Do you really think most people were so responsible in their opinions fifty or a hundred years ago, or at any time in this planet's history? I don't think most people in any society of significant scale have ever had the opportunity to be as informed, and reflective, and responsible as you suggest.What used to be received, accepted, consumed, digested, considered, reflected upon, even discussed and perhaps finally judged by an individual taking responsibility for his own thinking, seems now to have become as if an electronic jolt administered to a large group, the measure of it being its seismic effect more than any appeal to reason. — tim wood
I'd be more cautious with this metaphor. Good ideas as much as bad ones fell through the cracks into that space. A glance at the historical record should persuade you that toxic ideas and despicable deeds -- including unjust government policies enthusiastically cheered by hordes of duped voters -- have been incessant.The limitations on communication even a mere fifty years ago were such as to create a kind of space. Space for stupidity, ignorance, intolerance, evil to fall into and thereby fall out of notice. Obviously not always: history giving examples of that space being closed up and toxic ideas for a while thriving — tim wood
Free speech is free speech. Like all of our rights, our right to free speech must be limited so as to protect all the rights of all the members of our community. If everyone's rights are not limited in this way, there are no rights -- only privileges for a few.Famously in the US at least free speech does not permit calling out, "Fire!" in a crowded theater if there is no fire. And there are other restrictions, though it's not a simple subject. The point being that "free speech" does not mean free speech, and most people understand that. — tim wood
I'm afraid I agree that recent technology makes it more urgent to regulate and penalize some forms of harmful speech.My view is that modern communication has lent a fire-power to speech that itself requires greater control. And if not prior restraint - and how could that be done? - then a system of definitions and penalties that would have an effectively chilling and prohibitive effect on proscribed speech.
One way, to define "lie" such that it can be identified, and on being demonstrated to have been told, the teller(s) immediately subject to fierce penalties. In a sense, then, communication has turned the world into a giant crowded theater. False cries of fire become themselves too dangerous and thus rightly punished. Or are there better ways? — tim wood
Now the lie seems different and tailored to the need not of outdistancing the truth, but of right away cutting it off at the knees, this the method and tool of right-wing politics especially. An appeal to the immediate reaction, usually of emotion in terms of fear or hatred. In itself nothing entirely new, but, as the argument here claims, qualitatively different from its forebears. — tim wood
I had for years this book:Do you really think most people were so responsible in their opinions fifty or a hundred years ago, or at any time in this planet's history? — Cabbage Farmer
On this a reference I've used before. David Souter in a speech at Harvard, here:Free speech is free speech. — Cabbage Farmer
I do not know how any kind of prior restraint might work. Apparently the English have something like, but we not them, nor they us. And to be sure there are plenty of legal remedies for loss due to libel or slander, including punitive damages, but these all prohibitively slow and expensive. My own notion being that the lie being told, the teller(s) immediately subject to ferocious penalties, no delay. The message being that if you lie, especially about anything of any importance, you're f***ked big-time. The liar can then seek reduction of fines and penalties after he's paid them, and that might be on the substance of the content, but not on the fact of the lie, that being the separate offence.I suppose we could seek to regulate the distribution of putative statements of fact somewhat analogously.... Of course such a strategy comes with obstacles and risks. But it's come to seem that the risks associated with neglecting to regulate misinformation might outweigh the risks of cautious regulation. — Cabbage Farmer
Not prohibition; that does seem difficult and maybe a cure worse than the disease, but instead a punishment at every level guaranteed to make the liar wish he had never lied and make it likely he never will again.Prohibition would be a last resort. — Tobias
I do not call for that. Lie all you want. I do desire that within the sphere of influence and effect of the lie, there be punishments for the lie itself - never mind content - such that the lie is if not suppressed then at least well-understood to cause heavy penalties. And this for the simple reason that lies cause harm and damage.In any case, calling for the censorship of lies — NOS4A2
A positive statement about the way you think things should be — tim wood
Is the Chevron case nice? It seems not to be. Is how you present it reasonable? That manifestly is not. Isn't there some barricade awaiting your attendance?Cool. Must be nice to ignore the larger point so you can wangle with irrelevancies that you can't even be bothered to spell out. — StreetlightX
Is how you present it reasonable? That manifestly is not. — tim wood
Spell what out? I seethe with desire to be accommodating - just be clear!So, still can't be bothered to spell it out? — StreetlightX
From elsewhere I'm pretty sure you're against capitalism, and I think also democracy - although what democracy you have in mind I do not know. Pretty near everywhere and everyone sucketh. Anything good to say about anything?All those who call for the curtailing of free speech without addressing the media ownership and power disparities in media production should be put into a barrel and shot into the sun. — StreetlightX
Anything good to say about anything? — tim wood
We have a legal name for it if directed to a specific person -- slander. — Caldwell
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