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Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

> absolutely should have rebuked those using their free speech in favor of human rights abuses

I have no love for communists (having been born in the Eastern Bloc), but that's not how free speech works. Either you're for it (and all the icky stuff that comes with it) or you're against it. There's no "splitting the difference" here. We've debated and litigated this since the Enlightenment (from J.S. Mill to Skokie, IL): if you start banning one type of speech, that's a train you won't be able to stop.

Popper's Paradox of Tolerance is highfalutin nonsense.

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I also want to bring Blackstone's Ratio[0] into the conversation. I think it resonates with engineers really well because it is essentially the legal version of failure design. You design failure into your programs, bridges, and whatever (does your safe fail with an open lock or closed?). Why? Because when the thing fails, we want it to fail in a specific way to do the least amount of harm. We all know how terrible bad error messages are and how hard they make our life. This is such a key principle to almost every subject that I'm not sure why it isn't discussed more or ingrained into our societal thinking (it was ingrained into many of our constitutions).

Blackstone's ratio is:

> It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer

This is failure design. The legal system will fail. So when it does, do you want a guilty person to be set free or an innocent person to be imprisoned. We, of course, want to minimize the failure, but we have to ask which mode of failure is preferable.

The same is true for speech here. Who decides what to censor? The people in charge change frequently and with opposing views. What is the threshold? Explicit or implicit speech? There are limits on speech in America but the limits are low because that was the mode of failure that was planned.

I think one thing to recognize though is that there's ways to stop speech we don't like without banning it[1]. You just have to be creative.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/18/neo-nazis-tric...

From 1:

> Neo-Nazis are attracted to the town because Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess was once buried there. Though his remains were exhumed in 2011 and his grave was destroyed, far-right extremists still flock to the town year after year

And that's why all those dead after Nuremberg were cremated and their ashes were spread in rivers and seas. Nobody wants neo-Nazis shrines.

> Nobody wants neo-Nazis shrines.

Ironic, considering the Pyramids at Giza are literal monuments to slavery.

Free speech -- i.e. the free exchange of ideas, ergo the natural extension of freedom of thought -- is a fundamental and transcendental ideal, and it's a hill I've died on and gotten downvoted for plenty of times. Germany, Nazis, and the USA probably won't be around 200 millennia from now, but the ideal of free speech certainly will. We think too much of ourselves and of our times.

According to some things I've read, the latest view is that slave labor was not primarily used for building the Pyramid at Giza. Wikipedia suggests 'conscripted laborers' as the main workers.

Have you tried moving the pyramids? Pretty difficult I hear :)

On a more serious note, when I went to see the pyramids, the guide pointed out several rows of nearby tombs for the laborers who built the things, talked about how they were free skilled laborers, and in fact treated quite well (for the time at least).

If they are residents, I agree there is nothing you can do about it.

But since they seem to be exchange students, you could say "We don't welcome people with such views here in our country", and just send them back to the country that is ruled by their beloved government.

Just because you have free speech doesn't mean you can't select foreigners based on their beliefs and values.

Even if they are residents, you can absolutely be expelled from university for bullying, hate speech and other abuses.

This could indeed be seen as bullying or discrimination.

When we're talking about fundamental rights, I don't think we should treat foreigners any different than citizens. That's cruel. Is that really the country we want to be? Humane only to our citizens? We say that the mark of a man is how he treats those he sees as lower than himself. I think the same applies to countries.

Now I'm not saying being a foreign national you should have "the right" to open a US bank account, buy a house, or even get a job. But if we're talking about what we call "basic human rights," then that's a different story.

Of course, Universities are different, but I think the point still stands.

They didn't break the law, so you don't lock them up. In the end, they still have that fundamental right.

But if you act as an idiot abroad, you shouldn't be surprised when they send you back.

You should watch this couse: http://justiceharvard.org/justicecourse/ .

Free humans are not free to kill or enslave. Free speech is not free to hate.

Seems like an Ethics 101 course, I have an undergraduate degree in philosophy. I am intimately familiar with arguments on both sides, and I think you should read some John Stuart Mill, specifically his seminal On Liberty[1] (maybe not as engaging as a YouTube video course, though).

Free speech absolutism is a pretty hardline position, but I think it's probably correct.

[1] https://www.econlib.org/library/Mill/mlLbty.html

I assume, your point is that US government doesn't represent Chinese immigrants, right? This is true. Why this is a problem and what solution to the problem you propose?

By rebuked I don't mean actual disciplinary consequences. Instead, the university should (verbally/textually) condemn speech in favor of human rights abuse.

Free speech isn't an absolute all or nothing. In fact, all countries that give the right of free speech, and the UN declaration of human rights, impose limits on it.

For instance, outright neo-Nazism is forbidden in most EU countries. Same goes for stoking racial or religious hatred, etc. Even in the US with their old constitution and "textualist" interpretations of it that really want to take it to the absolute, have restrictions on free speech (e.g. "obscenity", "speech that violates intellectual property law", etc.)

Absolute free speech is incompatible with a modern society of today. Maybe it isn't with somebody's utopia, but we're not there.

The paradox of tolerance, however, is real. You can see it in work the recent rise of mis and disinformation from far-right folks, Russia, etc. For instance in France there was a presidential candidate who was convicted of inciting racial hatred more than once, and wanted to deport all Muslims and migrants from France, of course with frightening stories about why that is necessary to save France from the Muslims/Blacks/Arabs/Jews/whatever.

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