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Comment by braythwayt | Hacker News Reader

There should be no level of “success” that lets you speak your mind without fear of consequence. When what’s on your mind are things like baseless accusations of pedophilia, for example, you ought to be afraid of “saying the wrong thing.”

That’s healthy.

As for Musk’s SEC violations, he chose to run a publicly traded company, nobody put a gun to his head. He was already wealthy, he decided that the upside of turbocharging the electric car revolution and the exploration of space were worth the constraints of dealing with regulatory bodies.

His choice, his consequences. We aren’t talking about him being fined for saying that he thinks his country’s Dear Leader looks like a deflated pumpkin. Nobody should live in fear of saying that.

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Just to be clear, only Tesla is public. SpaceX is private and Musk has repeatedly expressed that he intends for it remain that way until regular trips to/from Mars are the norm.

Thank you!

> He was already wealthy, he decided that the upside of turbocharging the electric car revolution and the exploration of space were worth the constraints of dealing with regulatory bodies.

The regulatory bodies don't exactly come out looking awesome in the above sentence.

Regulatory bodies are the worst thing we’ve ever tried, except unregulated capitalism.

Nobody in Hollywood is afraid of consequences for baseless accusations of anyone supporting the president as being a Nazi.

There should be no level of “success” that lets you speak your mind without fear of consequence.

Yes there should be. In other times, it was being an ordinary private citizen of the United States.

When what’s on your mind are things like baseless accusations of pedophilia, for example, you ought to be afraid of “saying the wrong thing.”

"Speaking your mind" isn't exactly the same thing as engaging in defamation.

> In other times, it was being an ordinary private citizen of the United States.

There was never such a time. Never, in the history of the United States, was it ever common for "ordinary private citizens" to speak their mind without fear of consequence. American culture, while giving lip-service to freedom of speech, has always punished those who venture to criticize the status quo.

>"Speaking your mind" isn't exactly the same thing as engaging in defamation.

Of course it is. If Elon Musk, or anyone, should be able to speak their mind without fear of consequence, that implies the freedom to defame people without fear of legal consequence.

Never, in the history of the United States, was it ever common for "ordinary private citizens" to speak their mind without fear of consequence.

False. Me in graduate school in the 90's in South Carolina. My professor friend in the 90's just after she got tenure.

American culture, while giving lip-service to freedom of speech, has always punished those who venture to criticize the status quo.

No. Certain subsets/factions of this society have done that. There are many Americans who gave far more than lip-service to freedom of speech. My father was one such person. Many, many people in this society have been like that. It's in the past several years, that the mainstream media as a faction has turned against this idea. In my youth, they were among the loudest proponents.

When I was young, it was the hostile Moral Majority types who were against freedom of speech. It always seems to be moralist authoritarians who claim they're not moralist authoritarians.

>False. Me in graduate school in the 90's in South Carolina. My professor friend in the 90's just after she got tenure.

Ok. I'll see your data set of two and raise you African Americans, communists, atheists, feminists, Jews, Muslims, war protesters, pro-gun, anti-gun, pro-life, pro-choice, etc. American history is full of examples of ordinary private citizens meeting consequences for their speech, sometimes minor, sometimes violent.

That you, personally, and one person you know may have been able to transgress some undefined social or political norms without consequence doesn't really prove anything, except perhaps that you haven't really transgressed anything hard enough for anyone to care.

>No. Certain subsets/factions of this society have done that.

Society is nothing but subsets and factions. There has always been a limit to what people within a community will tolerate, even in the name of "freedom of speech."

atheists, feminists, Jews

My friend is an atheist, feminist, and ethnically Jewish. My wife's father is an ardent Communist.

American history is full of examples of ordinary private citizens meeting consequences for their speech, sometimes minor, sometimes violent.

American history is full of times and places where people of different views would be accepted.

There has always been a limit to what people within a community will tolerate, even in the name of "freedom of speech."

There is a big difference between today and the 90's. There is far less tolerance and actual discourse today.

There has always been a limit to what people within a community will tolerate, even in the name of "freedom of speech."

It used to be a widespread virtue for people to cite "freedom of speech," let people say their piece,then just go on with your own life. The people who were going around trying to persecute others were bigots trying to exclude Jews and Asians from their clubs. (Happened to my family.) The people who were going around to people private lives with toxic behavior justified by their beliefs were people like the Klan and the Westboro Baptist church.

Now, people proclaim as if it's "mainstream," that it's a virtue to give people "consequences" and engage in the same kind of impingement on private lives, exclusion, and active persecution those bigots once engaged in, then call it "justice."

It's quite a huge difference in society. Such active persecution used to be the sole province of widely recognized fringe bigots. Now, it's supported by politicians at the national level and it's claimed by people who purport to be mainstream and normal.

It's no longer a live and let live society. We should be suspicious of those who would engage in an Orwellian retcon of the past, and pretend it was always so.

Sorry, you are looking in the rear-view mirror with rose-coloured glasses. George Carlin went to the supreme court arguing for the right to tell dirty jokes on television. He lost.

Before that, MLK told America uncomfortable truths. He was considered a dangerous threat to America and eventually assassinated.

Athletes who raised fists or kneeled have been ostracized, whether in 1968 or 2018, fifty years later.

This idea of absolute freedom of speech is something that has only ever been for privileged people, people who have tenure, or powerful interests protecting them.

Everyone else has had to suffer the consequences, up to and including losing their lives. And this is not some nee phenomenon foisted upon America by SJWs in the 2010s and moralizing Christians in the 1980s.

It has always been a place where there is one rule for the powerful, and another rule for the oppressed.

This idea of absolute freedom of speech is something that has only ever been for privileged people, people who have tenure, or powerful interests protecting them.

I'm not talking about (the obvious strawman) of absolute freedom of speech even across all of society down to the last opinion. I'm just talking about a live and let live society.

And this is not some new phenomenon foisted upon America by SJWs in the 2010s and moralizing Christians in the 1980s.

Right. It's the same old phenomenon, foisted upon us by moralizing Christians in the 1980s and moralizing SJWs in the 2010s.

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