you are? By accident? Lol
Edited: was supposed to have an emoji to indicate jest after thst first sentence but it didnt show up.
It's only impossible to handle the balance of free speech vs harmful speech if you handle it as a binary system. If you are able to accept things to be a shifting complex entity rather than a simple line between two points, it's possible to handle it. But the problem is that all those in charge of handling it, does so in this binary way. In that sense, you are right that it's impossible.
But for those of us who like to solve the riddle, I think handling the subject like a tesseract rather than a cube. At a philosophical level, all things need to be that way. If something is a square you think a cube if something is a cube you think a tesseract. I don't think that this subject is unsolvable, I think it's constructed of an answer that is always shifting, i.e the definitions of harmful and free speech need to be closely connected to what we perceive as being that in society.
Let's say that there comes a time when bald people would be considered lower in intelligence and a lower class of humans. Today it's not very nice to call out someone's baldness, but it's not racist. It's classified more within free speech and no one is going to call out someone for making fun of baldness as being racist or committing a hate crime. But if there is a general idea through society that they have lower intelligence and are a lower class people, it has become racism and the harmful vs free speech should reflect that at that time.
There's been a lot of research done on how hateful speech triggers behavior that is harmful to the people the hate speech is about. It's generally not about someone getting hurt by the words, but by how the acceptance of hateful speech numbs a society into a certain behavior. Talking about Jews as a lower class people or calling them vermin, as was done in 30's Nazi-Germany, didn't result in the words themselves hurting Jews. Even if they did get hurt and many fell into depressing mental health issues, the biggest threat was how the general talk formed the entire society into acceptance of how Jews should be treated. People stopped caring when they were dragged out into the streets and forced onto trains. Because of years of talking about them as vermin made people accept them as vermin. People, collectively, are pretty much stupid in this regard. Over a course of time, you can make a population think and feel just about anything if you know how to do it. Anyone who thinks this is bullshit does not know about the psychology behind it and need to read up on it before pointing out that free speech should be unrestricted and binary freed.
The question shouldn't be about the binary ideas of free speech vs restricted speech. It should be how to define harmful speech since the result of unrestricted free speech has been proven to generate the worst crimes in history. It's naive to think that this is a binary topic in which you choose a position and then simplifies reality around it.
So to break down the building blocks of harmful speech that should be restricted.
1. It's not about hurting one or more peoples feelings.
2. It's about creating a negative idea about a group of people.
3. It divides people into categories that through repetition may build hate/dislike between groups.
4. It is not based on factual sources that work as a foundation for reasonable criticism of a group.
There may be added points of definitions, but in general, I think it's reasonable to define harmful speech not as hurting others directly but indirectly steers society into dividing people and creating foundations for hate that might build acceptance of negative actions against these groups. We saw it with Jews in Nazi-Germany and we see it today with immigrants and Muslims. Derogatory speech against immigrants by people like Trump and his followers has increased the acceptance-level of derogatory actions against immigrants and Muslims.
But we can also see it in other movements like the wave of feminism that's going on. As I mentioned, the derogatory talk about white men, the use of "CIS men" in derogatory ways are increasing the acceptance levels of negative actions against white men. To the point of courts lowering their level of evidence requirements in cases of sexual violence when the accused is a white man.
If you actually analyze and look closely at different speeches it's actually not that hard to spot what is harmful speech and what is free speech. If we define it through the points above it's not that hard to see when someone is using facts to criticize a group behavior, like the common violence against women within the culture of Islam and when it's harmful speech aimed at pitching groups against each other or derogatory against a certain group, like if someone says all CIS white men are responsible for violence against women. When someone is using facts to describe why there's a lot of crimes committed by a group of immigrants by analyzing their situation and socio-economical reasons, compared to when someone is using harmful speech to blame immigrants as a way to find a black sheep for their own failures.
I actually don't find it hard to spot what is what in society and I think that just taking a stance on either binary side, where you at one point want to ban all things that might sound harmful (even when it's not, in the way that blind SJWs are doing) and unrestricted freedom of speech that's oblivious to the effects it can cause down the line.
You don't choose a side, you deduce the balance and hold that ground.
Yes, I do know of such a place, a few actually. My preferred is the large hanger at the local airfield, but any large enclosed space will do, even a cave works. Simply stand in the middle and say what you think are intelligent philosophical comments (quite loudly) and I guarantee that all you will hear in return are intelligent philosophical comments.
It's a good sentiment. But it still doesnt work. I used to live in a black neighborhood, and anything that I said would be interpreted as hateful. Anything at all. I couldnt even say hello without black people claiming I was trying to start a fight. They WANT racism there. Its a necessary justification for their own hatred, and there is no way to end it.
One or more persons' feelings could be hurt by anything conceivable. Anything you might say, anything you might wear, any way you might look at them, etc.
Who gets to decide what's negative or not and why do they get to decide?
Dividing people into categories like "Folks who say prohibited things"?
Who gets to decide what's factual and reasonable and why do they get to decide?
It's more of a starting point. As I mentioned, an evolving form is the most optimal form. But I would say that your example is an example of when it's not harmful speech. If you said "hi" and that was considered harmful, it was those who considered it to be so that was in the wrong. They can be right in criticism about how whites treated them, they can be right in many things about their situation and socioeconomic position and they can be skeptical about the presence of white people in their neighborhood based on previous accounts of negative events. All of those are based on point 4. If they break point 4 they are not sticking to facts and uphold point 3 and 2. If they were just out to hurt you personally, as in point 1, they wouldn't have the need to bring ethnicity/race into the way they treated you. So, they essentially didn't have the intention of hurting you personally, breaking point 1, they didn't have factual reasons for rational criticism of your presence, as in point 4 and they upheld point 2 and 3.
Therefore, they committed harmful speech and should be criticized for doing so.
So it's not an example against my points, it's enforcing that baseline even more. The example you brought up seems to be focused on the idea that harmful speech is only against minorities or specific groups in line with what we see in media, but harmful speech is based on parameters that aren't influenced by the current state of politics. You can apply those four points to any time in history between any groups of people and it's still a good baseline for judging if someone is committing hateful speech that ends up dividing people.
Point 1 is, therefore, pointing out that harmful speech isn't about hurting a specific person.
Quoting Terrapin Station
By deduction of the validity of what someone says is meant to stir up hate as in point 3, or is valid criticism, as in point 4.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That idea is a reductio ad absurdum fallacy. By using these points to figure out if someone is using non-factual criticism of a group in order to spread hate and divide people, does not mean putting them into a group that says "prohibited things" and should, therefore, be stripped of rights. You are making an absurd hypothesis of what this is about.
Quoting Terrapin Station
By proper deduction of what is being said.
Why are you so focused on "who gets to decide"? It's not about who, it's about how people should spot harmful speech that is destructive on society. You seem to be extremely fixated on the idea of an authority that goes around censoring that you do not even understand the basic idea that I proposed. It's not about "who" is going to decide, it's about everyone using their intellect to know the effects of harmful speech and how to spot it. If you use those four points onto someone's criticism about a group you can deduce if it's a criticism that is made through a rational and reasonable argument or if the argument is coming from hate of a group. If Nazis are talking about Jews as vermin, does that have any factual support if you break down their argument? Or is it harmful speech that out of repetition creates hate of Jews? Point 2 and 3.
I think my point was pretty straight forward and has nothing to do with "who gets to decide". No one decides. Deduction of the intention of a speech decides if it's harmful or not. If you don't believe that harmful speech can stir up extremely destructive consequences, I think you should read up on how the apathy of the German civilian population made room for how Jews were treated. It's the most obvious and well-known example of this thing.
One thing at a time for a moment.
Not how. Who? Someone has to decide these things. Who is going to?
Read the entire thing and you will understand that your fixation with "who" is irrelevant.
How do we get to "This isn't factual and reasonable" if someone doesn't decide that?
By deduction of what the speech is saying. Or are you not able to break down what someone is saying to find if it's based on rational ideas or if it's based on emotional unreasonable ideas about another group of people? Are you unable to form a dialectic with the one who formed the speech to question the validity of their speech through pointing out the lack of facts?
If you encounter someone who says "I think black people shouldn't be mixed with white people". Are you unable to break down that thing into: "Is this based on facts and if so what?". If that person then reply saying "I think white and blacks are too different to exist together". Are you unable to question: "Are black and white people so different that this is true?" and "Does keeping black and white people separated creating a healthy balance in society that has a positive effect on people and society?"
The deduction of a person's speech is kindergarten-level breakdown of intentions. If you can't see what is harmful to groups of people, what is dividing people and what can lead to things like genocide and racism, then you might be too uneducated to spot these things. It's a very basic form of questioning someone's opinion that should be obvious for anyone with a normal education.
The problem is still that you view this as an authority, a "who" that decides something. It's like you intentionally misunderstand what "deduction" means in order to push the idea of an authoritarian agent deciding things.
Deduction bypass authority. It's the breakdown of a speech that informs if it's harmful or not, no one decides.
All IMO, of course. :up:
The problem is that that's your opinion, and you incredibly seem to be assuming that we're all going to agree if we just, well, whatever aside from simply stipulating that we must agree (and then who takes the lead to agree with?)
We don't all agree though. Not at all.
So someone has to make the decisions about what counts and what doesn't, etc.
Who gets to make those decisions and why do they get to make them? (And what do we do with the folks who don't agree with those decisions?)
If the arguments lead to a justified conclusion, that's how we decide. If not, then no decision, except a random one, seems possible. :chin:
Deduction, making a rational and reasonable argument bypass disagreement.
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, deduction bypass personal opinion, that's the point.
Quoting Terrapin Station
If the deduction of a speech that criticizes a specific ethnic group, concludes that it is not based on facts and that the criticism is coming from an emotional reaction out of a fear of the unknown (fear of another ethnicity). The deduction itself has proven it to be a harmful speech against this group and that the possible consequences of such a speech may stir up hate against this ethnic group, further pushing a division between people and the rise of racism between them. No one decided this, the deduction and breakdown of the speech decided this.
Why is it so hard to understand that "who" is irrelevant to this process? What actions to take after a deduction has concluded is another question entirely. This is about spotting harmful speech vs free speech. "Unlimited tolerance leads to intolerance" is something I think you know about? So the question is, how do we spot intolerance in order to limit that without infringing on free speech? To view this as a binary "free or controlled" question is an extremely simplified and naive take on the subject.
It's like you don't even read the arguments put forward and just keep pushing the "who's deciding" argument. It's already been answered.
Well, I have considered leaving the forum because of the increase in unpleasant experiences with immature and disrespectful people. I am strongly in favor of freedom of speech that is freedom to reason. However, statements like this are not what I consider the reasoning that we need to protect.
Quoting S
If I were a mod, I would nib this kind of posting in the bud. Post like that can ruin the forum because more mature people who are looking for intelligent and polite discussion what talk like that like they want trash thrown in their front yard. When talk like that takes over a forum, quality people leave.
Perhaps we want to understand reasoning a little better before making judgments about freedom of speech. Not all reasoning is the same. Humans can function on different levels from the level of alligators in the swap to the level of sages. Here is an explanation of the different levels of thinking...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8gpV-xjECM
The example of the post that should not be accepted as the freedom speech is not focused on the topic but is an intentional badgering that leads to trouble. That badgering is not defensible and it is not something we should protect.
That is beautiful! :hearts: That is the kind of thinking that attracts me to the forum and gives me hope for humanity. We must get back to education for the higher order thinking skills, so that we have a civilization that understands them. That is essential to defending our liberty and democracy.
The are two ways to have social order, culture or authority over the people. In the US we stopped transmitting our culture when education for technology replaced our liberal education. We killed the education Thomas Jefferson thought we must have to have a strong and united republic. Republic is our politic order. Democracy was our cultural/social order and it requires good logic skills and devotion to gaining knowledge. That leaves only authority over the people.
If we all understood the reasoning you gave us, we wouldn't need moderators because logical and social agreements would rule. We need moderators now because we have neither the understanding of logic nor the social agreements and things spin out of control without authority over us. That reality pushes the question of who has that authority and what qualifies someone to be a moderator, and should the accused have a defense and a trail? What is to prevent moderators from functioning like defensive alligators, and forcing us to submit to their authority simply because they have the power? I am new here, but I have been in forums for many years and mods who do not understand what you said may not be good mods. They can just be having a bad day, and some is banned with no defense. If we knew our history we might object to mods having that kind of power.
To Joe, they lead to a justified conclusion. To Bill, they do not. Now what do you do?
And we non-personally figure out if we've deduced a correct conclusion via?
Kind words are rare, thank you!
Quoting Athena
And this is the challenge really. I think that a balanced and strong moral compass comes out of a balanced life in which both positive and negative events form the identity of the adult thinker. This balance is however very hard to achieve for every person in a civilization. This is why decisions need to be formed out of a process, a deduction, a way of reaching a balanced answer through research rather than influenced by pushing a morality that is essentially a past down doctrine.
Throughout history, we have only taken positive steps forward in society by questioning the norms of the day with rationality and reason. Each time we have changed the world through that, we have improved the quality of life and well-being. Each time we have changed something with questionable logic or through other reasons than what equates to the most well-being for all, we have opened up society to the horrors of mankind.
The baseline should not be that someone in power has authority over others and through that creates balance. It should be through a process of logic based on the well-being and quality of life for all. Philosophical deduction and dialectics about everything should be the foundation of society. All can participate in the discussion, but only the most well-thought and rational arguments should be what guides society. If someone proposes an argument that is good for 10 people and someone disputes it by pointing out that there are 12 people and they have an argument that is good for all 12, that solution is the norm before someone points out something better.
This foundation is however never settled on a solution to fit all, it's a dialectic over time. Always balancing what is best for people.
In this case, the question is freedom of speech vs harmful speech. For those not using "the process of deduction" to reach a balanced answer, it pitches them to either binary side of the argument. Generally, this is the majority of how people behave with these types of questions, tribalism rather than actually thinking. But it's easy to get started, just think about the positives and negatives of each side, see if there's a way to find that balanced position. Harmful speech can destroy lives, it can lead up to such horrors as genocide if left unchecked, but blindly limiting it can lead to state control or even personal censorship that limits people's ability to think freely. How does one balance between freedom and protection of the people?
First off, pinpoint what harmful speech is, is it personal, general?
In a liberal place, all people are agents of their freedom, they make decisions for themselves and have obligations to society only through self-interest. It reflects much how human psychology actually works. Limiting peoples freedom leads to corruption and control by others over that freedom. But an unbalanced person could create havoc on other people if everyone is free to do anything. The self-limitations only work if a person already has a balanced moral code. And if one unbalanced person becomes powerful enough to have followers under their ideas, it could lead to things like Nazi-Germany.
So the conclusion here is that freedom of the individual is essential for the well-being of a person since it's the natural psychological state we have. But unlimited freedom can lead to very dark places. Unlimited freedom is therefore not the answer and we can't have unlimited freedom of speech since it can lead to harmful results. But how do we limit freedom of speech? First, we already apply laws to crimes like murder, physical harm, and even psychological harm through harassment, insults, libel etc. We have defined laws against individual actions against another individual. So defining harmful speech already has some basics within it, like those we have laws against, those defined by actual harm to others. So what is the balance between? Crime vs freedom? No, it has to be about the things that can't be proven as crimes since the causality can't be direct. If a large group of millions of people uses a speech that builds up hate for a specific group of people over a set of 10 to 20 years, that is not possible to punish in court or for any law to prosecute. Most people don't even realize transitions through this period of time and children growing up within this timeframe might even learn that this is the norm of society.
Harmful speech vs freedom of speech is therefore about long term consequences within a free society. By looking at it like this, it's easier to start seeing how to draw up a deduction to define when someone is making a harmful speech and when someone is expressing themselves backed up by the freedom of speech. For me, the baseline is those four points I made in an earlier post. By using them, we can define what someone is actually saying. Like for example, if someone is blaming Muslims for all terrorist attacks. Is that statement based on facts? Looking at those facts it's clear that there's a very small fraction of Muslims that are actually fundamentalists doing these terrorist acts, it's in the numbers and makes the statement not based on facts but through racism against this group. The statement is, therefore, a harmful speech and should be removed, blocked and erased since it's not an expression of freedom of speech, it's an expression that pitch groups against each other, it's creating conflict and rise of racism. If someone or many are killed down the line because of such speeches, it's comparable to when someone talks about killing someone and someone who hears it commits that act. It should not be tolerated because the causality is there. But if someone is criticizing how Islam has violent ideas in their religious texts and that there's a wide-spread limitation of women's rights that is destructive for people's well-being within Muslim states and you look into those facts, it's clear that there are violent ideas that some could twist into dangerous acts and women's rights are in fact limited to the point that they are not equal to men and violence within families, honor killings by husbands and brothers occur. This is a speech that is based on those facts and therefore is a reasonable and rational criticism against Muslim ways of life with the well-being of people in mind.
This is why so many jump to conclusions, because they do not look into facts, they do not understand where on the scale someone's speech is put and if someone use both facts and twist them into arguments that are racist, if people did breakdown their argument they should demand the person to put forth an argument that is without that racism otherwise be blocked or censored.
So back to the question of authority, the deduction process is the decision making for what is and what is not harmful. But the authority should be the one making this deduction. If a person does not have the qualifications to be able to do a deduction of this kind, they should not be in this position. In terms of moderators of a forum, they should be on that level, if they aren't, they are essentially advocating destructive censorship over free speech and if they don't care at all, they are putting out the red carpet for destructive causality.
This is why I think there's a point to the philosopher kings. I'm very critical against the unlimited democracy that we have today since it creates demagogy. The people in power should be elected, but having anyone who just decided to become a politician be able to reach those levels because they know how to play it rather than being balanced thinkers creates a very unbalanced society. The only reason why most western societies haven't crashed and burned is that we've had enough restrictions on these politicians to keep the machine from becoming too corrupted. But my opinion is that we should have a little more demand on the moral compass and knowledge that politicians have. We have it for any other occupation in society, but not politics.
I'm not sure what definition of nihilism you'd be using (especially so that it would be "destructive").
Because it's based on facts outside of Bill's and Joe's opinions, biases, and past down doctrines. That's why. If so, Joe might think the conclusion isn't what he hoped for, but it's proven to be best for most people and the most balanced conclusion at the time. For Bill, he just wants reality to be formed by his own opinion and is in the wrong.
This is what deduction is. You don't seem to understand the foundation of what a reasonable argument is composed of.
Quoting Terrapin Station
The facts. I'm wondering, have you ever done any deduction or induction? How do you reach conclusions in your philosophical thinking? Are you just expressing opinions? Because just expressing opinions is quickly picked apart in philosophy, you need to have more than just Bill and Joe's opinions.
And so who decides?
If the argument is solid it's the argument that decides. This has been answered many times to you, but I'm starting to believe you don't know what a rational argument is or how it works. I'm not going to answer anymore to someone who doesn't seem to understand the answers given. You aren't building on them, you are just asking your questions over and over without even listening to the answers given. If you aren't interested in a proper dialectic then there's no point.
Even if it were somehow possible for an argument to "decide for itself," we'd need to be able to recognize this, wouldn't we?
You see a blue pen. Someone says it's green. There's a definition of blue by measuring the spectrum of light bouncing from that blue pen. The spectrum shows its green. You are wrong, it is green. You might have color blindness, you might have an issue with how your brain process visual sensory information. Doctors find a tumor.
Did someone decide you had a tumor? Did someone decide the pen was green?
Someone say black people should be restricted in society. Why?
He says they do more crimes than white people. Is this true?
He says some black people in his neighborhood has committed crimes against him.
Conclusion: his opinion is based on flaws and emotion that when expressed push hate between black and white people, segregating them. This is harmful speech, concluded by breaking down his speech and analyzing the intention or the reason for it. It breaks point 4 and upheld point 2 and 3 of my previous list.
Someone say black people should be restricted in society. Why?
He says they do more crimes than white people. Is this true?
He says that statistics of the city has shown there to be more crimes among black people.
Conclusion: his opinion is dangerous in its conclusion but still within the freedom of speech since he presented a reason for his argument that demands taking a look at the facts. This simplified conclusion of his might stir up emotion, but it can also lead to looking into these statistics and researching why it is like it is. Further down the road, it might lead to tackling crime by working on the socioeconomics of the city. His argument might feel like a personal attack, it might look like it's point 2 and 3, but because it's based on facts in point 4, the causality is not leading to pitching black and whites against each other but improvements to the well being of society.
Pitching people's arguments against those four points, testing them through a rational deduction, gives an answer to if the opinion is harmful or constructive freedom of speech.
If you can't recognize what is a valid argument you are not educated enough to be able to break down an opinion to find out if it is. The list I presented earlier is a good starting point to validate someone's opinion. If you think there are flaws in that list, then that's in line with what I said that it's a process that, like anything else, need to be evolving. But the four points aren't an opinion, they're a framework based on the well-being of the self and others. If you can't agree to a foundation that is about the well-being of the self and others, then you need to present an argument for why we should form conclusions about a society based on anything else as a foundation and what that other thing should be.
The framework is the well-being of the self and others and the deductive argument through that decides if something is harmful or constructive through freedom of speech. No one decides out of opinion through this and if someone is unable to conclude if something is harmful through a rational argument because they lack the knowledge to do so, they should not be the ones doing the deduction. If this is something you cannot agree with you first need to explain why well-being of the self and others isn't a foundation to build a strategy on. It's the framework for the argument that decides what is what and it's the framework that removes the individual opinion about what is free speech and what is harmful speech. This is the basic elements for the argument's use.
Your writing is so beautiful and I regret I am out of time and energy. I what to share a couple of thoughts just to keep the momentum moving forward.
I want to nominate Daniel Kahneman for a noble prize. His explanation of our two systems of thinking is perhaps something we want to add to your thoughts of universal thinking verses being tribal. The issue is a most important education issue that we seriously need to discuss. We can not do better unless we learn better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8gpV-xjECM
Secondly, we used to read moral stories to our children. A moral is a matter of cause and effect. At the end of the moral story, we would ask, what is the moral of that story, and the answer would be something like, because he didn't give up he succeeded.... Because no one helped the Little Red Hen, she did not share her bread with them... the king and all the adults, were vain and foolish when they believed the tailors who said the cloth of the new suit would reveal who was smart and who was stupid, and when the king paraded down the street in his underwear, the little boy who called out he had no clothes on became the hero. We should not be afraid to call it as we see it.
When we understand morals as a matter of cause and effect they are easily changed with better reasoning. The other side is understanding morals are about cause and effect, is it is vital to our liberty and democracy to hold that understanding or morals. Our reality is as Cicero said- if we do the right thing we get good results and if we do the wrong thing we get bad results. That makes our moral judgment vitally important. No amount of prayers or animal sacrifices or popularity will get good results if we are wrong. Whatever happens, it is the consequence of what we say and do.
Our freedom of speech is the freedom to reason, not the freedom to say anything we please. We have anarchy confused with freedom and this is disastrous! Freedom comes with responsibility. Like it is foolish to walk a dog in a city without a leash, it is also foolish to allow some humans off the leash because their judgment is no better than their dog's. This is an education problem that is not being addressed by education for technology.
What happened to the person who says "There's a definition of blue by measuring the spectrum of light bouncing from that blue pen. The spectrum shows its green. You are wrong, it is green." Even if "the world itself" can do all of that somehow, for us to know about it, note it, do anything about it, someone has to think and assert those things, right?
Somehow? We have spectrometers that define the color spectrum. We can conclude that if someone defines a color different to other people and to results of facts a priori, there might be something wrong with that person's sight or visual centers in their brain, hence further looking revealed the tumor. There are no assertions with this. It's a deduction and research. It's how you are able to write on your computer, someone researched and used facts we have concluded in order to create the computer.
As an example, in science, in order to reach a theory, you need to prove it. There are no opinions involved. Someone research, develop the theory, test it, it's there, a priori.
You are making a Reductio ad absurdum fallacy. You haven't really cared for the argument presented.
Can we get to the rest of the sentence? "for us to know about it, note it, do anything about it, someone has to think and assert those things, right?"
You have been given answers to everything you asked, please re-read what has been said.
Right, so no, we can't get to that part of the sentence.
You are not clear in what you are asking. Please form an argument that is taking into account what has been said and ask again.
Again, take "There's a definition of blue by measuring the spectrum of light bouncing from that blue pen. The spectrum shows its green. You are wrong, it is green"
Some individual has to know this, and has to note it--that is, make a claim about it and so on, in order for us to take any action with respect to it, correct?
I think you are missing the point, the fact is that regardless of who is actually right, people will disagree even after going through your proposed tests of wrongness. When they do, an additional
appeal to what is objectively right isnt going to solve anything. The appeal that must be made is to an objective standard of some kind that functions in spite of peoples feelings about their rightness/wrongness. That way, no one can force their own standard on anyone else based on how convinced they are of the argument. For freedom of speech its the same reason that freedom of religion necessitates the seperation of church and state. Its a safeguard against when the process you are describing fails, and it does often fail. If it didnt, I would agree with you 100%.
Has to know what? That the spectrometer has that as its definition of blue? Here's another definition of pure math #0000ff.
If you see it like #0000ff and the spectrometer sees #00ff00, then based on the facts about how the cones and rods in our eyes work and how they are processed in the brain, we can conclude there is something wrong.
We can move on to talk about the nature of perception, but that wasn't the point of the argument. This example was part of the argument you ignored because... whataboutism.
So once again, please form an argument to answer what this topic is about rather than irrelevant nitpicks about other topics. The example was about the deduction of something a priori, that a specific color is something defined and if suddenly experienced differently, it's not proven as an error of the senses by opinion, but by deducing where something is wrong. The one who said it was blue or the one who said it was green.
Answers have been given to your previous questions.
The stuff in quotation marks. "There's a definition of blue by measuring the spectrum of light bouncing from that blue pen. The spectrum shows its green. You are wrong, it is green"
It's not a proposed test of wrongness, it's a test of whether the opinion has solid grounds outside of the emotional reaction to something. If you test the opinion expressed, to those points, you are deducing whether it's based on someone hating black people out of an emotional response to what they perceive as unknown, i.e racism, or if they have a comment about a statistic that is predominant about black people, therefore a constructive thing to express in order to keep a dialectic about the problems the statistic points at.
If the method can pinpoint when someone is essentially talking out of their ass and when they have a solid and reasonable argument as the basis for their opinion, it's the closest I've yet to see answering where to balance between free speech and restrictions of harmful speech.
If you are trying to find an objective "to end all" standard, I think that's a simplified way of looking at something that is always evolving and changing. If you develop a standard of what is right and what is wrong you are creating a doctrine to follow rather than a method to constantly find the best answer.
The method I proposed does not say if someone is right or wrong, it points to if the reason they are saying it is unsupported by anything other than an emotional opinion. Anyone with little knowledge of psychology knows that emotional foundation for an opinion rarely has any valid merit of being constructive. It might point to a problem, but the opinion is rarely right when tackling complex questions. In terms of racism, emotional opinions are probably never correct, valid or of any value to constructive discussions. They will feed racism, divisions between people etc. If you use the method I proposed you can see which opinions that has value to discuss and be passed through free speech and which ones to discard as emotional outbursts that feed the problem.
The method demands serious deconstruction of opinion to find it's validity within free speech. I'm of course talking about opinions that might look like harmful speech because that is where the line gets hard to pinpoint what is and what is not free speech.
I'm done answering these vague questions. Write an argument against what I've been saying on the topic. I'm done wasting time on your lazy dialectics.
Also:
https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-didn-t-see-the-colour-blue-until-modern-times-evidence-science
It has also been proven that some individuals have tetrachromatism, that is, they have somehow recover the much wider range of colours we enjoyed when we were reptiles.
Not just colours; everything we experience is partly affected by sensorial stimuli, partly by the contents of our mind, and partly by the context, including our own actions. Both squares are exactly the same shade of grey, if we look closer at the pixels; but if we look closer, there is no cylinder on a checkered mat. Both experiences are equally real; and mutually exclusive. The intention of the observer will determine one or the another, in a given moment.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/af/Gray_square_illusion.png
Ok, I understand all that, it doesnt address the failure of the process that necessitates the exclusion of exactly the kinds of things people call hate speech. You are familiar with the tragedy of the commons? As long as someone is able to ban certain opinions or expression of them, no matter how right they may be, someone will use that power to oppress. The worst atrocities in modern times emerge from this, and thats why free speech is do important. Besides, restricting what opinions people can express doesnt change thise opinions. The KKK wore hoods, they hid. I want my racists and crazies right in the open where I can see them. Shout your hate to the heavens at your discretion, so I know where to start looking when there is a lynching.
I'm not sure if you've read everything I've written in this forum thread, but I've pointed out examples of totalitarian states using restrictions as means of power and how the method doesn't give power to them, it rather takes it away from them. Be careful of false dilemma fallacies. The method doesn't restrict in a way that can be used as a tool of power, because if you argue through the method that someone should be restricted in their opinion and they then present an argument for why they expressed the opinion and it is a solid argument that falls in line of being constructive free speech, then you cannot use the tool of restriction as a means of power. The only way for someone to use restriction as a way to oppress and have power over others is if they restrict speech through their made-up reasons, not rational reasons.
The whole reason there is a discussion about restrictions is based on the common "Unlimited tolerance leads to intolerance". I agree I want to see the racists out in the open, but unrestricted free speech can also lead to manipulation of the population. It wasn't racists out in the open that built up the general populations opinions on Jews in Nazi-Germany, it was years of pointing them out as vermin that manipulated people into accepting the atrocities they went through. The way Trump is talking about Muslims and immigrants, totally breaking point four of my list, has changed how many act around immigrants. As someone who doesn't live in US, but has been there, it's easier to see the shift between a trip years ago and today. Not by the racists, but by how the general tension and day to day life looks like. I've seen it here in Sweden as well, how people were in defense of people in poverty but after the rise of right-wing populists who win votes by pushing fear and breaking all the points on my list, the general population has become colder against those in poverty. I've seen people who aren't racists who're slowly been shifting from trying to help the poor, to ignore them because they think the poor are criminals. When questioning them about why they shifted their point of view, they cannot pinpoint the reason, they "just know".
This is why unrestricted free speech can be truly destructive because keeping racists in the open demands that everyone is intelligent enough to not be manipulated by these people. The obvious ones are obvious, but some of them know how to manipulate. This is why populism has been growing so much because they use "freedom of speech" as their defense against anyone who criticizes their opinions. And because there is this idea about unrestricted freedom of speech, their voices has manipulated so many that a large portion of the world is infected by this manipulation of the population.
Unrestricted freedom of speech can lead to massive manipulation of the population by those who hide behind freedom of speech. As you said, the KKK hid behind hoods, but what happens when they hid behind freedom of speech and you cannot do anything to battle their manipulation of people desperate to find a black sheep for their problems? If you had a method to pinpoint when they are manipulating, when they don't have reasonable or rational opinions and through that be able to pierce their defense of hiding behind free speech, without restricting free speech. Isn't that a powerful weapon against the populism and growing common racism and polarization we see right now?
I think you stumbled into a line of arguments that wasn't about this specifically. It was an example to a point about deduction outside of opinion based on emotion and sensory experiences. I suggest you read all my previous posts.
I wouldn't say you ever started. Of course, the problem is that you are finding something very simple to be vague. No need for me to diagnose that. I just need to stop wasting time on this board
Disagree completely, I think you have it backwards on a few fronts and you still havent addressed what ive said, you’ve just referenced some other posts that support what you’ve said. I'm not going to look them up but I understand your argument above.
When you put in the restrictions on speech to prevent people being manipulated by hate speech, you also install the means for others to use those restrictions to suppress whatever speech they choose. Its simply not a good idea for some people to have the power over other people to control what they are allowed to say. Again, all you will do is get the manipulation speeches being done in private, which is arguably worse. No, the best way to fight hate speech is with other speech, to point out the hate speech for what it is. This actually fits with the view you hold already about good argument and reason winning out.
Restricting free speech (to a certain extent, im not a free speech absolutist like Terrapin) is about control. That control might be fine in the hands if someone who truly has everyones best interest at heart (although I doubt it, as even the best intentioned person can be wrong) but the exact same logic and method can be used by bad actors with other, more nefarious interests at heart and has.
I do not disagree with what you wrote about color perception, it was merely a way to define my point. Maybe crude in its formulation, but it was not specifically about colors and perception, but about deduction. The idea that there is a certain scientific baseline for color and if the perception is way off, there might be something way off with the sensory observation of that color compared to the baseline of human biology. Maybe it was a bad example, but if you read behind the lines, I think the point was about something else entirely.
From what I remember, I referenced my previous posts in this thread. If you didn't read those then I don't really know why you argue against me since my points have been argued clearly before this in this very thread. I won't repeat myself out of someone else's laziness in order to counter an argument I already countered. If that is the way you like to keep the dialectic I believe you are more interested in just pointing out your opinion rather than actually discussing the topic.
Quoting DingoJones
You haven't understood a word about the method I described earlier. What you are saying is falling in line of a false dilemma fallacy ignoring the nuances of what I've been saying.
Quoting DingoJones
No, it's not. Only if your intention is control. If your intention is to promote well-being for the self and others while keeping the freedom of the individual you measure and calculate the methods according to those parameters. You straw man my argument into a binary idea of restrictions being just about control, nothing of what I said points to it being about control.
Quoting DingoJones
You misunderstand or intentionally misunderstand the method I proposed to make that argument. As I said, the method also makes it impossible for those trying to restrict free speech as a form of power, to be able to control free speech. In what way can a person use my method to do this? Give me an example and we can create a dialectic to improve the method further.
They can fail to reason, or both parties could have equally valid arguments. I do not think it avoids the problem at all really, since its still going to rely upon making arguments.
Quoting Christoffer
You arent listening. Someones intention WILL be control, your method is a mechanism they WILL use. Also, it isnt necassary. Free speech solves the problem better than your method. The two combined might be even better still. Just apply your method via free speech and thats a social policy I can behind.
I am not straw-manning you, perhaps if you are not too frustrated we could start there. Restricting someone's speech is control. You are controlling what they say, or not saying. The irony is that you have straw-manned me here, since I didnt say it was ONLY about control. Of the things that your argument is about, control is one. Thats what I mean.
Quoting Christoffer
Thats because, as I pointed out, your method is not accounting for its inevitable failure. People will fail to reason but still be equally convinced they are right. We need to safeguard against this, free speech is the best way to do that.
It was not a bad example; we need to use concrete images and situations to make abstract ideas more conveyable. My point was that, while true reality exists, it´s not for us humans to know, as all acts of knowing are active representations that say as much about us than about the phenomenon, if not more. Thus, to establish a permanent, unique, universal meaning to an action of communication (not just literal speech, but ALL OUR ACTIONS and inactions are acts of communication and expression) can only be done by imposing by force the meaning generated from a given subjective (individual o collective) observer. Rationality does not prevent that; Logic and Mathematics is only a lingua franca that humans can use to communicate among ourselves and with Nature. What is derived from rational experimentation and debate is not "the truth" but objective knowledge. Objective means shared: some information is given shape, turn into "an object" so that it can be pass on. But shared representations about reality are never reality; they are only the standpoint of a collective observer, no matter how numerous.
A majority of people interpreting similarly an action can impose, by force, their meaning on the rest of society. But that is not truth, it´s only a mirror that give us light, but reflected and modelled after the observer.
The democratic alternative is to use reason, individual experience and social communication to make a "mirror" large enough to reflect phenomena with a maximum influence of nature and a minimum influence of personal or collective minds in the output. But this is only possible if all communications are allowed, even "wrong" ones, so far as they are not in fact part of a procedure to commit real crimes, such as personal death threats or pointing out who should be killed.
Your concept of speech acts as efficient causes of future crimes are probably based on your current lack of knowledge of how chaotic systems work, how the individual psyche works, and the complexity of the network of mutual interactions that human behaviour is inmersed in. No offence!
Roll a dice? Seriously, what can you do if there is no justified logical conclusion, but you need (for whatever reasons) one? Or maybe you/we can change our aims so that we don't need this decision...? The options seem limited.
I think I'm assuming that if we must reach agreement, for whatever purposes, it's a matter of accepting that we must agree, and then doing so. It's not the "stipulating" that's forcing our agreement, it's our need or desire for one, and the practical and pragmatic realisation that agreement is the only way of achieving it. In your text above, I suggest you replace "stipulating" with "accepting".
Or we could agree not to agree.... :chin:
So, for one, you seem to be taking me to be suggesting that "Who gets to make the decisions and why do they get to make them" is something that he'd not be able to answer. I was sincerely asking to see what his answer would be (at which point, for whatever reasons, he decided to act as if no one would be making decisions, etc.--they'd somehow make themselves).
Re laws in general, I'm basically a minarchist. I'm a minarchist because I don't believe that anarchy is possible. Under anarchy, someone/some group is going to take control via organized force, and then it's no longer anarchy.
My basic approach to law is to keep especially punitive laws as minimal as possible, with the aim of avoiding more laws/more control of others. That's the gist of minarchism.
That more or less puts me in the Libertarian camp, in the sense of the U.S. Libertarian party. However, I don't agree with their approach to economics. I think it's too important to make sure that everyone has food, shelter, health care, education, etc. as they desire. So I take a (very idiosyncratically) socialist approach to the economy. Hence I describe myself as a libertarian socialist.
In any event, I'm definitely a "nihilist" on many things, in the sense that I realize that things like values (ethical, aesthetic, etc.), meaning, etc. are not to located in the objective world.
You ended your comment with the following:
Is there anything that Tom, Dick, or Harry could have done 10 years ago that would matter? From your comment, it seems only some type of business fraud would matter to XYZ Corp. What if he murdered someone 10 years ago? Probably a dumb example because he would belong in jail. But what about something less extreme? What if they raped somebody and got out of prison early for good behavior? How about a child abuser?
As those are probably ridiculously ungenerous examples, I guess I will just get to my point. If I own corp XYZ, I am aware that millions of people can fulfill the role of "faceless functionary". So yes, if they groped someone 10 years, that is an easy "on to the next candidate." Now I would assume there are some legal problems as you probably need cause to fire such a person. But that is different from the philosophical (hypothetical? not sure this is correct use of philosophical?) position of "of course I want to find someone better than the groper." And to be clear, I do not mean "better" at their job. You are right, that could not effect their work at all. I just prefer not to work with such a person...
...I may have just understood your point. Are you suggesting that all humans are flawed, and if I knew anyone well enough, I would know of flaws that disqualify them? Hmmmm, never mind, I know at least a few people (maybe I should say a couple, certainly limited) who have never done anything that could be considered as bad as groping (assuming I draw a line that forgives behaviors before a certain age).
I apologize if I interrupted the current exchange while referring to a post that is a few days old. Please do not hesitate to ignore this and continue :) If I even make the cut, I guess the whole post might be deleted as gibberish.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Indeed there are things that could, would, and should matter 10 years later.
Let's say that Tom was being considered for a job in a bank, and had been convicted of embezzlement 10 years earlier. That would be a fatal problem for his application.
Let's say that Dick was being considered for a job in a bank as a security guard, and had an arrest for assault and battery. He paid a fine, no jail time. Security guard? Minor assault? Might be an advantage. Hire him.
Let's say that Harry was being considered for a job as loan officer. 10 years ago in college a woman accused him of attempting to force her to have sex with him. There was no police investigation, the college took no action after a cursory investigation, They were both 18 years old at the time. The bank has no idea what happened, except the record on social media revived by @me2. Apparently it wasn't very serious; the college or the police would probably have acted if a claim of rape had been made, especially if an exam showed that he had raped her. However, none of that happened.
I say it should be ignored because they were both juveniles at the time, both capable of misinterpreting the other's signals. No rape occurred. The woman didn't accuse him of attempted rape, but attempted sex (somewhat different). He has no criminal record; he has an excellent employment record since graduation (3.9 gpa). This ghost from his past is too tenuous to worry about. Hire him.
In the context of #me2, women (or men) can make an accusation of merely inappropriate behavior that is usually unsubstantiated or unwitnessed, and expect that everyone should believe the veracity of their accusation. No, sorry. Unsupported accusations are not good enough. Coming forward and accusing someone of unpleasant or criminal behavior that happened 10 or 20 years ago when the claim can not now be investigated by more than hearsay evidence is not fair. Now, some events that happened in the past can be investigated. If a rape investigation was made, the evidence (tissue sample) probably still exists. If someone murdered someone 10 or 20 years ago and was not previously accused but now has been, police can usually make some kind of investigation and either find evidence or no evidence.
The standards that are being applied in all sorts of situations in response to statements or actions which may be in fact innocuous often border on hysteria. Institutions are SO concerned about negative publicity that they sometimes go to quite unjust extremes to distance themselves from someone who said the wrong thing, or the right thing in the wrong way... etc.
I agree with everything on false allegations (and most of everything else). And unquestionably there are some confusing aspects of #me2. For example, as far as I can tell, many (most?) relationships (especially for younger people) begin with a #me2 moment that in that instance both people are OK with...that may be changing in the era of me2, but slowly.
But there is one other aspect to this (which may have nothing to do with what you were talking about?). I will use a personal example to illustrate:
About 20 years ago, I dressed up as the General Lee (the car from Dukes of Hazzard) for Halloween. Now at the time, I did not even consider that there was anything wrong with that. However, I now know that the car is named after a hero of the confederacy. The car also has the symbol of the confederacy on it (the confederate flag). Now while the confederacy was about more than slavery and racism, those were certainly two defining aspects. Now if I was to be fired (or not hired) someday because a photo surfaced showing me dressed in orange with a confederate flag; I would think it fair to terminate me based on the implication that I might not work well with other races.
My example clearly does nothing to address false accusations, but I think it does show that even a minor incident (if known to be true), can be enough to just try the next person - Well I guess it "shows" to me, hopefully it makes sense to others?
I don't much like southerners as a group, never had any sympathies for the Confederacy, believe reconstruction was too mild and ended too soon, etc. But the fact of the matter is, the Confederacy is part of American History, and so is Robert E. Lee. The car from the Dukes of Hazard, though, can hardly embody anything significant about American History, Lee, or the Confederacy.
If you were fired or not hired because you once dressed up as a car which, in the TV series had the confederate flag on its roof and was called the General Lee, then I think the personnel department at the firm to which you applied should probably be examined for psychiatric disorders.
Really, there is something quite neurotic in the obsession some people have with statuary, names, and symbols here and in other countries. That would go for people who feel they owe allegiance to the long-gone Confederacy as well as people who are enraged by seeing the symbol.
I believe in achieving social justice, but social justice isn't about symbols, statuary, and names. It's about the fair distribution of material resources and the opportunity to make desired economic choices and pursue opportunities.
-@Bitter Crank
Dang, the world must be really infuriating these days as everyone seems to be increasingly suffering this neurosis :)
As someone who does not really understand words being offensive (I think it is attached to my inability to read emotions), I am fairly confident I understand what you are getting at. But even though I am rarely offended, I have always been aware of actions or words that highly offend others. Here is an example of where my head is at on this sort of issue:
As a history student I remember learning about the treatment of Native Americans in the modern age. There was a decent amount of research and effort put into the answer to the question "what should we call these people." Indians? Native Americans? Indigenous Americans, First Peoples, etc. Most students immediately say, "Indians? That's not appropriate." But actually a few tribes prefer to be called Indians (kind of owning the term). Some prefer Native Americans. Others are horribly offended by "Indian" or "Native". So what is right? Whatever the hell they want to be called. Now, they can't get too mad when I am wrong the first time, but if I was friends with, or worked with them and on the first day they said I should call them First Peoples (on the rare instance that I actually need to refer to their ethnicity), can't I make that effort? Similarly, if black Americans are reminded of terrible truths every time they see a confederate flag, I don't mind not showing these flags (but of course we still teach it in history class). I guess you would respond that I am just talking about common courtesy, not some legal issue one should be fired over? - fair enough I suppose
I guess I would need to do some research; how many Germans feel their freedoms are severely limited because they can't have Nazi flags?
- @Bitter Crank
I certainly admit, that if this is accomplished it is problem solved. In fact, we could still fire people for nonsense reasons, but it wouldn't matter because there would be another job waiting or some other form of safety net...In my mind we only worry about these people being fired because we all MUST make a living. But if that MUST were gone, who cares if someone is fired? If they really enjoyed that job, surely they can still pursue similar efforts? Possibly in a more rewarding environment with people that are less easily offended?
Thanks for helping me clarify my thoughts, I can't find much wrong with your ideas, but I am not quite sold either.
Fair enough.
I once over heard some black workers discussing terms: "We used to be called niggers, then it was negroes, then it was blacks, then it was African Americans. I don't know what we'll be called next." True story.
Some people use the term "aboriginal" for Australia's 'first people' and for Canada's 'first people'. Indians, redskins, native Americans, American Indian, etc. I try to use whatever term people seem to prefer. Niggers and redskins is pretty clearly not a good choice.
Hair, the musical. You familiar with it?
Bear in mind this very popular musical is from the 1960s, a much different time than now.
Here are the lyrics:
I'm a
Colored spade
A nigger
A black nigger
A jungle bunny
Jigaboo coon
Pickaninny mau mau
Uncle Tom
Aunt Jemima
Little Black Sambo
Cotton pickin'
Swamp guinea
Junk man
Shoeshine boy
Elevator operator
Table cleaner at Horn & Hardart
Slave voodoo
Zombie
Ubangi lipped
Flat nose
Tap dancin'
Resident of Harlem
And president of
The United States of Love
President of
The United States of Love
(and if you ask him to dinner you're going to feed him:)
Watermelon
Hominy grits
An' shortnin' bread
Alligator ribs
Some pig tails
Some black eyed peas
Some chitlins
Some collard greens
And if you don't watch out
This boogie man will get you
Booooooooo!
Booooooooo!
So you say . . .
I've heard some of those words used to reference blacks - but not recently.
-@Bitter Crank
That is exactly what I understood to be the correct option.
So I guess I just have to decide how authoritarian I want to be when others can't be bothered to make such an effort :chin:
And thanks for the dos of 60s culture. No, I was not familiar with Hair, the musical; but nice to learn about the musical that defined rock musicals :)
What I mean by "evolution of the general consensus" is this. Let's take something (relatively) harmless as an example. While untrue, a lot of the time commercials will tell you that a product has 20% fewer calories or is a fat-free option. Usually, they can make these claims either because they downsized the product or used substitutes for certain ingredients that do the same thing. These products are not more healthy for you, and will most likely just cost more, however, the general consensus is that these products are better for you.
The corporations that make these products make a lot of money through these admittedly pretty scummy business practices, so they have a large interest in keeping the public uninformed. The government only helps these corporations by doing studies that make these options look good by extension, (reports on obesity rates, for example) and educating elementary school children about how fats and sugars can be bad in excessive amounts, and so they grow up to make the connection that they should buy these "healthy" products for their health. So, the obesity rate stays the same, corporations get more money for less product, and since the government only had good things to say about these scummy businesses and their activities, the general consensus is that they are good, even though really nothing has changed.
So, since the people with all the power decided that these new products are good, and no one can talk about how bad they are since the government put in a good word for them, we are stuck at an impasse. You may think that this is silly, but try to tell your mother that her fat-free Yoplait yogurt isn't actually better for her and you would have a very hard time convincing her.
So, I think that the job of a government should be to allow all people (even if they are not generally agreed with) to speak. Violence should not be tolerated under any circumstances, no matter the side, (even if they are generally agreed with). At least to me, telling a group of people that they can't talk, even if their beliefs are scientifically inaccurate, is just subjugation. Sure they are wrong, but you should have to prove that first, or getting rid of the ignorant can easily be used as an excuse of the simply ambitious.
Besides, if you're really right, you shouldn't have anything to worry about. If you can't defend yourself on an even playing field then you deserve to lose.
I understand that we don't always have an even playing field, but perhaps that should be a goal we strive for. Letting everyone say what they want no matter how rude or outlandish may hurt a lot of feelings, but that will just make our ideologies stronger, compared to cowering behind legislation and hoping that our ideas don't get outpaced by the people living in the shadows. For the sake of everything we hold to be true, we need to challenge everything we hold to be true, because if those ideas don't hold up when they are really challenged, we get to die with them.
Amen.
I tried to respond to a few specifics to reduce the length. I may have taken things out of context and deserve to be soundly corrected if so (to prepare I know the first quote is out of context, but I feel it helps to show where our views clash).
Also, I am not sold on imposing speech regulations, but I am responding with some of my thoughts that cause me to lean that way.
- @TogetherTurtle
I really like the sound of that. A bit poetic, but still, well said.
However, we are on a philosophy forum. That is who we are. How many of this type of conversation have you had with "normal" people? (sorry on the use of "normal", I can't think of the right word for the 99% of people who can't be bothered to put 5 minutes of thought into this sort of thing) You can see they are actually in pain as their ideas are challenged.
Personally, I only have 1 friend that enjoys critically analyzing their own worldview. Everyone else is just waiting for Fox News, or MSNBC, to validate their opinion. Sorry, bit of a rant. But hopefully the point is made that the vast majority of the population is very unlikely to "challenge everything they hold true."
ZBT
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the underlying idea of democracy is that power should be distributed. I never implied that the power would disappear, simply that it would be spread among the populous as equally as possible. Maybe that was the part you took out of context.
As far as physical harm goes I am a pacifist, but as far as mental harm goes I'm a bit more lenient. Let me explain this a bit.
To physically harm or kill someone is the ultimate silencer. For animals, this can be advantageous because the weak dying off improves the likelihood that offspring will be strong and live on. Humans have ascended past that. Our medical problems and disadvantages can be fixed through our own knowledge, and therefore the traditional form of evolution can be bypassed or even accelerated by our own knowledge. All of this adds up to my conclusion on the subject: killing or maiming physically is a waste of time because it won't make us better. In fact, I would argue the contrary.
In a sense, I believe that we have shifted the burden of natural selection from the structure of our bodies to the content of our minds, and if we wish to be strong and survive when we are threatened, we have to make our ideas strong. Similarly to how we test our bodies, our ideas need to be tested in a "mental combat" of sorts, the strong learning from their experience and the weak either escaping to live another day to become stronger or having their ideas die. This mental combat is more commonly known as a debate or argument. There, of course, is a difference between those two, debates being seen as more civil and arguments as more confrontational. This leads to your example of Susie's feelings.
Let's say that Susie is in fact hurt by being called a doo-doo head. You could say that she is not strong enough to just take it and think of it as just ignorance. While she is certainly weak in that situation, you could also say she is only that weak because of the aggressor in this situation, who is socially dominant to her. If even for a short while that inequality was abolished and both sides were on an equal playing field, I think that Susie would be considerably more likely to hold her own. So, if she were on that even ground and her feelings were still hurt, I would say not that she necessarily deserves the pain, but that she is weak. Of course, name calling doesn't really prove anything, so no actual harm is done to the "ecosystem of thought" I have theorized, but Suzie's feelings are hurt, and while I do feel for her because I have been in that situation before, I made it out and I believe she will too.
I think it's generally safe to say that while some people are significantly more physically strong than others and hold more potential for that, most people have the same capacity for thought. It may not be as developed due to neglect as others, but that potential is still there. Of course, there are people with learning disabilities, but no one is born with an inferior "brain type" (in parallel with a body type) that judges whether they will be able to do math or English or art better. You could make parallels between learning disabilities and physical weakness, but learning disabilities are generally seen as an illness and a lanky body type is generally seen as just a result of the genetic lottery.
So, while sometimes harsh words can do more damage than a punch, I am generally more lenient to words because as long as you are a healthy human, you should generally be able to take it to a reasonable extent. It's fairer, of course not entirely fair, but it is fairer.
However, physical violence or killing is detrimental because you are removing ideas from the pool. To use the example of evolution from earlier, it's as if a group of deer had been evolving for thousands of years to become strong in their environment and then a space rock the size of a dime came down and pierced straight through one of their brains. All of that progress is lost, and even if the next winter was going to be cold and that deer had thin fur, it could have just as easily been the deer next to it with thick fur.
As for this, I don't know. I tend to stay out of economic discussions because much like politics they just tend to brew trouble. I will say that generally, I lean towards, as a friend of mine once put it, "equal starting conditions and earned ending conditions." though I don't know how economically viable that is. As for how I think of it in terms of violence, it could be, but I might need more time to think about it. Right now I'm thinking that as long as you don't become a second class citizen due to your low economic status, then suffering from your poor financial decisions is usually ok. However, if it is meant to aggressively target people with certain ideas, then I would consider it in the same vein of physical violence, in terms of how you are essentially removing ideas from the pool.
First off, children are not fully grown and their brains are not fully developed, automatically disqualifying them from any sort of debate simply because they are so grossly underqualified.
As I said before, people with learning disabilities shouldn't be targeted until we can make their brains work more like the norm, so they're out as well.
I agree with your decision not to use words like intelligence. As it is now, we don't work on an even playing field and there are a lot of people with more power than you or I that may or may not agree with us. It isn't a battle we are fighting anyway.
You said that 49% can't defend themselves, and I think that sounds accurate. 26 percent of the global population is below 18, and most studies say that the brain isn't developed fully until 25, so I would round up to 30 to make it fair. Now we have 19%. A quick google search got me 10% of the population with learning disabilities from most sources. I think that there is more than 9% of the population that may not be able to defend themselves like that, however. I suppose that's where education comes in. Since you gave a percentage, I'll give one too. I'd say that the percentage of the population that has an above average IQ is 16%.
So, 40% are unqualified but could be with more research and/or time, 16% are overqualified, 9% are underqualified, and about roughly 35% can defend themselves against the lower and cower from the higher. This is the uneven field we have now. I think we can both agree that making the 16% stupider is not the answer, so to create an even playing field, we need the entire (eligible) human population to have roughly even critical thinking and speaking skills. Luckily, these things can be learned.
One negative to using these parameters to decided eligibility is discrimination. It isn't uncommon for countries to declare their dissidents mentally unstable and for them to be sent to the gulag. That is one reason I don't like only certain people (even if their qualifications are outstanding) holding power. Tyranny by the masses exists but is nearly impossible to create on an even playing field like what we discuss. After all, how do you push a boulder toward someone to crush them when they're pushing back just the same?
Quoting ZhouBoTong
In sociology, it is noted that not only do majorities often look down on minorities but that the opposite is also often true. In this case, they likely think "why do I have to do the thinking?" or "I'm going to die one day and none of this will matter anyway." and we agree that they are short-sighted. But what makes us different from them? It can't be biological because both of my parents and my sibling are like that. It could be a mutation but I don't think evolution works that fast. I think it has to do with our situations. I have no idea what would cause such a thing, but throughout history, people have risen against the tide to question everything and have made great strides in their fields. I wonder what makes us this way? I think it merits study.
After all of this, however, I think it's worth noting that evolution does not work toward a specific goal, only toward strength in an organism's current environment. Perhaps when it comes to the climate that is the human social structure, we are weak and will be killed by the strong. I just hope that their ambition for quick strength doesn't collapse on them and the rest of us. That could be fatal. On the other hand, we could be the strong ones, and it's up to us to build the future responsibly.
I think that the others can be won over, but only if we can justify it to them. One mistake I see often is appearing as a savior or hero. You seem too intelligent for that, however. I would recommend trying to level with others, showing them they don't have to be a super genius to understand at least a little of the world around them. We are more or less the same after all, we all are, the only place we really differ wildly is in our minds. Let us build up those as our ancestors built up their finger strength and agility, however, instead of going one generation at a time, we can go much, much faster.
Dang TogetherTurtle, you don’t mess about. I thought I wrote a lot. Know that I read everything, but since I agree with a lot of it, I am just going to pick a few points of contention (still rather long):
[i]Correct me if I'm wrong, but the underlying idea of democracy is that power should be distributed. I never implied that the power would disappear, simply that it would be spread among the populous as equally as possible. Maybe that was the part you took out of context.
- @TogetherTurtle[/i]
I definitely took that part out of context. But it is still pertinent. In this case, what if everyone votes to limit harmful speech? I get that calling it a “right” places it outside the whims of democracy; but we already limited this “right” by declaring you cannot yell “fire” in a theatre along with a few other similar examples. If it is not an absolute “right”, then we can debate its applicable extent. (and I apologize, I may have been traumatized by too many weak libertarian/min-archist arguments where all government power is a bad thing – so I may have taken that bit in a seemingly strange direction).
I entirely agree with your thoughts on physical violence. However, once there is no physical violence, does that mean that there is no coercion, oppression, subjugation, etc? Well I guess if we actually eliminate all physical violence, I will be so busy celebrating that I would not be worried about those other problems But after a few years I will get bored and start looking for a way to improve society again. Hmmmm, my boredom probably should not lead to me forcing my viewpoint on others…but certainly enough for me to consider the possibility.
On physical combat vs mental combat:
I don’t disagree with too much but feel the need to point out (as you seem to view people as far more equal in capabilities than I do) that just as some have genetic (nature) and upbringing (nurture) advantages for physical activities, others will have genetic and upbringing advantages when it comes to mental strengths. In your next paragraph I see that you agree for physical aspects…why does this change when we start talking mental capabilities? – I think that you are saying that once a certain mental level is reached, then they will be capable of defending their thoughts; but how would they defend them from someone who has reached a much higher level? I still do not consider myself immune to sophistry (I like to think I am, but probably not) and I have put a huge amount of time and effort into honing my thoughts, relative to the average person. This may be a bit of a tangent. Am I talking about defending ideas while you were really discussing self-esteem(“I made it out and Suzie will too” – TT)?
[i]“I think it's generally safe to say that while some people are significantly more physically strong than others and hold more potential for that, most people have the same capacity for thought. It may not be as developed due to neglect as others, but that potential is still there. Of course, there are people with learning disabilities, but no one is born with an inferior "brain type" (in parallel with a body type) that judges whether they will be able to do math or English or art better. You could make parallels between learning disabilities and physical weakness, but learning disabilities are generally seen as an illness and a lanky body type is generally seen as just a result of the genetic lottery.”
- @TogetherTurtle[/i]
Well based on what I said before, I obviously disagree with this to an extent. All brains have the same capacity? Am I correct to use the word potential in place of capacity? I get they don’t mean the exact same thing, but it helps me to understand. I STRONGLY disagree that all brains are born with the same potential / capacity. Ignoring learning disabilities and upbringing factors, there still seem to be as many varieties of mental capability as there are physical. As someone in education, it blows my mind to think that the difference between two 10-year old students is all due to Nurture. It goes against experience. I would argue that brains are also part of the genetic lottery. Anecdotal example: When I was in elementary school, my dad used to ask my brother and I math questions on percentages. He taught me shortcuts that made math easier, and I still use some of them to this day. However, my brother will struggle today with the same percentage questions that were easy for me by age 9 (my brother has no learning disabilities or anything, he always scored right around the 50th percentile – I am not extremely bright, but way ahead of my brother – in any way that is measurable anyway). Weren’t our upbringings as similar as possible? I get that as close as possible, still leaves a lot of wiggle room, but I think there are as many mental “gifts” as physical “gifts”.
You said that 49% can't defend themselves, and I think that sounds accurate.- @TogetherTurtle
I was actually saying that 49% of adults that DO NOT have learning disabilities, will struggle to defend themselves. Perhaps this will make my point, 90% will also struggle to defend themselves from the top 1%. The mental equivalent of all pro soccer players vs. Messi and Ronaldo. Sure, they have developed their skills to a very high level. Generally speaking, they can defend themselves very well, but when they come up against the champ (not me) – that person who has been reading Kant since age 12 (and for some reason enjoyed it), and it just made sense – they will not be able to keep up (by the way, I count myself as part of that 90% mentally. I can see that I get things quicker than most, but every now and then I meet a really smart person and think there is a bigger gap between they and I, than between me and the average 10 year old).
[i]But what makes us different from them? It can't be biological because both of my parents and my sibling are like that (hilarious, I used the same logic to say the difference can’t be due to upbringing – hmmm, I think we are both right). It could be a mutation but I don't think evolution works that fast. I think it has to do with our situations. I have no idea what would cause such a thing, but throughout history, people have risen against the tide to question everything and have made great strides in their fields. I wonder what makes us this way? I think it merits study.
- @TogetherTurtle[/i]
Agreed. So far, my experience suggests that INTEREST is the single greatest factor in achieving a high mental level in any field. Natural ability matters. Access to resources and upbringing matters. But interest is what separates the all-time greats from the rest of us. I am very interested in our discussion – but notice I am not interested enough to put in 5-6 hours of research so that I can cite studies that support my view of mental capabilities varying just like physical abilities (obviously I would ignore any studies that supported your side, hehe). Interest creates opportunity. Time and effort are the key to excelling at anything (although without natural talent you will be limited), and interest makes the time and effort easy and fun.
[i]On the other hand, we could be the strong ones, and it's up to us to build the future responsibly…One mistake I see often is appearing as a savior or hero.
– @TogetherTurtle[/i]
Well you don’t have to worry about that from me. I am here because I am interested. The unreachable goal is that I have tested my thoughts and no longer have any “incorrect” ideas (or that all my ideas are the “best” of the known options). If someone wants to read our thoughts and take the next step to implement them, that is their business (I will be happy to get involved if they can show that it is reasonably likely to succeed).
You seem too intelligent for that, however. – @TogetherTurtle
Well I am still new here, give me time and you may change your mind :grimace:
I would recommend trying to level with others, showing them they don't have to be a super genius to understand at least a little of the world around them. – @TogetherTurtle
I agree, they just need to be interested. Are they?
[i]We are more or less the same after all, we all are, the only place we really differ wildly is in our minds. Let us build up those as our ancestors built up their finger strength and agility, however, instead of going one generation at a time, we can go much, much faster.
- @TogetherTurtle[/i]
I hope you are right, but I fear individualism will prevent people from coming together to accomplish great things. Can we act as a group without a massively powerful entity (like government) leading the way?
Please let me know if you feel there were any important points that I did not address.
Thanks
ZBT
I believe that this changes when we talk about mental capabilities because we are also talking about a hypothetical even playing field. I like to think of it as a gladiatorial arena for ideas. There are no social stigmas blocking the way or regulations on speech impeding truth. If we also make both people roughly equal in intelligence then all that's left to see is what side makes more sense at the end.
I also like to think that anyone can attempt to learn anything at any time, contrary to certain aspects of physical strength being time-gated (For instance, it's very rare to see a 12-year-old with strong abs, or a 50-year-old for that matter). While a child can't understand quantum physics, once they are old enough to learn, they can keep that knowledge their entire lives barring any kind of neurological degeneration. There are some parallels between physical and mental strength, however, that is a good point.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I agree that it does seem that way sometimes, but there is little scientific evidence for it as far as I know. If I am wrong, I'd like to know, but unfortunately, we as a species don't know much about something as close as our own brain. If I were to make a guess, I would say that the reason you learned better than your brother could be left up to the few differences you had in your upbringing. If there is anything I've learned from just observing anything really, it's that small changes in starting conditions can bring massive changes in the ending conditions. It may seem unreasonably small, but one connection made in your brain while you were out playing alone one day could have made it easier for you to understand your father's methods, and from there it would just increase. At least in my experience, small things don't matter often, but when they do, they matter significantly.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Of course! How could I have forgotten something so simple yet so important? Interest is so important. So, the question is now, what causes interest? (I think this is why non-philosophers find so little interest in discussions like this, it's just one question to another.)
I think I would fall back to my theory on mental "gifts" for this one. Interest might be sparked by small connections made be things that might even seem irrelevant. It's similar to how an art critic might see things in a piece that no one else would think of. It's almost the genesis of that whole concept. By chance, a toddler makes a connection in their mind between two things and 15 years later they're majoring in anthropology. What is it, 10,000 thoughts a day for the average person? That leaves a lot of room for the dominos to all fall in just the right way for them to have an interest. It also leaves a lot of room for someone to have no interest at all.
This leads into your point on interest later on. I'll get back to that.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
So, I have a bit of an opportunity to talk about my crazy sci-fi ideas it seems
First, I believe that gene tailoring and cybernetics could easily close that gap between the 99% and the 1%. We need more research into those fields, a whole lot more, but if we wish to compare our ideas, the 12-year-old with a photographic memory does have an advantage over the 66-year-old Alzheimer's patient. But, could that advantage be nullified by not only curing the disease but giving the older gentleman an extension to his own brain? As I mentioned before, I believe that we can take our evolution into our own hands now, and we can use that to evolve our ideas. Essentially, every human mind can be equal because we can make it that way. Whether or not this is economically viable or even acceptable by any society in its current state is unknown to me. I generally advocate for getting most of our materials and energy from space, so I know that the materials exist for such an uplifting, but I don't know if we can even get along long enough to do something like that. Regardless, this is what I mean by an "even playing field". Even without this, however, I do still believe that upbringing does mostly effect intelligence and that everyone could possibly be intelligent, but a lot are doomed from the start due to social factors. Even rich children can be raised to be dumb because they were spoiled, and poor children can get straight A's and become doctors. It has to be something that we're missing, that everyone can experience. I think that stalking children their entire lives goes against some ethical rules for scientists, however. That's too bad. As for it being a genetic factor, we know what almost all of the human genome does, and there's no "better at math gene" as far as I'm aware.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I do think this is funny, but perhaps we were both wrong. If it was genetic, it could simply be recessive. If it was upbringing, it could have been slight differences. There are reasons to believe and refute both, but I can't help but feel that there's something that we just haven't stumbled across yet. Something that could revolutionize the human race.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
And so we reach my current idea on what that is. Interest. Humorously, interest is an interesting topic. What drives man to explore, to do something new? Not only that, but how does interest come about? What is it, whether it be a miracle of brain chemistry or something else, that makes us so infatuated, not with everything, but only with certain things? How was that advantageous to our ancestors, well, not only ours but those of most life? Animals are curious all the time, not to the extent of humans but still to an impressive extent.
If we can understand what causes interest, we have unlocked a whole new universe of transhumanism. If we could spark interest in everything for everyone, what couldn't we learn?
As for others holding interest, I think so. They may not hold academic interests, but they do like something, even if that is so simple that it would put you to sleep. If we can find out how to trigger the process of creating interest in their minds, maybe they will start to learn. Maybe we can relate to them more if we change ourselves to enjoy their interests as well.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Individualism and communalism, a dichotomy for sure. But I've noticed something about dichotomies, that even though the two sides are portrayed as complete opposites, as two faces of a coin, the distance between those two faces, in reality, is tiny. only millimeters really separate heads from tails. A person can be an individual, but what happens when they join a group? They think as one, act like one. Could you say that a group is an individual? What about a scenario where the whole world is grouped together? Could you say that we are all one individual, pushing and pulling our own ways, but ultimately moving one? After all, we only have one future that will exist, whether we get to choose which one or if it is ultimately decided already depends on your views on free will.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I'm new as well. seniority matters but not as much as the seniority want you to think it does. I think it's like that everywhere.
I actually disagree about the whole "fire in a theatre" thing. I think this contributes to a phenomenon known as "bystander apathy".
Essentially, bystander apathy is what happens when you drive by a wreck on the road, and you decide not to call it in because "someone else will do it". So, how do I think that these two things connect? Well, if someone thinks that they see a fire in a theatre, (of course you would have to be pretty stupid to just think and not know that there was a fire, but you have already said you don't think most people are very smart, so I don't think this is too much of a stretch.) but they aren't sure, they have two reasons now not to yell "fire!". The first is that they think someone else will do it, and the other is that in the event they are wrong, they face legal repercussions. You will, of course, have a lunatic that tries to get everyone out of the theatre for any kind of nefarious reason, but laws don't stop crazy people, and they can't get tried until after the event. Essentially, they don't care about laws and they have plenty of time to do what they want with those people before the police arrive, so outlawing speech like that is not only useless but harmful.
I think a more effective approach to making theatres safe is to study and help the lunatics who would use their rights to hurt people, rather than making everyone suffer.
Sorry for making this in another post. I came back today to check what was going on and realized that I didn't respond to this.
@TogetherTurtle
I was going to comment on the "level playing field" but you actually address my problems in your Sci-Fi solutions so I will mention it then. For this quote I just want to add, "they can keep that knowledge their entire lives barring any kind of neurological degeneration and given that they use the information they learned on a regular basis." If I learn something, then don't continue engage with that information in some fashion, my brain will forget it (and most people are similar). Also, how long I remember something depends on how well I learned it in the first place. I am one of those that fairly regularly laments about the amount of information that I once new (I definitely know more now that at previous points in my life, but I probably know less than 10% of everything that I once knew).
@TogetherTurtle
If the nearly imperceptible differences between my upbringing and my brother's result in such noticeable differences in mental ability, then I worry that we are a LONG way from any ability to interpret these differences into an educational experience.
@TogetherTurtle
Well they may be a little crazy in that it may take humans a while to figure out all that (maybe the A.I. can help us along), but otherwise, I like it. It actually describes a "level playing field." Some of what you describe goes beyond just guiding evolution, but I am still on board. Now, it does assume that all humans have access to the technology. Also, what about the 40% of people (pulled that number out of my @**), that will view genetic engineering, etc as wrong/evil/or just no. Don't they fall behind? I get that I am getting very deep into an imaginary hypothetical, but the problem is still there.
@TogetherTurtle
For sure. When I was saying we are both right, I was trying (and failing on a re-read) to imply that we must be missing something if the same logic led to opposite conclusions - which is exactly what you go on to suggest in this paragraph.
@TogetherTurtle
Interesting thought, but here is my problem with most other people's interests, they are entirely focused on one topic. You mentioned your family does not have the same interests as you, well what are their interests? If they are like most people I know, their interests can be summarized in one word: people. What is the first thing a family member or friend says after a long absence, "so how is life going? how is your job? are you dating anyone? etc." Every question has to do with our lives, because that is what they are interested in. Now as someone who hates talking about my or your life (unless it relates to a larger concept or idea), I get this is all social convention. But it is also more than that. These social conventions ARE what people like to talk/think about. Even seeming interests, like sports, end up being more about people...anyone who is huge baseball fan, but ONLY watches the Atlanta Braves is NOT a huge baseball fan. They are a Braves fan. They enjoy talking about last night's game with people at work. They like cheering and saying my team beat your team, but they do not have a great interest in actual baseball (to be fair I assume some percent of baseball fans truly like baseball, but I would guess less than 50% - and football, soccer, etc is the same). So I like the idea of shared interests, but you can see I am a bit pessimistic about the possibilities.
Dang, I am out of time for today. I think you had a couple of other important points, and I will try to get those tomorrow. (and I did not even proof-read this so sorry for any problematic errors).
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Don't even worry about it. It is said that you can't rush perfection, and even so, we are far from that.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I think there is a Benjamin Franklin quote about this, but I couldn't find anything since the man seemed to be a walking quote machine that spent all his free time rearranging words to make them both meaningful but also memorable.
As for discussing people, I think that it is limiting, but much in the same way as only discussing events or theory crafting. There is only so much to discuss. Theories are more applicable to the real world, but I can't imagine a future where leisure is a thing of the past. We can modify ourselves to not need amenities, but I don't think that we will ever remove the desire for amenities simply because we wish to enjoy the fruits of our labor per se. So as we make strides in knowledge of the natural world and how to apply that to make our lives better, they are studying things that aren't necessarily important to the improvement of the human race as a whole but are important to us culturally. Essentially it is my belief that culture is as equally important as science because the two need each other to push forward. If there were no stories of far off worlds colonized for the glory of humanity, would we even have the idea to do that? If there were no televisions or radios or the internet, would we hear of those stories even if they existed?
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Very true. Practice is a necessity.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I wonder if practice could be thrown aside by infallible memory banks holding information for centuries. Even with modern information storage formats, you can lose some quality over time, but remembering a lecture 20 years from now like it happened yesterday (or in fact, better than that) is a huge step up.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
This reminds me of an interesting mystery that never hit me until I saw it written out. Will we reach the end of science? Does the universe have a set number of secrets or will we run out one day in the far off future? Right now, the trend seems to be the number of questions increasing, but could that change?
As for me, I would like it if there were always mysteries. It may be a bit selfish, but if I can, I would like to extend my life for the sole purpose of assisting humanity in discovering these. Whether this means mind uploading, biological life extensions or cybernetic implants don't really matter to me. As long as some part of me is off doing its part then I can rest peacefully even if my consciousness doesn't transfer on with it. That's a whole other discussion though.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Getting deep into things we can't prove is what we do. I can give it a pass for sure.
As I said earlier, I'm not an economist and could probably use some more reading on the subject, but I do know that the resources to actually do these things are out there. Whether or not distributing them equally enough to do this is feasible in current or even hypothetical social and economic structures is unknown to me. As for the people who don't wish to advance themselves, I think they are necessary for two reasons. One, I typically believe that a society has to have dissidents. If everyone agreed, then there would be no direction for society to go in because it would already be there. That leads to stagnation and in my observation death of a group as a result. Two, I think that having a group of unaugmented humans would be good as a safety net in case we do something to ourselves that does damage or we wish to be reversed. They could also be good for studying the human mind as it originally was, as well as research into social structures and many other things. They may not have a place in the debates we discussed, but they are certainly welcome. The only thing stopping them from coming is them.
After my last post, I realized that I wasn't really addressing the thread topic. And your response has followed my lead. As I am new and don't want to already be labelled as a thread-thief, I will get all of my responses together (may take a while) and send them to you in private message (assuming I can figure out how to do that, hehe). I would try creating a new thread, but our ideas seem to encompass too many aspects of society - not sure what the thread would actually focus on?
If I find a point or two that is still connected to "free speech vs harmful speech", then I will post it here.
Thanks for the additional thoughts.
Well no one seemed to be worried, so I will just post it here...and in re-reading, you at least have one comment per post that is on topic, so we are not way off topic.
- @TogetherTurtle
I agreed with pretty much everything in this paragraph. In my experience, however, most communalists do acknowledge the existent of individuals…whereas many individualists seem to act like “community” is some sort of Marxist conspiracy that doesn’t actually exist, which makes for unproductive discussion. I like to think of myself as neither, but a brief reading of anything I have ever posted, suggests I am more of a communalist; at least I can recognize some of my bias :grimace: .
- @TogetherTurtle
Thanks for bringing us back closer to the thread topic :grin: . First off, I have not heard of “bystander apathy”, but I am fairly certain that I suffer from it on some level. I have struggled with motivation for most of my life, and I have certainly expressed the idea that, “there is not much that NEEDS doing, because if I don’t do it, someone else will.”
Your discussion of “fire” in a theatre and bystander apathy is helpful for me in understanding my own position. I think that any rule can have problems and exceptions. And I would argue that the idea of absolute free speech is another rule that surely has exceptions. I think societies’ rules or rights are designed to benefit most people, most of the time. I was about to say, we should just drop the whole idea of free speech and evaluate each incident on a case by case basis (Was harm caused? What are acceptable/unacceptable levels of harm?). But I think concepts like rights (invented concepts as far as I am concerned), may be beneficial for most people, most of the time. Hmmmm, so I am stuck again.
- @TogetherTurtle
Crazy people is a whole ‘nother can of worms. If we know we can “fix” their “crazy” by giving them medication from age 5, should we? Sure, they can now live a “productive” life, but they certainly did not have much choice. I am still leaning toward, “yes we should”, but there are issues. Hopefully, the future will provide brain solutions along the lines of things you have discussed earlier in this thread, and then I agree…if we can help or educate people so that restrictions on speech are just unnecessary, let’s do that.
- @TogetherTurtle
I agree with most everything in this paragraph, but it has somewhat dodged the point I was trying to make (or at least I think it does). Yes we need people who are interested in all aspects of life. Improvements in culture are certainly important too. My point was, all those who people whose interests I summarized as just “people”, are not going to make contributions to culture. That would require an interest in culture. Maybe instead of “people”, I should have said “persons”? Still not right. What I mean is that they are interested in the lives of individuals. Whether that is friends, family, or some random celebrity, they care about the individual lives of these people. They are much less interested (not at all?) in how all of these lives interact to create things called culture or society. I am not sure I am making my point clearly…maybe this helps: If we wanted these people to “study”, they would go to People Magazine, not some serious academic Sociological journal. By the way, I am not trying to say these people are in any way “less” than you or I. I am just saying that their interests (or lack there-of) mean they are not interested in discussing, researching, debating, etc any of this stuff. They would be happy to talk about, say, the relationship between Pete Davidson and Kate Beckingsale (just took one of the headlines from bing homepage), and good for them, but I will be bored. Notice that I am "bored" by their topic, and they are "bored" by some of mine. I am not better than them because my interest are slightly more respected in academic circles, nor are they better than me because talking football gains more friends than talking free will vs determinism. I was just pointing that said people should not be expected to contribute to philosophy, any more than I should be expected to hold up my end of the conversation on celebrity couples.
- @TogetherTurtle
Sign me up :up: And I think you are right, doesn’t practice just create shortcuts in neuron paths? (huge apologies to any neuroscientists that actually understand this stuff) So if we can replicate those shortcuts, then we could not only increase knowledge capacity but skills also (mental or physical – physical may require strength/agility but the “muscle memory” could be cheated).
- @TogetherTurtle
I hope that part of what makes us human (some of us? Hehe) is that desire to keep looking beyond the horizon. Even if we transform ourselves into eternal techno-energy super beings who can just will things in and out of existence, I like to think that some people would still be striving for the next stage (whatever that might be). I think Star Trek covered this with the Q. They had the powers of a god, but no desire to grow any further. This made them interested in humans, who always sought to improve themselves (yes a bit of a contradiction in there, if they were interested in humans' need to grow, then couldn't it be said that they had an interest in growing?).
- @TogetherTurtle
You are more noble than I. I also would like to continue to be around for millennia, but more for my own curiosity, than to help humanity (despite my fairly pessimistic attitude about people in general, I actually believe humanity will progress as long as there are not complete societal collapses – unfortunately history suggests these collapses are inevitable, but the modern world has changed enough to be almost unrecognizable to earlier societies, maybe the massive amount of digital storage will allow knowledge to be retained, limiting collapses to partial vs complete). Besides watching human progress, I also just want to witness some of the cool galactic events: like watching the sun grow until it encompasses the earth, or when the milky way collides with the Andromeda galaxy, but that is all just for fun.
- @TogetherTurtle
I agree that the resources do exist. I was more concerned with who gets the benefit, but you addressed that here (admittedly we do not have a solution, but for me just acknowledging that the resources will NOT be equally distributed, allows for the mitigation of many of the harms that would result). I like your thoughts on the un-augmented. Clever idea to have them around, just in case. I just hope that we can avoid creating an under-class. As long as everyone agrees that the un-augmented are equal in value to the augmented (ie, just because someone is smarter, or stronger, or funnier, of kinder, does not necessarily make them a “better” person. Now if I am trying to accomplish a goal, then I may prefer a smarter or stronger person. But life does not have goals, aside from the ones given to it by humans).
They are not interested in the how, but they are certainly the what. That was my point. If they didn't exist we wouldn't have a culture to study.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Perhaps not expected to contribute to something specific, but expected to contribute. It connects to a field of study I have been interested in recently. How do people develop an interest? If we know that, can we make people interested in everything?
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Maybe they are growing interest in growing by studying the human's interest in growing. Complex, but I wouldn't expect less from a god.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I like to think of the fun as payment, and the help as work. I would live for both, or at least that's what I think now. Any future version of me is subject to their own development.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I think they would have a strange equivalence to pets. We give them everything they need, and in exchange, we get to watch and study. I don't think they would even need class structure unless they choose to have one. It would be as if New York was lifted off the face of the earth, hooked up with all of the facilities it would need, and then was studied. Whether or not they know what is happening has to do with the experiments we are running and the consent of the subjects. If they wish to ascend, they can do that as well.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I think that in a world where those things aren't able to be implanted via advanced science, it does make them better. However, in a world that does have those things, I imagine everyone who chooses to will have them.
@TogetherTurtle
Haha, yep I somehow missed that entirely. No arguing with that.
- @TogetherTurtle
Well if we can answer the first question, then we will at least know whether it is possible to create omni-interested humans. Dang, it sure would be cool to be interested in everything (but if it doesn't come with more time, it might just be frustrating, haha).
- @TogetherTurtle
I like the sound of this. It seems there is a well thought out balance to your life. But just one thing to point out here, if I am truly interested in something then the "work" is fun. But I think your point is, that you are happy to sacrifice a little fun, in order to improve the world (which I suppose could lead to heightened "fun" in the future?).
- @TogetherTurtle
First, I entirely think that you genuinely would do the above with zero consideration that you were "better" than the subjects being studied. However, I do not view that as possible for most people. I think the situation described would precisely create an underclass. In fact, it may describe a situation where some of us have evolved (whether naturally or using technology) into a new species; but it is still interesting to study the lowly homo sapien. Similar to humans studying chimpanzees today (again I don't think Jane Goodall thought she was "better" than the chimps, but it is hard for a third party to not view this as a "superior" group studying an "inferior"). Hmmmmm, I am thinking this is MY problem not yours or Jane Goodall's. Shouldn't I assume you/she/they have the best of intentions rather the worst? Hard to get past appearances of impropriety, but they are just appearances.
- @TogetherTurtle
Well if I get comfortable enough, I may have to start a thread on this whole "better" thing.
When I was younger - and, it seems to me, more naive and less wise - I yearned for anarchy, seeking to avoid controls as though they were prison bars. Now, I think that no (hu)man is an island, and that humans live their lives co-operatively, not in isolation. So now I think that anarchy is not desirable, because it seems to deny the ineluctable social nature of human existence. Words such as "rules" and "laws" seem to describe undesirable shackles on our freedom, but really all we have is our mutual dependence, which I see as not being a Bad Thing. :chin:
Whether you desire anarchy or not, you can't have it anyway, so you may as well settle on something you could have.
Another argument is that more speech, not censorship, is the antidote to “harmful speech”. Censorship not only robs the speaker of his fundamental rights, but it also robs the rest of us the opportunity to see his ideas destroyed, and as a corollary, the opportunity to arm ourselves against them.
In fact the Nazis saw any criticism of their pseudoscience as harmful speech, and thus led one of the most censorial regimes in human history.
I don’t think that’s true at all. “Massive manipulation of the population” would be nearly impossible where free speech exists because dissent wouldn’t be suppressed. Though it’s true that Truth will be distorted in a free speech society, it is far worse in a censorial society, which not only distorts the truth but also actively suppresses it.