This isn’t your college or work place break room. If people are saying something you disagree with you can just say it and you won’t be fired or ostracized for it. Yeah, people will probably get angry and say mean things to you but those are just words which can be ignored. Offence is taken, not given.
This is mostly for the lurkers who upvote unpopular opinions but don’t comment. You can speak up - you’re not alone.
Never say anything you aren’t willing to stand behind. Because it won’t go away. And with authoritarian regimes coming to power… you gotta be cognizant of the potential consequences
But generally, I agree with you. The further we get away from groupthink the better we are for it. When we self-censor out of fear of disapproval we are perpetuating the cycle and making it more likely the next person doesn’t speak their mind.
Just because everyone believes something is right, does not mean it is. The majority has been wrong in the past and it will be wrong in the future.
For the past 10 years or so I’ve pretty much assumed that at some point a superintelligent AI or similar will be able to find everyone’s online profiles and link them to the actual person behind them. Then we’ll all be held accountable for the things we’ve said in the past. That’s why I never lie or say something I don’t actually believe in. I’m not proud of every comment I’ve posted but those are my actual beliefs and what ever people will be able to dig up I can stand behind and explain reasoning.
thats why I lie and obfuscate all the time and I don’t all the time as well. I do try to curtail my sarcastic inclinations as the internet is just getting wierd. You gotta take everything from the internet with a grain of salt. Fact is in a free society there should be no criminal consequence to speech. So guy shoots guy and yes criminal system gets involved but someone says hey thats a great thing then no it should not and if it does then yeah the shooting makes a super a lot of sense.
yeah it’s a weird time. over in England during the anti-immigrant riots some people got sent to jail for inciting violence for some twitter messages. If you actually read the messages and compare it to the rhetoric coming out of many people about this CEO, many people would be sent to jail if we were following the same standard.
obviously the US is not England and we have free speech protections- but people really should exercise caution
this is why im such a free speech absolutist. things not in the physical realm should have consequences not in the physical realm. like unpopularity or derersion. real life consequences should be for real life actions.
I mean, it depends. I think the current laws in the US are more or less fine.
For example, if I send you a death threat through an online message, it should be equivalent to me sending you a death threat in any other fashion.
So I’m not a total absolutist, but I am a strong free-speech proponent.
I think saying something like “i believe all [plural form of random ethnic slur] should be brutally murdered” is an expression of a belief. it’s a horrific belief, yes, but it’s a belief. I think it constitutes as free speech and therefore the government cannot prosecute
however let’s say I’m a musician at a concert and i see a guy in the crowd and point and yell to the crowd “hey everybody, attack that [singular form of ethnic slur] and rip his [religious apparel] off” - that isn’t a belief. that is an incitement to violence.
that should be a crime.
in England, both the first and the 2nd are crimes. here in the US, it’s only the 2nd
Well your example is different. If a mob boss orders a hit on someone then yes it should be the same as if they did it themselves. Same with your concert guy directing people to attack someone. I actually do not see online as different than print or actual speech or whatnot. they are all speech to me. If a musician says we need to kill all the homos then folks should stop going to their concerts and if someone says what we should really do is kill that musician for his homophonbic beliefs, I think thats his right. If he says I want you to go and kill that muscician right now then that is not ok. I feel instructing people to do things goes into the action category.
exactly. that’s how US law works. in England, the state has much broader powers to arrest you depending on your speech. Like for example, the first statement I made
a very similar post on twitter got someone sentenced to 2 years in jail over in England just a few months ago. let search around and find the direct quote…
i found it
My interpretation is that this is a belief. He didn’t explicitly instruct anyone to do anything. He said, in other words - “if people set fire to all the muslim immigrants, i wouldn’t care” or basically “i would be happy with people setting fire to all muslim imimgrants”
in England, that’s a crime. in the US, you have to be much more explicit. You have to
a) specifically instruct people to do something “everyone, attack that person in the red hat”
b) hold the belief that your statement has a real chance to followed. so for example, if you right now say “hey kava, beat your wife” you almost certainly could not be charged in the US because a reasonable person would not immediately beat their wife because of a statement like that
c) it has to be immediate - so you have to say something and it happen in the very near future. so if you write “let’s stab all the [ethnic slurs]” and then someone reads that 3 months into the future- you can’t be held liable.
So I believe the US laws, in this case, are so much better than English laws.
The US does a lot of shit wrong. So many things. But on speech? I think best in the world.
edit: there’s more on this topic if you’re interested: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test
It used to be best. Since 9/11 they can tag anything as terrorism and all bets are off. America today is not the america of the nineties.