...I will defend to the death your right to say it.

[email protected]

New York Times - Feb. 1, 1933

JaggedRobotPubes

This is one of the best summaries of it that I've seen.

People are being stupid when they call oligarchs selfish. They aren't selfish. They're idiots.

[email protected]

Pull a trigger in the air without a gun, and see how many you kill.

The gun is an extension of the user - without the gun, you cannot shoot, just as without a person the gun won't shoot.

Same is the case for words. They didn't come out of the aether into existence, and when spoken carry the will of the speaker inherently.

It's not "just words", it can be malice or hate given form - that is, after all, the point of communication; to give form of what you desire or think to others.

[email protected]

So I shouldn't tell other people what to do, but it's ok for you to tell me what to do?

Sometimes it's ok to read your post before hitting send.

[email protected]

Language doesn't exist in a vacuum. It spreads ideas and therefore effects attitudes and behaviors. Suggesting the usage of racist languages doesn't have an effect on the minds of those who hear it - especially those who are malleable or otherwise primed to hear it - is an asinine argument to make. You think people randomly started accusing Haitians refugees of eating pets in the Midwest?

[email protected]

Not trying to sound obnoxious, but from my experience the average people and voters don't know much on just about any given topic. The masses are inundated and distracted by consumerism, vapid entertainment and other white noise to pay attention to what is beyond their immediate concerns, which makes them miss the bigger picture. Even if you make a person aware the gravity of the issue, some simply would not care because it is just more convenient not to think about it or gives them self-gratification. Case in point, data privacy protection outside of EU and California is non-existent because people do not even know companies sell personal information nor even care if pointed out. That's why social media thrive because most humans love the feeling of that dopamine hit when they receive likes; and companies and politicians are all to happy to exploit that and won't tell their users what they do in the name of harvesting their personal data.

Flying Squid

Let me guess- they are claiming that this ceasefire is because Harris lost.

Flying Squid

Political speech can involve hate.

Not in a modern society

[email protected]

"It is a less significant thing I do, than I have ever done."

Flying Squid

"Don't come whining to me when they're putting your neighbors in boxcars and sending them off to the camps because it's not like there's a reason for me to give a shit."

[email protected]

Hitler will be defeated in the marketplace of ideas.

[email protected]

Well you better get off your ass and vote then huh?

[email protected]

Aww did i hurt your feelings?

Flying Squid

Sorry, is there an election going on right now and no one told me?

[email protected]

No lmao I'm just saying there's the whole paradox that I have issue with, everyone who gets uppity about people not voting always spend more time arguing that they should vote than voting themselves.

I've made my stance clear, I just don't want to, so no use arguing with me about It, but time and time again that's how it goes

Flying Squid

Well yeah. Exactly how long do you think it takes someone to vote?

[email protected]

Where's the part where they act on these detestable ideas & we're powerless to stop these acts & hold people accountable for their actions?

Unless you exterminate everyone you disagree with, people with ideas you disapprove of will always exist.
Better to know who they are by letting them tell us.
Civil liberties & a right to exist apply as much to them as to you.

As you wrote, people are malleable.
They don't need the input of others to develop incorrect ideas & common biases on their own especially from an early age.
As that article on early childhood development of racial prejudices points out, avoiding talking about discriminatory biases or delaying the topic is not the answer.
Early intervention with active, explicit conversation is important to correct biases & misconceptions acquired from implicit social factors, which suppression of speech will not prevent.
With appropriate work, people can & often need to be corrected.

Agreement through suppressing opposing ideas is unreliable & inadequate.
It doesn't correct self-learned biases.
It assumes people will only hold unopposed ideas, which indicates they never reliably held them.
If an idea has any merit, people should hold them despite flawed challenges, because we did the work of educating them properly.
Choosing to compromise freedoms instead is flat out lazy & an insult to everyone's dignity.

Finally, it's pretty asinine to assume we need to sacrifice civil liberties to gain civil liberties.
In the United States, the free speech & civil liberties movements gained together.
That happened despite worse racism then with Jim Crow laws & white supremacists speaking freely.
If we were able to gain civil liberties then under harsher conditions, then we shouldn't have to sacrifice them now.

Yggstyle

First and foremost - Yes: Thank you. I noticed your comment initially when skimming before my big response... and thought "this person gets it."

I have nothing meaningful to add to what you said: you understood the importance of discussion - you had opinions and expressed them. You spoke up against something you perceived as incorrect.

Cheers. While it's self serving for me to say it: responses like yours give me hope.

Brahvim Bhaktvatsal

What even is people's problem with autism? It can - even and does - make people super smart, after all.

Yggstyle

@[email protected] correctly identifies this. Any ideals can be interpreted in bad faith to infer something that was not intended. If I said I prefer tea - someone would be more than happy to infer that I hate coffee.

My statement was a profession of what I believe to be correct. It is a brief summary of what I was taught and what I determined to be correct based on my experiences... and I stand by them. Admittedly I did bait a hook for a particular kind of person and am not displeased with the result. It appears to have yielded several great examples of what I was talking about.

Addressing your post despite the rather "loaded" opening which I imagine you know shouldn't warrant a response:

Hate speech doesn't exist until it is uttered. The damage is immediately done. It isn't - then it is. How do you propose stopping that? I'm genuinely curious. You appear to be holding my beliefs accountable for not employing precrime or espers... which admittedly, I don't factor in. They do, however, propose the solution: support the victim and admonish the person who was out of line. There are demonstrations of this, in action, in this thread.

People are social creatures: standing with someone is more powerful than simply removing an undesirable statement after the fact. It removes the isolation from the victim and provides support. It says: we, this group, will not stand for your actions. It isolates the perpetrator and makes them, consciously or not, aware that something is wrong. As I stated before: this may not change everyone but the net result is positive.

I'm happy to continue this discussion but it only seems fair that you expand on how you / your views would solve hate speech as it seems to be something you are passionate about... right?