Comment by brigandish | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brigandish | Hacker News Reader

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Freedom of speech has utility for 2 reasons:

- It's the best method for approaching truth (for several reasons, one being challenge)

- It allows disputes to be settled ("fought" might be a better term:) without recourse to violence.

If Nazis are willing to fight their corner without using violence then I'm happy because their arguments are easily beaten (hence, why they needed to use violence to gain power in the past).

The problem that social media companies have wrought is not giving people too much free speech, it's siloing opposing views away from each other because it makes some people uncomfortable. Without challenge, speech becomes dangerous, it is not free it is restricted. It's essentially a form of blasphemy law, its effects are just the same, but now we can have several different streams of negative thought growing unchallenged alongside each other because social media has been chopped up into silos.

Insane people can't get into power as long as they can be challenged, that requires free speech. As long as these silos exist there is not free speech and we are in greater danger of insane or authoritarian government.

Nazis are only willing to fight without violence (generally) now because they currently aren’t able to use violence without retaliation. I don’t believe that this “commitment to non-violence” would hold any sway whatsoever were they to hold real power.

I also think it is just observably false that insane people cannot get into power if there is sufficient speech to resist them.

You don't have to trust their commitment to non-violence, it's beside the point. As long as they are being non-violent and as long as we all have free speech then whatever problems National Socialism might bring if implemented cannot come to pass.

> I also think it is just observably false that insane people cannot get into power if there is sufficient speech to resist them.

You might provide an example.

> Nazis are only willing to fight without violence (generally) now

Er, Nazis keep fighting with violence recently, so I’m not convinced that this is accurate at all.

This is true, but I’m trying to give the poster a steel man since I don’t really think that nazis behaving nicely is a justification for platforming hate speech.

You haven't steel manned anything - which part was the steel man? Was it this?

> Nazis are only willing to fight without violence (generally) now because they currently aren’t able to use violence without retaliation.

So what? That doesn't affect my argument in the slightest (as I've already pointed out[1]). I won't be taking up your offer of taking the strongest interpretation of my argument, thanks, because you're either creating a straw man (how ironic) or you've misunderstood the argument presented.

Further, I would suggest that if someone were really steel manning an argument they wouldn't be telling others about it, they'd have continued to respond to the challenges put to them. I don't see such a continuance. What could you be waiting for?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28965174

> Nazis keep fighting with violence recently

Where? And if so, what relevance does that have to those that refrain from violence? If the United States government sanctions an attack by its forces does that make all United States citizens liable for retaliation? If some Muslims commit an act of terror does this mean that all Muslims must be held accountable for those acts?

Or do we, quite rightly, separate out those who commit violent acts from those who don't?

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