Hacker News Reader

Comment by ponow | Hacker News Reader

In that ref., Popper fallaciously suggested that to allow tolerance is to allow violence, which is, I dare say to that great master, utter bull. Speech is not violence. The person who commits the first violent act, even if "incited" by mere speech, is the first who crosses the speech / violence divide, and the one on whom appropriate opprobrium should be applied. You needn't associate with intolerant speech if it bothers you; it's not intrinsically violent.

View on HN

This is ignorant.

"Hitting children make them stronger, mothers should be hit if they disagree with that"

If an individual says this they can be discounted, but what if we let an idea take root and spread to the point that it has a significant impact in a democracy? Will they vote in the removal of human rights? Will enough of a platform exist that every jury ends up being a hung jury?

Speech can absolutely incentivize violence. See the Rohingya genocide and the part Facebook played in it. See right-wing domestic terrorism in the United States. See Hitler and his radio.

People are not perfect, independent, rational creatures. They get affected by speech. They can develop new beliefs, even a new personality as a result of speech. They can end up doing things they wouldn't even dream doing as a result of speech.

I don't doubt that people are affected / persuaded by speech. But their physical actions are their own responsibility. My mother always used to tell me, "don't jump off the CN tower just because someone told you."

Incentivize / persuade is not identical to action. Action requires an individual act.

If we remove people from responsibility for their actions, then there is the obvious consequence that people will act more irresponsibly.

Curious your take on the American girl who convinced her friend to commit suicide over text message. The jury found her culpable because of those messages, as they evaluated it unlikely that the deceased would have done the act w/o her words.

https://people.com/crime/michelle-carter-trial-gallery-key-m...

Speech can literally drive people to suicide. If you don't see this as violence just because no fist hit a person, then you are very naive.

See: how the entire world treats minorities every single day.

A world where we can guarantee no non-voluntary _physical_ violence is a better home for rational thought and human flourishing than today's or even a world in which we could somehow prevent speech that might lead to suicide. I can't see a way of enforcing those limits without some kind of judgement. The distinction between physical violence and speech is basically unambiguous. The distinction between acceptable and unacceptable speech is ambiguous, subjective, variable, and very likely to be abused. It leads to a police state, IMO. No state that is serious about freedom has hate speech laws, for example, even though there is much hateful speech, and it should be avoided. Just not with (physical) violence. Rather, freedom of association (including freedom of separation / non-association) and more speech.

That's the really neat thing about Stoicism - you can just choose to not let things affect you.

Spoken like someone who has never experienced physical violence. I have and have seen far worse done to others. There is no comparison, not even close. Calling speech violence offends and minimizes the experience of those who have experienced violence.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com