In short, history repeats itself, and "experience is recognising a mistake the second time you've made it."
You've always had a right to free speech, you sure as hell have never had a right not to be criticized for what you say.
But it's pretty misplaced. Social media companies and the state have more power than ever to control the spread of ideas, and antifa has a street fight now and then.
I think that this is insufficiently emphasized.
Personally, I think what's even more importantly forgotten and has led to the rather ridiculous situation on college campuses[1] is that there is no right not to be offended. I would even go so far as to say that such a right would be the opposite of freedom of speech.
[1] e.g. trigger warnings
Free speech is very much about allowing someone to act like a jackass (or worse!) to people with words and ideas.
It doesn't protect those speakers from the repercussions.
Trigger warnings aren't repercussions, however. They're prior restraint, and that's a no-no.
I am from Europe, and born/lived under communism, poor as hell, with food rations and all, people going to jail, etc and yes,
these dipshits (the Antifa) are nothing but a "my way of the highway" totalitarian movement, which resembles more to a loosely organized fascist gang, than anything else. Silencing and beating up opponents was a favorite tool of both fascists and nazis.
Sometimes they make new good things, sometimes they repeat bad old things. I call it social mutation.
Just go to you local city council planning meeting and see how gray haired and crazy the NIMBYs are, and they dictate local housing policy.
I don't see the problem here with age. The problem you're describing seems to stem from other social issues, namely nepotism, classism, etc. People living longer isn't going to change that much I suspect; people have had these issues for thousands of years, and if anything, it's much better now than it was centuries ago. There's far more social mobility now than there was in Medieval times.
>Just go to you local city council planning meeting and see how gray haired and crazy the NIMBYs are
I think I already addressed that: age has an effect on the brain, so if we figure out biological immortality, we should also figure out along with that how to eliminate these aging-related problems/diseases.
The other problem you describe there is basically classism, and the ability of locals who gain power to shut others out of power. Again, this was much worse in the past when people didn't live nearly as long. The way to fix it isn't to have people die off early, it's to come up with laws and policies that counteract it.
The way to fix the NIMBYism problem is simple, and they've done something like this in Japan: you remove power from local government to set zoning policy. Obviously, local governments get people like this in power who don't look out for the overall good of society, and instead look to maximize their real estate value through manipulation of zoning, so you strip them of that power and move it to the state or national level. In the Bay Area, this means the state government needs to grow a pair and pass some strict laws about zoning, and severely curtail the ability of local governments to reject development.
There's a reason why free speech does not apply to fascist movements in most countries and it's illegal to use its symbols: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Also, equating authoritarian systems with an anti-authoritarian movement literally named "anti-fascist action" is a bit ridicolous.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/05...