NOS4A2

In Sweden, you will get fined and investigated for hate speech, but also for not deleting the hate speech. Even if you’ve never spoken hate speech you...

Advertising causes the proliferation of certain information, but it doesn’t cause us to buy or not buy the product.

The weird, if not childlike metaphysics of the “words have power” proponents is base superstition, simply because they subscribe magical properties to...

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. ...

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 ...

The “philosophy” in philosophy forum deserves quotation marks. Very few, if any philosophies besides the very worst advocated for and practiced censor...

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...

That’s untrue. You’re committing the fallacies, the straw men, the guilt by associations (we’re terrorists now?).

Yes, you’re pretty good at editing your posts after being called out on it.

I guess it’s a shame you’re horrible at it. Poisoning the well occurs before you make an argument, not long after.

Remember who we’re dealing with when it comes to those who take the power of speech as a given. https://www.iep.utm.edu/sophists They’re sophists.

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 resp...

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.

Ah, no wonder.

It’s so crap you cannot refute it. Out of sight out of mind, I suppose.

We do laugh at jokes, definitely, though I don’t think they cause us to laugh in the sense that we assume.

I can no longer find this thread in the list “all discussions”. Is that just me?

That is correct.

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 w...

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 h...

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...

Then why do you advocate for censorship? If the words have no agency, what is there to fear?

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 “w...

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...

You say this yet your words remain completely ineffectual. Perhaps moving them around in a different order or combination will illicit the effect you ...

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 ...

Note the purely metaphorical language to describe this poisoning process. This is also how the sophists of Ancient Greece described it. Is it possible...

Sure, people believe and respond to advertisements. Then again, people don’t. Are these contradictory results because of the words? Or those who hear ...

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 ...

https://youtu.be/afMofYie4Lc

What is your excuse?

Could the fears be overblown and overstated, often by those who who have vested interest in doing so? It cannot be that bad of a situation. In fact it...

I’m well aware of that. It’s amazing how long it has taken. It truly is a scar on the face of democracy.

I love politics. I have no ulterior motives and no amount of projection will change that.

It’s not so much “ignoring events” as it is ignoring the persistent fear mongering and prophesies about the future, none of which has yet to come true...

I was pushing back against the sneering about the “the ignorant Brexiteer masses”. But the double standards are noted.

The people had a vote. The majority voted to leave. Leave is therefore the people’s decision. That’s how democracy works. It’s not so difficult to fig...

The vote shows that no, the masses are not split down the middle. One side had more votes than the other. We’re talking about a vote, not the change i...

I know who Johnson is, just didn’t know which way he voted. I found a more accurate answer. Most of those in power voted to remain. The people voted o...

Didn’t Johnson vote to remain? Cameron? Theresa May?

Oh, here we go. I wasn’t speaking of deal/no deal, but remain and leave.

Imagine that: the “ignorant Brexiteer masses” want what they voted for. That seems to me such a strange concept nowadays, especially given the refusal...

California and the automakers ignored the EPA when they signed the deal.

I fear the alarmism will lead to some form or other of tyranny before it leads to a better planet.

I’m suspicious by default of those who cry wolf and say the sky is falling.

What else is going to happen, Nostradamus? Armageddon?

I’m living, woody. Is this supposed to be an argument?

Whether in a poor state of mind, irrational, or completely delusional, she nonetheless refused to go through with her suicide. It wasn’t her choice to...

She vocally and physically resisted the killing. Her last moments were watching in horror as her family held her down while someone else gave her a le...

I assume they asked her.