Comment by Vt71fcAqt7 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Vt71fcAqt7 | Hacker News Reader

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>GP arguing that people shouldn't cancel people is a form of censorship even if they don't argue for legal repercussions.

When I wrote "GP is saying 'don't do that'" I meant entreaty, as in a request to stop canceling people, or as you put it "calling out cancelation as a growing flaw of society."

>Don't

>a command or entreaty not to do something

What that is is a discussion of ethics. GP is offering their values, along with their reasoning:

>One could easily imagine a situation where this intensifies and suddenly political ideologues are analyzing all the voice recordings Alexa ever made in order to out political enemies. Keeping all this data around, in my view, means it will inevitably get misused over a long time scale.

None of this has stopped anyone from doing anything. It isn't censorship. The goal of a discussion is for both sides to hear each other and hopefully come to a more accurate conclusion. The fact that you keep conflating having and discussing different opinions with censorship is incredible.

>cancel culture

>the practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling (see cancel entry 1 sense 1e) as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure[0]

>censor

>to examine in order to suppress (see suppress sense 2) or delete anything considered objectionable[1]

GP being against cancel culture and saying cancel culture is worrysome does not amount to censorship

[0]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cancel%20culture [1]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censoring

The definition you cite specifically calls cancelling "a way of expressing disapproval".

Cancellation is a group of people saying "don't do that" regarding something they find objectionable.

GP is saying "don't do that" in regard to cancelling.

GP wants those people to stop voicing their disapproval. That is effectively censorship of those people's speech.

Cancellation is not the same as simply voicing disapproval. Cancellation is closely intertwined with mob mentality and identity politics.

And telling people that mob mentality is bad, is not censorship. Telling people to self correct is different from telling a platform to correct people

>Telling people to self correct is different from telling a platform to correct people

How are they different?

You telling me not do to something would cause me to self censor.

Me telling a theater to not host an event with a controversial figure would cause the theater to self censor.

Either way there is some external force that is pressuring for a change in expression. That is true regardless of whether they are motivated by mob mentality, identity politics, or anything else. I don't know why the motivation for the speech should even matter unless you are arguing that some speech shouldn't be protected based on the motivation behind the speech.

>You telling me not do to something would cause me to self censor.

Would it? If you don't agree, you should not listen. According to your view, if I told you to stop commenting on HN you would stop? I'm not forcing you to do anything.

>Me telling a theater to not host an event with a controversial figure would cause the theater to self censor.

The theater is not the one being censored here but the one censoring. When you do it to yourself, you are both the censor and being censored.

>Either way there is some external force that is pressuring for a change in expression. That is true regardless of whether they are motivated by mob mentality, identity politics, or anything else.

Me telling you my opionin is not an external force that is pressuring for a change in expression. Or, it is, but only in the hope that you yourself change your mind. I can't force you to do anything. This is known as a discussion:

>the activity in which people talk about something and tell each other their ideas or opinions[0]

>I don't know why the motivation for the speech should even matter unless you are arguing that some speech shouldn't be protected based on the motivation behind the speech.

Back to the "shouldn't be protected" argument? We aren't talking about a matter of law but of right and wrong. The law provides us a space to discuss what that means for ourselves. If people use that power to shut others down that's wrong but the most we can do is point out to those people that they are wrong.

[0]https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/discu...

Personally I would consider neither of those examples as censorship. Unless the theater in your second example was the only theater in the world. When I said platform, I probably should have clarified that I meant "big platform".

There is still a difference though. With self correction, you make the choice. With platform censorship, the platform makes the choice for you. There may be an external force in both cases, but in the former case you can still choose to ignore it.

"and exerting social pressure" is key here. Are you being intentionaly ignorant? First being against cancelation is censorship, now cancelation is just voicing an opinion? All while quoting half a definition that I just cited out of context.

I left off "exerting social pressure" because I felt it was redundant to "expressing disapproval". What do you think those terms mean and how are they different? Let's go back to the example I mentioned in my first comment about protesting a theater for hosting a controversial personality. That protest would be me "expressing disapproval", "exerting social pressure", and exercising my free speech. I don't know how or why you are separating that one action into distinct categories of speech.

>I left off "exerting social pressure" because I felt it was redundant to "expressing disapproval".

It isn't the same at all. It is "a way of [a] expressing disapproval and [b] exerting social pressure. One can express disapproval without the express intent of exerting social pressure. That is, the outcome may exert social pressure but the point is to have your voice be heard, not shut the other person down.

>Let's go back to the example I mentioned in my first comment.

Ok:

>Should I not have the freedom to organize a protest of my local theater for hosting a controversial figure that I think is worthy of cancellation?

>You have complete freedom to do that, but it doesn't mean you should or shouldn't. That's what GP is saying. And cancellation can be over extremely petty or unfounded things. Obviously there is a line but people have taken a "cancel first, ask questions later" approach, and over increasingly petty reasons. One can advocate against that without being against free speech, which means that the government cannot make speech illegal.

Well, what is the purpose of the protest? If it is to make your disaproval known, then it is not an attempt of cancelation. If, as you have clarified, you intent is to exert social pressure to scilence them, then you are trying to both cancel and censor them.

In any case, that doesn't make disagreement of opinions in general censorship, as you have claimed:

>GP arguing that people shouldn't cancel people is a form of censorship

Are we both censoring each other now? Or are we having a discusion?

>I don't know how or why you are separating that one action into distinct categories of speech.

exercising my free speech: (almost) any speech falls under this category.

expressing disapproval: GP expressing disaproval of cancel culture

exerting social pressure: When as a part of "mass canceling" an atempt is made to censor someone.

To recap:

1. Having an opinion is not censorship.

2. acknowlegment of freedom of speech legaly is not the same as an endorcment of said speech.

3. Being against what people do is not a demand that their free speech be taken away legaly.

Therefore:

"Comments like yours seems to reveal a lack of a consistent principle underlying your argument. Instead, you seem to be defining free speech as some narrow window of speech that you agree with and speech outside that isn't worth protecting."

Is wrong.

4. Exterting social pressure isn't always a bad thing and is some times needed. When it is simply used as a weapon to shut down non-dangerous people you disagree with it has usualy gone too far.

These can all be true at the same time

>One can express disapproval without the express intent of exerting social pressure. That is, the outcome may exert social pressure but the point is to have your voice be heard, not shut the other person down.

What does "have your voice heard" mean? Who is hearing your voice? How does hearing that voice impact that person or group? Isn't there an implicit social pressure on that person to change after hearing voices of disapproval.

Just think of it on a small scale interpersonal level. Imagine your significant other comes to you and says "I'm thinking of painting the bedroom blue". How do you respond voicing your disapproval of the idea without them taking it as social pressure to not do it? Any objection to the color choice will be viewed as pressure to not make that choice. You can't separate the disapproval from the social pressure because the disapproval is inherently a form of the social pressure.

The same is true for protests. People don't protest just to make their disapproval known. They protest to motivate change. People aren't in the streets of Iran and China at the moment because they want strangers to know they disapprove of their government actions. They are doing it to motivate change from their government.

>"have your voice heard" mean? Who is hearing your voice?

It means for those involved to know about it.

>How does hearing that voice impact that person or group? Isn't there an implicit social pressure on that person to change after hearing voices of disapproval

They are impacted only (or mainly) in the sense that you have given them new information. Think about an argument you had with a colleague: were you trying to pressure them, or were you having a discusion? There may be some element of presure involved, but was that your goal? If you always act that way you will not work well with others, even if it works temporarily.

>How do you respond voicing your disapproval of the idea without them taking it as social pressure to not do it?

My aim certainly would not be to pressure them. I also wouldn't immediately disaprove but initiate a discusion as this is the first time it is brought up. But this is also not the social pressure that is involved in canceling. If I were to say "the wall will be red or we break up" that would be a manipulative and an abusive relationship certainly. Me being honest about how I feel about the color and discussing possible options would be best. But I would certainly try to limit any compelling attitude in order to maintain a healthy relationship.

>People don't protest just to make their disapproval known.

True, and there are also awareness marches and awareness days, which are meant strictly to bring awareness.

>People aren't in the streets of Iran and China at the moment because they want strangers to know they disapprove of their government actions.

Actualy, in china there are two elements, one of which is to let other citizens (and the world) know that they disapprove. But yes the main reason is to affect some change. I didn't say that every action which attempts to change something is canceling. Those two examples (which are ironicaly protests against censorship) are not about censoring the government so the terminology of canceling doesn't really make sense. But if you like we can still use it. Say the protesters are trying to cancel the government, what of it? I didn't say that you can't do it, all I said was that it is on a different level, which is true:

>Exterting social pressure isn't always a bad thing and is some times needed. When it is simply used as a weapon to shut down non-dangerous people you disagree with it has usually gone too far.

>My aim certainly would not be to pressure them. I also wouldn't immediately disaprove but initiate a discusion as this is the first time it is brought up. But this is also not the social pressure that is involved in canceling. If I were to say "the wall will be red or we break up" that would be a manipulative and an abusive relationship certainly. Me being honest about how I feel about the color and discussing possible options would be best. But I would certainly try to limit any compelling attitude in order to maintain a healthy relationship.

This specifically gave me a theory that might explain our disagreement. You seem to be thinking of this from the perspective of the speaker. I am thinking of it from the perspective of the person who must hear the speech. Reverse this hypothetical for example. Imagine you suggest a color to paint a room and your spouse mentions they hate that color. I assume you are a normal caring person and you would simply pick a different color. It shouldn't even be much of a conversation. If someone you care about objects strongly to something, you automatically feel a pressure to listen because you care about them. It doesn't even matter what they intended by their comment.

Maybe I’m only expanding this analogy beyond interpersonal relationships because I had a couple beers with dinner, but your logic there seems consistent. I get the impression that you think social pressure originates with the speaker. That it primarily is something that is intentional. However, I think its origin is right in the name. It is dictated by how society receives your speech. I don't think any of us have complete control over the social pressure of our speech and in turn any speech can induce social pressure. Meanwhile, you seem to suggest that it can be separated from speech by simply not intending to induce that pressure. That allows you to say “cancelling people is bad” with no ulterior motives to stop people from doing it. I don't think that is how society accepts speech. Society hears "something is bad" as an implicit request not to do said thing. It is motivated by practically the opposite reason as your spouse. Society doesn't care about your opinion at all so the only interpretation of you sharing your opinion is that it is an attempt to impact society in some way.

Basically, you think speech is primarily a method to say something while I am thinking of it as primarily a way to be heard.

>I don't think any of us have complete control over the social pressure of our speech and in turn any speech can induce social pressure. Meanwhile, you seem to suggest that it can be separated from speech by simply not intending to induce that pressure. That allows you to say “cancelling people is bad” with no ulterior motives to stop people from doing it. I don't think that is how society accepts speech. Society hears "something is bad" as an implicit request not to do said thing.

A few points here. Again, “cancelling people is bad” is a bit simplistic; "cancel culture is bad" is more accurate, or “cancelling people is generaly bad." That aside, while there are inevitably many effects of a given action, and two actions may overlap in their effects, they will not necessarily do so to the same degree. That is, I am not saying that the intent realy matters per se from an evaluatory standpoint of its effect but rather it serves as a potent indicator of the degree of effect. All this is to say that while there may always be an implicit social pressure involved with all speech, it is generaly at a tolerable (and if not then inevitable) degree. While mass cancelation is a method of exerting social pressure, and while as you say both regular speech and cancelation result in some amount of social pressure, the social pressure exerted by cancelation is to a much higher degee, and the reason is that it is intended and therefore amplified, rather than minified as would be in a productive discussion.

I'm not going to argue with anything you said here, but to repeat myself, you are still only looking at half the picture. When I said this:

> That allows you to say “cancelling people is bad” with no ulterior motives to stop people from doing it. I don't think that is how society accepts speech. Society hears "something is bad" as an implicit request not to do said thing.

I wasn't simply trying to echo your argument. I was explaining why I see hypocrisy in the argument that is against both cancel culture and censorship. Both are forms of speech. Voicing disapproval of cancel culture is received as trying to advocate against cancel culture. That might not be your intent, but it is how it is received. Pressuring someone to not exercise speech is a form of censorship which creates hypocrisy when combined with a stated disapproval of censorship.

>Voicing disapproval of cancel culture is received as trying to advocate against cancel culture. That might not be your intent, but it is how it is received.

As I said:

>All this is to say that while there may always be an implicit social pressure involved with all speech, it is generaly at a tolerable (and if not then inevitable) degree. While mass cancelation is a method of exerting social pressure, and while as you say both regular speech and cancelation result in some amount of social pressure, the social pressure exerted by cancelation is to a much higher degee, and the reason is that it is intended and therefore amplified, rather than minified as would be in a productive discussion.

Therefore there is no hypocrisy, because the degree is much lower and from a moral evaluatory stanpoint of intention one aims to maximize and the other to minimize. To say all disagreements and expressed moral convictions are censorship is to remove censorship as a meaningful word. Therefore we must in order to have this word in to a case of above average pressure.

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