Hacker News Reader

Comment by brobdingnagians | Hacker News Reader

I agree with free speech and oppose censorship, but I also promote tolerance of those we disagree with and a certain degree of latitude in putting up with things others say without jumping on them immediately for things I disagree with or endless protests for what many believe to be innocuous or good faith beliefs. Cancellation is usually not just protest, it is warfare by any means to smear and destroy someones life and silence dissent from your position. It is dirty tricks instead of intellectual dialogue.

View on HN

>I agree with free speech and oppose censorship, but I also promote tolerance of those we disagree with

Does this mean you would support legislation to outlaw hate speech? After all that works against tolerance of others and is often used "to smear and destroy someones life and silence dissent from your position" "for what many believe to be innocuous or good faith beliefs."

How do you get him supporting legislating to outlaw hate speech from him saying he wants to promote tolerance?

Tolerance is something every human possesses and should exercise, it's not something that can be legislated. An intolerant person will use their free speech to attack, malign and try to get you fired (which is fair). A tolerant person will let you speak your mind even if they disagree. In no point is there the need for hate speech legislation if you have true free speech.

Because both hate speech and cancellation are forms of speech that can be used to suppress the speech of others. I assumed their opposition to cancellation was more than just a distaste for it, hence the jump to legislation.

I do not support legislation outlawing cancellation.

Is hate speech not essentially the ultimate form of calling to cancel someone?

We are in a situation where we are seeing a strong increase in right extremist terrorism (just look at the last month) and it is by far the most prevelant terrorism in the US and many western countries, but somehow the discussion revolves around how the "poor" people who incite and support the violence are "being cancelled". That's intellectually dishonest.

The talk about "cancellation" is almost exclusively a deflection tactic used from one political direction, who have absolutely no problem to use cancellation themselves. Nobody complained about protestor being removed from Trump rallies, often violently, or let's look at the more recent blocking of left-wing twitter accounts by self proclaimed free-speech absolutist Elon Musk (https://theintercept.com/2022/11/29/elon-musk-twitter-andy-n...)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com