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Comment by suprgeek | Hacker News Reader

In the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave" not only do we have "free speech zones" but we apparently have so much in the non-free-speech category that Watch-dog groups have to sue to get rid of some of them.

In the name of convenience, "anti-disruption", security, etc we are essentially selling one of America's greatest founding principles down the river.

While this might be a controversial comparison What we really need is a NRA style rabidly pro-free-speech (First amendment- freedom of speech or press clause) organization. This group will fight EVERY single "free speech zone" crap on every public place - colleges, Borders, Govt buildings, what not.

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In the name of convenience, "anti-disruption", security, etc we are essentially selling one of America's greatest founding principles down the river.

A part of the problem is the stridency of "speech." There are too many activists that seem to think they know everything, and figure they only need to be louder to get to social justice. The groups that actually produce social justice, however, are the organizations that are good at listening and reacting to that information.

I've noticed a pattern in people I've met in the Bay Area. There seems to be a pattern of using tribal affiliation as a substitute for actually listening to people and thinking. You can put people into cubby-holes, and then you are excused from having to listen to what they say or can even dismiss them as some sort non-sentient subhuman.

Basically some people seem to engage in stereotyping, but tell themselves that in doing so, they're being progressive intellectuals making the world a better place. Some even go so far as to defend the stereotyping because the signals are chosen and not innate, "So it's not like racism."

Hooray for judging books by their covers.

If activists were better at listening and getting disparate people to work together, the conditions that caused the backlash would improve. But many people aren't interested in a diverse multicultural society anymore. Instead, it's about saving "us" from the horrible villainous "them" and forcing the others to do what we want through political and legal means or public bullying.

Very true. Case in point: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-protest-causes-ma...

I think it all stems from a lack of understanding of subtlety in arguments. For example, when you watch mainstream news, all you see are the extreme points of an issue. You never really see the middle ground, and you never really see any rational arguments. You see either fire and brimstone, or puppies and sunshine.

Take climate change for instance. The only arguments that come up are that either (a) it's not happening, so go fuck yourself; or (b) WE'RE ALL GOING TO CATCH ON FIRE THEN DROWN AND IT'S THE APOCALYPSE. It's never; the world is headed in a direction that we may have control over, but even if we don't, we should probably try to do a better job than we've been doing.

I don't know when it started, but it seems that anytime an even remotely controversial issue comes up, we never see a rational explanation, it's always hyperbole and ridiculous nonsense. It's like people believe that every other human is mentally incompetent, and need to be shown the most extreme example that could possibly exist for an argument to be effective.

For good examples see global warming, immigration, and my recent favorite source of 'the sky is falling' hyperbole - CISPA.

Please note, I am neither endorsing, attacking, nor am I any other verb-ing the items I listed. I am simply saying that a majority of the arguments about those items come across as ham-fisted and ridiculous.

The middle ground is not better than extreme viewpoints just because it's easier to get people to accept. A "subtle" argument is not a good thing. Arguments should, ideally, be glaringly obvious.

A statement is either true or false. If you can't decide on one of those two extremes, it means either your statement is ill-formed or your axioms aren't consistent.

The middle ground is not better than extreme viewpoints just because it's easier to get people to accept. A "subtle" argument is not a good thing. Arguments should, ideally, be glaringly obvious.

Better than an argument, how about a nuanced discussion of reality? How about we get people away from the marketing caricature of reality, and we have them discussing reality?

A statement is either true or false. If you can't decide on one of those two extremes, it means either your statement is ill-formed or your axioms aren't consistent.

Human language and human models of the world are ill-formed and inconsistent. This is why honest nuanced discussions that aren't arguments are the best.

Reality is boolean. Any "nuance" is a reflection of poor reasoning ability on the part of the humans involved. We only make a caricature of reality when we project our own uncertainty onto it.

We should strive to overcome the limits of language. Mathematics is, in general, neither ill-formed nor inconsistent, and we should try to imitate it in our arguments in other fields.

Reality is boolean. Any "nuance" is a reflection of poor reasoning ability on the part of the humans involved. We only make a caricature of reality when we project our own uncertainty onto it.

I'm 100% on board with this.

We should strive to overcome the limits of language. Mathematics is, in general, neither ill-formed nor inconsistent, and we should try to imitate it in our arguments in other fields.

Uh, maybe not so much. Trying to apply the logic of sets to geology and geography could result in arguing if a particular rock is in North America or South America or if a particular grain of sand is in the Cambrian or afterwards. These are nonsense arguments.

Furthermore, when you're discussing reality with humans, you're always doing it through the lens of an imprecisely constructed social model of reality that's been passed down and modified by everyone over time. Avoiding this model and its distortions entirely is going to be near impossible. You're going to have to buy an island and declare that everyone speaks in Lojban and engage in social engineering that makes The Great Leap Forward look like a meeting icebreaker.

That said, I love the precision of math and programming languages. But trying to get human society to run on it is going to be epically hard.

>Trying to apply the logic of sets to geology and geography could result in arguing if a particular rock is in North America or South America or if a particular grain of sand is in the Cambrian or afterwards. These are nonsense arguments.

Only if our definitions of geographical locations are ill-defined.

>Furthermore, when you're discussing reality with humans, you're always doing it through the lens of an imprecisely constructed social model of reality that's been passed down and modified by everyone over time

Maybe we should try our hardest to avoid doing that.

That way, we must explicitly state our axioms re. messy stuff like biology and morality.

Only if our definitions of geographical locations are ill-defined.

They are. They were invented by non mathematicians to facilitate communication about objects in the real world through human language -- in a non-mathematical field.

we must explicitly state our axioms re. messy stuff like biology and morality.

Sounds good, but it's kind of hard to do perfectly. Lots of geniuses have been at least peripherally aware of and have been wrestling with precisely this problem for millennia! But if you have it solved, please blog about it and show us the way! Also, don't be surprised when people start poking holes in what you write.

There are many statements we would agree to be neither true nor false; here are a couple:

1. The sun will rise tomorrow. 2. This statement is false.

I'd agree with you the validity of a statement is not dependent on the palatability of its consequences.

There are many statements we would agree to be neither true nor false; here are a couple:

1. The sun will rise tomorrow. 2. This statement is false.

Note that this is not the kind of information which is controversial in our society and germane to decision making. (Other than that we will assume the sun will rise tomorrow as a given, but we can't stop with that.)

>There are many statements we would agree to be neither true nor false;

If they are neither true nor false, they are ill-defined.

>The sun will rise tomorrow.

Definitionally ill defined.

>This statement is false.

Inconsistent statement.

It's trivial to poke such holes in human language. Please demonstrate your perfect system, or go on about something less tautological.

If you're going be that pedantic, you rule out all statements of moral or value judgement, all statements pertaining to the future, and most things relating to abstract nouns. This makes it impossible to discuss anything political at all.

No, you don't. You just need to state your moral beliefs as explicit axioms.

Then they're not valid for anyone else who doesn't have exactly the same set of axioms. You can only form sentences of the form "I believe it is wrong for me to ..." and not "I believe it is wrong for you to ..."

wyager either doesn't want to construct such a logical language system and is just pedant-trolling us, or he's too naive about the underlying inconsistency of human languages to bother talking to.

> There are many statements we would agree to be neither true nor false; here are a couple:

> 1. The sun will rise tomorrow.

This is either true or false -- it may not be knowable which of those it is, but that's different than it neither being true nor false.

Isn't that the ACLU? (and perhaps the ACLJ?)

The need for the parenthetical is telling - various groups fight vehemently against some restrictions while accepting or promoting others. Some progressives advocate restriction on offensive or "hate" speech, while some conservatives, as mentioned in the article, advocate restrictions on speech perceived as threatening to national security or social mores (explicit lyrics or imagery, for example).

This was a pretty cool example of that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSwys0dm_EA

(context: after some occupy wall street protests were met with police violence, an armed Arizona militia watched over a local occupy movement to prevent police violence)

You mean like the ACLU?

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