Hacker News Reader

Comment by putzdown | Hacker News Reader

But surely "not really constructive" and "muddy the water" implies a judgment—a pre-judgment—that the speech itself ought to be allowed to face. If he speaks and his ideas are "not really constructive" and "muddy the water", then the listeners can decide what to do with the ideas, both within their own minds and in conversation afterward. If he's not allowed to speak, then the people preventing the speech are enforcing their own opinions by violence. This behavior actually implies that his ideas are of more merit, because if the ideas were not really constructive or entirely lacked value, then the listeners could dismiss them thoughtfully.

Or could it be that modern students don't have the ability to think carefully about or make good judgments about speech?

View on HN

Do you have examples of people attempting to deplatform someone who has not expressed the content of their speech before?

From what I can see, deplatforming attempts are in very large majority done towards people who already have demonstrated the quality of their ideas.

> because if the ideas were not really constructive or entirely lacked value, then the listeners could dismiss them thoughtfully.

If it was true, then racism, populism, or prejudice would not exist at all, because all of that is based on flawed logic that can be easily demonstrated. The reality is that intelligent debate LOSES in front of convenient fearmongering. Not because people are idiot, but simply mathematically: fearmongering is way easier and way more convincing than rationality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

> Or could it be that modern students don't have the ability to think carefully about or make good judgments about speech?

I would say that maybe modern students are smarter than before and go further than the naive logic of "if it's incorrect, the rational side will win", which has been demonstrated incorrect again and again in history.

> a pre-judgment

In the case of Milo, this is a fair pre-judgement. Are we expected to ignore a person's entire corpus of work and treat them as an untouched field of snow every time they present themselves? We're to "rehash" their position every time they speak? That seems silly.

People like Milo form their careers on rage-bait. Shouting him down is the same as simply banning a troll or banning flame-bait on forums.

For the others, for the most part it's the same - reactionary speakers, especially in the USA, are mostly uninterested in good faith debate. They leverage rhetorical fallacy and outright disinformation to muddy the waters. See: the Trump election conspiracies, the antivax movement, the rewriting of the cultural history of gender fluidity to attack trans people's existence, etc etc etc.

It’s not clear to me that either political “side” has the corner on these faults. But even if they did, why not allow audiences to make their own judgments? Universities don’t have to provide auditoriums or catering. They shouldn’t have to provide extra security, if free speech is honored by students. Why can’t listeners simply walk away? I truly don’t understand.

Conversely, why aren't you respecting the free speech rights of students to speak out against people sharing hateful ideologies on their campus? (Ben Shapiro coming to spread transphobia for example)

For decades we've tolerated anti-woman's-rights activists shoving pictures of medical procedures into people's faces, and preachers telling students they're going to go to hell for being gay. That's ok, but protesting a transphobe isn't?

I truly don't understand the double standard. Just kidding, I get it. Leftists face a double standard when it comes to free speech. Dare to speak with your colleagues and organize a union? The president himself will order you to shut up and get to work. Stand up and shout at a transphobe who is speaking through a sound system your tuition pays for? Get escorted out by a security detail you're also paying for.

Shove fetus pictures into people's faces? No problem! Strap on swastikas and March through town? Police escort!

Take a knee in front of a slaver statue? Pepper spray!

The article is crocodile tears.

>Shove fetus pictures into people's faces? No problem! Strap on swastikas and March through town? Police escort!

If it's really no problem try doing it. You're not being realistic about the consequences of being disruptive.

I'm not being realistic? You speaking from personal experience? Because I've been to many, many, protests, and I think I have a very good idea of the consequences of being disruptive, with the literal scars to show for it.

I watched proud boys march with police escort. I dealt with people shaking fetus pictures in my face the third Friday of every month for four years when I'm just trying to get to the library.

I witnessed firsthand the system's indifference or hostility to leftist protesting: the violence and arrests we faced at peaceful BLM sit-ins when proud boys meanwhile are allowed to walk around armed and shouting racial slurs at people.

What personal experience are you drawing on to deny what I'm describing? What evidence?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Duncan_Lemp

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_of_Aaron_Danielson_...

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/14/virginia-sho...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/steve-scalise-congress...

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/capitol-breached-protesters/...

I ask for minimal perspective towards people you feel contempt. I'd say the same to someone claiming left wing protests are easy and leftists have "no problem" participating in them. It's just not true.

I've no idea the point you're trying to make - almost all your links are regarding individual incidents of violence, I'm talking about state violence against protesters in general. It's ironic you chose the capitol insurrection as an example - if that had been antifascists, the cops likely wouldn't have colluded to let them in, and there probably would have been far more violence, considering how they normally treat leftist protestors.

Don't you find it odd that the people with a hanged effigy of the vice president outside the capitol were able to ransack congressional halls with only four dead as a result?

I know there's collusion between some police departments and far right protestors in the US, this is obvious. I say some because there are exceptions.

But your point was "there's no problem [protesting for the right]" and there is, there obviously is. They range from death at the hands of far left killers, persecution at work/academia, unemployment.

It's absurd to pretend the right has no stake when protesting as you implied.

>individual incidents of violence

So it's a coincidence the killers were ideologically opposed to the victims? I don't get how "individual" these deaths are when there's a clear political motivation.

Death of ideological enemies by "civilians" is how fascism in Italy began. Civilian political violence is not irrelevant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com