"Pseudo-Intellectual collection of things that all fit together hopefully"

I thought you were maybe proposing a new name for this message board.

Do you think that you know better than the Judge that presided over the court case of Anjem Choudary? — S

So the judge suggested that prohibiting some speech would help us control terrorism? Was that in his written decision?

No, there's not zero evidence, there's zero evidence that you're willing to acknowledge as evidence because you're biased. — S

So what evidence is there that having hate speech restrictions controls anything about terrorism?

You can just give me anything academic that even suggests that (as long as it's specifically suggesting that hate speech legislation would have something to do with controlling terrorism.) I won't even comment critically on it. I'm just doubtful there's anything academic that would even suggest this.

Intelligence work failed to prevent the acts of terrorism mentioned in The Guardian article, whereas the enforcement of hate speech law at an earlier stage might have done. — S

The idea isn't that intelligence work would be infallible.

Again, there's zero evidence that controlling hate speech would have anything to do with controlling terrorism.

Terrorism isn't the primary problem we've had in the U.S. over the past 20-25 years anyway. It's violence related to other crimes (the illegal drug trade, gangs, etc.) and loony locals who want to shoot up folks for all sorts of reasons . . . or no reason at all in some cases.

so you'd do what exactly? — S

Intelligence work seems to be doing the job fairly well.

The crux of the matter is whether or not you're in favour of the major benefit of preventing terrorist attacks and other serious crimes, at the minor "cost" of not being free to spread condemnable hate speech. — S

I'd try to prevent terrorist attacks in some ways, not in other ways.

For example, if no one were able to congregate in public places, that would go a long way in preventing terrorist attacks. But I'd not prohibit congregating in public places just to avoid terrorist attacks.

I'd not prohibit any speech just to avoid terrorist attacks, either. (Assuming that there were any evidence at all that prohibiting some types of speech avoids terrorist attacks, by the way.)

Yes but you can't "do" a "way it works". A "way it works" is a state of affairs, to do is a verb, you "do" actions, or activities, not states of affairs. — Isaac

"That way it works" - what actually/practically happens.

But I didn't just write that. I talked about what happens when you call the police about this stuff many times.

States of affairs are dynamic, by the way.

I'm not going to respond anymore to these arrogant presumptions that, in cases of misunderstanding, the problem is always with the comprehension skill of the reader and not your terribly poor communication skills. — Isaac

It doesn't matter how simply I write something. You don't understand it.

I don't see what the fact that the reason for the code isn't in the actual code has to do with whether it's intent was to balance harms. — Isaac

I never said anything at all about "intent."

What I said was that I would do is no different than the way it works now. The way it works now is what happens when you call the police with complaints about it.

This is why I keep making comments about reading. I'm repeating stuff I've already said a few times above. You don't even know what I'm talking about, though. You think I'm saying something about intent.

No, the moral justification for the code is not written in the code, — Isaac

Sure. So the reason for it, from the perspective of the code and the enforcement by police, wouldn't be anything like a "balance of harms." In your country, is the code written so that the police were exactly following it when they only said that you had to turn off the music by 11 pm?

Balance of harms. As I've been saying throughout. They didn't like the music in he day either, but the harm is not great enough — Isaac

Is that what the code says?

es, I have. I co-manage a farm, we had a small festival on it, the neighbours complained about the noise and we were told we had to turn off the music by 11pm next day. — Isaac

Right,by 11 p.m.

Why weren't you told that you had to turn it off in the afternoon or earlier in the evening?

Oh, I see. So the ECtHR thinking that hate speech should be legislated against is not sufficient evidence that there might be a link to some harm, but your entirely subjective single person account is supposed to be sufficient evidence that limiting legislation against noises to actual harm is normal? — Isaac

Hence why I asked if you have had the police called on you re noise complaints/if you've called the police on others.

I'm a musician, and I've been a musician for over 50 years. I know lots of people who have had the police called on them about noise complaints.

Again, you're coming across like someone who has lived in basement his whole life, with no real-world experience, no social interaction, etc.

Not that it's maybe not different in whatever country you're in, but have you had the police called on you about noise/have you had people you're with call the police with noise complaints against others?

I've had the police called on me and cohorts due to noise many times, and I've had people I'm with call the police about others' noise (and smells at times) many times.

No they won't. I — Isaac

Yeah, they will. Again, many times I've been on both sides of this. In many different locales.

You additionally said that your ideas here were uncontroversial and like the noise ordinances that already exist. — Isaac

I said it would WORK just as this WORKS now. And it would.

If you call the police now, and it's noon, and you say, "Hey there's this loud construction sound that's annoying me," they'll check it out, but unless it's something so loud and persistent that it could cause hearing damage, they'll say, "I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do about this."

I said this already. For example, loud enough, persistent noises at night can prevent sleep.

Why do I have to have a discussion that's just trying to get you to read?

The line of argument I'm following is that if you would accept laws preventing the emotional harm — Isaac

? I'm not basing any laws on "emotional harm." I never said anything even remotely resembling that.

In fact, I said just the opposite.

It was an out of place and inappropriate example, given the topic of hate speech. — S

I wasn't at all talking about hate speech there. Coben asked me about something else.

Yes, and the intensity of the sensory stimuli is not sufficient to cause physical harm. — Isaac

Which has what to do with what, exactly? Are you being thrown off by the fact that I said "For example, loud sounds can cause hearing damage"?

I'm glad that someone else here sees how someone wearing a plaid shirt is just like someone publicly calling for the extermination of Jews. — S

Well, and I'm glad your reading abilities are such that you saw that I was saying that they're just the same.

So where, in that code, is it limiting what it will restrict to those which have a physical effect. I'm seeing a lot of restrictions on noises during the day time (so sleep isn't an issue) and restrictions on noises which are still well below the volume which damages the human ear. So where is the objective physical harm that comes from a dog barking for a period of ten minutes or more during the day? — Isaac

What did I say I'd base mine on--time of day and intensities, right? And I wrote that at least five or six times now.

Just to clarify here, you'd made a comment about what things would be like (re this subthread about sensory stimuli) under my policies, and I said that it wouldn't be any different than it is now (in the U.S.)--and that's the case. As things are now, this simply goes by a combination of time of day and intensity of the sensory stimuli, at least re how it's enforced.

I just didn't want to get into writing long posts back and forth where an increasing amount of different issues have to be addressed each round. I don't like posting like that.

OK, so why is ok to have an arbritrary law about sound levels? but not one around threats? (covered in my long post) — Coben

Again, all laws are arbitrary (that is, the basis for the laws). I just said this. There's no way to avoid that.

And again, something else I just said is that the reason I said something about arbitrariness earlier was that people were presenting arbitrary things as if they were factual, correct, etc.

Is this the TS special treatment again? If I'm wrong, show me the evidence. — Isaac

I'm fine with you being wrong. Obviously being on both sides of this many times is not something I can show you.

Re codes, I can search, but this, for example, gives decibel allowances:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/noise_code_guide.pdf

The way police implement laws practically is often not the same as the way that laws are written, by the way.

Ok, it had seemed earlier like abritrary functioned as a critique in itself in your responses to me. — Coben

The reason I said something about arbitrariness earlier was because people were forwarding arbitrary stuff as if it was a fact, as if it could be correct/true, etc. (Usually S does this, with an implication either/or that something is correct for him thinking it, or it's correct for it being common.)

Sure as a pejorative. If it was merely an observation out of context and not critical. — Coben

Oh--I had no idea of the context for a moment. Your posts being long. Yeah, that's definitely a subjective assessment. I'm not proposing legislation about it, thankfully.

My posts (if you actually read them properly!) are objecting to you claiming such an approach is normal and uncontroversial and citing municipal ordinances in evidence. — Isaac

That's fine, but you're wrong. I've been on both sides of police being called about this sort of stuff lots of times. (And in many different locales.)

It will be an arbritrary set of criteria and we can't have arbritrary. — Coben

You can't avoid arbitrary for this stuff. There are no facts re normatives.

Long seems like a subjective evaluation to me. — Coben

What? Long?

Not that my law about this would even be based on not being able to sleep, however. It's would be defined purely in terms of objective properties--sounds, lights, etc. at certain times of days, at certain intensities.

We're still waiting for the objective measures though. What's objective about the disturbance people feel from the types of noise prohibited by the noise ordinances — Isaac

Not being able to stay asleep isn't subjective, for example. It's clearly, objectively observable.

As I've said already umpteen times already, the legislation wouldn't be based on subjective "disturbance." I explicitly pointed that out already, which is why I get annoyed that you can't read or you're not reading.

Well, I'm a free musical instrument playing absolutist, so I don't believe that there should be any laws restricting the freedom to play drums really loudly all night, every night, when your neighbours are trying to sleep — S

I didn't see S saying this, but okay, he can be that (playing along that he'd be serious). Obviously different people would institute different laws if they were king. We're not all going to have the same preferences. That should be pretty obvious to anyone by the time they're in kindergarten at least.

So where, in this society, does someone fit who is too sensitive to minor speech restrictions, who overreacts to a really minor infringement on their liberty, who is worried that if the government bans hate speech they'll ban all political opposition, someone who flips out at being told they can't say certain words anymore in public. Where does such a person fit? — Isaac

In the niche where we don't ban people for endorsing minor speech restrictions, etc.

Its just like you can say whatever you like about gassing Jews or whatever. You just can't actually gas Jews (nonconsensually).

And look at that, you are capable of deciding what is 'too sensitive'. You could take part in the process. You seem to have a way to measure sensitivity. That's great. That means there is some equivalent to decibels. — Coben

I don't know why your posts are getting so long.

Basically, I'd never decide this stuff on subjective reactions. No matter how much you flip out about someone wearing a plaid shirt, we're not banning plaid shirts.

I prefer to have a society where intentionally created unpleasant experience can be responded to with moderate violence. — Coben

Okay, whereas I wouldn't hinge anything merely on whether someone is "having an unpleasant experience" because arbitrary people can have an unpleasant experience, of any degree, on any arbitrary stimulus. For example, someone could completely flip out because someone is wearing a plaid shirt, whether the plaid shirt-wearer knows the person will flip out or not. That shouldn't be a problem with the plaid shirt-wearer, even when they know the person will flip out. The person flipping out needs to get help.

In my society people have a responsibility to not be too sensitive, to not overreact, to not be offended, to not too easily worry, to not flip out, etc.* I'm not going to base laws on people being neurotic, not being able to handle simple things, etc.--because we can find people who'll flip out over any arbitrary thing, and then nothing is legal because of that and we've got a big mess where people only have to claim to be bothered by something in order to be able to control others over any and every little thing they don't like. That's completely the opposite direction of what I'm shooting for.

This is also why I don't base any ethical stances or laws merely on "harm" or "suffering" or anything like that, and it's why I have minimum requirements even for nonconsensual violence. No one is being arrested, fined, etc. for intentionally poking you in the arm or something like that. It has to be something with macro-observable effects days later--that's a requirement for a minimum intensity, otherwise the "victim" needs to just chill out and not overreact.

*(Or at least if you want to be like that, don't expect that it's going to result in us controlling others to make it less likely that you react in those ways.)

If truth is empty of objectivity, is this a fact ad therefore objective? — Gregory

"Fact" and "truth" aren't the same thing in my usage.

So objective facts don't imply anything about objectivity for truth.

No, I am arguing that threats of violence are such an effective stimuli that they need only be delivered once to have endocrine reactions in large numbers of humans since they are social mammals with active limbic systems . . . — Coben

But what does that have to do with the fact that I'd legislate persistent sensory stimuli of a certain intensity etc.?

Are you just telling me what you'd do in counterdistinction?

In your system verbal expression must be protected in all cases.
Other types of expression can be shut down.

I am not sure why.

It doesn't have anything to do with expression. It has to do with sensory stimuli. As I noted, this would work for speech too--if someone is speaking persistently through a sufficiently loud PA system, for example. It's not anything about the speech per se, certainly nothing about the semantic content of anything. It's purely about the sensory stimuli.

Let's not shift to what my solution might be, let's stay here and see why some stimuli are protected and others not, that is your position. Perhaps my solution would be a poor one but that wouldn't mean yours doesn't have problems. — Coben

I obviously wouldn't make legislation based on any arbitrary thing bothering any arbitrary individual. That's what you seem to be arguing for.

I already explained the situation I'd legislate. Persistent sensory stimuli either of a certain intensity and/or at certain times of day. The examples you're bringing up have nothing to do with that.

It's fine if you'd do something different, but that doesn't make your examples have anything to do with what I already outlined.