Comment by zimablue | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zimablue | Hacker News Reader

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It's not moving the goal posts, you seem to be creating a false dichotomy between: "support free speech" -> must support lack of reprisals for all free speech, including directed racial slurs "do not support free speech" -> must accept the current level and form of reprisals.

Where most people who say they support free speech are, is this statement: "support free speech without reprisals, excluding directed harrassment, with some level of acceptable reprisals in employment and socially, depending on the context, but at a much lower level than is currently the case, with less arbitrary application of mob justice and employer discrimination"

It's not catchy but nor is it inherently contradictory. It's what I imagine JK Rowling, Chomsky et al would say if you spoke to them about their letter.

I really think it would be useful if the anti-free-speech side of the debate stopped with this semantics and straw men about freedom from reprisals, monarchies, directed racism. I think that a person should be free to discuss eg. spaces for trans vs non-trans women and where to draw the line on sports etc, to what level the BLM is a useful movement, the relative weight of cultural vs economic vs discrimination in explaining different outcomes across ethicities and genders, positive discrimination, without being fired, cancelled or becoming unemployable. That's what most free speech people think, and all these semantic points, false definitions and straw men are kind of a waste of time

You seem to believe the phrase "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" implicitly justifies all possible consequences. It doesn't, it merely implies that speech doesn't exist in a vacuum, and that the consequences of speech often, themselves, are as much a manifestation of free expression as the original speech.

Your own counterclaim, however, that "freedom from anything means freedom from the consequences of that thing" does not even allow for the reasonable, non-arbitrary consequences you're supporting, here.

You, I and tw04 are actually in violent agreement, but it seems your politics doesn't allow you to concede the possibility that the "other side" can hold a reasonable opinion.

It's not clear that you and zimablue are in agreement unless you agree that the level consequences people are currently experiencing is excessive.

For a lot of us here, the phrase "free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" comes across (not unreasonably) as support for firing trump supporters or people who question system racism (etc.) which is both unjust and foolish for a number of reasons.

We also need to consider whether it is just to fire someone for something offensive (but not illegal) they did offline that was surreptitiously recorded and uploaded to the Internet to feed mob outrage.

> It's not clear that you and zimablue are in agreement unless you agree that the level consequences people are currently experiencing is excessive.

I actually would agree with that, but I disagree that any consequence is always excessive.

>For a lot of us here, the phrase "free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" comes across (not unreasonably) as support for firing trump supporters or people who question system racism (etc.) which is both unjust and foolish for a number of reasons.

I think it is unreasonable, or at least uncharitable, to assume the most extreme interpretation possible of a phrase simply because you disagree with the politics of the people using it.

That's exactly the sort of thing "a lot of us here" accuse progressives or "the left" of doing to them.

> I actually would agree with that, but I disagree that any consequence is always excessive.

Fair enough.

> I think it is unreasonable, or at least uncharitable, to assume the most extreme interpretation possible of a phrase simply because you disagree with the politics of the people using it.

I disagree that it was unreasonable or extreme. "Free speech doesn't mean freedom of consequences" is mutually exclusive of the statement "free speech does mean freedom from at least some consequences". You cannot logically support both statements.

It's also the slogan that is very commonly used to justify these cancellations. I think it's worth point out that the initial comment by wGeF7H8Z59y985y (not zimablue) was clearly framing things in the context of people losing their jobs over their political opinions.

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