Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

I’m surprised to see this pass with such an overwhelming majority, although as an outsider I am not very plugged into Scottish politics. Didn’t Humza Yousaf come under a lot of fire for proposing this law some time ago?

Apart from the fact that words like “hatred” and interpretations like “reasonable person” are vague and variable, I think it is really crossing a line to interfere in conversations people have privately, such as between parents and their children. This feels a lot like what we call indoctrination or thought control when countries like China do it. Scotland shouldn’t get a pass just because those seeking such restrictions are western leftist activists.

Some examples: if I want to protect my kid from getting propagandized by trans ideology that is pushed heavily at public schools these days, will that be considered “stirring up hatred”, just because I don’t want to subject my child to life changing medical procedures? Will pushing back on critical race theory be considered hateful? What about teaching children values like hard work, which some consider “white supremacist”?

These aren’t theoretical concerns. I’ve seen the mentality of banning “hate speech” taken to extremes in Canada already, where a father objecting to his child’s gender transition has no recourse, is not allowed to talk to press about the issue (to bring attention to this injustice), and is in jail for trying to get help and attention for his predicament (https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/26/canadian-father-jailed-...). It’s sad to see such illiberal laws corrupt otherwise free nations.

Most people dismiss me when I say that people in general hate freedom. Freedom means that your opposition can say things you don't like and also it means you have more responsibility.

People hate the responsibility that comes with the freedom.

Also, I would caution that desire for "freedom + responsibility for dealing with the the mess" vs being "told what to do and not having to deal with people who step out of line" is not distributed uniformly about the population.

People want the freedom to do exactly what they like doing and the freedom to stop people from doing what they don’t like doing.

Exactly. A commonly misunderstood aspect of freedom is that things you don't like or agree with may happen. This seems to be invoked (generally validly) when people argue against populism, but generally overlooked for most kinds of freedom.

Your freedom ends where my feelings begin.

Unfortunately, I think this is where it's headed and it doesn't look like there's a whole lot we can do. People ignored it years ago when they thought it would only be localised to liberal university circles in the US. Now those people are out in the world and there's little we can do to stop the spread of this witch hunt.

> Now those people are out in the world and there's little we can do to stop the spread of this witch hunt.

I doubt it was intentional, but you should know how hurtful it is to use “witch” in this manner. It’s an offensive use of the term and denigrates those who are pagans, Wiccans, and followers of the Earth Goddess. Please avoid such charged language; it’s not what HN is all about.

Thanks.

/sarc...?

Thank you for adding that /s at the end. Nowadays it really wouldn't surprise me to see something like this written seriously.

My thought is that anything that forces you to think about how your words and actions are perceived by others can only be a good thing.

People commenting have spoken about freedom, and related it to personal responsibility. I think this law is making that responsibility real. You spout hate and you can be held legally responsible, regardless of where you do it. If you have been reported, then obviously somebody who heard it didn't like it. Don't want to be reported, then think about who you are about to offend rather than just fire words out there ignorant of what pain they may cause.

Your (joke?) about witch hunts is a point in case... you are speaking to an open forum mostly in a country where witch hunts took place... There is a non zero chance that somebody in your audience is related to one of the people who got mixed up in the witch hunts... Joke for you, for them, maybe not so much.

I'm not saying don't use the term, it's in pretty common usage with little reference to its origins, but maybe we should start to think about the words we use, and how they may adversely impact people who hear them. In other words, take responsibility for what you say and be considerate of those who will hear your words.

I mean your point is fair enough. But I must say that if someone is going to go to the trouble of deconstructing every sentence in search of something to be hurt by then I'm sure they can. Question is though, what's the point of it, when it is pretty clear that it was not the intended meaning? Because obviously in this example it was just used as a metaphore without any insidious meaning behind it. Not unlike the use of master in git or white/ black list, that I've seen discussed in HN a few times in the past months.

The point is that you start to think how your words could be taken, not just assume people magically know your intent. Yes people should consider your intent as part of how they parse your words, but you are the one talking, it's up to you to do your best to make sure that your communication is clear and as free from the possibility of misunderstanding as possible.

The reality is that there are people out there who say things with the intent to create hate or to hurt people, they then claim that "I was misunderstood". That is not good enough and this law makes that very clear, You are responsible for what you say, if you can't speak without being misunderstood, then maybe you should do everybody a favour and keep your mouth closed.

"The point is that you start to think how your words could be taken, not just assume people magically know your intent"

But where do you draw the line? Is it not reasonable to assume that the intent will be understood when using and extremely common phrase?

I find your comments hateful. They trigger me. They make me recall my grandparents who were butchered by Boshevik monsters who spouted this same tripe.

Perhaps I misunderstood your intent.

If so, you should heed your own advice: “You are responsible for what you say, if you can't speak without being misunderstood, then maybe you should do everybody a favour and keep your mouth closed.”

Parsing your statement literally - it is ridiculous.

Anything that forces you to think more about your words is a good thing?

Terrorist attacks for wrongspeech force me to think more about my words. Is that a good thing?

Obviously, the absence of a line is untenable.

There's always going to be some who are hurt by your words. It's unavoidable. Even - especially - the truth hurts. That's why intent is so important.

I think the big difference that's often missed is that culturally, we (UK) tend to trust the judicial system to make reasonable interpretations of laws - more so than we trust the politicians to write them. I'm sure egregious examples can be found, but on the whole that's how our system functions.

This is almost a polar opposite of the American legal culture, which seems to prefer to be bound by exacting wording (and resulting loopholes).

I'm not trying to argue that either position is preferred, just that reading foreign laws through the eyes of your own legal system can often produce skewed results.

(My favourite example of this is where English law seems to provide much lesser sentences than US law - I think "death by dangerous driving" was the specific example I found. What actually happens is the in the US, you plea bargain to a lesser charge, and end up receiving a pretty comparable sentence to the English charge. The results end up very similar, but if you view the English law through US eyes it appears amazingly lenient.)

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