Carl Benjamin didn't break their rules and their "proof" stripped vital context to make it appear that he was saying the exact opposite of what he was saying. I have to assume this was on purpose because they went out of their way to make a transcript and could not have missed that; so people are fully justified in believing Patreon had it out for him.

If that were the case, why would there be a need for such efforts to shut them down?

The antidote to bad speech is more speech. Instead of attacking people, attack their arguments.

We have limited time on this earth. Sometimes we just have to say "I'm done arguing this over and over" and just move on. (Especially when the person on the other side is arguing in bad faith.)

No one has been shut down from continuing the "conversation" on their own platforms. You're not allowed to wander into Wal-Mart and sell whatever you want. You're also not allowed to wander onto Patreon and sell whatever you want.

This is about more than just Patreon.

It took a couple of days for SubscribeStar to have their paypal access removed once the loonies began their next witch hunt.

How far do we take the witch hunts before we decide enough is enough?

If everyone in the world decided not to trade with people they didn't agree with on everything, there would exist no trade.

Actually, I think we should take into account who we're doing business with when we do business. Make the world a better place: Support good people doing good things.

That kind of thinking is why black people would be given seats at the back of the bus.

You really need to stop making judgements about people.

That is a fatuous argument. You could make precisely the same argument about people who shun child molesters. People who shun white supremacists are not the same as white supremacists.

It's a different argument, because child molestation is a heinous crime, but white supremacy is in itself, not a criminal offence. Certain behaviours which may manifest as a result of white supremacy may be criminal.

We have legal systems which can deal with accusation of crimes. If you suspect somebody to be a child molester, you can report them. The legal system makes the judgement. It also prevents you from falsely accusing somebody of molestation if you do so without evidence or reasonable motive.

The same legal system should apply to anyone being or claiming to be white supremacist. Their action is not a crime unless they are inciting crime (ie, calling for racial genocide). If the latter is the case, then they should be prosecuted following the due process. Witch hunting is not due process.

I also think the same legal process should be applied to the far-left, who are frequently falsely accusing people of something they are not. Unfortunately, most people do not have the resources to fight anonymous twitter trolls for libel.

This case with Sargon can be seen as a pretty good example of your argument falling apart. He is frequently labeled as some kind of alt-right white supremacist, when it is precisely this he denounces publicly. (Yes, his words were not the most appropriate, but words are meaningless without context. Patreon specifically ignored the context.)

What has become of the left, is not that they're shunning white supremacists, but they are shunning anybody that they perceive to be a white supremacist. A whole different story. If you have loose definitions like "hate speech", then it is justified to take down anyone you perceive to be your political opponent according to your standards.

Another example case was the witch hunt against Kavanaugh. It seems the left are determined to dismantle the idea of due process and putting people before judge and jury for the sake of virtue signalling and social "justice" (an oxymoron).

I could not be less interested in any debate on an HN thread than I am in the one about whether injustices were done to "Sargon of Akkad" and Justice Kavanaugh.

People who shun white supremacists are not morally equivalent to white supremacists.

> People who shun white supremacists are not morally equivalent to white supremacists.

I'm not suggesting anything of the like. In fact, I will join you in shunning white supremacists, as I would shun supremacists of any race.

When "shunning" becomes more than denunciation, but taking action to unperson people and have them fired, cut off their finance, and make false accusations about their peers, I draw the line.

If you want to keep believing in the moral superiority of that kind of social justice, be my guest.

Brett Kavanaugh is so oppressed they only gave him a lifetime seat at the top of one of the three branches of our government, ensuring him several decades of making decisions which will impact all Americans. A great injustice.

Making judgements about people with whom you're doing business with based on their values and actions is perfectly fine. What isn't fine is making those judgements based on identity or on a general swath of people.

No, I would choose to avoid people and companies who support such racism.

But thank you for playing the role of "guy who argues in bad faith." I think we're done, here.

Check out Brandolini's Law for a slightly less short examination of this idea, but the tl;dr argument against this is that any effective refutation of a "bad idea" is necessarily more costly to produce and less likely to be remembered than the bad idea is. So unless we want to have some paid antishills to astroturf our platforms with the not-bad ideas, we need to come up with a better way.

> The antidote to bad speech is more speech.

That is just a foolish phrase by a Supreme Court Justice. Unfortunately, most Americans seem to take it as Gospel.

Many people all over the world disagree, including centrist and far-left people.

You can disagree all you want. The point is that you can't force your disagreement on me.

The only reason I've heard of Peterson is because of his criticism of using preferred pronouns. Here is an overview of some of the pronouns: https://lgbtqia.ucdavis.edu/educated/pronouns

To be specific, he wasn't criticising the use of preferred pronouns, he was criticising the Canadian government for forcing people to use these pronouns under penalty of law.

His protest was against government compelled speech.

Yeah, and it was a dumb protest because he misunderstood what the actual bill was about:

http://sds.utoronto.ca/blog/bill-c-16-no-its-not-about-crimi...

Quoting the article:

" In other words, pronoun misuse may become actionable, though the Human Rights Tribunals and courts. And the remedies? Monetary damages, non-financial remedies (for example, ceasing the discriminatory practice or reinstatement to job) and public interest remedies (for example, changing hiring practices or developing non-discriminatory policies and procedures). Jail time is not one of them."

Conveniently leaving out what happens if you don't pay a fine: you can end up in jail.

Another thing is they state things need to become really bad before you get prosecuted so it won't happen. Well that all depends on the political climate. Plenty examples in the world for that.

Lastly they mention other places in the law where speech is limited. But they point at places where certain speech is forbidden, not where it is compelled.

The entire article looks disingenuous.

No, he didn’t. He’s one of the few that looked into what it actually said and how it was to be interpreted. Everyone else misunderstood it, and that’s the problem. University lawyers agreed with him.

Yes, but spend some time watching him speak about preferred pronouns and it is clear he has inherent distaste for them.