The Sokal affair seems relevant to the topic. I think it was one of the best things ever.

No, you don’t have freedom of expression. — NOS4A2

Yeah, I do. I'm exercising it right now.

...and maybe you're really angry at women. — uncanni

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Meh, Im not a US hater. Plenty of stupid to go around, US included. Its that pesky human problem, always fucking everything up. — DingoJones

Too much guns, religion, celebrity, flag waving nationalism, egomaniac, warmongering, stupid constitutional rights obsession. The U.S. is like our deformed offspring.

So still a problem in the UK. Maybe both countries should be like something else. — DingoJones

Maybe. Though not the U.S., of course.

Didnt a comedian go to jail for teaching his dog to do a Nazi salute? Thats the same kinda thing. — DingoJones

Okay, Canada should be more like the U.K., with the possible exception of the case of the comedian who went to jail for teaching his dog to do a Nazi salute.

Article 19 of the UN human rights code:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Is this an example of the UN taking leave of their senses? — NOS4A2

The U.K. is a member of the U.N. We're a founding member. So you must be cherry picking, instead of giving a full picture. Hate speech is obviously an exception in the U.K. We still have laws on freedom of expression.

Human Rights Act 1998, Article 10

Freedom of expression

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

Point 2 is eminently sensible, by the way.

Okay, so Canada should be more like the U.K. :up:

But then you are just not using the word God in its normal sense. Someone who refers to their teapot as God and insists that on their definition the teapot qualifies is simply using a common term with a well understood meaning in a misleading way. — Bartricks

Yes, you're absolutely right. It irritates me when people do that. Do you think that they think that they're being clever or inventive?

I can't take you seriously at all. — uncanni

I can't take you seriously at all, either, because you say things like this:

God is a state of mind. God is praxis. God is not institutional — uncanni

And this:

Rejection of God = human violence/sadism. Absence of God = complete self-engrossment, psychopathic narcissism. Instant gratification at any cost. Because the strongest and most aggressive can. — uncanni

And this:

I'm in the process of coming up with a post-patriarchal, post-gendered, kabbalistic/buddhist/pagan/derridian feeling of the oneness, the echad. — uncanni

And this:

My favorite French Psychoanalytic Feminist Philosopher Luce Irigaray wrote that women's language must disrupt and confound until men are able to tune into a different frequency and understand. — uncanni

I agree with Boris. I'd rather him dead in a ditch than seek an extension from Brussels.

I have to admit, the cover of The Sun (Corbyn-chicken) is hilarious.

History shows us that the restriction of speech is just too powerful a tool/weapon to cede to the state. — DingoJones

Only when it is ceded in excess. I don't believe that restrictions on hate speech are an excessive restriction on the freedom of expression. It's too extreme a position to consider any restriction whatsoever as excessive. That's a position for those who have taken leave of their senses. And I doubt anyone here would support going to the other extreme and giving the state total control.

It doesn't matter to me if you disagree; I feel sorry for you that you have the need to be nasty about it. You can try to insult, but it may be that you can't understand a discourse so different from your own. You don't even want to. That is sad to me. — uncanni

I'm not insulting you, I'm just given you honest criticism about your expressed thoughts, and apparently you don't like that. You're actually the one who is getting personal, not me.

By the way, the original version of your reply was much better.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Again, people use right/wrong, correct/incorrect with a normative implication. Examples of that abound, and it's inherent in anyone correcting anyone who uses language unusually. We see it with grammar police all the time, for example.

But mere descriptive statements of how language is used among some population have no normative weight at all. — Terrapin Station

It's not normative. It's obviously just the default. That's why it makes sense to say that a cat isn't a giraffe. If you interpret it that way, then you're wrong by default.

Only insofar as making statements about how most people (in some population) use language. — Terrapin Station

That's implicit in saying that this or that interpretation is right or wrong. Your earlier interpretation was wrong. It's true to say that it's a fact that something is a benefit. If you end up concluding that it's false, then you must be interpreting it wrong.

No, exceptions include explaining how language works.

I am not trying to be anything: I'm expressing my thoughts and my continuously-transforming understanding. If it makes you uncomfortable or you disapprove, it's fine with me. I'm not seeking your approval of how I think and question. But I have no intention of limiting myself to what you may be familiar with. If you don't want to consider things from a different perspective--if I bore you--you know the drill... — uncanni

You're expressing your thoughts and so am I. That's what we do here. It goes without saying. And my thoughts are that your thoughts on this topic are airy fairy, unworkable, and all over the place. Stuff like God is love, god is a state of mind, the rejection of God is sexist and violent, etc. Pseudo-intellectual nonsense.

It's irrelevant if the crowd thinking something doesn't determine that something is right/correct. — Terrapin Station

It's irrelevant when it commits the fallacy of appealing to the masses and not otherwise. The exceptions have been explained to you. As far as I'm aware, you continue not to acknowledge them.

So the crowd doesn't determine what's right. — Terrapin Station

So I haven't said otherwise. At least not without qualification.

When someone doesn't think the crowd is right, appealing to what the crowd thinks isn't going to work, obviously, unless the person simply categorically goes along with the crowd no matter what. If neither of us does that, then appealing to the crowd is irrelevant. — Terrapin Station

It's not irrelevant, it's just ineffectual against people who block out reason.

Your problem is that you don't think you're wrong just because you go along with the crowd. — Terrapin Station

In cases where the crowd is right, like the case under discussion regarding hate speech, why wouldn't I go along with them? I'd be a fool not to.

Your problem is your irrational opposition to crowds, even when they're right. You take it as some sort of affront to your super special uniqueness, like you'd be losing some vital part of your identity. You care far too much about that.

One thing I don't understand about your views, by the way, is why you wouldn't think that there are correct judgments in ethics and aesthetics. There are certainly consensus opinions. — Terrapin Station

I'm a moral relativist in ethics. I'd say that there are correct judgements relative to whatever, whether that be a consensus, an individual, whatever.

Also why wouldn't you be religious? By far there are more religious believers among humans than agnostics or atheists. — Terrapin Station

I don't go by the reasoning you're falsely suggesting I go by.

We want to fit in with the norm without rocking the boat/without any sort of philosophical questioning, etc.? — Terrapin Station

I don't know about you, but I want to be understood, and you seem to be deliberately and childishly putting obstacles in the way just to make a point.

No, there aren't. — Terrapin Station

Yes, there are. Surely you're capable of figuring out the appropriate context in which it is true to say that there's a right interpretation. Try harder.

There aren't right interpretations. — Terrapin Station

Yes there are. That's absurd.

No, it isn't. — Terrapin Station

It is if you interpret it right.

Of course. I would only care about a consensus if (a) I were very or fairly unsure of my own views, and (b) I had good reason to believe that the people I were looking at for a consensus knew what they were talking about/were correct.

Neither (a) nor (b) is the case here. — Terrapin Station

That's the problem, then. It's a problem to do with your poor judgement. You're like the 1 + 1 = 3 guy. Not only are you wrong, you're overconfident and ignorant of why the other members are right. And you're stuck in that situation with no one being able to get through to you.

It's a fact that there are no facts re whether something is a benefit, aside from the fact that an individual assesses something to be a benefit. — Terrapin Station

We don't speak Terrapinese, only you do. In ordinary language, it is true to say that there are facts about whether something is a benefit. You're just interpreting the statement in an unusual way, which leads to a seemingly absurd conclusion. Again, that's another example of where nonconformity, in contrast to common sense, will get you. It's unwise.

Sure it is. My assessment is what I care about there. Same thing as with the other gym and exercise I do. I'm going by my own goals, my own assessments. — Terrapin Station

So, if you were the 1 + 1 = 3 guy, you wouldn't care, so long as, in your assessment, you're meeting your own goals?

One of the primary reasons I come here is to stay in practice thinking about philosophical stuff in an interactive situation and to stay in practice expressing my thoughts in the same context. It also gives me verbal expression exercise more generally. Also, because of the typical sorts of personalities that are attracted to boards like this, it also keeps me in practice re verbally sparring with that type.

So it's a type of "mental gym." — Terrapin Station

A mental gym? Well, it isn't working. If I went to a maths forum claiming that 1 + 1 = 3, and I was reasonable, then my view would change to 1 + 1 = 2. I wouldn't just keep on insisting that 1 + 1 = 3 whilst calling the other members of that forum conformists and accusing them of appealing to the masses.

The conclusion that it's not a fact that such-and-such is a benefit is unacceptable, so you're making your own reduction to the absurd there. The obvious solution to that problem would be for you to revise your interpretation so that it is true to say that it's a fact that such-and-such is a benefit.

And then you'll respond that something is only unacceptable to someone. And then I'll respond, "Okay, but then talking to you is like talking to a brick wall". You should conform more, and then it wouldn't be a problem. Pride comes before a fall, as they say.

Sure. So what would the purpose be of it rhetorically? That was the question. — Terrapin Station

The purpose of pointing out that your opinion won't matter? Well, why do you bother to come here? Just to do the equivalent of declaring that you think a car is a giraffe? Okay then. Are you really that confident of your own abilities? You don't ever pause for thought when everyone else disagrees with you?

Won't matter to most people. Okay, and what about it? What would the purpose of that be rhetorically? Is it just an exercise in pointing out the obvious, with no aim to persuade, no aim to suggest facts or implications other than what most people think or do? — Terrapin Station

We don't have a burden to constantly satisfy your unreasonable doubts and denials. Why should we care what car-giraffe guy thinks?

and

What bearing on anything does the fact that most people consider it to have no benefit have? — Terrapin Station

It just means that you'll disagree, while the rest of us agree, and your disagreement won't really matter in the bigger picture, just like car-giraffe guy. That's you. You're car-giraffe guy.

Which has what to do with whether something is a benefit? — Terrapin Station

Yeah, if that's what he meant. People speak that way all of the time. People call a "car" what's generally considered to be a car, as in that metal thing with four wheels. It has no bearing on anything if someone chips in by saying, "Oh, but there's no fact of the matter! I happen to think that a car is a giraffe!".

You know that there aren't any facts as to whether something is a benefit or not, right? — Terrapin Station

You know that you could interpret that statement more charitably, right? There are facts about what's generally considered a benefit. That's what he meant. In that context, there's nothing controversial in what he said. And in that context, your fringe opinion is irrelevant.

thought/belief — creativesoul

Oh god. Who let him in?

Seems pretty vague to me. Lots of things have “direct and indirect” harms. I see “may” cause a few times, I see the claims are not “easy to evidence empirically”.
Still pretty skeptical about the reasons so far presented for your side here...though Im not really all that convinced by the arguments on the other side either. Why ive stuck around reading this long I suppose. — DingoJones

Well, yeah, it will say "may" because it's not a sure thing. Would you expect it to be any different? And yeah, as the analysis states, it isn't easy to evidence empirically, which is also what I would expect, and which is a point that I think Isaac has more or less made a number of times. Although the full analysis does contain a number of empirical experiments as evidence. But then, as it says, the case for all of them becomes more convincing when taking into account the cumulative effect of multiple instances of hate speech rather than examining each individual instance in isolation. All as expected.

Just doing a little research.

As the previous sections have outlined, there are direct and indirect harms that
might result from hate speech. In terms of the former, hate speech may result in psychological harm or harm to the dignity of members of the targeted groups. In terms of the latter, hate speech may lead to violence or public disorder or to societal discrimination. None of these claims are easy to evidence empirically, but the case for all of them becomes more convincing when taking into account the cumulative effect of multiple instances of hate speech rather than examining each individual instance in isolation. — A Comparative Analysis of Hate Crime Legislation: A Report To The Hate Crime Legislation Review, James Chalmers and Fiona Leverick, University of Glasgow, July 2017