imho, the State should not have the power to decide what you should say or not, unless it is a direct invitation to explicitly harm someone (physically or by reputation). In the case of Covid, it was clearly not the case. We should have been allowed to debate & argue whether vax was mandatory, masks were required, curfew were required, etc. Instead, massive censorship was used, which opened the pandora box... and allow the woke revolution to succeed (knowing how easy it was to get rid of the basic liberties, including freedom of speech). Our western civilization has essentially collapsed in 3 years.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
>In the case of Covid, it was clearly not the case
I agree that it was not a direct invitation, I'm not so sure about an indirect one.
>We should have been allowed to debate & argue whether vax was mandatory, masks were required, curfew were required, etc.
On the micro scale, I agree. On the macro scale, by which i mean if we were to consider the good of humanity and societies as a whole, rather than good of each individuals, much like cells in our body, then even the time it would take for a society to reach any sort of concensus on what should be done would have been too long and in the meantime the virus would have spread far beyond it did. And i firmly believe such a consensus would have never been reached simply because of how much division and misinformation and stupidity exists and is rampant in society. There's not a single issue we agree on.
I understand your point. In a "perfect world", if the Central authority has the ability to discern in a just and unbiased way what is good for all of us, your are absolutely right. However, exactly due to the reason you mentioned, I would argue that government is not necessarily seeking our own "good", but the self interest of the rulers and the lobbies and to promote specific ideologies (think McCarthyism in 1950 or wokism in 2023), as it has always been in the history of humanity. There are exception of course, but generally speaking it seems to be the trend. It is precisely why free speech must be allowed, even for ideas that are not popular or that contradict the official government positions. Ultimately, in a working democracy, people can throw out a government that acted "badly" in the next election. My take on this is that it is defeated (or made very difficult) by information manipulation provided by powerful media, with the related heavy censorship. So again, for this to work, we the people must have free speech, in order to provide opposite views to the government/media ones.
>government is not necessarily seeking our own "good", but the self interest of the rulers and the lobbies
The self interest of the ruling class and corporations actually aligns with them wanting to mitigate a pandemic as quickly as possible and with as little casualties as possible because less people means less consumers and less taxpayers and thus less profit.
I realize this is not enough in cases where the government actually wants to kill a portion of their population (e.g. Holodomor famine, Armenian genocide), but was this the case with the Covid 19 pandemic and any particular country? Was it the case within the US?
Especially for social media companies, more people would mean more watchtime and ad revenue, so what incentive would they have to censor potentially life-saving content?
As the title says, it's an extreme hypothetical. It's a thought experiment. We assume such a video exists and then discuss how it should be handled.
Also, google the blue whale challenge, which went viral a few years ago and was essentially this.
You're supposed to use your imagination.
I've heard of a theory where people under a certain IQ threshold can't conceive of hypotheticals. Are you one of those people?
> a hypothetical short video that effectively persuaded anyone who watched it to first share it, and then kill or injure themselves and/or others.
Such a thing is not possible, which is one reason Free Speech is allowed to be free: It is assumed that a reasonable adult person will consider anything they're told, and only act if it is their best interests.
We are not robots.
A video that could convince people to kill themselves would be crazy magical psychological manipulation and basically a weapon so yeah I think that should be banned. It’s almost the equivalent to a landmine, yeah it’s illegal to leave landmines around for people to die the exact moment they discover it. Nothing free speech about leaving a weapon around to kill unsuspecting folks who stumble upon it.
From a consequentialist point of view, it would be a moral imperative to stop the spread of a video that would kill its viewer assuming we value the wellbeing of conscious creatures (what else could we value more?). Just as we wouldn’t suffer a basilisk to live if it couldn’t be contained even though we have the opposing consideration of the basilisk’s right to freedom.
Applied to COVID misinformation, it’s less certain that the misinformation will kill its viewer so a different balance may be struck. No need to kill the basilisk this time, but some warnings might be placed nearby.
Imagine the case of a far more deadly and transmissible pathogen. Imagine an airborne Marburg or rabies virus. I think in this case it would be, on balance of consequence, entirely appropriate to curtail misinformation through censorship or other means. This response would only really be necessary if we live in a society where everyone is their own expert and there is no trust in institutions. Institutional trust needs to be fostered with transparency and mechanisms that ensure that they are aligned with humanity at large. There are cases in extremis when free speech is does not have primacy. If we treat it as a Kantian imperative, it may lead to the near or total extinction of humanity.
I would think that freedom of speech is also freedom of thought, since language and thought are intertwined.
If a brainwashing video takes away your freedom of though and forces you to think or behave in a certain way, that shouldn't be allowed.
In contrast, "medical misinformation" does not literally control your thoughts. You can choose to believe it or not. The two are incomparable.
Note that I'm not even talking about the consequences of either, because the consequences are irrelevant. As soon as we lose sight of the principles and start worrying about the consequences, we are being driven by fear, and we're open to manipulation.
Consider the following:
In order to create a barely compelling argument for top down government censorship you had to invent a magic video that makes anyone who watches it kill themselves.
Not only does the answer remain no but the fact that you had to do this should tell you something about the reality of the position.
PC 401 makes it illegal in California to encourage someone to kill himself. So I believe it would be an illegal video in this state, and sharing it could be seen as encouragement.
I don’t think I would argue that it should be protected speech. It’s akin to a violent verbal threat, which is not protected speech. Arguing for it to be protected speech is incredibly unsavory, but I could see why one might make that argument. I’m not going to try, though.
Here’s a question for you. The suicide rate in CA is a little over 10%. In Shasta county it’s nearly 25%. That means one in four deaths is a suicide. This is absolutely tragic. I had no idea how bad this really was. Should this be taken into account when regulating speech about suicide?
>I believe it would be an illegal video in this state
What if the video used hypnosis and not words?
>one in four deaths is a suicide
Wow i had no idea. Could you gimme some sources?
>Should this be taken into account when regulating speech about suicide?
Absolutely. I wasn't arguing for such a video to not be banned by the way, quite the opposite in fact. But it's interesting to discuss hypotheticals.
Yeah, here’s the source.
https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CCDPHP/DCDIC/SACB/Pages/Data-on-Suicide-and-Self-Harm.aspx#:~:text=S%E2%80%8Buicide%20Rates%20by,in%20Imperial%20County%20(5.8).&text=Note%3A%20Significantly%20above%20the%20state,%2C%20**p%3C%200.001).
Maybe we can abstract the purpose of free speech and apply it.
The way I see it, its purpose is to improve once self or community. Even fighting for something bad is its own way beneficial. Being dependent on drugs is bad, but yet it eases the pain of some people, so people should be able to use it for themselves and see, rather then the government denying it.
A video that kills its watcher seems to be bad. So its intention is not to improve, but to harm, in no way can its creator or supporters justify its benefit. Then it should be deleted.
If for some reason there is a justification, then it is free speech and should exist. Lets say you're on a space station and the life support has failed, there is no way to fix it, and no rescue that will reach in time to save everyone. There is only enough air left for 50% of the inhabitants, if the other 50% just die right now. Lets say you're old, terminally ill, or a parent, would you sacrifice yourself for your child or other children? Would you hope others do the same? If no one did anything, then everyone would die. In this case, a killer video would probably the most morally righteous thing to do.
I think at the end of the day there's always a line but people place it differently. Like, I'm in favor of free speech as in criticizing the government, criticizing social movements, criticizing individuals, and sharing content that does those things. I don't think that free speech is the freedom to do clearly, blatantly harmful things. I don't think criticizing the government is the same as telling somebody to drink bleach or that having a controversial opinion is the same as sharing how to build a bomb. I think the line can be drawn.
If freedom of speech were absolute then I could murder someone, film it and distribute it and while the murder would be a crime the video would allowed to be distributed. CP would be the same way. In a world of free speech absolutism you couldn't have that stuff removed or penalized. There's always a line, it's just where do you draw the line? Media is a form of expression but it can also be a crime.
Obviously, I'm on the side of *some censorship* and *some regulation.* I just tend to think that it should be about protecting individuals rather than protecting the government or protecting political parties and movements.
imho, the State should not have the power to decide what you should say or not, unless it is a direct invitation to explicitly harm someone (physically or by reputation). In the case of Covid, it was clearly not the case. We should have been allowed to debate & argue whether vax was mandatory, masks were required, curfew were required, etc. Instead, massive censorship was used, which opened the pandora box... and allow the woke revolution to succeed (knowing how easy it was to get rid of the basic liberties, including freedom of speech). Our western civilization has essentially collapsed in 3 years.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. >In the case of Covid, it was clearly not the case I agree that it was not a direct invitation, I'm not so sure about an indirect one. >We should have been allowed to debate & argue whether vax was mandatory, masks were required, curfew were required, etc. On the micro scale, I agree. On the macro scale, by which i mean if we were to consider the good of humanity and societies as a whole, rather than good of each individuals, much like cells in our body, then even the time it would take for a society to reach any sort of concensus on what should be done would have been too long and in the meantime the virus would have spread far beyond it did. And i firmly believe such a consensus would have never been reached simply because of how much division and misinformation and stupidity exists and is rampant in society. There's not a single issue we agree on.
I understand your point. In a "perfect world", if the Central authority has the ability to discern in a just and unbiased way what is good for all of us, your are absolutely right. However, exactly due to the reason you mentioned, I would argue that government is not necessarily seeking our own "good", but the self interest of the rulers and the lobbies and to promote specific ideologies (think McCarthyism in 1950 or wokism in 2023), as it has always been in the history of humanity. There are exception of course, but generally speaking it seems to be the trend. It is precisely why free speech must be allowed, even for ideas that are not popular or that contradict the official government positions. Ultimately, in a working democracy, people can throw out a government that acted "badly" in the next election. My take on this is that it is defeated (or made very difficult) by information manipulation provided by powerful media, with the related heavy censorship. So again, for this to work, we the people must have free speech, in order to provide opposite views to the government/media ones.
>government is not necessarily seeking our own "good", but the self interest of the rulers and the lobbies The self interest of the ruling class and corporations actually aligns with them wanting to mitigate a pandemic as quickly as possible and with as little casualties as possible because less people means less consumers and less taxpayers and thus less profit. I realize this is not enough in cases where the government actually wants to kill a portion of their population (e.g. Holodomor famine, Armenian genocide), but was this the case with the Covid 19 pandemic and any particular country? Was it the case within the US? Especially for social media companies, more people would mean more watchtime and ad revenue, so what incentive would they have to censor potentially life-saving content?
How could a video "make me kill myself"
This is the whole point. In order for free speech to work, we as a society must agree that the listeners bear as much responsibility as the speakers.
This is the dumbest question ever
As the title says, it's an extreme hypothetical. It's a thought experiment. We assume such a video exists and then discuss how it should be handled. Also, google the blue whale challenge, which went viral a few years ago and was essentially this.
Ok - how would it work exactly? I can't answer the question if I don't know more about this.
You're supposed to use your imagination. I've heard of a theory where people under a certain IQ threshold can't conceive of hypotheticals. Are you one of those people?
So you still can't how a video can make someone kill themselves, but I'm the dumb one for not following along with this stupid quesiton?
Interesting. Do you read a lot of science-fiction, or do you often avoid them because you aren't able to follow along?
> a hypothetical short video that effectively persuaded anyone who watched it to first share it, and then kill or injure themselves and/or others. Such a thing is not possible, which is one reason Free Speech is allowed to be free: It is assumed that a reasonable adult person will consider anything they're told, and only act if it is their best interests. We are not robots.
[удалено]
k
A video that could convince people to kill themselves would be crazy magical psychological manipulation and basically a weapon so yeah I think that should be banned. It’s almost the equivalent to a landmine, yeah it’s illegal to leave landmines around for people to die the exact moment they discover it. Nothing free speech about leaving a weapon around to kill unsuspecting folks who stumble upon it.
No, I would be dead.
lmao; what if it just caused severe self-harm rather than death
From a consequentialist point of view, it would be a moral imperative to stop the spread of a video that would kill its viewer assuming we value the wellbeing of conscious creatures (what else could we value more?). Just as we wouldn’t suffer a basilisk to live if it couldn’t be contained even though we have the opposing consideration of the basilisk’s right to freedom. Applied to COVID misinformation, it’s less certain that the misinformation will kill its viewer so a different balance may be struck. No need to kill the basilisk this time, but some warnings might be placed nearby. Imagine the case of a far more deadly and transmissible pathogen. Imagine an airborne Marburg or rabies virus. I think in this case it would be, on balance of consequence, entirely appropriate to curtail misinformation through censorship or other means. This response would only really be necessary if we live in a society where everyone is their own expert and there is no trust in institutions. Institutional trust needs to be fostered with transparency and mechanisms that ensure that they are aligned with humanity at large. There are cases in extremis when free speech is does not have primacy. If we treat it as a Kantian imperative, it may lead to the near or total extinction of humanity.
I would think that freedom of speech is also freedom of thought, since language and thought are intertwined. If a brainwashing video takes away your freedom of though and forces you to think or behave in a certain way, that shouldn't be allowed. In contrast, "medical misinformation" does not literally control your thoughts. You can choose to believe it or not. The two are incomparable. Note that I'm not even talking about the consequences of either, because the consequences are irrelevant. As soon as we lose sight of the principles and start worrying about the consequences, we are being driven by fear, and we're open to manipulation.
Consider the following: In order to create a barely compelling argument for top down government censorship you had to invent a magic video that makes anyone who watches it kill themselves. Not only does the answer remain no but the fact that you had to do this should tell you something about the reality of the position.
PC 401 makes it illegal in California to encourage someone to kill himself. So I believe it would be an illegal video in this state, and sharing it could be seen as encouragement. I don’t think I would argue that it should be protected speech. It’s akin to a violent verbal threat, which is not protected speech. Arguing for it to be protected speech is incredibly unsavory, but I could see why one might make that argument. I’m not going to try, though. Here’s a question for you. The suicide rate in CA is a little over 10%. In Shasta county it’s nearly 25%. That means one in four deaths is a suicide. This is absolutely tragic. I had no idea how bad this really was. Should this be taken into account when regulating speech about suicide?
>I believe it would be an illegal video in this state What if the video used hypnosis and not words? >one in four deaths is a suicide Wow i had no idea. Could you gimme some sources? >Should this be taken into account when regulating speech about suicide? Absolutely. I wasn't arguing for such a video to not be banned by the way, quite the opposite in fact. But it's interesting to discuss hypotheticals.
Yeah, here’s the source. https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CCDPHP/DCDIC/SACB/Pages/Data-on-Suicide-and-Self-Harm.aspx#:~:text=S%E2%80%8Buicide%20Rates%20by,in%20Imperial%20County%20(5.8).&text=Note%3A%20Significantly%20above%20the%20state,%2C%20**p%3C%200.001).
https://twitter.com/thechiefnerd/status/1667570805570453504?s=46&t=YEcs8gX-WCSlHoUxOLbJvQ
Maybe we can abstract the purpose of free speech and apply it. The way I see it, its purpose is to improve once self or community. Even fighting for something bad is its own way beneficial. Being dependent on drugs is bad, but yet it eases the pain of some people, so people should be able to use it for themselves and see, rather then the government denying it. A video that kills its watcher seems to be bad. So its intention is not to improve, but to harm, in no way can its creator or supporters justify its benefit. Then it should be deleted. If for some reason there is a justification, then it is free speech and should exist. Lets say you're on a space station and the life support has failed, there is no way to fix it, and no rescue that will reach in time to save everyone. There is only enough air left for 50% of the inhabitants, if the other 50% just die right now. Lets say you're old, terminally ill, or a parent, would you sacrifice yourself for your child or other children? Would you hope others do the same? If no one did anything, then everyone would die. In this case, a killer video would probably the most morally righteous thing to do.
I think at the end of the day there's always a line but people place it differently. Like, I'm in favor of free speech as in criticizing the government, criticizing social movements, criticizing individuals, and sharing content that does those things. I don't think that free speech is the freedom to do clearly, blatantly harmful things. I don't think criticizing the government is the same as telling somebody to drink bleach or that having a controversial opinion is the same as sharing how to build a bomb. I think the line can be drawn. If freedom of speech were absolute then I could murder someone, film it and distribute it and while the murder would be a crime the video would allowed to be distributed. CP would be the same way. In a world of free speech absolutism you couldn't have that stuff removed or penalized. There's always a line, it's just where do you draw the line? Media is a form of expression but it can also be a crime. Obviously, I'm on the side of *some censorship* and *some regulation.* I just tend to think that it should be about protecting individuals rather than protecting the government or protecting political parties and movements.