The Weird Metaphysics of Censorship
In a letter to the editor of the New York Times in 1940, Bertrand Russell made the important point that “in a democracy, it is necessary that people should learn to endure having their sentiments outraged”. He wrote this after being declared morally unfit to teach philosophy and math at the College of the City of New York.
Russell’s statement indicates that he believes the outrage surrounding him and his work is a problem of the censor, who undoubtedly lacks a thick enough skin for democracy. But the censor believes the problem is with Russell and his expression, which may effect the very fabric of society.
The thinking used to justify the inquisition of Russell illustrates the common overestimation of the power of speech. The judge presiding over his case ruled that Russell’s appointment would, at some untold time in the future, “adversely affect public health, safety, and morals”, as if Russel’s teachings and character were a contagious disease. The judge argued that the court was obligated to step in to “protect the community's safety and welfare”, as if they were under attack by some invading force. That era’s outrage-machine had convinced itself that a looming, existential threat existed in the expressions of an old English pacifist.
It’s a shame because we’ll never know if Russell’s teaching position would have affected public health, safety and morals like the censors predicted. He was denied the position ex ante, and without proof of any real, actual consequences beyond the ones found in the judge’s skull.
But if the arguments against Russell sound familiar, it is because they are. Censors commonly use fear of future catastrophe, moral or societal breakdown as justification for their censorship. The mere act of teaching “affects public health, safety, and morals”, as in the case of Russell. The act of expressing philosophy “corrupts the youth”, as in the trial of Socrates. Making contrary world-views explicit leads to “disorder and mischief” against the one true faith, as in the inquisition of Galileo. Nowadays laws teach us that others can be “incited”, encouraged, roused into various fits of immorality—hatred, discrimination, lawless action—by our speech.
Physics and biology would imply that there is no power or force in speech beyond the medium it is presented on. A book filled with writing has no more power or force or energy than an empty one. The spoken word affects the world around us like any other sound from the mouth. The censor’s assumption that words and expression can alter the world around us is closer to sorcery than anything else.
If this is the case, why do we let censors get away with their weird metaphysics, used as it is to justify the censorship and murder of human beings?
Russell’s statement indicates that he believes the outrage surrounding him and his work is a problem of the censor, who undoubtedly lacks a thick enough skin for democracy. But the censor believes the problem is with Russell and his expression, which may effect the very fabric of society.
The thinking used to justify the inquisition of Russell illustrates the common overestimation of the power of speech. The judge presiding over his case ruled that Russell’s appointment would, at some untold time in the future, “adversely affect public health, safety, and morals”, as if Russel’s teachings and character were a contagious disease. The judge argued that the court was obligated to step in to “protect the community's safety and welfare”, as if they were under attack by some invading force. That era’s outrage-machine had convinced itself that a looming, existential threat existed in the expressions of an old English pacifist.
It’s a shame because we’ll never know if Russell’s teaching position would have affected public health, safety and morals like the censors predicted. He was denied the position ex ante, and without proof of any real, actual consequences beyond the ones found in the judge’s skull.
But if the arguments against Russell sound familiar, it is because they are. Censors commonly use fear of future catastrophe, moral or societal breakdown as justification for their censorship. The mere act of teaching “affects public health, safety, and morals”, as in the case of Russell. The act of expressing philosophy “corrupts the youth”, as in the trial of Socrates. Making contrary world-views explicit leads to “disorder and mischief” against the one true faith, as in the inquisition of Galileo. Nowadays laws teach us that others can be “incited”, encouraged, roused into various fits of immorality—hatred, discrimination, lawless action—by our speech.
Physics and biology would imply that there is no power or force in speech beyond the medium it is presented on. A book filled with writing has no more power or force or energy than an empty one. The spoken word affects the world around us like any other sound from the mouth. The censor’s assumption that words and expression can alter the world around us is closer to sorcery than anything else.
If this is the case, why do we let censors get away with their weird metaphysics, used as it is to justify the censorship and murder of human beings?
Comments (142)
Quoting NOS4A2
And that is not only false, but patently absurd, as the counterexamples I've previously raised in response to this ludicrous claim of yours demonstrate. Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Socrates, William Shakespeare, Martin Luther, the Four Evangelists... none of the aforementioned were sorcerers. They were just world-renowned wordsmiths.
The advertising industry illustrates how very widespread this estimation is, and how much money hard nosed business women are prepared to put where their mouths are by way of amplification. Indeed no one would bother to hire a professor in the first place if their speech was not influential. It would be a weird metaphysics to imagine speech to be anything other than powerful.
No they weren’t sorcerers, because they cannot change matter with their words. Had no one read or heard their mystical words, nothing would have been changed. You can try this with your own words. The societal changes, the altered matter, begin with the listeners not the speakers.
Sure, people believe and respond to advertisements. Then again, people don’t. Are these contradictory results because of the words? Or those who hear them?
Note the purely metaphorical language to describe this poisoning process. This is also how the sophists of Ancient Greece described it. Is it possible to describe it in biological or physical terms?
Well, there's a silly way to interpret the statement that they changed the world with their words, and there's a sensible way to interpret that statement.
You're obviously going with the former.
Quoting NOS4A2
They weren't mystical, but otherwise yes, and that's the point. They did read or hear the words, and the world was changed as a result. If they had not have, then it wouldn't have. The works of Shakespeare, for example, are taught in schools, so obviously his writings had an effect on the world through their influence on people.
Quoting NOS4A2
So? If the words didn't motivate them, then the societal changes they action wouldn't have occurred. It's easy to refute your claims and suggestions through a reduction to the absurd.
The problem is we treat the words as agents and the humans as the objects they act upon. Words motivate us, incite us, inspire us, encourage us. It’s a habit of language, but likely a folk psychology. But It’s the other way about. We act upon the words: we read them, hear them, understand them.
There's no problem here besides the peculiar one that you've invented. There's no contradiction there: words have an effect on us like you just described, and we act on them. Words aren't treated as agents: you made that part up.
You say this yet your words remain completely ineffectual. Perhaps moving them around in a different order or combination will illicit the effect you desire.
Is there a middle ground you would consider, where the speaker and listener both contribute to the effects of speech? This would be an alternative explanation as to why speech effects peoples actions sometimes and other times not rather than explaining that as you are doing. (Saying that speech never effects peoples actions).
Have you taken leave of your senses? My words just influenced you to reply with the above. In fact, you could not have done so if I hadn't said what I did just now. So they can't have been completely ineffectual.
And don't bother attacking the ridiculous straw man that words must always have the exact imagined or desired result every single time without fail. You'll just be wasting time.
Some idiot might attempt it. Bla bla neurones, bla, pathways, bla behaviour, bla. I prefer mental terms like 'belief'. People tend to believe professors and thus are influenced in their actions. So if your professor is Hitler...
Again, I don’t think there are any effects of speech beyond the measurable. I believe humans have agency, not the words. We act upon words and not the other way about.
I agree with the phrase “we believe the teachings of professors”, because this gives agency to the student and not the teachings. But disagree with “we are influenced by the teachings of professors” because agency exists in the teachings, not the student.
No one here believes that words have agency, so you don't need to keep negating that words have agency. It's as senseless as me saying to you that humans aren't fish.
Then why do you advocate for censorship? If the words have no agency, what is there to fear?
Agency is not the issue. It's a category error with regard to words, and a category error that no one has made. I'm not sure you understand what that word means. I advocate for censorship in a very limited sense in accordance with the United Kingdom laws on freedom of speech, which includes the United Nations Declaration on freedom of speech, because of the effect which they can have on people. Because of the potential consequences, and because of past cases which set the precedent. It's a risk assessment, a cost-benefit analysis, as you already know.
So why censor words and punish those who speak them if the words they speak are unable to act upon other human beings?
The UK law on freedom of speech includes article 19, sure, but contradicts it in the very next clause by limiting freedom of speech with a wide array of regulations.
What would be patently absurd is to say that their words are what altered the world. Non-speech actions alter the world, and we need to look at the causes of those non-speech actions. Words can have an influence, but they don't cause the actions in question. (And we're back in the middle of the thread we already beat to death.)
And illustrates the overestimation very well. If that weren't the case, no one would ever go out of business. They'd merely need to advertise and they'd make tons of money.
It's hard to tell whether you're being silly with your choice of words and the way that you're interpreting them, or whether you're saying something agreeable. I don't condone driving over the speed limit, but not on the basis that the car itself will somehow gain agency and drive itself into people of it's own accord.
Quoting NOS4A2
It doesn't contradict it.
No, it's not patently absurd to say that their words altered the world, so long as that's not interpreted in a silly way. Words do have an influence, as you say, and that entails that they're causal, because again, I don't interpret influence in a silly way.
So there's only a problem here because you've decided to go against the grain with a silly interpretation. So much for nonconformity.
That doesn't work as an attempted refutation. That some businesses overestimate the effect that advertising will have to the detriment of their business doesn't do anything at all against his point.
I can’t tell whether your false analogies are child-like or if you actually believe them to be analogous. I’m saying that words have zero power over human beings and in fact it is the other way about. If this is the case, why would we ban the words?
Only if, like you, you ignore the rest of the law.
If we're going to call actions that preceded actions that were performed because someone decided to perform them "causal" as well as calling actions that preceded actions that were performed because they were forced "causal," how are we going to protect against conflation, for one?
The overestimation is that advertising is going to be effective, because of a belief that it strongly influences consumer decisions.
You were talking about words having agency and acting on people. That's a straw man deliberately using inappropriate language suggesting a category error, so I gave you a taste of your own childishness with an analogy which does the same thing. You frequently do this, like with your talk of sourcery. Do you realise that it's a fallacy to do that?
I don't care about you saying that words have zero power over human beings when that flies in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. You've been given a million examples evidencing this, and any response from you which just misinterprets that claim as I understand it is just missing the point. If you want to argue with yourself, go and argue with yourself. If you want to argue with me, you'll have to actually listen to what I'm saying and interpret it appropriately.
That doesnt really answer my question. Perhaps I could have framed it better, but remember Im not for censorship, even of hate speech.
Agency is not what Im asking about. Lets use your terms: do you think that there are any measurable effects of speech? If so, then have you considered that what we are talking about here (in this thread) is something that involves both the speaker and the listener?
What do you mean by “power”, that makes it sound like a compulsion of some kind, is that what you mean?
Funnily enough, that was his choice of words. I don't mean anything above and beyond what I've previously said, so influence, cause, motivation, effect...
K gotchya. :up:
Well, it seems obvious to me that you could just use the word "force" when that's what you mean. Clearly I don't mean to suggest anything like that anyone reading a book on Marx is then forced to become a Marxist as a result.
But that just misses the point. Perhaps your replies miss the point because you misunderstand the point.
Yes, communication is a two-way street. I don’t deny that.
By “measurable effects of speech” I mean the expelling of breath, the production of sound waves, the movement of the mouth, scribbles on paper etc.
And, yes, I realize people can believe false things for long periods of time. But you'd think experts, who they tend to consult with, would have let them know that companies that do not advertise do just as well as those that do, and the incredible benefit of saving that money would have led a number of corporations, generally fascinated with money, to try and that confirm this.
Then you're for acts of terrorism, like those committed by acolytes of Anjem Choudary, the infamous preacher of hate speech who influenced their later actions and was sentenced to years in prison as a result. You're suggesting that that's a cost which you're willing to accept.
What's the point it misses?
Yes, a ton of money is wasted on advertising, and there are plenty of studies showing that it's not near as effective as is commonly believed in the business world--or as claimed by the advertising industry, of course.
People need to know about your products or services in order to be interested in them, obviously, but lots of money is regularly wasted on advertising.
Ok, so those measurable effects do not include reactions in others? Is that right?
No Im not for ACTS of terrorism. Anyway, we’ve been through this. I cannot remember how much of my views we went over, but I remember yours so im good on you repeating it yet another time.
That speech, by way of advertisement, generally speaking, is effective, or powerful, or however you want to word it so long as you don't completely get the wrong end of the stick, which is not at all to suggest that it's totally effective or that it's guaranteed to result in substantial success for a business. His point is so obvious it's hard to see how anyone could miss it or disagree with it, but I think that some people here are too entrenched in their positions to see what's right in front of them.
But the point that I was making was that the effectiveness of advertising is overestimated.
Advertising must have positive effects. If this were not the case the case, companies would have experimented with less and none and stopped using it. In fact they do try varying amounts and are devilishly thorough, at least many of them, in tracking results. And these experiments, along with the studies you mention which the companies can find and many must be aware of, would have already led to no longer advertising or minimal use of the cheapest possible information based communication. No branding, no money spent on sets, photos, actors, copywriters color ads, large ads, online banners, marketing research and so on. Just lists of products and where to get them. If that.
Informing people is a kind of communication. It has effects. They are not universal. But no one is arguing that any speech act will compel every human to do something.
And the point that I was making was that that point misses the point, meaning that whether true or false, it has no logical bearing on what he said. It's irrelevant.
It's effective enough to support his point, irrespective of whether it's also overestimated.
Well I can see I'm wasting my time talking to you lot.
NOS4A2 stated that the power of speech is overestimated.
unenlightened said that it's not in the case of advertising.
But it is.
Yeah, again, if you follow the conversation, NOS4A2 stated that the power of speech is overestimated.
unenlightened said that it's not in the case of advertising. I was agreeing with NOS4A2 and not unenlightened when it comes to advertising. No one claimed that advertising doesn't work at all.
At least you're not overestimating the power of your speech there.
So you seem to imply that there is a spectrum of influence, is that fair to say? If there is a spectrum, why would you be a free speech absolutist? Is it because you associate too high a cost with any limits on free speech? (Sorry, can’t recall if you addressed this somewhere in that other thread).
Influence is different than force. I only have moral issues with force.
I thought I explained all of that numerous times, in a bunch of different ways.
Okay, so we're all just talking past eachother. Maybe it is overestimated. Maybe not. It's hard to judge because where do you even begin? You could look at it a number of different ways and reach different conclusions. But unenlightened is definitely right in that it's not overestimated to the extent that it's a benefit to many businesses all over the world. It's a key part of selling any product. Good luck selling a product with no advertising whatsoever.
I'm going by what businesses believe advertising can do, which I've seen many times from many different angles, including that my wife constantly deals with it as part of her work--she's a business consultant.
Right, hence my pre-apology. Alot was said by alot of people so I just wanted to confirm as the essentially same discussion starts up again.
Also, I didnt say anything about force, I was asking about influence. I think we agree speech doesnt compell/force anyone to commit acts of violence.
Okay, but again, I don't really care about that. Why would I? I don't think that the main thrust of his opening post had anything to do with a triviality like that. Based on other comments of his, his position is more extreme than that. And I think that unenlightened was probably meaning to get at his more extreme views than to merely deny that some businesspeople overestimate the effectiveness of advertising.
Okay . . . I get really tired about talking about the same stuff all the time, though. So I try to focus on angles that aren't something we've beaten into the ground already.
Right. So I'd never have any legislation against influence of any sort. So that's part of why I'd not ban any speech. The only way I'd ever ban any speech would be if speech could literally force something like violent actions.
That's understandable, but I don't think that that was helpful.
Meta criticism drives me crazy, too. ;-)
(Critical discussion about discussion preferences)
Again, funnily enough, if you deviate from the norm in terms of how you interpret key terms in use, then you will keep encountering this problem. Just use "force" only.
Yeah, but I made it explicit in many different ways that I'd only be concerned with force.
Yeah, and people aren't going to remember that you go by an unusual interpretation which no one else goes by. They'll just revert to ordinary language by default.
But that's laughable. :lol:
That's like saying the only way I'd ever ban asbestos is if it literally forced cancer on immediate contact.
That's just not reasonable. It can cause cancer, it has caused cancer, no, not in every single encounter with the substance, but there's a risk, the costs outweigh the benefits, and that's enough.
Ok, so as to whether the influence of speech is a spectrum...yes, but your free speech absolutism is based on other things than whether or not its on a spectrum. Is that right?
(Or just “is influence on a spectrum?”..thats what I want to know most.)
That is correct.
It's laughable that speech could force actions? I'd agree with that.
Or you think it's laughable to only ban speech that would force actions?
I'd just say it's "based on" speech not being anything, or being able to do anything (like force things) that I have any moral objection to.
I can no longer find this thread in the list “all discussions”. Is that just me?
The latter. It's laughable to set your threshold so high that it allows in so much that's wrong. It's laughable for the same reason that it's laughable to set the threshold for banning asbestos to be that it forces cancer on immediate contact in every single case.
Ok, so what about in the case of laughing at a joke? (Or other emotional reactions to words). How does that factor into your view?
Oh come on! Lol
You did that in purpose. Is the influence of speech on a spectrum?
You are by implication, but if you don't want to discuss it, that's fine.
It's been demoted to the lounge - because it's crap, presumably. The power of language eh?
Sorcery, I reckon.
Well we’ve just been over it haven't we? Am I remembering wrong?
Ok, let me answer to that then. Sorta.
Are you in favour of a speed limit of 50km, or whatever the speed limit is where you live?
We do laugh at jokes, definitely, though I don’t think they cause us to laugh in the sense that we assume.
It’s so crap you cannot refute it. Out of sight out of mind, I suppose.
But that's what we do here. We celebrate Groundhog Day in this insane asylum full of idiots and nutters.
Quoting DingoJones
Yes.
Ah, no wonder.
Laughter can be an involuntary response. There are other such responses from speech of certain kinds aa well. How have you factored these into your view?
No, I haven’t fully fleshed out the idea yet, so I appreciate that angle and thank you for raising it. Another difficult angle would be hypnotism.
Hypnotism doesn't force people to do anything, or even to feel anything other than a light separation from activities. That's my understanding of it anyway, so I wouldn't include it as a difficulty for your view. Things like laughter do though.
And um, your welcome I guess? Lol
Think about when you don’t understanding the joke initially, but “get it” later. You’ve heard the words but your understanding fails to evoke the response of laughter until a later time, much after the fact, when you finally understand it.
What sourcery. Jokes don't force anyone to laugh. They have no power over anyone. All those people filling up theatres to watch a popular stand-up comedian all freely decide whether or not to laugh at a funny joke. They just so happen to all decide to laugh in unison at the punchline.
Are you telling me that jokes have agency?
https://www.iep.utm.edu/sophists
They’re sophists.
I guess it’s a shame you’re horrible at it. Poisoning the well occurs before you make an argument, not long after.
Ah, you got me before the edit. I'm pretty good actually, and that was close, but it's an association fallacy. You're trying to make those on the other side of the debate seem guilty by association with the sophists.
Yes, you’re pretty good at editing your posts after being called out on it.
Thanks. You're pretty good at committing fallacies to keep me on the ball.
That’s untrue. You’re committing the fallacies, the straw men, the guilt by associations (we’re terrorists now?).
No, just advocates of terrorism. :grin:
So are you for people dying in car accidents? Thats the implication. You like people dying? Thats the implication of your views on the speed limit, people dying.
So if im for terrorism, you are for people dying. (So am I, by implication of my views on terrorism which are implied by my views on hate speech).
I think you are smart enough to know that we can both get silly with that so lets not.
Where we disagree is the level at which hate speech informs violent behaviour. You think its a big factor, I think its small, negligible.
I have another, more practical view of why we shouldn't have hate speech laws...I think its wiser to let those people speak so they stay out in the open where I can see them.
And then the third reason I dont believe in hate speech laws is because I do not trust that the mechanism will not be abused once in place, by people who see it as a tool of control.
Knock those 3 down and I will have to re-evaluate my position, though one at a time would be best I think. Wanna pick one, or are they so dazzling YOU are going to re-evaluate YOUR position? :joke:
Yes, I anticipated this and used the word “can”.... it CAN be an involuntary response. My point stands I think.
Sure, it can and can not. Does the joke cause both responses? Or are the responses contingent on a variety of other factors, such as biology, language, sense of humor, understanding, etc.
Maybe, sure. The point is that in at least some instances of joke/laughter, it is involuntary. Thats what you have to deal with in your view, imo. Your going to have to incorporate that fact into your view somehow.
Well thats not fair at all, what the fuck am I supposed to do with a name like “S”?! No play on words when it just 1 letter. What a jerk.
Laughter is complicated and not limited to humans (though I believe language is) but I would argue that we are not laughing at the joke qua joke, but at the thoughts that arise after we hear and understand it.
What? Me? A jerk? No one has ever called me that before. I'm shocked and upset. @T Clark said that I'm cute and nice.
Doesn’t matter, again the salient point is that its involuntary (at times).
Are you now changing your mind about laughter at least some of the time being involuntary? I don’t even think it compromises your point of view to accept it is here honestly. It doesnt mean you cannot still be against hate speech bans, it just means you can’t say speech has no influence over actions without contradiction. So just incorporate it, recognise that in some cases speech can in fact influence certain kinds of actions, just not the kind people have in mind when they claim hate speech causes violent action.
Then HE is the jerk.
But because laughter is involuntary does not imply it wasn’t self-caused. One must understand a joke, indeed the language, before he can laugh at it. I see no contradiction there.
Take this joke:
A uniform beam walks into a bar. The barman asks, "What would you like, good sir?"
The beam replies “just give me a moment."
An engineer might laugh (or groan), but to anyone else it might invoke confusion. Is it the joke or the understanding of the joke that brings laughter?
I would argue that for too long they have believed their aptitude to language gives them some sense of power over those less affluent in verbal combat, less trained in words, more brutish than them. The pen is mightier than the sword, they will tell us, that is until they meet someone with a sword.
This false sense of power is a great lie, one that has barely begun to crumble, but will crumble nonetheless.
Well first, I am not convinced anything is any different in a delayed response as you describe. That you find it funny is still involuntary, your not deciding to find it funny or unfunny just because it takes longer to process.
Second, even if that were the case that would just be noticing a particular kind of joke that didnt have an involuntary reaction. Unless you want to now claim that laughter is never an involuntary reaction, then you still have to deal with that in your view.
Would you agree that thus far you havent dealt with it?
Advertising causes the proliferation of certain information, but it doesn’t cause us to buy or not buy the product.
It’s not the effect of advertising. Yes, people who know about a product are more likely to buy it. That’s a true statement, But the ad didn’t cause them to buy it anymore than it caused another not to buy it. It’s just not true, nor can it be proven, that an ad caused the purchase of a product.
By creating this thread I was trying to limit it to one place. I wasn’t aware there were other threads on the topic.
The idea that nothing ever happens because of speech acts has been a repeated theme in several discussions involving Terrapin Station recently. I'm surprised you missed it. I hope, unlike him, you'll eventually see the futility in the argument and qualify it into a more sensible position.
I’m aware of it in one thread, but it was admittedly off topic.
I see no futility in it and in fact believe it is an important idea, for reasons I’ve already stated. I hope someone can muster a coherent counterargument that doesn’t involve magical thinking and appeals to ridicule.
Say two companies want to sell similar consumer products. Company A hires an ad agency and spends a couple million on various forms of advertising. Company B does not advertise at all.
If company A sells more of its product then that is evidence that the advertising was influential.
I think it goes without saying that people are more likely to purchase a product they know about than one they don’t. In that sense they are “influential”.
But I cannot say the advertisement acted upon the one who saw it, which terms such as “influence”, “encourage”, “incite” presuppose. The advertisement cannot act upon the viewer in such a way that alters or even effects their buying choices, for the simple reason of the first law of motion.
We can try it with a party.
Person one does not send out emails, let's no one know.
Person two sends out emails and makes calls.
Now you can say the communication did not cause people to come. I would say it was one of the causes. But I hope you can agree in scenario 1 less people will come to the party, perhaps none.
Now if we change the communication topic to many phone calls saying:if you bring me a film of you killing my wife, I will give you 50K and someone kills the wife, I would put that husband in prison. Even though the various hit men or criminals he sent it to were not completely caused to perform the act of murder. Of course they brought something to the table. They had their tendencies and desires and this in a mix with the husband's contribution.
And given that criminals have these tendencies, I consider the husband dangerous.
Because we will in this universe, not one where people don't have those tendencies.
So the issue is how much like the latter scenario is hate speech or some other communicatitve act, which is part of what leads to people being violently attacked. If you have intention to have it lead to others committing violence, choose a behavior that statistically leads to certain effects, though of course any invidual directly committing the act of violence also is committing a crime, and it is reasonable to expect your action - communicating - to lead to violence, perhaps it can also be treated as a crime. Not that any of this is easy to determine, but many crimes are tricky to determine, like some tax crimes.
And further, I didn't see any response to my virus spraying. Let's shift it to an office building change it to an allergin. I, a disgruntled former employee, spray an allergin into the ventilation system. Only those workers who stay more than 4 hour sin the building and whose immune systems react to this allergin are affected. Without their immune system responses, overresponses, they would not get the rashes. Without them choosing to be in the building more than four hours, they also would not get it.
Are we really going to say that the rashes were not effects of my spraying the allergin. Must something be the only cause to be considered causal?
He certainly didn't miss it. He was largely involved in one of those lengthy discussions. He's just lying.
You’re lying, as is evident by my reply. Not only a fool but a liar.
Yes, of course, people are more likely to show for a party if invited. I’m not denying that people are more likely to purchase a product or go to a party if they know about it. It’s the efficacy of the invite or speech act I’m rejecting, the so-called perlocutionary act of speech act theory.
There may be the intention to achieve certain effects with speech, but that the intended effects are never forced, rather predicted (one is never destined to go to a party if he is invited), I think sheds doubt on that certain speech act.
That’s one of the dangerous aspects of this theory: it risks absolving people of guilt in certain crimes, as in the murder example you’ve given. So we must tread carefully in matters such as that. My main point is not that the speaker is always innocent—the husband may actually want and seek the murder of his wife, the consequences of which lead to the actual act—but that the words are always innocent.
"I wasn’t aware there were other threads on the topic".
:brow:
"Well, there was [I]that one thread[/I], but... [makes excuse]".
And it's pretty funny that you'd call me a fool after that thing about being arrested.
That thread topic was “Should hate speech be allowed”, genius.
That was the title. The discussion quickly lead on to the related topic, which is the same topic of this discussion you redundantly created, and it stayed on that related topic for page after page after page after page...
This is mind-numbingly self-contradictory. You agree with ad influence (in one sense) and then claim that, due to the first law of motion, ads cannot act upon buyers.
Although of course the whole thing may well be an act, and probably is.
There is no contradiction, unless you mind-numbingly assume, without evidence, that an ad’s “influence” is how it acts upon buyers.
Another lie. The topics of the threads are different. I bet you also pretend that that thread was about how law enforcement can arrest you without you committing a crime.
You admitted that ads influence with the following:
Quoting NOS4A2
Then you claimed that, due to the first law of motion, ads cannot act upon (influence) buyers.
This is an idiotic contradiction.
Not a contradiction. You or I reading or hearing an ad is us acting upon the ad, not the other way about.
Looks like someone is living rent free in another’s head.
Is that roughly how your thought process went?
You wrote that ads inform and in that sense they’re influential. The information contained within ads is received from the ads and our actions may be influenced by that information. Prior to acquiring ad information, you or I act in particular ways, like buying a specific brand of tea, for example, but subsequent to experiencing an ad we might switch to a different brand of tea. In this way, an advertisement may act upon us, may affect our behavior.
You might say that you or I could interact with an ad, if indeed the ad were interactive. Do I need to explain what interactive means?
There we go. :up:
No, you don’t need to explain what “interactive” means. I can interact with a rock. It doesn’t mean the rock is “interactive”.
As in your example, yes we may switch to the brand of tea, but “acquiring ad information” and the act of switching to a brand of tea are acts performed by and chosen by us, not the advertisement.
No one has claimed otherwise. Ads influence, as you have admitted yourself.
Quoting NOS4A2
Democracy is the freedom to choose. Censorship strips you of your freedom to choose.
yes, we are not slaves to our base impulses, which censors often imply. But they would make us slaves to their base impulses, their fears of future calamity, chaos or incited mobs.