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Comment by gdfasfklshg4 | Hacker News Reader

> I wish somebody would have simply advised him not to speak on such matters because nothing good could become of it. Maybe he needed a PR manager. That sounds awful, but apparently this is what the world wants: carefully filtered speech that doesn't stray far from what people already agree with.

The world needs everyone to speak about every topic. If we all self censor then only the extremists will be speaking.

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> The world needs everyone to speak about every topic. If we all self censor then only the extremists will be speaking.

actually stallman was one of the extremists and he wasn't happy if somebody with the middle ground spoke about free software/open source software.

Stallman was extreme, but practically speaking he has never had any power and never tried to gather any. His extremism is characterised by pedantically talking about the logical conclusions of actions and working strictly within and through the legal system to accomplish his goals.

That is a type of extremism that is very uncomfortable when it is used against something held personally important, but it is exactly the type of extremism that we want more of.

Organisers of extra-legal justice mobs are the sort of extremists we can generally do without.

I think that's fine though. Extremists exist to help the rest of us work out which shade of grey looks right to us.

> but apparently this is what the world wants: carefully filtered speech that doesn't stray far from what people already agree with.

Let's never forget that famous G.B. Shaw quotation, always appropriate in such situations. http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/692.html

I don't want to live in a world where everyone has to take great care all the time to fulfil the FotM expectations of certain noisy people who believe they're a majority.

Yeah, I want to live in a world where people are afraid to speak what they truly believe even if it's controversial. They should be so afraid of losing everything they just keep their heads down and their mouths shut. Nothing bad ever happens in societies that operate like that.

While I don't agree with everything RMS said I'm not bothered by it either. However, I tend to have the same effect on people when I think I'm just being honest but it comes off as offensive.

It's a hard balancing act, on the one hand people need to be able to deal with facts and reality, even if it's offensive to them. On the other hand we don't want our speech to act as sand in the machinery of communication.

And everybody can speak about anything. As long as they don't care being hounded by the neo-puritan prudes and lose job, career, social standing.

Wise worlds, extremism is rising because of Cancel Culture. People might not speak but they will certainly act.

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