Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

The problem with anti-discrimination policies is that they discriminate against your own freedom to say what you want to say, the way you want to say it. Where I come from I could clearly the line forming against Free Speech because of anti-discrimination Laws being "the right thing to do" around the late 90s. Looking back, most of what was said on TV programs in the mid 90s would now be labeled as sexist, discriminative, and most people of the time would now be jailed for making the same very same comments in 2014.

Is that progress? In my mind the society was better as a whole when there were less restrictions everywhere. Now you have to think twice about what you can or cannot say, you have to tone down any joke you'd like to tell for fear of it being discriminative in any way... it's just plain boring, and fake, because people anyway still think what they think but they are simply not allowed to say it in public anymore.

At least before people felt some responsibility for what they were saying - instead of having to keep their mouths shut.

The problem with anti-slavery policies is that they discriminate against your own freedom to own who you want to own, and treat them the way you want to treat them. Where I come from, I could clearly see the line forming against Slavery because of anti-Slavery laws being "the right thing to do" around the late 1790s. Looking back, most of what went on at Slave markets in the mid 1790s would now be labelled as discriminative, and most people of the time would now be jailed for making the very same economic trades in 2014.

Is that progress? In my mind the society was better as a whole when there were less restrictions everywhere. Now you have to think twice about who you can or cannot own, you have to tone down any violence against negroes you'd like to beat for fear of it being discriminative in any way... it's just plain boring, and fake, because people anyway still arrange lynchings but they are simply not allowed to talk about it in public anymore.

At least before people felt some responsibility for the slaves they owned, instead of having to set them free.

OK, OK, I know, it's a bad analogy. Limits on speech are much less clear-cut than freeing slaves. But I hope I've made the point that you can't just point to the past, say "Is that progress? In my mind, society was better [then].", and claim that that's a substantive argument. It's not.

Yes, there are great arguments for Free Speech. Make those arguments instead.

On the other hand, there are good arguments to limit discriminatory speech. Speech can definitely harm people. One person saying "[Ethnic] immigrants are no-good, low-down, filthy, lazy, uneducated spongers, only interested in taking advantage of food stamp programs and great emergency medical treatment services while stealing jobs from real Americans by doing them for half the cost, cash-in-hand." probably isn't going to make much of a difference. But if it turns into a narrative or meme that's repeated again and again and again, it really can.

Oft-repeated speech can harm discriminatred-against peoples ability to get good jobs, by turning the minds of employers against them. It can harm their ability to start their own companies, by turning the minds of lenders against them. It can harm their ability to get a good education for their kids, by making school boards indifferent to the problems of schools with large [ethnic] populations. It can harm their ability to petition school boards, or to join them, by having the people already there dismiss them, ignore their input, and quash their participation.

Sure, despite this, if an [ethnic] kid with enough smarts and enough determination fights as hard as they can from the age of about 5 against all these barriers, and has a good amount of luck, they could still make a great life for themselves. But should they have to? Huge swathes of non-[ethnic] kids do at least as well for themselves without having to overcome these barriers at all; some of them, due to the privileges they enjoy, manage it while almost coasting. Meanwhile, masses of [ethnic] kids with only 90% of the drive of our special snowflake are beaten back into a life of poverty.

Discriminatory narratives in our cultures materially harm whole populations of people. Even if you can point to individuals that are exceptions to this, that doesn't stop it being true. It's still possible to do well at the game of life when it's on "nightmare" difficulty setting, it's just that many fewer people playing on that setting will do as well as the people playing on "easy" difficulty.

So the question is, is the freedom for us to create and spread discriminatory verbal narratives against minority ethnic (or other) groups in our society, more important than their freedom to truly be seen as equals and individuals, and to have the same advantages with the same lack of barriers that the majority enjoys?

It's not a clear-cut answer. Freedom of speech is incredibly important, and any limits, no matter how well-intentioned, should be regarded with utmost suspicion.

But, there is a case to be made here, and it needs to be decided on its merits. Saying "we never used to do it that way" simply isn't good enough.

Oh, thanks for the poor analogy, you could have picked Jews as well and make me look like a 3rd Reich supporter... I don't even know why you did that, that's just a poor strawman at best.

Now, on your additions:

> Speech can definitely harm people.

It only harms people if the same people are only allowed to speak. Freedom of Speech goes in both ways. If someone or some group is publicly attacked, they have the right to defend themselves as well. So Free Speech can harm and defend. And if the ones who spread shit about certain minorities are being heard and become popular, well that's more of a general culture problem that you have than an issue of a few people abusing Free Speech, don't you think ?

> there are good arguments to limit discriminatory speech.

I am not convinced by yours. Just like there are probably good arguments for the war on terrorism, the war on drugs and so on. Never been convinced by any of them either. It's funny how the ones who are proponent of anti-discrimination laws and measures tend to be oppressive people. I wonder if there's a connection there...

> Discriminatory narratives in our cultures materially harm whole populations of people

Because you think not talking about what people really think without daring to say it is good for our culture ? Honestly I'd prefer to know exactly what one's stance is instead of trying to guess what they hide under their politically correct mask. That's just creating a lot of tension in the end.

> spread discriminatory verbal narratives against minority ethnic (or other) groups in our society

It's not just about discrimination, basically you remove the right from People from even having opinions about other people. Because having bad opinion about someone else, whoever they are, is being discriminative at its core. The way we're going, it will soon be impossible to say bad things about anyone. Sounds like Pangloss in Candid. Yeah, Everything Is Awesome.

> Saying "we never used to do it that way" simply isn't good enough.

I never said that, thanks for the additional Strawman, I guess your first three paragraphs were not enough. And you know what? We HAD lots of censorship throughout History, and we know what censorship brings. You cannot say shit about the Church, about your Lord, about the King, about the Nobility, etc... We know where this all led - violence, because you don't fix the real problems by hiding things under the mat. We are now recreating new systems of censorship with the pretext "we should all be nice to each other", and burning new people at the stake (at least burning their reputation and ruining their lives) by pointing out their "thought crime".

> But, there is a case to be made here, and it needs to be decided on its merits.

Are people happier now that we have all these anti-discrimination laws ? Nope, they are asking for more! Hey, censorship is never enough. Once you have it, you always want more.

Thanks for the reply.

> I don't even know why you did that, that's just a poor strawman at best.

I was trying to point out the flaw in the form of your argument, rather than its substance. Sorry if that didn't come through.

> Freedom of Speech goes in both ways. If someone or some group is publicly attacked, they have the right to defend themselves as well.

That is true, if both groups have access to the same sized soapbox. But, in many countries, there are some major media outlets who manage to get ratings by telling the majority that most of their existing problems are down to some minority or other (sucking up welfare, or "stealing" jobs), and that the people they should fear in terms of being assaulted, mugged, raped, killed, hit by an uninsured driver, etc... in the future are from the same minority. Meanwhile, the minority doesn't have much representation in mainstream media, much less control any of it. Further, while non-discriminatory majority-run media certainly exist, they tend not to rebut even a significant subset of the unsubstantiated biased fear-mongering dreck out there.

> Because you think not talking about what people really think without daring to say it is good for our culture ?

No, because a lot of what people "really think" about many minority groups is not based on facts, but on unsubstantiated misinformation spread by other bigots. I have relatives who are convinced that all the members of one minority group are basically scum. They simultaneously think they're all incredibly lazy, while also reviling them for stealing jobs by willing to work 14 hours/day for less than a living wage. They didn't come to these opinions through personal experience with this minority group or their culture. They certainly don't have any friends from this group, and it's highly unlikely they even know any of them in passing. Their opinions of this group are entirely based on what other people like them said when those people were "talking about what they really thought". And they spread the lies and misinformation further, to even more people who wouldn't have formed their own opinion either way without them.

I think that that's bad for our culture.

> basically you remove the right from People from even having opinions about other people.

I don't want that. I want to stop people forming prejudicial opinions of individuals, based purely on those individuals membership of a discriminated-against minority group. If you think Joseph is a thief because you lent him money, but he later denied that you did and refuses to pay you back, that's fine. But if you think he must be a thief because he's a member of [ethnic minority], and they're all theives, then no, that's not on and you're an asshole.

> I never said ["we never used to do it that way"], thanks for the additional Strawman,

Re-read your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th sentences. It might not be how you intended it, but in 5 out of the 7 sentences you originally wrote, as I read them, your main argument seems to be that 20 years ago we never had a problem with that sort of speech, so why should we now?

> You cannot say shit about the Church, about your Lord, about the King, about the Nobility, etc...

There is an important difference here, in that the focus on "censorship" (for want of a better word) is the intent to use it to protect the weak from the strong. We're now fine with "punching up", subjecting those with power to scrutiny, and dissent. In fact, we try to insist on it. We don't always do very well, because those with power have, well, a lot of power with which to protect and veil themselves. But that discussion is over, and we won it.

The fight now is to stop people "punching down", from shitting on the little guy, the guy with no friends, the guy without a voice. Heck, that's the basis of most of our judicial systems, to protect the weak from the bullies, and the naive from the unscrupulous.

> We are now recreating new systems of censorship with the pretext "we should all be nice to each other", and burning new people at the stake (at least burning their reputation and ruining their lives) by pointing out their "thought crime".

I agree, it sucks. Censorship is bad and causes a whole raft of problems. But I'm not convinced that in some cases it's not worse than the systemic discrimination we already have. If you can come up with another way to end that, to get people to let go of their irrational fear and hatred, or just find a way to get them to not pass it on to their kids so the next generation isn't quite so fucked - without making some thoughts taboo to express - I'd be over the moon.

Jailed? Really?

Yep, jailed. At least in some countries I know of, it could go from a large fine to jail time depending on the level of discrimination.

http://www.cnet.com/news/british-man-jailed-for-racist-tweet...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQwCYyoRskg

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