Oddbean

I didn't go into it but there are a lot of ways that expression hatred helps the situation: 1) Hatred bottled up eventually comes out either as violence or speech. I'd rather it be expressed via speech. 2) When people express their real feelings, that can serve as a warning to the rest of us. If I know you hate white men, I'll know to steer clear. 3) When people express feelings that are illogical, we become aware of their misconception and are given the chance to help them get a more nuanced and accurate understanding of a situation. 4) Sometimes we are wrong and they are right, which is ia general argument in favor of speech that is classified as disinformation. In these cases which we absolutely cannot determine apriori, the ONLY way we can be corrected is if we allow people to correct us by allowing them to speak. I'm just scratching the surface here. John Stewart Mill does a pretty good job explaining all the ins and outs in "On Liberty"

And, in rare cases, some things actually are worth hating. Its good to hate human sacrifice. The problem isn't hate - the problem is knowing what you should hate. And that's subjective, but it doesn't matter because everyone has a right to be themselves.

Censorship pushes dangerous ideas underground where they thrive in darkness, leaving good but otherwise hurting people with no support system or intervention besides dangerous people. Dangerous people don't change. Good people heal. Most people are inherently good.

Angels too Hello, keep your focus though OK thanks I’ll keep my focus. I’ll go back online to what I was doing. Oh I thought you were telling me you didn’t wanna hear my story. OK so I’m in the hospital right and they say raise your right foot high into the air and I was like who all the way up and they say raise your left foot all the way into the air and I realize my left foot wasn’t moving and they wiggle your toe and I realize I can’t wiggle my toe and I looked at, walked from the end I got to the ER and I walked in and I sat down on the on the ER table and I said somethings wrong. You know everything was fine until I sat down anyway I realize something was wrong then because there was originally only three doctors and then I suddenly saw all these doctors run in and there was this beautiful nurse and white who came up and she said lay back now you’re gonna get a shot and I laid back and when I laid back, they shot me in my stomach. I had had a stroke And I had a stroke and I was very young and I had to recover from that and it was really hard mentally and physically on my body, but I never told you girls I had a stroke cause I didn’t want you to be worried because I found something she was still I was in the army then I was in the hospital for 13 days I’m just letting you know the reason wasn’t the mom that you guys really deserved at times. It’s because my mind after my stroke my mind changed. I wasn’t as smart intellectually and I wasn’t as caring because I had a brain injury reasons to your childhood so hard you and dad to engage with us too just like our parents were so yeah you’re right Healing a lot of it happen. I did five years of generational trauma work already on all of our family so you keep bringing it really continues because every day we either choose hurts or we choose Luv 💚 and we either give that to others or we take that from other so every day we have to find our balance so then we can stay who we are internally because we are star people baby you know you’re from the stars you’re not a normal human when you said to me when you were a little girl I didn’t choose to come to this planet. I knew you were one of mine to me when you were a little girl and you said I didn’t choose to come to this planet. I’m like none of us do baby but one day you’ll grow up to realize that you did we are what’s known as reclaimers. I think I’ll take care yourself yourself it’s really good spending time in getting some fresh air. I guess over there though the sun burns me that fucker burned me the other day and I slept for three days Always I would love to go see the lake. I’ve never seen it, but I have to wear pants.

I agree with your remarks about the healthy and productive process of confronting and melting publicly "right" and "wrong" ideas, as Stuart Mill explains. And being totally against censorship, I find this matter quite complex, though. Because we can see many times that hate speech doesnt come originally from "people" or communities, but from armed organizations, governments or ideological lobbies... in these cases the hate speech doesnt help the situation, but FUELS the conflict in order to better achieve the objectives, whether of an arms lobby from Washington or an Islamic Revolution from Tehran. Anyway, if there is a solution, it should be more speech and more freedom !!

I agree. In 1953 when the CIA and SIS used propaganda to help bolster the coup against Mosaddegh, Prime Minister of Iran under their first and only democratic government ever, Mossadegh refused to clamp down on the propaganda because he believed strongly in free speech.

I shouldn't just take one side of the issue here. The argument against hate speech is that it propogates the hateful ideas. And this is true psychologically. Most people, the more they hear something, the more they adopt that view (it is not true among skeptics, but skeptics are a small proportion of society). And so this is a valid argument in favor of supressing hate speech. But it has to be considered in balance with the other arguments. How much does one person's hateful racist view impact listeners to adopt that view? How much does it depower their anger? How much pushback against the idea is there? In some situations, usually echo chambers, hateful ideas just tend to grow stronger. But I'm still mssively in favor of drawing legal distinctions at 'actions', not words, because it is far too oppressive and dangerous to start legislating words where there are no clear cut boundaries that prevent the government from going too far, and where interpretation and context matters immensely.

Yup If hate speech is responsible for hate acts Speech supporting anything that is currently illegal is a crime "robbing banks is cool" is responsible for bank robberies Hollywood is responsible for gang violence It can't be any other way "Bring down the government" Crime If speech is partly liable the act must have a corresponding *decrease* in criminal liability ... but that hasn't been reflected in any law Most laws require demonstration of opportunity, ability and intent The contradictions are immense

I appreciate the balanced take. Personally I do believe silencing people or opinions will breed anger, frustration, paranoia, and violence. One of the best ways to ensure someones self alienation is to hand them a mic and let them say exactly what they think. If someone's obvious bigotted hatred is seen in the light of day it will make them much easier to understand and avoid. However if they have a constructive point to make, someone in their percieved opposition will have a chance to reflect on what was said. Daryl Davis said something like, as long as enemies are talking, even if its hate speech, they aren't fighting. Keeping the communication lines open is super important.

I think it's not just about balance. The fact that an immoral idea can be spread should never, in a democracy, be an argument against whatever it is that spreads it. That's because it's the people that are the ultimate authority and listening and spreading ideas is part of that process. If the government pass a law to decide what idea can't be allowed, this is against democracy. And even if almost all of the population agrees with this norm, approving it would, similarly to electing a dictator, hamper democracy for future generations, who didn't get to participate in that decision. The limit to democracy shouldn't be freedom of speech. It should be destroying democracy itself.