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Comment by briandear | Hacker News Reader

> not being made to feel unsafe

Not sure how I have any control on how people feel. Choosing to feel bad over speech is not really my problem. Words literally have no ability to hurt people unless screamed with such volume as to cause hearing damage. Actions can hurt people. I ought not be able to take an action that causes quantifiable harm on another person. But hurt feelings? What’s the legal standard there? How are hurt feelings provable? It’s ridiculous.

If words inspire an action, it’s quite literally the person committing the action that is at fault.

There are already libel and slander laws that work pretty well: one has to prove both malice and actual damages. But hurt feelings aren’t something that should ever be addressed by the legal system. People really need to get a thicker skin.

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>Words literally have no ability to hurt people unless screamed with such volume as to cause hearing damage. Actions can hurt people.

This doesn't seem true; it is very possible to cause damage with speech alone, anything from hurting someone in a fragile mental state to the point where they might commit suicide, to spreading rumors about someone with full knowledge of what might happen. I'm reminded about the quote from a professor who said he'd rather break his left leg than have a false rumor begin to circulate about how he slept with a student. Your thesis rests on the principle of mind-body dualism (which is increasingly rejected among philosophers and neuroscientists alike), and that speech isn't itself an action (metaphysically, of course it's an action).

>But hurt feelings aren’t something that should ever be addressed by the legal system.

To say that any effect words can have on another person only amount to 'hurt feelings' is inaccurate. Every human alive knows the anguish and pain, sometimes even causing physiological pain, that words can cause. Mental states also have physiological effects of many kinds, such as mental stress leading to inflammation. The principle isn't alien.

>People really need to get thicker skin

Why doesn't the same apply to literal thicker skin or body plating to prevent being stabbed? Is that really what a civil society looks like?

It's much easier to prove if someone stabbed you than it is to prove they caused you mental anguish. We have very poor tools to accurately measure the direct effects of speech. The law already tries to balance that with libel laws where you have to show the harm done. Maybe you can think of accurate ways to judge these issues, but all I can think about is a glorified equivalent of our pain scales. Point to a face on the scale like we do with pain.

https://www.disabled-world.com/health/pain/scale.php

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