Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
People are simply being raised into being part of a machine that supports them, down to their self-identity and worth requiring unwavering reinforcement to be "healthy", as opposed to a more independent view of the self that deals with both the good & the bad that comes in life.
Freedom means that others may or may not engage in supporting you, and that goes against fundamental social interaction being drilled in at public schools. Independent thought is punished, and strongly individualized personalities are medicated away and lumped in with the kids who have legitimate medical issues. There is no dealing with good and bad, there's only dealing with good and enforced elimination of anything that might be construed as bad, and "bad" encompasses more and more every social cycle.
People are simply giving up on the notion of the independently maintained "self" entirely, not just benefiting from support from society, but shifting to demanding that unwavering personal support from society. That's incompatible with freedom.
I'm not even talking about money or power. I'm simply talking about social interaction. Plenty of disadvantaged people across history held their individual dignity in how they personally acted, took care of their family, etc, regardless of how they're treated, or if they weren't going to be able to rise the ranks.
- Freedom and democracy are different things, if some people think democracy isn't that important, it does not mean they do not value freedom.
- Maybe the millenials are "not open to diverse opinions", but maybe they're just sick of bullshit. "Free Speech" can be interpreted in different ways (and each country in the world does that).
https://www.dn.pt/portugal/interior/piropos-ja-sao-crime-e-d...
Translation: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&js=y&prev...
And yet, we've had libel and slander laws forever. The government has never not regulated bullshitting, all serious debate is over the precise boundaries, not whether it should be done.
Maybe Millenials are just more honest about it, and decline to label regulation that does only what they are happy with as “Free Speech”.
No, it doesn't. It says that many are in favor of colleges regulating some on-campus speech that is deliberately offensive. Even to the extent that the colleges are public and thus even relevant to “free speech” considerations, that's a combination of context and intent to offend, not mere capacity to offend, that is at issue.
(It separately says that many would support the government regulating “certain types of offensive speech”, which does not provide enough information to support that the basis is mere capacity to offend; the types of things that constitute per se defamation are arguably a “certain type of offensive speech”, for instance; vague categories are good for getting big scary numbers, but weak for supporting concrete conclusions.)
Prohibitions where intent is an essential component, and judging intent is essential to applying the prohibition are not new in campus regulation, or in civil and criminal law, for that matter.
But, in any case, that's in implementation issue that is not germane to what support has actually been voiced for.
I agree that it feels inflated compared to potentially less emotionally provocative question about freedom of speech as a fundamental concept.
Then again, I wouldn't be shocked if that is the the general stance of a lot of people. Speaking as a Canadian, these types of government restrictions on hateful speech are written into law and largely uncontested in politics.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen...
I really don’t understand people who are more afraid of a racial slur (to be clear, I strongly disapprove of that kind of thing) than of losing freedom of thought and of expression.
e.g. Switzerland's infamous vote to ban minarets[1]. A lot of European countries seem to have a problem with religious freedom, despite being very democratic. Contrast with the undemocratic Singapore where people of different religions coexist relatively harmoniously.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_minaret_referendum,_2009
I think this line of thinking stems from the belief that democracy is the default state, and that it can withstand suppressing voices that disagrees with the dogma someone fights for.
Democracy is more than just casting a vote. Many non-democracies have elections. Democracies are an elegant and fragile relationship between civic will and laws.
The outcome of a desire for freedom is democracy. You don't start with democracy or install it, people create it and protect it with laws that protect personal freedoms. Most countries with alternate political systems have citizens with less freedoms and rule by law rather than rule of law: you end up with legalism, like in China.
If people feel that democracy is failing them than I would suggest that that exemplifies a shift in profound ideas about freedom that leads to democracy.
From the perspective of a relatively functioning democracy, all other political systems should look worse, should look less free.
Doesn't that depend on what you would have instead? You could have either a more concentrated power and a less concentrated power.
But in other ways, it is not. Too concentrated and you easily become technocratic or authoritarian, to unconcentrated and you lose the expression of civic will that emerges from elections that "build", so to speak, to national levels and allow amazing things to be done in democracies.
Personally, I'm a bigger fan of parliamentary democracies than presidential. I also believe a sore point for many towards democracy (particularly the idea that democracy is mob rule, or that votes are meaningless) is actually over "first past the post" voting rules. Luckily, we can make democracies better. It's purposely hard to change them, for good reason, but unlike other systems, they are flexible.
But, I think if you would rather have a system that is less democratic then that loss of democracy is a loss of freedom at the disproportionate expense of someone else. We call that undemocratic.
(I do not intend this comment as a value judgement one way or the other.)
Yes a functional society must have laws but say you have two societies with the same set of laws, one generated by dictatorial benevolent AI overlords and one generated by democracy. Are the people in the AI-governed society less free, even when subject to the same rules and restrictions?
I think no, they're not less free. That would mean that democracy is important to freedom only if it's the only way to generate that set of rules and I don't think it is. The right dictator can come up with the same rules as a democratic government.
Yes. Because that's baked into your premise:
> the same set of laws, one generated by dictatorial benevolent AI overlords and one generated by democracy.
These are not the same sets of laws. These are not the same societies. They are not the same systems. Those under the AI have no say in those laws or recourse to alter them. They are entirely at the whim of your AI. A benevolent dictator is still a dictator. By definition that is not democratic, and I would say, less free.
> The right dictator can come up with the same rules as a democratic government.
They could, but that would not mean their dictatorship is a democracy or free. It is a profound hypocrisy for a dictator to say they value freedom. If they did, they would not be a dictator.
> Those under the AI have no say in those laws or recourse to alter them.
Sorry, I did miss that part. I'll revise to say "the same laws, save for the means of changing them".
The only freedom that's really lost in my AI-dictated society is the freedom to determine the rules and on an individual level, I don't think that's meaningful. At an individual level, I already cannot realistically change the rules, so losing that technicality makes me no less free.
> A benevolent dictator is still a dictator. By definition that is not democratic, and I would say, less free.
> They could, but that would not mean their dictatorship is a democracy or free.
You keep bringing democracy in where I don't believe it belongs. I'm talking about freedom, not democracy.
> It is a profound hypocrisy for a dictator to say they value freedom.
I don't think so. A dictator who values freedom can ensure their subjects have it. A person living under the right dictator would have more freedom than one living under the wrong (but still valid) democracy, being freed from the burden of governance.
I think where we differ is you value the freedom to influence government, no matter how little above all whereas I value just about everything else more.
> The only freedom that's really lost in my AI-dictated society is the freedom to determine the rules and on an individual level, I don't think that's meaningful. At an individual level, I already cannot realistically change the rules, so losing that technicality makes me no less free.
But the loss of the individual freedom to determine the rules is also the loss of freedom for a society to determine the rules for itself. That is profoundly meaningful. Every dystopian narrative in modern history has been about that point. "Perfect" societies are as artificial as "rightful" dictators. Freedom without democracy is, from the view of a democracy, not freedom at all.
> You keep bringing democracy in where I don't believe it belongs. I'm talking about freedom, not democracy.
I disagree, I'm saying they are the same thing. A democracy expresses our freedom and our freedom is expressed through our democracy. They cannot be separated. I think that is our main disagreement.
> A person living under the right dictator would have more freedom than one living under the wrong (but still valid) democracy, being freed from the burden of governance.
Governance is not a burden. This is why I say devaluing freedom is devaluing democracy. And why the "right" dictator is still a dictator, and therefore they cannot but perpetuate a less free system. Our democracies are a system that allows us to trust a representative from society to project our mandate, to express our will, amongst others with mutual trust placed in them. If they do not, then we can vote them out. It is not a burden to vote or to take part in politics. On the contrary, it is a singular symbol of our freedoms. That does not mean democracies are perfect. Lord knows they are not. But, democracies are the best we have. It's not an add-on, we either have it or we are less free.
Freedom of society and freedom of the individual are two different things and a society can have different levels of both.
Say you have a democratic wolf and sheep society, where wolves are the majority and treat the sheep as a lower class, treat them horribly and basically just farm them for food. As a wolf in a this society governed by wolves, you may feel quite free, because your wishes are reflected by many and the changes you aim for tend to happen. How though, would you feel as a sheep? Technically you have the same individual freedom as a wolf but at a societal level, you are powerless. You live a terrible life and there's nothing you can do about it because of the very democratic system that's intended to ensure your freedom.
I believe the sheep would be more free in a benevolent dictatorship. A dictator could give the sheep green grass, sunshine, freedom from being eaten, freedom to live a long and happy life and much more. All it would take is giving up the ultimately useless theoretical ability to participate in democracy. The wolves could be too, perhaps they could eat chickens or somesuch.
> Governance is not a burden. [...] It is not a burden to vote or to take part in politics.
To some, it is. Democracy places responsibility on all its participants and being relieved of that responsibility is a form of freedom. In a dictatorial society, I have the freedom to spend time I'd spend participating in the democratic process doing other things. If the dictator makes a bad decision, I am in no way responsible for it.
So to rephrase, what would be the difference between someone doing exactly what a dictator does, same laws, same rules, but elected freely by the people, versus the dictator? It would be the freedom to choose who dictates. Thus, you would have one less freedom, making you less free.
Having said that, you have a good point. I think you're talking about the majority's rule problem. Democracy suffers from that, where you can't individually choose, you need support from others. Now some people have more power to influence, so much so, that they might be indirectly ruling. This practically limits you're freedom to choose who dictates. And given a majority whose singly influenced by a powerful actor, which doesn't listen to you, a benevolent dictator which were to be more considering of your needs and desires, you might actually enjoy your life better and practically have more freedom.
I think this is the situation we find ourselves more and more into. Strong actors are spawning, and they have such powerful influence on large swats of people, that they are tending towards partial dictatorship. Similarly, minorities voices are being shut more and more, so a larhe amount of people are feeling oppression, and their freedom taken away as they lose influence in the votes.
I think younger generations feel this. We need to find ways to reorient democracy, and keep its balance. If not, in practice, it can tend towards the same issues that dictatorships have, granted possibly less damaging, as it should be assumed that at least a majority of people will have what they want.
> So to rephrase, what would be the difference between someone doing exactly what a dictator does, same laws, same rules, but elected freely by the people, versus the dictator? It would be the freedom to choose who dictates. Thus, you would have one less freedom, making you less free.
I think this is similar to the argument made in the other comment.
There are two different kinds of freedom here: The freedom for society to govern itself and the freedom of the individual.
As an individual, if I disagree with my leader, it ultimately makes very little difference whether the leader is a dictator there by force or an elected representative of a majority which will never share my views. As an individual, I have no influence on society either way.
My belief is that a society can exist where society is unfree (due to say a dictator) but individuals are free (a fair set of laws is in place that causes minimal harm/maximal good). This society is just as free if not more free than a democracy.
Therefore, democracy is not freedom.
> Having said that, you have a good point. I think you're talking about the majority's rule problem. Democracy suffers from that, where you can't individually choose, you need support from others. Now some people have more power to influence, so much so, that they might be indirectly ruling. This practically limits you're freedom to choose who dictates. And given a majority whose singly influenced by a powerful actor, which doesn't listen to you, a benevolent dictator which were to be more considering of your needs and desires, you might actually enjoy your life better and practically have more freedom.
Yes, I made exactly that argument in the other comment.
...
> My belief is that a society can exist where society is unfree (due to say a dictator) but individuals are free (a fair set of laws is in place that causes minimal harm/maximal good). This society is just as free if not more free than a democracy. Therefore, democracy is not freedom.
Well, I'd be okay with your distinction if you didn't contradict yourself here. Is the society free or not?
It appears to me like you're suggesting that a dictator who valued individual rights could create a society where the people in it have no recourse short of a forceful overrule to change they're rights, but who'se forced upon rights are vast and very generous. So you'd classify this as an unfree society, but one where freedoms are given to individuals.
But that would mean that dictatorship is not free, and thus not equal to freedom or a free society. While democracy is free, and thus equal to a free society. And that ones individual rights is almost a fully orthogonal concept. Which is what I personally believe. And why I think both are important to maintain. Individual and human rights must be fought for, and made law, protected against strongly. Yet society need also be free, and democracy is the best implementation of a free society we have.
Now sure, in a unrealistic scenario, where a dictator would give me almost idealistic individual rights, yet the neighboring democracy would give me subpar individual rights, I might prefer individual rights over it. But that example is just ridiculous. In practice, this has never happened, and that choice doesn't exist. But I take your point was that individual rights might trump a fare election system, and I think I'd agree with that. But again, I see that in practice, one is rarely there without the other, probably because most people who value individual rights, also value the freedom to choose who govern them.
* fair and free elections
* representative form of government (not a "tyranny of the majority")
* limited government
* individual rights that can not be usurped by majority rule
* separation of powers and checks and balances
* rule of law
Specifically, that the outcome of a desire for freedom is democracy. It's not freedom itself. I still stand with my point, both should not be conflated at the risk of being blind to the shortcomings democracy could have.
Democracy can have shortcomings and still be the best system out there, but being aware of them (questioning freedom vs democracy is one way) prevents our systems from drifting away.
Democracy is a form of freedom (freedom from government in which one is not a participant), and clearly a form of freedom important in the historical American concept of freedom (though, to be fair, it's not just Millenials for whom that had weakened, with the colonial America’s signature protest against norepresentative dictates being co-opted ss a symbol for political forces that are opposed to taxation rather than it’s imposition by nonrepresentative means.)
Like you want freedom from government, but you also don't want oppression by the majority.
Not saying that's necessarily the case, but could be.
Millenials don't feel particularly free to speak when they live in permanent debt, begging the wealthy to gift them with an unpaid internship and praying they don't get sick. When they do speak, their voices are drowned out by billions of dollars in propaganda campaigns. Yet they are told "this is freedom" and you're surprised they value it less?
If you asked them whether they want "freedom" of course they would say yes. But it's ridiculous to say a homeless person is "free" because the cops don't arrest and harass him for speaking his mind. It's ridiculous to say a millenial is "free" when those of them lucky enough to get jobs have to toe the line and obey every command from their employer, watching what they say on social media, accepting the most egregious reaches of corporate power into their personal lives so that they have a prayer at one day paying back their insurmountable debts.
Millenials, unlike the generation before them, recognize that material conditions are of fundamental importance and that any notion of "freedom" that ignores them is not worth much. The "freedom" to buy a news organization or bribe a politician with infinite dark money is just enshrining corporate power. The "freedom" to buy healthcare is meaningless without the means to also afford it. Millenials see through the very shallow veneer of whines about "freedom" that do nothing but obscure blatant attempts to preserve current power structures.
Consider tech contracts: companies write contracts so that they own what you think in your off time. They write contracts so that if you decide to quit, you cannot legally work for years. That is not freedom, it is the opposite. Yet the libertarian screed is "well, in the abstract, you have the freedom to make that contract or not as you see fit"; what consolation to those who need a job to pay rent or buy food.
This attitude shift is mostly definitional semantics and is just a natural result of decades of libertarian/conservative weasel-wording around "freedom" so that it is a meaningless platitude that expresses nothing more than "a principle which benefits those with means".
Shouldn't we rather say that he is free, but that there are _other_ things lacking in his life?
Let's not load the word _freedom_ with everything that is good in this world. Being free doesn't guarantee having happiness, food, clothes, friends, health, a successful career, and so on. If we want to talk about all that, there is probably a better word for it. Besides, what word would we use in its place?
Freedom used to mean these things, it was a way to see that you were in charge of your destiny in a realistic way. That the opportunities would be there, if you were only willing to take them, no one would stop you, you could be anything you wanted if you just walked the part.
If that's not true anymore, if freedom no longer leads to happiness, comfort and health, then maybe its time to go back to the drawing board.
What's amazing for US millenials in particular is just how much we've got and how little we appreciate it.
$500 apt
$150 car insurance
$100 utilities
$ 50 media (Netflix, Spotify, etc)
You're taking home about $1800 a month, so that still leaves another $1000 to fill out the rest (food, gasoline, etc). That's plenty of money. You aren't going to be making regular trips to Hawaii, but that's more than enough to do whatever you'd like.
My shitty apartment in a small city (80k) was 615 a month.
100 dollars a month for gas/water/power?
You need internet for that media consumption.
You need gas for that car.
Cell phone?
Food?
In the town nearest where I grew up, $500 will get you a 2 bed, 1.5 bath apartment on a golf course.
I once cut my power bill during the winter by sleeping in a closet with a space heater. Other times, I hung out in coffee shops to avoid having to be home and having to turn on the heater. May be that's the kind of living you imagine that isn't crazy, but I don't imagine everyone is willing to live like that.
I agree it's a much better position to be in than say, indentured servitude, but it's naive to just expect or declare that people be happy living like this and stay happy living like this for the foreseeable future.
You deff had help from your parents to so blithely discount those expenses.
This also assumes 30k per member of a household. And don't forget a good 3k to 5k going to tax depending on your state.
Its also ignoring any savings, so your old age will be deplorable, and any accident or sudden loss of work will also be extremely rough.
Don't get me wrong, you wouldn't want to live like this for 30 years (though if you had good credit and then got your own house, you could easily reduce those costs, too), and it takes sacrifice, but the entire reason I mentioned 30k is because 30k isn't that hard to make, and despite that, you still have an easy road to it and (some) disposable income.
If you want more, you have to work harder, not shocking, but what you can do on 30k if you try is astounding. It's certainly not the impoverished, destitute slavery some people are acting like it is.
In my opinion, the average American income should be able to support a family. At least 1 kid and a stay at home parent. That feels like that 30k gets stretched pretty thin in that case.
And if it was an option to make more by working harder, I'd say fine, but I'm not so sure it is. I think you can only make more by working smarter, and thats going to come at an investment of both time and money. Not sure where in the 30k the money would come from.
I'm still not convinced by that budget of yours though.
If you live remote so that your rent and food cost gets down to 500$ and 200$ a month, you'll need a car. Which is itself a 30k purchase. So now you've got one loan already, lets say 200$ extra a month. Then the gas will eat another 100$ at least.
500 rent + 200 food + 200 car + 150 car insurance/maintenance + 100 gas + 100 phone/internet + 100 utilities + 100 medical/dental insurance + 50 media. That's 1500$ already.
Now you need to furnish your appartment, get a laptop, a TV. Lets say you do all that for 5k. And amortize it over 3 years, say you got another loan for it. Now you've got 150$ per month downpayments for that. Now we're at 1650$ a month.
Now with income tax, you only have 2000$ a month, assuming you live in Iwoa. So you're left with 350$.
I feel at least another 100$ needs to be added for clothes and household goods. So 250$ left a month.
At this point, all you do is work, consume media and eat at home always. And your saving maybe 250$ a month.
I feel that's more realistic a budget. Again, I see no room for any dependents, no kid, no partner that's not also working.
So while again, I agree with you, this isn't terrible, it sounds quite unfulfilling. There's barely any wiggle room for any kind of hobby, travel, lesson, etc. And obviously any health issue or temporary loss of job will mean lots more dept will accrue.
Anyways, I think all that would be totally fine if we had cheap or free education and a free or cheap healthcare and a slightly better unemployment benefit. Without that, I don't really see where are the opportunities to make more. You can't afford school, you can't afford to switch jobs, and you can't afford to get sick or old.
The median income in the US is not far off $30K[1], so what do half the population do?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
For what it is worth, the median income in Canada is also ~$30K[1].
[1] http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/f...
it's enough that you won't starve to death.
[1] https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader#Personality_and_ch...
What about the other side of that initial assumption? Are there causes other than the 30k-thing that might be why people don't seem to care as much about freedom? I suspect the confusion between 'democracy' (which can be pretty imperfect; starting wars and all that) and 'freedom' (which is a very generic concept) might be a part of it. It also might be just the usurpation of the theme of 'freedom' to back conservative opinions (e.g. freedom to discriminate).
I earn more now, and am considerably more free. I don't wish how I lived on anyone, and I am under no delusion that most well adjusted adults in the richest country in the world would be willing to live how I did. I realize you aren't making this argument, I'm more replying to who I replied to initially.
Might I add I had good healthcare due to my university...and my department waived my tuition (and hence paid for my healthcare). Could you imagine life without that? Or if I couldn't defer my loans?
It was pretty tight at times but we made it work.
I switched to a different company and make around 4-3x that now and live pretty comfortably.
Welcome to a world that isn't California (and to an extend New York)
Nobody can help you if you are fiscally irresponsible, it's not an unobtainable path to freedom though.
Think about it.
Taxes/Medicare/SSI chops of 30%, you're left with 21k.
Rent is 500 a month in a cheap city with a roomate, youre left with 15k.
Utilities are 100 a month with a roomate, that leaves you with 13000ish.
Food and ALL OTHER living expenses including clothes, transportation/gas, etc are (living frugally) 250 a week.
That leaves you with 1k a year...
Fear is a good answer here, though phrases like "helicopter parenting" and "victimhood culture" might bely some existing biases by the author. Perhaps the fear of the "other" tribe are driving these shifts; after all, I doubt that anyone who says they'd be in favor of restricting speech feel like their speech will be restricted.
And it's also possible that a decade or so of gridlock is taking its toll. If this is what freedom looks like, could you blame someone for wanting to try something different? Not saying that's true of me, but I can see how it would happen.
"Let's kill all the $X" is a call for violence. "I hate $X" isn't. It's hateful, but observably some values of $X are currently acceptable while others aren't, depending on what direction the popular outrage trends are heading. Should "I hate the rich/politicians/corporations/nazis/capitalists/white males/etc" be illegal speech? That's quite a can of worms.
These free speech arguments are sort of like the government wanting secure encryption, except that the they should still be able to break it. Encryption is either secure for both legal and illegal uses, or it isn't. In the same way, it's semantically unresolvable to have legally-protected free speech for acceptable speech only.
Any argument for free speech necessarily empowers unacceptable speech, and any argument against free speech necessarily criminalizes acceptable speech.
Honestly, this isn't a computer algorithm. We have the capacity to judge different speech in different contexts.
While realistically such consensus is required in some cases anyway due to the imprecise nature of lawmaking, we should still strive for clear ruleset as a baseline, precisely so that the little guy is as informed of his rights as he reasonably can be.
And it doesn't need go very far. Inciting violence, threats to ones well being or insults towards a group, spoken to a crowd, say 10+ people, either verbally, or written, or gestured. That would include any medium which assumed an audience of more then 10 people. Yes, I'd include online forums, tweets, etc in that.
Like, I can't think of any socially relevent commentary that needs you say things of that sort, unless its because you're basically rebuting against someone else doing the same. And again, don't need to jail people, a fine would be a good start.
You can even express very inappropriate ideas without resorting to these. For example: "If X were truly less intelligent, it could be that this alone would explain why they are poorer overall, and so, no amount of extra care would help, because their intelligence is an innate limitation." No insults, no threats, no violence. Yet still incredibly controversial. Now the people you'd say this to might be tempted to insult you back, but if they did, they'd be fined, so instead they'd also have to be civil. For example: "That's true, but there's no proof that X are innately less intelligent, and there's known examples of Xs which have demonstrated higher then average intelligence, so its a moot argument, and one that seems to imply a certain innate bias against X from Y. If it were true, and this shows it, that Y had an innate racism against X, then its possible Y wants to keep X poor."
Please prove me otherwise, but I don't see what's so hard about enforcing some civility in speech when expressed to a sizable audience.
Maybe, but probably more likely we'll just end up where media and public discourse just becomes slightly more civil, tones down insults and focueses a little more on substance to make its claims.
I similarly don't have a way to prove this would be the outcome, I admit. I rely on a different premise, that we're a reasonable democracy, and that just as we work to fight collusion and corruption, we'd manage to control abuse of such laws in cases where they'd be used to oppress and control in a non democratic way. I feel if you don't believe our society can do this, then we're doomed to lose our freedoms to an authoritative regime anyways.
The judgment of most of the court activity is focused on whether or not someone broke the law, not whether the law is "reasonable". That's a much bigger battle that can't be reasonably expected to be fought in any individual case, and ideally should be done before signing into law, not after. The law, as written, should apply to all cases and all sides equally. Justice being blind and all.
The history of free speech in the USA has had it pretty wide open, and these issues are about whether and how much to constrain it. That means criminalizing or penalizing in some way speech that used to be free, bringing up all the issues above and in my last post.
Insulting someone, calling them names, threatening their well being, shouting at them, and inciting others to do the same, those are all tactics to shut out the targeted individuals. Make their voices irrelevant, ignored, and their will to speak smaller in fear of retribution.
Now I think we're smart enough to find regulation that are smart enough to restrict only that kind of speech, and if it's non obvious, I'm okay sitting on the side of allowing it. But some of today's speech is just blatantly the latter, and thats true in all political spheres, and even in most apolitical spheres.
I have no idea why you think those things you list should be legally actionable in and of themselves. The fact that people are petty and appeal to lesser things like this are really cultural failings, not legal failings. You can't legislate people into being (subjectively) well-tempered and reasonable in their beliefs and daily interactions.
We have restrictions on Commercial Speech such that commercial exchange and competition is to be around truthfully presented products, which is pretty objective. Stuff like libel also hinges on the truth of what's being said which again can usually be tested.
The issues you list are far more nebulous and subjective. Anybody could claim that they felt threatened by another's ideas, claiming a conspiracy to silence them exists, etc. These exact tactics are currently in use to silence and manipulate others in the same way. It's simply a war of propaganda on both sides of these "tools".
I think the legal notion of none of this stuff mattering unless actual damage is incurred, or actionable threats of real damage have been made, is reasonable. Otherwise, you're falling into pre-crime fallacies. And besides, let's not continue to expand the litigiousness of our society by making every nitpick and disagreement a legal issue.
> You can't legislate people into being (subjectively) well-tempered and reasonable in their beliefs and daily interactions.
I'm not trying to do that. I think speech targetting a sizable audience, like in media outlets, public quorum, internet forums, should not be allowed to insult or threaten a group, and shouldn't be allowed to entice others to those acts. I think this could be legislated, and I believe cases of abuse would be rare, and in those cases, I think legal recourse can be used to have a proper verdict.
You're still allowed to express all matters of unreasonable opinion. You're just not allowed to verbally attack someone. Which I believe most American would culturaly favor. I think it's in our values that we condemn verbal abuse.
> These exact tactics are currently in use to silence and manipulate others in the same way.
I'm curious to learn more abiut this. Can you provide examples? It's very possible I'm being naive here, and I'm just not aware of these instances and their impact.
These are also much more objectively tested in a court of law. That's the main point, not the subject of culture or behavior. Somebody feeling threatened, feeling that words that were spoken had a hidden implication that attacks them, is subjective, easily faked, and does not require any intent or malicious behavior of the accused.
> I think speech targetting a sizable audience, like in media outlets, public quorum, internet forums, should not be allowed to insult or threaten a group, and shouldn't be allowed to entice others to those acts.
Yeah, that's fine. It's how people should act decently, for whatever shared notion of "decent" we can muster. Different forums have different levels of moderation depending on what sort of culture of interaction they want. Some are very professionally-minded, some are loose and openly revel in offensive banter and arguments between participants.
Also, actual threats are already illegal. If you want to add to the set of things that are illegal, then you're talking about making non-threats illegal. You can stop including "threaten" to try to legitimize the severity of the other more minor infractions such as insults.
Don't get tyrannical with your own personal view of how people should be "decent". Freedom means freedom for others to act in ways you don't consider decent, in the understanding that others don't agree that your ways are decent, but that same freedom is extended to you. Any legal restriction you put on others can be turned around to punish you for things you think are right but others don't, with those others now equally armed with the new laws.
>I think this could be legislated, and I believe cases of abuse would be rare, and in those cases, I think legal recourse can be used to have a proper verdict.
But WHY? There's no reason in a free country why you should seek to over-legislate minor behavioral misconduct, overreactions, strong opinions, personality clashes, and the like, if no actual damage occurs. If you legitimately want to drop the notion of "a free country" or "constitutional government" as the US defines it and explicitly head down the road of totalitarianism to pursue some homogeneous ideal of enforced acceptable behavior, then cross that line; don't conflate it with freedom.
Consider public indecency laws again: Not everybody thinks that the incidental situations of changing clothes or using bathroom facilities should be prosecuted if somebody else happens to catch an accidental glimpse. Heck, some people don't even believe that nudity should be hidden or shamed. Yet since these are effectively zero-tolerance laws, people get life-ruiningly legally branded as sexual offenders for minor and non-antagonizing accidental situations. Because of course the broad intent of the law is agreeable and a hot topic, nobody wants to actually challenge such law, no matter the collateral damage. Online speech laws as you describe would overcriminalize in the same way.
> You're just not allowed to verbally attack someone.
This is the core of your problem. Who defines what an "attack" is? Everybody's jumping on the bandwagon today to be victims of verbal attacks, demanding a mob outrage response for every little slight they perceive, defining "violence" as things the "attacker" isn't even aware of, etc. Disagreements are too easy to be branded as "verbal attacks" to put legal weight behind that branding.
Physical attack is clear-cut. Financial attack is less so, but has countable damages. Verbal attacks as a whole have no basis but some arbitrary internal interpretation. We already have laws for harassment, which is continued behavior, not a single perceived attack.
> Which I believe most American would culturaly favor.
America still has a very strong culture & respect for free speech, but yeah this entire article is about an age range which has a component of disagreement to that. But there's also a millennial and post-millennial backlash to this disagreement and the various outlandish victimization claims (which damage the legitimacy of actually victimized people), and going even more reactionarily right-wing.
> I think it's in our values that we condemn verbal abuse.
Here you're conflating words for a fabricated escalation, which is part of the intellectual dishonesty I'm pointing out. You've switched multiple times from "attack" to "abuse", which are different concepts. Again, harassment and abuse are already illegal. If somebody says something angry online, that's not "abuse". If somebody verbally attacked you or your beliefs, that's neither objective nor legally damaging, with a link between those 2 adjectives.
> I'm curious to learn more abiut this. Can you provide examples? It's very possible I'm being naive here, and I'm just not aware of these instances and their impact.
Sorry, at this point, I think you're just trolling for something. We're on hacker news, where things like the github behavior policies, google diversity manifesto, harassment in startup workplaces, people getting banned from major projects & technical conferences for outside issues, and other such things have been major headlines, hashing through all the various arguments on all sides.
If I understand, your hesitation to have any constraint on acceptable speech in certain situation is that you suspect it would cause more unfair harm due to it being used to falsely condemn people, where they did not intend to cause social harm? And you believe that injustice be a greater bad to society then the instances where speech was used with the intent to harm.
And I 100% follow that logic. In fact, if true, then yes, I'd be fully onboard.
Now, I think a lot of people, young ones more so even, including me, have noticed a trend of a kind of speech which seems to only harm society or individuals. Providing no positive social value, other then power to those who speak it. And the issue is not with the ideas being controversial, or unpopular, but really with how it is spoken in demagoguery terms.
If I acknowledge this problem, I conclude that fully unconstrained speech has its own set of downsides and issues to a healthy society.
I also acknowledge that fully restricted speech has issues, in fact, I agree, much worse issues, and we have other countries and history as examples.
I also feel we have other countries and history as examples of the harm demagoguery speech can have when it overtakes rational speech.
I think denying either of these problems is just ignoring reality. So what do we do? Do we continue down the path of accelerating demagoguery speech until it overtakes most outlets, and accentuate the problem? Do we ignore the people who do suffer harm from such speech?
Maybe, but if so, ya, you're going to have to hard sell me. Like I'd need to really be convinced there's no better solution. That this is the ideal trade off and I have to just accept the problems it comes with, knowing that's the best we can do, that alternatives are just worse.
So my first instinct is to explore hybrid solutions. Can we be smarter about speech. Can you restrict the worse of it, while not damaging the best of it?
So you gave great pointers in that, such as: Is legislation really the right approach? Or should, say, education be used instead? How would speech be categorized? And how would we distinguish accidental misuse of it, with no real intent, versus premeditated? You also strongly hinted that in doubt, the default should be to allow it. You brought up if it should be about the harm to the listener, or the intent of the speaker? Those are great considerations, and clearly this is a complex problem.
Now, I just think if we don't acknowledge the problem though, and either convince people the status quo is the ideal solution to it, or come up with something better, then we might end up with a new generation who will come to simply resent free speech, having only seen its downsides, and might choose to outright repel it much more strongly then I'm suggesting.
No to the latter; the problem is that it would literally be bad law. It does not target that which you wish to target, and would prosecute those who have done no wrong, because the wrong is defined by what's in the prosecution's head instead of something the defendant actually did.
You're saying that laws should be passed and then we can see as a society how those laws work out, which is absolutely backwards. Bills should be constructed and debated until they're acceptable for broad application in all situations & directions, and only then be signed into law. (unfortunately, it's all lobby and panic driven nowadays)
Again, if you want to fine others for speaking indecently in your eyes, then others can fine you for speaking indecently in their eyes. That's nonsensical for a legal structure.
I am under the impression that you've never been involved in any legal proceedings. None of it is ever about what is right or reasonable; it's ALL about finding out if the letter of the law (or contract, or whatever) has been breached. If a law goes on the books, people will be prosecuted for it by its letter, regardless of the law's intent. That's literally the job of the legal industry. And this isn't because the government magically decides to clamp down on things, it's because individuals with disagreements start bringing lawsuits, empowered by new laws.
> Now, I think a lot of people, young ones more so even, including me, have noticed a trend of a kind of speech which seems to only harm society or individuals.
The traditional media and social media websites make money off that polarization and viral outrage. It attracts monetizable eyeballs and clicks. This isn't a representative state of the day to day behavior of people, it's an artificially concentrated charged environment that certain charged people engage with, while everybody else steps back and calls them weirdo zealots. Those who get sucked into the ridiculousness do so by yelling at constructed stereotype targets, never by actually having conversations with actual people in real life, and are often quite different IRL than online.
This simply isn't "real" enough to legislate. It's a bunch of hotheads yelling at each other. Why should this be a legal matter?
> Providing no positive social value, other then power to those who speak it. And the issue is not with the ideas being controversial, or unpopular, but really with how it is spoken in demagoguery terms.
Having no social value, and trying to muster social momentum to somebody's claims has no basis to be illegal. That's my fundamental question of you.
The US government is constrained in its powers; what significant impetus is there to expand this to something with such massive collateral damage and slippery slopes?
You're the one calling for change, so it's your views that need the burden of proof.
> If I acknowledge this problem, I conclude that fully unconstrained speech has its own set of downsides and issues to a healthy society.
I think you're barking up a red herring, to mix metaphors. The fact that people are screaming over each others' caricatured ideas is not caused by the lack of laws punishing it.
> I think denying either of these problems is just ignoring reality. So what do we do? Do we continue down the path of accelerating demagoguery speech until it overtakes most outlets, and accentuate the problem? Do we ignore the people who do suffer harm from such speech?
I said this in the very beginning: "Any argument for free speech necessarily empowers unacceptable speech, and any argument against free speech necessarily criminalizes acceptable speech." I think it's better to have people disagreeing with each other, than the government criminalizing the populace for acting like humans with beliefs & opinions.
> Do we continue down the path of accelerating demagoguery speech until it overtakes most outlets, and accentuate the problem? Do we ignore the people who do suffer harm from such speech?
But those things aren't real.
Demagoguery doesn't work unless people buy into it. If people buy into it, that indicates it's where people were heading anyway; it's just rallying. Suffering "harm" from speech is in very few cases an actual thing, and where it is it's already illegal. There are fundamental disagreements about where the country should go, what's "right" for the country, how children should be raised/corrected/taught, how drugs should be handled, what should be paid for by taxes, etc etc. These disagreements must be able to be out there in the court of public opinion for a free society to develop answers to them. Some will be reasoned, some will be emotional, and some will scream on social media. Again, why is that a problem? Why must it be a legal issue? WHY????!?!?!?!? :)
> So my first instinct is to explore hybrid solutions. Can we be smarter about speech. Can you restrict the worse of it, while not damaging the best of it?
You don't get to decide for everybody else what's the "worst" and "best" parts of their free speech!
It would be a social and cultural movement which accomplishes change of speech. The law won't change how people think & believe, and the law has no mandate to be involved here. Plus, it would cause martyr complexes and streisand effects which would have the exact opposite outcome to your intent.
I think you're literally talking about using the law to allow you to promote your ideas, by criminalizing promotion of ideas that you're against. Now imagine for a moment that somebody of the ideas you're against is taking the same approach. You'd be quite militant against that situation, wouldn't you? If they can't do it, then why should you have the right to? I don't care which side is which, that's a legal usurpation of freedom. Keep this stuff in non-governmental speech among the population.
> Now, I just think if we don't acknowledge the problem though
You're being incredibly nebulous about "the problem". What specific problem is there with all the online argumentative babbling out there that you think requires legal action, and is not already illegal? People yelling at each other? People calling each other names? People posting propaganda to try to increase the purchase of the ideas they want to peddle?
It's up to listeners to freely determine what they agree with or not, who's worth listening to, and where they will give their social weight. If listeners are empowering those peddling speech you dislike, well then I guess you're democratically outnumbered and the people have spoken to what they actually want. Or, it could simply be that you're listening to overblown media caricature-laden hype and the "problems" that you see are smaller or more nuanced in reality than what you might believe.
But really, look at what you're saying. Legislation, re-education, categorizing other people's speech for legal consequences...
You're right. The article is titled Why are Millennials wary of freedom. That's the problem I'm talking about. There's data in that article, that irrespective of where they find themselves on the political spectrum, newer generations seem to devalue the merits of free speech and democracy. Now why is that?
I think its just because of a subtle reason. Newer generations of listeners don't have the amount of intrinsic valor you give to free speech. They don't see all form of it as a requirement to a free society. I think they might even see it as a threat to their freedoms.
If you take even Canada, or Germany, you'll see they actually have outlawed forms of speech which is legal in the US. Hate speech is illegal for example. In germany insult is also illegal. In Canada, all speech can be restricted if it can be shown to be hurtful to a free and democratic society. For example, fake news is illegal in Canada. Similarly, no speech can be restricted if it can be shown to be beneficial to a free and democratic society.
Now, I think there's a certain amount of speech right now, which is hateful and insulting, and some of it could be demonstrated to be hurtful to a free and democratic society. You said "Any argument for free speech necessarily empowers unacceptable speech, and any argument against free speech necessarily criminalizes acceptable speech." Well, it seems that some other countries have managed to find a better balance and contradict that statememt, yet remained very free and democratic.
I agree with you on the 99%. Speech is hard to classify, what someone said, wanted to say, thought they said, and what someone heard, wanted to hear and thought they heard is very fuzzy. And almost all speech should definitly be free.
But where I disagree is on the last mile. I feel all newer generations all find that there's a large swat of hate speech right now, that isn't too hard to misunderstand, and they'd be okay if we forcibly toned it down. Which a lot of other free and democratic countries like Canada and Germany already do.
So I'm not saying to just restrict random vague things and make it law. I'm saying I think a bill to restrict certain nefarious speeches should be put forward, debated, refined and then signed into law. A good starting point for that is hate speech, insult, and incitement to do the same. Offcourse I'll leave it that these would come with more defined context and specifications as to what qualifies as such.
And now, that to me, would help freedom and the safeguard of the free society. By limiting speech such as hate speech, which targets freedom of others, you protect freedom. By toning down noisy speech of no utility like insults, you allow debates on freedom to be heard more clearly.
Ya, I'm okay with others preventing me from propagating my own hate and from shouting insults. If many people interpret my speech as such, and I didn't intend it to be, really, I'm okay being forced to reword myself, and express myself in a way that they understand. This should be possible, if I'm truly not trying to promote hate and express insult, then there's a better way I can express my thoughts then, and if I can't figure it out, well too bad for me. That's fine, really, it's not worth talking if no one understands what I want to say. Even more so if they undersrand I'm just insulting and hating with no good reason.
I think you just don't believe that this level of precision is possible. And I believe it is, based from data in what Canada and Germany restrict and the way their societies have turned out.
You can debate all matter of controversy without hating and insulting. None of this stands because of my own ideas. And examples of recent corporations taking actions against employees debating hot topics and getting fired over it is irrelevant, as that's more of a debate about corporate power, and the bounds of a contract. In fact, you can see that by the fact that while non of the restrictions I suggest are in place currently, they were still fired.
But, I have to say, you're making me think twice. I don't believe in the outrageous dangers of such restrictions, but you've made me think that maybe there's also little gain, and so the whole exercise might be a bit of a waste of time and effort. Yes, maybe being so close to the line is too much work, for little good. Maybe I worry about hateful and insulting speech too much, and its harmless, or maybe you're right, preventing that kind of speech is just covering up the inevitable, if people chose to hate and insult, society might be going that way no matter what restrictions are put in place.
I'll be thinking about that. Thank you for the discourse.
Ah, ok. Since you were always pointing to insults and demagoguing and such as things that must be legally silenced, I thought you were placing the content of the discourse as the problem.
> newer generations seem to devalue the merits of free speech and democracy. Now why is that?
The simplest reasonable answer is just that they're distanced further from the solved problems of the past, and from the solutions deemed necessary to counteract or prevent those problems. And thus, history begins to repeat itself.
I hope you're not excluding yourself from the label of devaluing the merits of free speech, because obviously you're promoting a reduction of free speech as well, for reasons you still haven't made clear.
> I'm saying I think a bill to restrict certain nefarious speeches
Again, who defines the "certain nefarious" categories?
We already have a term that acts a barrier that when crossed triggers the law: Damages. Your rights end where my nose starts. But as long as you're not that far, you're within your rights. I think that's the cleanest boundary to draw.
> And now, that to me, would help freedom and the safeguard of the free society.
"Hate" and "insulting" speech doesn't harm anything, except maybe blood pressure temporarily. It's damaging actions that do, and that's completely irrespective of whether they're driven by this ill-defined usage of "hate" or not. So leave the thoughtcrime alone, and police the actual crime. The only "hate" you actually need to worry about is that which manifests into action, which would be policed anyway.
> Now, I think there's a certain amount of speech right now, which is hateful and insulting, and some of it could be demonstrated to be hurtful to a free and democratic society.
I'll bite. Name one common case, where legal speech and not action is the problem. "Hurtful" as in feelings is a nonstarter as a literally anti-American concept: Diversity itself hurts feelings and offends beliefs, and we are an intentionally diverse nation.
> Well, it seems that some other countries have managed to find a better balance and contradict that statememt, yet remained very free and democratic.
I'd posit it has nothing to do with the laws, and more to do with having a more unified cultural identity than the USA. There are also tons of other factors which show you can't simply translate the effectiveness & outcome of a law across borders, especially when they're at the core of particular social unrest.
> I think you just don't believe that this level of precision is possible.
It's not the precision of censorship that's a problem, it's that you feel some sort of (what I would personally call tyrannical) passion to punish these targeted people in this way. Remember, you're talking about social media and such, where people socialize and banter with their friends, where people get into arguments over disagreements just like in real life, and where everybody overpublishes flippant reactionary stuff that would previously have been private. That's a lot of very new & very raw human interaction and personal expression going on there. Let it settle.
> And examples of recent corporations taking actions against employees debating hot topics and getting fired over it is irrelevant, as that's more of a debate about corporate power, and the bounds of a contract.
I agree. That's angry mob stuff, not legal stuff, and has its own problems.
> But, I have to say, you're making me think twice. I don't believe in the outrageous dangers of such restrictions, but you've made me think that maybe there's also little gain, and so the whole exercise might be a bit of a waste of time and effort.
Thank you. Yes, that's a lot of what I was pointing at.
But in places like Germany, the speech legislation has galvanized underground Nazi movements which keep popping up and growing. In the long view, it's probably better for the speech itself to be free and deposed, than for it to be illegal and foment in private as secret underdogs and martyrs. So it's not just for little gain, it's easily damaging (because it will be applied "legally" aka by the letter of the law) and counterproductive by galvanizing counter elements.
> I don't believe in the outrageous dangers of such restrictions
How different is this from the dangers of drug laws? Exposure laws as I brought up before? Laws around suspicion of terror? These have already destroyed tons of lives beyond their intended targets. There's a lot of danger in vague ideas gaining a specific legal wording, and having a police & court system bound to enforcing those words. It's best to only legislate the subset that has can be more objectively tested in court.
If you search around, you'll also see plenty of cases of hate speech laws being overapplied in the countries you venerate here as well. Laws are dangerous things (and moreso in the USA than most smaller 1st world countries), and we should not be passing permanent law to deal with temporary flare-up problems.
BTW, go read some legal stories from this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15492907
> Maybe I worry about hateful and insulting speech too much, and its harmless
It's certainly not harmful enough to summon Justice to bring wrath down on people's personal interactions (ie, social media interactions) through the letter of the law.
> or maybe you're right, preventing that kind of speech is just covering up the inevitable, if people chose to hate and insult, society might be going that way no matter what restrictions are put in place.
You can't control what others believe & say, society-wide. This is especially true if you're using a stick instead of a carrot. It's simply out of your hands. Just focus on your actions, and your own sphere of influence. You will be subjected to people who find you just as disagreeable as they are to you. That's life, and it's a two-way street. You don't get to destroy them, just as you wouldn't want them destroying you; you get to coexist with them in this big ol' melting pot of diversity.
But I'm still left questioning why "hate" and "insult", when it's just bloviating words in an impersonal setting such as broad internet discussions, need to be punished.
Surely your own words are formally "hating" and "insulting" what you disagree with, in calling someone's earnest words "worse speech" than others, labeling people as "demagogues", openly advocating to suppress & punish other people's words & expressions via new laws. Even the notion of labeling "hate" is basically prejudiced hate & insult if the only thing it's based on is a shallow disagreement. It doesn't matter how rational it's dressed up.
The KKK has engineered very specific rationalizations and tempered sounding non-prosecutable speech over the years, for instance. That doesn't make it any less "hate", does it? So shouting/insulting/etc is orthogonal to all of this, and shouldn't be a basis for your punishment proposals either.
These arguments aren't really sequential; maybe only one is true. Maybe for three different people, each argument is true for one of 'em.
So, I don't think the connections you made in my argument are really what I meant. The more I think about it, it's very possible that the kinds of freedoms that were restricted because of WWII and the Cold War normalized the idea of restricting freedoms in defense of a certain ideology. After all, what looks better in historical hindsight: the ACLU in Skokie or Japanese internment?
I have a feeling that pinpointing a singular cause is impossible, if there even is a singular cause. Still worth discussing, but good to have the discussion framed with that in mind.
I do see anti-free speech comments from time to time but always assumed that was a hangover from the indoctrination of the public school system.
What maybe Millennials see clearer than anyone else (because of the Internet?) is that the system appears rigged. Which is nothing new, it has been since we came down out of the trees. A few people have always recognized and fought against this. It's probably what your mom meant when she said "Life isn't fair". But back to the topic, perhaps Millenials aren't against freedom so much as they are aware that "freedom" is actually the illusion of freedom and doesn't work in their best interest. IDK, just my guesses. The anti-free speech thing is a bit disturbing to me though.
I don't believe democracy is essential, because in my opinion, I live in an example of what happens when democracy goes awry and gets hijacked by the rich(USA). I personally don't feel that certain offensive speech should be outlawed, but I've stayed away from facebook, which seems to be the site creating this feel-good echo chamber for everyone.
I think a massive amount of our cultural problems stem less from public school and more from two things: the internet and economics. Information overload stresses everyone out because we didn't evolve to thrive in such an environment, which triggers an us-vs-them mentality. Then social media sites allow for everyone to form their own echo chamber, meaning the us-vs-them mentality is amplified and their beliefs are never questioned. Combine this with a two-party political system that amplifies identity politics and fails to provide an increasing quality of life for young people, and you get an entire generation stressed out of their mind, jaded, and not hopeful that their futures will be better. Plus for most of us in the country, lower level good jobs have all been automated, shipped overseas, or concentrated to a handful of urban areas. I've nearly got a Bachelor's degree in IT, tons of certifications, and years of experience, yet I still can't find a job because I don't live in a tech hub of the country. And I'm lucky because I'm smart. Imagine what it's like for the 50% of millennials who weren't genetically blessed and have an IQ less than 100.
In such a democratic environment, why would democracy matter? Why would free speech matter when they see no potential for growth in life?
But we do see what people are saying, and communicating and in general being unapologetic about. In fact it's all we ever see, is people lying through their teeth, pandering, proselytizing. Denying climate change, dog-whistling, cancelling firefly. We see it and hear it all day, year round. There's free and protected expression flying over our heads from every direction constantly, more than ever, and causing grief and harm that we see (well... perceive) and feel (or indulge). Still there is a perceived democratic deficit. It's a paradox, but we don't think of it as one, it's more like dissonance. Freedom in general and freedom of speech in particular is just not what it's trumped up to be.
Object-level: thinking that people today are mostly awful, and that someone needs to police their behavior and choices (e.g. stop people from voting for people like Trump.)
Meta-level: thinking that the subcultures trying to police everyone's behaviour right now (e.g. Social Justice) are heavy on bullying, and it'd be nice if this sort of bullying was regulated/stopped/silenced somehow.
I know both of these effects exist to a certain extent in the US—but which one is specifically "millennials", and which is older people?
Criticism can get you in trouble, avoid it if you can. If forced to choose sides, try to guess which is less likely to raise any kind of negativity towards you. Counterintuitively, usually it will be the more radical side, as radicals are often younger and more energetic in forcing their opinion on others, so the last thing you want is to offend them.
In short, be a spineless, shapeless wuss with an appearance of calm confidence and a lot of scenical sympathy.