Quoting Altman http://blog.samaltman.com/e-pur-si-muove
'It is bad for all of us when people can’t say that the world is a sphere, that evolution is real, or that the sun is at the center of the solar system.'
It is therefore equally bad for all of us when people can’t say that the world is flat, question evolution, or argue the sun isn't at the center of the solar system...
Some ideas are obviously wrong.
Imagine people saying prison rape is part and parcel of the person sentence.
Imagine people saying Holocaust denial never happened.
Of course, we can't stop people from saying stupid things but to say that we can't criticize careless or even dangerous ideas is a violation of my free speech.
The reason that his essay sucked was that this isn't about free speech. Free speech protects you from the government restricting you from saying something, and he never once cites anything about an American government[1], it's always complaints from other regular old people. Other people judging you and finding you an asshole[2] is totally consistent with free speech.
If someone says something bad about gay people (or women, or black people, or...), then by all means make them feel bad for saying something like that. Try to make sure that they never say something like that again, because they are so socially embarrassed and isolated. One of the lessons I've learned over the past two years is that people feel emboldened when they hear other people say something bad about some minority, and so if you make a big deal about one person doing it, you prevent other people from even trying to say something similar.
1: Other than starting out in China, where the government actually does limit your ability to say things, and does not have free speech.
2: Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1357/
If you're OK with your self-appointed right to restrict others' freedom of speech, then you also have to be OK with me suppressing your speech. And you'd better believe that this will be speech you care about. You have to be OK with the 1950s version of me ostracizing you for saying the positive things you believe about the protected groups you enumerate in your post.
It does you no good to claim that you're one of the good guys. Freedom of speech means everyone is a good guy when it comes to expression of ideas. You don't get to pick which speech is free.
Do you honestly want to live in a society where ideas you disagree with are withheld from expression because those who hold them are "so socially embarrassed and isolated"? Is that really your idea of a free society? Again, assume that the person being ostracized is you because of what you believe today.
If you do want a genuinely free society, don't ostracize the bigots. Instead, respect them. Debate them. Change their minds if you're right. Nobody is saying you have to have them over for dinner or be friends; ignoring them is perfectly fine, as well. The price -- and in the long term the benefit -- of a free society is that people get to live normal, ordinary lives even if they have despicable, reprehensible, even dangerous beliefs.
As for your ideas on how to win over bigots, I've lived my entire life surrounded by them, and I have to say that respecting them does not work. Debating them and treating them as equals just encourages others that it's all okay. Forcing them to hide in the darkness does work, because it makes them less likely to express their ideas at other times, when you aren't around, and other people will then hear it and be more likely to say it themselves.
Bigotry is a communicable disease.
Why is it that Paragraph 1's suppression leads to an explosion of progress, but Paragraph 2's suppression is the only way to exterminate ideas you don't like?
Which is why I'm so sure that P2 is an effective strategy- because I've observed how well it works.
I don't think you want a fairer game. You just want to win the current one.
Best of luck.
Except that doesn't work, does it? If it did, right-wing movements wouldn't be burgeoning all across the globe. _You cannot threaten a human into sharing your beliefs._ All your stance does is buy a frightened silence through intimidation and in that silence grow the seeds of resentment and anger.
It's so obviously self-sabotaging, not to mention morally repugnant, that it is nearly beyond belief that people calling themselves liberals would advocate it.
You mean like women have felt for thousands of years? And look where it got them. Just ignoring it and hoping that the creepy guy would pick on someone else didn't work. What did work was standing up, saying what happened to them, and forcing people to stop groping them or making inappropriate comments to them for fear of losing their jobs.
For damn sure no one like Judge Kozinski or Al Franken was going to be changed by reasoned, impassioned debate about the nature of personhood. What prevents future young women from being harassed by them and other creepy powerful men is seeing people like them losing their jobs. Seeing consequences for what they've done and said is what is protecting minorities from being hurt, and it is morally repugnant to allow other people to be hurt.
Mmm-hmm. And what happens when your social movement loses steam over time or public attitudes toward it change and you lose your power to tear down these powerful men? Are those individuals going to remain enthusiastic supporters of your beliefs afterward? You know, deep down, what the answer is.
No. The First Amendment (in the United States) protects you from the government suppressing your speech. Government suppression is far from the only free speech issue.
> Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1357/
Yeah, that was when I stopped reading XKCD.
Both had really quality work and clear thoughts and then the disingenuousness of these items made me rethink my own perception of them.