Comment by ty6853 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ty6853 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

You generally only get targetted like that (anywhere in life) if you both have wrong opinions and you have a sophisticated and persuasive holistic argument that wins people over. If they can prove you wrong they'll be happy to leave it displayed for all so everyone can see what an idiot you are and mission accomplished. And they already have prepared rebuttals for anything in the books or talks by prominent proponents/opponents, so you have to have innate and original thoughts to get to the point they can't use those attacks and you start persuading others. If you're just espousing what the 'greatest' thinkers of your persuasion argue, even if it's Hitler, you are generally safe because they already know how to defeat that using whatever their own greatest thinkers told them.

This is actually a very rare trait in the general populace so it makes targeting such persons fairly narrow pursuit while simultaneously if you explain it happened most people will think you are crazy.

Except in the case of the arguments I make about nuclear, they were verifiably and very obviously correct. I would talk about the energy density of u235 nuclear reactions vs burning coal, the energy of a neutron vs the energy of photons, things like intermittent generators and baseload, etc. it is not controversial, and anyone with some basic background in physics or chemistry could verify it.

Yes and the red pill moment is when you realize this is exactly why your speech was banned.

They will leave provably wrong stuff up as a head on pike to show you're an idiot. They will let correct but unpersuasive stuff up, because who cares. They will let correct (or just controversial) stuff already stated by someone prominent up (even if by kkk or nazis), because they already have a rebuttal canned for that to make you look bad.

What they won't let stand is a correct, holistically persuasive original argument for the wrong opinion. They have no defense for that but banning. And thus doesn't apply only to reddit.

Just to clarify, by wrong opinion, you are speaking to the "authority's" opinion of what right and wrong is, as opposed to the universe's objectively right and wrong?

As in, anything that can realistically challenge an entity with power (say, energy companies using non-renewable systems like oil vs infinite / abundant systems like nuclear) is deemed "wrong"?

There's a meme going around which takes a metaphorically-similar quote: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” The meme answers the rhetorical question with an outlier example: "children with leukemia." The joke here is that although the quote could often have merit it certainly does not apply to all cases.

There are plenty of ideas which people want to censor for reasons other than that the ideas are strictly correct. Particularly when it comes to politics, a lot of ideas just speak to opinion or disposition, and there is no strictly right or wrong answer. But of course, people want to censor opinions with disconcerting frequency.

My comments here shouldn't be taken as pro-censorship. I consider myself nearly a free-speech absolutist, but the desire to censor is much more about politics and tribalism than it is about anything else.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com