I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it | Hacker News Reader

I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it

socratic-method.com

17 pointssquircle55 comments

>>At its core, the quote encapsulates the spirit of tolerance, understanding, and respect for differing opinions, even when they clash with our own beliefs and values.

This is simply wrong.

"Your right to say it" addresses the principle that you are free to express your opinion.

It does not, however, entitle you to be free from the hatred of others for holding such an opinion.

Example (not sure why one is needed): You say: "Adults should be free to engage in sex with children no matter how young"

While you have the right to hold the opinion and to try to lobby to change the laws, you are not entitled to demand a right for others to accept you a friend or want you as a co-employee, or for society not to ostrasize you.

Individuals, and society at large, has the right to reject your views and to decide that anyone who holds such views is not someone worthy of their respect.

ugh... what is a Vorführeffekt synonym for creating grammatical errors as the result of rearranging text while writing a post? It looked right when but posting then not so much 30 minutes later.

>>Individuals, and society at large, has the right...

Individuals, and society at large, have the right

Genuinely curious as to why this was submitted to HN, and even more so why it made it to the front page. Was it written by an AI, and is being showcased as an example of such? As a good example, or a poor one, in terms of resulting quality?

I found it completely unreadable. A lot of the first comments on any article are from people who only read the title. Which makes sense, you save a lot of time by not reading the article. Anyone who is reading the article hasn't had a chance to comment yet.

Same. It reads like LLM nonsense.

Weird how this line is only ever wheeled out in relation to hate speech apologism.

Weird how only censorship extremists will claim that only terrible people will defend free speech.

Never mind. I’m wrong about everything as usual.

How the fuck do I delete my account?

Is state controlled speech, such as what the communist countries experienced in the 70s and 80s considered tolerant or intolerant in this "paradox"?

I've seen this argument (if linking to wikipedia qualifies as one) so many times, and it always strikes me that those who cite it often have either not read, or completely miss the point Karl Popper was trying to make. He goes so far as to even say: "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise." I am quite sick of the usage of the paradox of tolerance being used as an attack against freedom of speech.

Out of curiosity does your account name refer to this paradox?

Yes, I made my account because someone invoked Popper incorrectly for the millionth time. My above comment is a variation of my first ever.

This quote gets trotted out every single discussion. This quote dodges the most important question. Where do you draw the line? In that quote it even says that we should fight intolerance with tolerance for as long as possible and not just censor it immediately.

"In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise."

The interesting and most important question remains. Where do you draw the line? That quote simply implies a limit exists. Which most people will agree with. You will only rarely find absolute free speech absolutist where everything goes.

I don't think Popper was saying what you think he was.

"[Popper] does not however want us to silence or censor them, but to fight them back with reasonable arguments. He does however say we should have the right to be intolerant (even violently!) to them if they are not ready for a debate, as they may prevent "their followers [from listening] rational argument, because [they say] it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols." [0]

The Paradox of tolerance advocates violence against those that would prevent speech, not those with intolerant views, unless those be the same group.

Using the Paradox of tolerance the idea of censoring speech you do not agree with, especially when using government authority to do so (monopoly of violence and all that), would be an intolerant view point, and as it prevents debate, should not be tolerated in a tolerant society, and in the end should be met with violence.

[0] https://www.usj.edu.lb/news.php?id=9643

We should also always keep in mind that he wrote this around 1945. When he wrote this he had Nazi Germany in mind where the Nazis used the SA to beat down their opposition.

You edited your answer so I will comment on the last thing you wrote.

> Never mind. I’m wrong about everything as usual. > How the fuck do I delete my account?

Admitting you said something incorrect takes courage and it never feels great. Everyone says something incorrect about something at some point. I would have no account if I deleted it every time I said something incorrect. God knows I make mistakes on a regular basis. Just because you said something incorrect now does not mean you will have nothing positive to contribute to another discussion. Just take it as an learning opportunity.

Nice try. I have nothing to contribute to this world.

From the FAQ:

Can I delete my account?

We try not to delete entire account histories because that would gut the threads the account had participated in. However, we care about protecting individual users and take care of privacy requests every day, so if we can help, please email hn@ycombinator.com. We don't want anyone to get in trouble from anything they posted to HN. More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623799

That's expected, not weird. What's weird is that defenders of free speech tend to use their own words, tailored to the circumstance, whereas hate speech apologists tend to trot this line out verbatim. (… I guess that's also what you'd expect.)

When else do you need to quote it these days? In current societies with free speech, the main legal exceptions are usually for hate speech.

Here in Germany you can see how this argument evolves. For the Green party everything which disagrees with their position is declared nowadays rated as "hate speech" because the only conceivable reason for disagreeing with the green is people hate them.

It only really needs to be. There isn't opposition or censorship proposed for speech everyone agrees is good.

Isn't there a bit of selection bias or similar there?

What kind speech would need to be defended with such a moralistic statement?

It seems to me like phrases like this are the go-to when defending speech that many or most might be offended by. If most aren't offended by it there's really no defending needed.

It's about defending the principle of free speech rather than what someone said.

To your point, only reprehensible or unpopular speech must be defended by the principle. As you say, speech that is popular and uncontroversial would not need defending. Do you want to live in a society where you may only express approved and uncontroversial views? If you have controversial or unpopular views, then you protect your right to express them by defending the principle of free speech, even for those with whom you disagree, even abhor.

Oh don't get me wrong, I completely agree with you here. I believe strongly in what most would today call "free speech absolutionism", though in my opinion that phrase is absurd since you can't have free speech with some limitations.

- Global warming

- Criticism of COVID response

- Concerns about the medical patriarchy

- Concerns about infringement on free speech

- Concerns about election integrity

- Pick your current global armed conflict

- Pretty much anything on the Internet that isn't fully accepting of the post-capitalist post-scarcity view of the global economy

- Revolution in Bangladesh

- The seizure of HK a few years ago

- Julian Assange (I believe) has a gag order as a result of his plea deal.

- Whistleblowers in the agri/aero/chem/etc industries

The list goes on and on. Critically, one person's "hate speech" is another's "apt criticism," and vice versa.

You’re a little confused.

You need to come with facts.

“I criticize [Covid|Climate change|election…]

That’s not criticism until you supply evidence.

That's...wrong?

Recently (in the last few years), I've seen it used 1) to argue against misinformation bans (specifically anti-vax nonsense), 2) to argue in favor of allowing equal time to political opponents, 3) as a defense of permitting Palestinian/pro-Hamas protests and publicly fact-checking their claims, rather than banning them, and I'm sure there have been others. The third case would support your "hate speech" contention, but the other two were in the spirit of the article.

People who value a free market of ideas trot this out a lot. You also here things like "Free speech only has value when you extend it to those you disagree with" or "Free speech means people have a right to tell you things you don't want to hear."

Perhaps you only notice when it's applied to things you consider hate speech, or assume it (since I didn't see anything in the article about it)?

Not at all, this isn't about hate speech, its about power dynamics. It's about how the group with power, whether they are the heroes or villains will always attempt to stifle speech.

80 years ago racists had power and tried prevent those looking for racial equality from speaking.

Now the anti-racist have power and are using that power to prevent the speech of the weaker group.

Always look at the power dynamic, not whether you agree with the speech or not.

The idea that freedom of expression shouldn't cover 'hate speech' is a recent invention that has been used to chip away at human rights. It isn't at all unusual that most pushback should be seen in that context.

My favorite version:

“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.” - Chomsky

If you do not stand behind your principles when the going gets tough you never had the principle in the first place.

The somewhat perplexing obsession with free speech always made me wonder:

While free expression of one's own views is rather nice to have, what is the use if there is nobody who is willing (or able) to actually listen?

Shouldn't there also be a right to be really listened to?

We have just one mouth but two ears: So why aren't the latter more important?

> Shouldn't there also be a right to be really listened to?

Absolutely not. My time and attention are my own to use or misuse as I will. I'll not diffuse my attention to any silly person with a megaphone.

Nope. Quite a bit of entitlement to believe that.

You may find it interesting to look into the moral philosophy of “positive” vs. “negative” rights.

In this framework, which is thoroughly baked into most of traditional Western ethics, your right to swing your fist “stops at the end of another’s nose”.

So, you do have the “negative” right to not have your expression suppressed. You do not have the “positive” right for others to pay attention.

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