"Marketplace of Ideas"?

[Darat]

Having read the thread a few days ago, I may be a little confused, and the little exchange with Joe perhaps ended up on a tangent that led to me misattribute some of the ideas being presented here. If so my bad. I'm in a bit of a rush right now, so I'll have to go back and look through the thread later.



It just seems to me that while it seems obvious that we should censor white supremacists, it's not clear what attribute of white supremacism allows us to make that decision and doesn't apply to other things. I'm open to the idea that there is a reasonable criteria that includes that but won't include ideas that will turn out to be true but are just unpopular now.



For instance we all probably disagree with violent animal rights activists. But when it comes down to it it's not so clear to me that they are wrong. I am not sure what to think about that issue, and think that at any case it's better to try to affect change peacefully than violently, but perhaps in the future when looked at through hindsight things will seem different. That's just a random example to suggest that maybe while it seems easy to decide what to censor I think it's good to have a clear criteria.



Having said all this you've probably already spelled out such a criteria and I just missed it, in which case just ignore the lazy dude who needs to go back over the thread.

For me a useful rule-of-thumb is when a group is advocating the removal of rights from fellow citizens, especially when advocating force to do so.

 

[Cavemonster]

By that reasoning the people of North Korea are genuinely living the Paradise on Earth their leaders say they're living.

You make the mistake of thinking "X is bad" implies that "Any system without X is great". Whatever the X under discussion, it obviously isn't the only source of negativity in the world.

I think fast food is crappy and causes health problems. That doesn't mean that places that lack fast food lack health problems or that they're necessarily paradoxes in any way. Rural Somalia probably has no McDonald's but they certainly have serious health and diet issues. That doesn't mean I'm wrong about McDonald's being unhealthy food.

 

[Stout]

I guess you guys from the UK won't be able to participate in the Woo portions of the ISF now.
UK to unleash internet safety czar on Google, Facebook, Twitter

https://www.cnet.com/news/uk-to-keep-social-networks-in-check-with-internet-safety-regulator/

How far will the war on "disinformation" go?

Giving that kind of power to your government? Groovy!

It'll be interesting to see what happens with this.

What would happen to complaints against someone like Richard Dawkins ? Would he be considered "disinformation" if enough religious conservatives complained ?

I sure wouldn't want to be a social media executive with my liability ( possible prison sentence in Australia ) hinging on some underpaid content moderator in the Philippines.

IIRC the UK was also considering some sot of porn license, where you were required to enter some sort of government ID in order to view adult content.

Time to buy some stock in a VPN company.

 

[Cavemonster]

Having read the thread a few days ago, I may be a little confused, and the little exchange with Joe perhaps ended up on a tangent that led to me misattribute some of the ideas being presented here. If so my bad. I'm in a bit of a rush right now, so I'll have to go back and look through the thread later.

It just seems to me that while it seems obvious that we should censor white supremacists, it's not clear what attribute of white supremacism allows us to make that decision and doesn't apply to other things. I'm open to the idea that there is a reasonable criteria that includes that but won't include ideas that will turn out to be true but are just unpopular now.

For instance we all probably disagree with violent animal rights activists. But when it comes down to it it's not so clear to me that they are wrong. I am not sure what to think about that issue, and think that at any case it's better to try to affect change peacefully than violently, but perhaps in the future when looked at through hindsight things will seem different. That's just a random example to suggest that maybe while it seems easy to decide what to censor I think it's good to have a clear criteria.

Having said all this you've probably already spelled out such a criteria and I just missed it, in which case just ignore the lazy dude who needs to go back over the thread.

I absolutely agree that "where is the line" is a legit question to ask.

I can't give you a single, immovable bright line that puts white supremacism on one side and anything that could possibly be benign or open to reexamination at some point in history on the other with logical absolute certainty.

But that's in the same way that I can't draw an absolute line between Loki's head and neck, but Loki's wager is still not sound logic.

A large number, maybe the majority of regulations, both government and private, involve drawing lines that are some degree of arbitrary or cultural common sense.

We draw the line at age for deciding when a person can consent to sex. Theoretically, you might argue that opens the door to eugenics because we can't say beyond a shadow of a doubt that a particular age is entirely different from other categories we might choose to stop people from having sex.

That's why I don't think of "logically arguable" as good evidence for a slippery slope, because the vast majority of the categories we create are technically logically open to arguments for arbitrary expansion. In the end, most of our regulatory systems rely on "reasonable person" standards of one kind or another. And yep, reasonable opinion sometimes isn't logical, and it sometimes becomes what we later think is wrong. But to abandon legal framework that relies on it would be to abandon vast chunks of law. Maybe all of it.

That's why I prefer a more empirical approach to whether a slope is indeed slippery. As I've said, most of the developed world has some kind of content based lack of protection for free speech. And while that can be abused, and it can lead to absurd situations, it does not appear to be tumbling down that slope in any of the many many countries with hate speech laws (which again, are much more extreme than what I'm proposing for the US).

I generally give more credence to empirical observation than technically true theory.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

By that reasoning the people of North Korea are genuinely living the Paradise on Earth their leaders say they're living.

Only if you believe that if X is bad the opposite of X must be good.

 

[sadhatter]

I've also often wondered when we have conversations about this issue do we have any evidence to support the cliches and claims made for freedom of speech, e.g.. expose to the daylight, marketplace of ideas and so on. They sound good but does the evidence stack up.

Show me a good number of societies that engage in heavy censorship but have less corruption, and a good standard of living.

To me is kind of obvious the more a society chooses to censor political views, the more corrupt said society tends to be.

 

[DragonLady]

Only if you believe that if X is bad the opposite of X must be good.

Sometimes it is. But if we're going to limit the free exchange of ideas, how will we evaluate enough of them to be able to know the difference?

Sometimes, in some ways, North Korea really is a paradise. But other times it isn't. How can anyone tell the difference if they have no other concepts to compare with?

They can say "oh, nice weather" because they've seen storms.

But living in a political dome means they never have a chance to consider the real world they live in as it might be under other circumstances.

 

[Cavemonster]

Show me a good number of societies that engage in heavy censorship but have less corruption, and a good standard of living.

To me is kind of obvious the more a society chooses to censor political views, the more corrupt said society tends to be.

I suppose it depends what you mean by "heavy censorship". If you mean more government sanction of speech based on content than the US, and less practical protection than the US, then here are some examples.

If you mean something more draconian, then it's a bit off topic for the thread. No one here is arguing for censorship that's more extreme than the hate speech laws that are already common in most of the developed world.

Iceland
The Netherlands
The United Kingdom
New Zealand
Singapore
Switzerland
France
Canada
Germany

Those are just a few examples of countries with hate speech laws. I suppose we could argue about their levels of corruption and standard of living, but I think a standard that labelled all these countries unnacceptably corrupt or with an unnacceptably low standard of living would either have to rank the US as comparably corrupt unless it was some texas sharpshooter argument drawing an unnatural category around the US.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Ideas don't kill. Truth kills. Innocents are murdered in its name.

Truth also has friends, unsavory mythical characters like perfection and purity. Muses of deadly mayhem, they.

Opposing ideas or their expression isn't likely to help. When "being right" is all that one feels it takes to directly authorize judgment or action, you get a very dangerous world. Recognition of a critical factor involved in moving from facts and findings to operative determinations is yet needed: the role of consensus. Consensus regarding "what is the case", and consensus regarding what should be or not be done is the palliative measure that protects against subjective bias and error.

When respect for the need for consensus is undermined by absolutists of any stripe, in rush the foul ideas, such as the ones quoted in the OP, now free to pose as the way forward amid the confusion.

The number one personal protection against any and all ideologies is to develop the skills and basic knowledge required to (1) correctly classify facts and opinions as such, and (b) argue from foundational postulates in formal systems, and from first principles in social and public policy. Then (iii) learn to use bullets and numbering, holy cow.

 

[DragonLady]

When "being right" is all that one feels it takes to directly authorize judgment or action,

I'm sorry, but I disagree. Throughout history, plenty of people were right, but didn't take action because their views were wildly unpopular. They couldn't possibly shout over the pervasive ideology of the time, and if they tried they were shunned or worse.

So they said nothing, and terrible mistakes were made, and continued being made.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Sometimes it is. But if we're going to limit the free exchange of ideas, how will we evaluate enough of them to be able to know the difference?

The same way we limit absolutely everything else that we know is generally a good thing but can be taken to extremes. Using our best judgement of the harm the things cause and the societal benefit/harm of disallowing it.

 

[DragonLady]

The same way we limit absolutely everything else that we know is generally a good thing but can be taken to extremes. Using our best judgement of the harm the things cause and the societal benefit/harm of disallowing it.

Right.

So no point whatsoever to disallowing almost anything.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Right.

So no point whatsoever to disallowing almost anything.

You seem to have an issue with taking huge leaps of faith in reasoning. We limit and disallow a whole lot of things.

We put speed limits on roads - but we don't make people walk with flags in front of cars anymore. And the roads work.

We limit the things doctors can do - but we don't stop people practising medicine entirely. And medicine works.

We have financial regulation - but we don't resort to bartering goods in the market. And the financial system still gets by.

Because in all of these things we realise that while they are generally good things there are some forms of behaviour that can be detrimental and damaging and we want to impose restrictions on those.

This fetishizing and mythicising 'free speech' as if somehow these great thinkers are having their genius ideas limited is laughable. Scrawling 'Muslims are paedos' on a mosque (or posting it on Facebook) is not some great achievement of human reasoning and people need to stop pretending it is somehow meritorious to defend that kind of thing.

 

[DragonLady]

You seem to have an issue with taking huge leaps of faith in reasoning.

I believe it's important to apply the same logic to everything. If a "solution" doesn't work in almost every case, it really doesn't work.

We limit and disallow a whole lot of things.

Yes; of course we do. After showing they have caused or are highly likely to cause direct harm.

We put speed limits on roads - but we don't make people walk with flags in front of cars anymore. And the roads work.

Sure. But here, the subject is IDEAS and DISCUSSION. We don't stop people from talking about driving at breakneck speeds or even buying cars capable of same. We only apply limits to the ACT of driving above certain speeds.

We limit the things doctors can do - but we don't stop people practising medicine entirely. And medicine works.

See above. We limit the ACTIONS a doctor can take. But we don't limit people's ability to spread information -good and bad- about healthcare, so people can make their own choices.

We have financial regulation - but we don't resort to bartering goods in the market. And the financial system still gets by.

We don't HAVE to resort to bartering goods in the market, but we still can.

Because in all of these things we realise that while they are generally good things there are some forms of behaviour that can be detrimental and damaging and we want to impose restrictions on those.

Right. Once again, my position is that IDEAS are not harmful and should not be limited. SPEECH is only harmful under very narrow circumstances (such as conspiring to commit a crime or inciting a riot), and should not be limited.

This fetishizing and mythicising 'free speech' as if somehow these great thinkers are having their genius ideas limited is laughable.

There is nothing mythical about our Constitution, where the great thinkers who founded our wonderful country codified the genius of "free speech" into the highest law of our land.

Scrawling 'Muslims are paedos' on a mosque (or posting it on Facebook) is not some great achievement of human reasoning and people need to stop pretending it is somehow meritorious to defend that kind of thing.

[/QUOTE]

I have not defended any such act. If a person wanted to stand on the corner shouting "Muslims are paedos" I would argue that unless he's violating noise ordinances or other local laws, he should just be allowed to shout.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I believe it's important to apply the same logic to everything. If a "solution" doesn't work in almost every case, it really doesn't work.

That's insane.

 

[Belz...]

I believe it's important to apply the same logic to everything.

You should think about that one for a moment.

 

[DragonLady]

That's insane.

You should think about that one for a moment.

Back atcha both. I've been thinking about it most of my life.

If we're going to limit anything in some areas, we eventually have to limit it in more and more and more areas because someone will always find a way to cross the imaginary line. That's why whenever we make one law that seems reasonable, we often have a million people in prison a few years later. The slippery slope isn't a fallacy when you can see it in action, sliding further down the hill every day.

I don't understand the attitudes of so many people the last ten years or so wanting to put limits and laws on things based on "feelings" and "morals" -two ideals which simply cannot be legislated.

In this case, if you take away free speech, you take away the voice of the people to object to taking away anything else. It's insanity to me, and it was to the founders who wrote Bill of Rights, too. They already knew the disastrous consequences of attempting to set limits, and just where that road always goes.

 

[Belz...]

Back atcha both. I've been thinking about it most of my life.

You know, once I found a website about the "Apollo Hoax" and the owner said he had been researching the topic for years... and the first piece of 'evidence' he mentioned was the lack of stars in the moon pictures. Sometimes spending a lot of time thinking about it from the exact same angle doesn't help.

If you apply the exact same logic to everything, you're ignoring that humans value different things differently, and therefore that context changes the logic we should use.

I don't understand the attitudes of so many people the last ten years or so wanting to put limits and laws on things based on "feelings" and "morals" -two ideals which simply cannot be legislated.

...those are the ONLY sources of legislation.

 

[uke2se]

Back atcha both. I've been thinking about it most of my life.

If we're going to limit anything in some areas, we eventually have to limit it in more and more and more areas because someone will always find a way to cross the imaginary line. That's why whenever we make one law that seems reasonable, we often have a million people in prison a few years later. The slippery slope isn't a fallacy when you can see it in action, sliding further down the hill every day.

I don't understand the attitudes of so many people the last ten years or so wanting to put limits and laws on things based on "feelings" and "morals" -two ideals which simply cannot be legislated.

In this case, if you take away free speech, you take away the voice of the people to object to taking away anything else. It's insanity to me, and it was to the founders who wrote Bill of Rights, too. They already knew the disastrous consequences of attempting to set limits, and just where that road always goes.

I take it you are against laws against threats, laws against child pornography (the having and viewing parts anyway) and laws against lying to the FBI etc? I mean, all of those puts limits on the freedom of speech based on "feelings" and "morals".

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I believe it's important to apply the same logic to everything. If a "solution" doesn't work in almost every case, it really doesn't work.

Which has nothing at all to do with whether that solution means the same outcome in every case

Yes; of course we do. After showing they have caused or are highly likely to cause direct harm.

Direct harm? No.

Sure. But here, the subject is IDEAS and DISCUSSION. We don't stop people from talking about driving at breakneck speeds or even buying cars capable of same. We only apply limits to the ACT of driving above certain speeds.

Actually we do apply limits to talking about driving at breakneck speeds too. We don't allow advertisers to show reckless dangerous driving in their ads for example. But even so, that doesn't change the argument that it is possible to limit things without doing away with them entirely.

And yes, speech is a behaviour.

See above. We limit the ACTIONS a doctor can take. But we don't limit people's ability to spread information -good and bad- about healthcare, so people can make their own choices.

Again no. You can't claim that your magic beans cure cancer. And again it doesn't change the point that you can limit things without doing away with them entirely

We don't HAVE to resort to bartering goods in the market, but we still can.

Indeed. But again. You can limit things without doing away with them entirely

Right. Once again, my position is that IDEAS are not harmful and should not be limited. SPEECH is only harmful under very narrow circumstances (such as conspiring to commit a crime or inciting a riot), and should not be limited.

No, your position was that if we limit extreme speech then we end up like North Korea. And here you are already backtracking by pointing out that you actually agree on limits of speech.

Why should conspiring to commit a crime be different under your rules? After all they aren't ACTING on it. Only conspiring. It's only ideas right?

No, because we know that ideas lead to action.

There is nothing mythical about our Constitution, where the great thinkers who founded our wonderful country codified the genius of "free speech" into the highest law of our land.

Correction - YOUR constitution. And yes it has been mythologised. What makes you think the founding fathers were great thinkers who codified genius in the constitution? Couldn't they have been wrong in some ways? Couldn't a couple of hundred years of social development have led to some new better ideas?

I have not defended any such act. If a person wanted to stand on the corner shouting "Muslims are paedos" I would argue that unless he's violating noise ordinances or other local laws, he should just be allowed to shout.

Yes you have defended it. Because you are opposed to rules that would make it wrong.

Its also bizarre that you seem to think it more important not to break noise ordinances. We don't want to disturb the neighbours with a big of noise but its perfectly OK to disturb them by chanting for them not to exist, to be sent 'home', to accuse them of crimes, to brand them immoral, etc etc.

Seriously? You are going to have to walk me through the logic on that one