I don't think that you are properly representing the concept of "equality" Qmeri, and this is what is giving you the problem. This concept allows us to overlook differences to assign "the same value" to two distinct things. Notice that it is "value" we are dealing with, therefore the overlooking of differences is supported within a conceptual structure. So it must be done within a logical framework, defining what sort of value supports the type of "equality". In the case of "all human beings are equal" this is a legal framework which supports human rights.

This sense of "right", is very closely related to "right" in the sense of correct. We consider it to be the correct thing to do, to assign equality to human beings, and this "correctness" supports the value judgement which is presented as human rights.

Since this form of equality is based in a judgement of correctness, it is fundamentally incorrect to argue against it. This is why your thread has gone astray. You are presenting yourself as saying that it is somehow acceptable to argue against what is by definition correct. This would be like arguing that it is acceptable to break the law.

The argument you want to make actually can be made, in a somewhat rational way, but you need to take yourself outside this conceptual structure which assigns correctness to equality. By using the term "inequality" as you do, ("...if you argue for inequality..."), you do not free yourself from that conceptual structure. "Inequality" is simply what is opposed to equality. So all you do is present yourself as opposed to equality, therefore opposed to what is correct, and necessarily incorrect.

This would be like arguing that it is acceptable to break the law — Metaphysician Undercover

That's my thing, and it is rarely well received.

Free speech is free speech. If you want to whine about people using their free speech to oppose your peddling of pseudo-scientific gene garbage, then you don't care about free speech. You just want free speech for the speech you like, while you ramble endlessly about speech you don't. That's the thing about free speech - it cuts both ways. You don't get to whine about free speech while whining about being called out for peddling discrimination. You can do one or the other, but not both. Frankly you should be celebrating me. If you don't you clearly don't like free speech. — StreetlightX

This is the classic naive idea of free speech that those who have been against free speech have used since the beginning of that debate: "Oh, you want free speech? Then let us make personal attacks and harrasment on you and destroy your personal reputation with made up shit with that free speech!" Classic.

At no point has naive free for all free speech been true free speech, as it can easily be used to silence people just as much as it allows expression. I'm sorry for you, if you have such a black and white naive idea of free speech... Hopefully, you wont get any power in any society to ruin its actual ability for free speech.

Another snowflake out to limit free speech I see. Just because your feelings are hurt doesn't mean you should try and limit my freeze peach.

There aren't that many ways to truly get cancelled on the internet and the community becoming a hostile and silencing force against you… — Qmeri

I think you have misidentified the culprit.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/dec/13/david-baddiel-social-media-anger-and-us-review-the-twisted-truth-about-twitter-and-tiktok

The programme is worth watching if you get the chance, and it indicates that hostility and silencing are a much more widespread problem. There has always been a strong social pressure to conform, but the internet has, partly by design and mainly by accident become an amplifier of negative emotion. The mob that is hanging you out to dry here is related to the mob that hung black people from the poplar trees only in the sense that it is a mob - hasty to judgement and overbearing, overheated, and intolerant.

There is a general problem, that cyberbullying can lead to suicide, that cyber hate campaigns can lead to physical violence, and these examples of 'free speech' hurt and kill. I think it behooves us all to moderate our language more towards what we would say if our faces were vulnerable to an immediate physical response.

Speech should be free. It is the evil pharmaceutical industrial-military complex that curtails individual freedom in the UNITED STATES, if you are left-winger, and it is the pasty-assed liberal fuckboys (I've been called that on social media) if you ask the right wingers, that curtails free speech in America, by putting a price tag on it. — god must be atheist

There could also be a culture barrier here. I'm from Finland and Finland has relatively little bad history with things like colonialism, slavery, non equal rights and such... So to us, this suddenly being such a volatile and taboo issue is a relatively new thing... Which could be the explanation for me perceiving a change in the methodologies of the equality movement. Although, I do think social media has changed the way discourse of controversial issues is done in the whole world. I have been using english part of the internet since my childhood.

For me, as I used to be a biology student, especially the genetic side of things seems like a science issue... And since there isin't a scientific consensus for the obvious reasons that genetics is quite a new and developing field of study and for many reasons, some amount of variation in capability caused by genetics is not only plausible, but according to surveys of scientists and professors and such, seems to be the most popular idea with the experts on the issue. It does happen in other species for the simple reason that evolution pretty much needs variation in capability of individuals to work. Why magically not in humans?

So, for me, this issue has seemed like culture and human needs stepping on the area of science and wanting to bruteforce a specific result out of it, irregardless of whether we have nearly enough data to make any such conclusions. And in a situation, where this quite extreme view of no variation in capability in biological beings, should somehow be considered the most plausible option, when it very simply would be one of the rarer things ever observed in biology.

But because of the volatility of the issue, I'm not allowed to just do data analysis of the science and believe the probabilities it gives... In the current culture, I'm supposed to accept a ready made answer before it has been proven to even be the most plausible... That does sound like medieval dogma to me... The idea of no god was too disgusting for many cultures to even argue about for many centuries... The idea of different "races" or men and women being equal was too disgusting for many cultures to even argue about... Too disgusting to consider has very bad connotations with freedom of speech and history. And every side of every issue has the capability to violate the freedom of speech.

Another snowflake out to limit free speech I see. Just because your feelings are hurt doesn't mean you should try and limit my freeze peach. — StreetlightX

Oh, don't worry... With a person like you, who can't make arguments and just spits out random accusations, ad hominems, strawmans and assumptions, the only feeling I get is to feel sorry for you. For some reason, it doesn't feel that bad.

But anyways... I'm only going to react to your comments from now on, if you actually make a logical, non naive argument.

The point is that it is exactly the same argument as you are making. It is meant to bring out your hypocrisy and the fact that the so-called 'free speech' you want is nothing other than a small subset a speech which just so happens to be exactly what you would like to say. Except it's not a coincidence, and your commitment to free speech extends exactly as far as what is convenient to you. You don't care about free speech one bit. You care hiding behind the cover of 'free speech' to say the things you would like to say while crying about others who similarly employ said free speech. Your 'commitment' to free speech is not principled - it is opportunistic and self-serving.

I'm pretty sure, that if I started a discussion about whether we should be able to freely argue about when breaking the law is the correct thing to do or something like that... Even if I used as similar wording as possible as in my text for this discussion, I wouldn't automatically be assumed so much about and met with such hostility... Although this kind of reaction is pretty much the thing I'm talking about in my text about how the methodologies of discourse on this issue have gotten so bad.

people being genetically equal — Qmeri

Would have been nice to have started with some basic understandings - bad, bad OP. Or maybe some intelligent questions instead of just kneejerk reactions that presuppose understanding - bad, bad replies. Maybe a few questions, if even this thread is salvageable or worth saving.

What is the idea behind "genetically equal"? What exactly does it mean? And in this context, what does "equal" mean?

I was referring to this... To me it seems like you are claiming that I'm making a case for racial differences and such to be genetic and its somehow important for me. Technically case is not a claim, so a slight error from me... But the text never says I have ever made a case for such a thing... It just says that I have witnessed some people making cases and how they were treated for such a thing — Qmeri

It was pretty clear to me from your OP that you were not making a claim that inequality is based on genetics. I didn't, and I didn't intend to, say that you had.

Some thoughts:

• There are certain subjects that will raise hackles and lead to conflict. Genetic racial differences is one of those subjects.
• People who make those arguments know, or should know, that they are raising provocative issues that will lead to conflict.
• Mainline science has been used to make false claims of genetic differences between races which support racial discrimination and subjugation for centuries.

Some editorial opinions

• There should be open discussion about just about anything.
• Genetic differences between races, if they exist, are not relevant to how black people are treated. Distrusted. Disliked. Disrespected. Systematically prevented from exercising their unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• People who bring up issues of genetic racial differences sometimes, often? usually? do it to undermine claims of discrimination.
• As for those people - boo hoo.

Would have been nice to have started with some basic understandings - bad, bad OP. Or maybe some intelligent questions instead of just kneejerk reactions that presuppose understanding - bad, bad replies. Maybe a few questions, if even this thread is salvageable or worth saving.

What is the idea behind "genetically equal"? What exactly does it mean? And in this context, what does "equal" mean? — tim wood

Well, I couldn't start to make any definitions or claims or even questions about what things like equality or genetic differences mean, because I was talking about the methodologies of discourse on this subject in general. And since in that discourse people have their own different definitions and views on these issues, if I had given my definitions or views or understanding, then I would have limited this discussion to be about how the methodologies of discourse work when talking about my particular views on the subject. So, I had to just give examples without definitions to avoid this discussion being about my or someone elses particular views on equality. That's a different topic. Unintentionally, the bad responses kind of did demonstrate what my text was trying to say - that the methodologies of discourse on this topic are not good nowadays.

And I think my methodology an improvement, but you ignored it. Simple, arguably relevant questions, no answer. It appears you're part of your own problem.

Maybe this thread should die here.

To me, your methodology would have steered this thread into talking about, what equality is, which is not the point of this thread... This is a thread about how people talk about equality... not about what equality actually is like.

"do societal ethical claims have the ethical right to exclude and stop that area of research the findings of which would undermine the very same ethical considerations,
— god must be atheist

I say that societal ethical claims do not have that right. Simply exercising that right instantly suggests that one knows the position they are in is weak and that any research will further weaken said position, thereby acknowledging that that societal claim is likely wrong and should not be supported. — Book273

I hear you, and I bow to your logic. There is nothing wrong there.

However, consider the fact that if research shows that, for instance, German Sheppard dogs are dumber than Chihuahuas, then maybe German Sheppard dogs will be discriminated against. And discrimination by dog society is really aweful. Nobody will want to copulate with you, nobody will chase cars along with you, nobody will bark at the mailman.

And that's just half of the story. The other half is that German Sheppards will feel AWEFUL. They will go through life feeling stigmnatized. They will be identified immediately by anyone as a German Sheppard, and they will feel the hate. And return the hate.

And that's just the two halves of the story, yet there is a third half. Let's say German Sheppards may be just slightly slower intellectually than Chihuahuas. So there will be a huge overlap in intelligence between the two populations, and only the extreme extremes will be uncovered by the other population. Is it worth spending a huge amount of money and create scientific proof for something that 1. will not make a difference in anyone's life when you think about it, except 2. it will put bitterness, feelings of inferiority, feelings of persecution, and thus, hatred, in a large percentage of the population that could have avoided that should the research not have been done and the results published? People will misinterpret statistics anyway, and statistics are mostly published incomprehensibly or else misleadingly. So for the two handfuls of outstanding dogs -- a few super-smart chihuahuas, and a very few super not-smart German Sheppards, the entire population of German Sheppards are cast into grief, shame, and discrimination-- quite unfairly, since the largest bulk is the same as the Chihuahuas.

The emphasis is on UNFAIRLY. It is unfair to withhold scientific study to find something that some hold dear as a foregone conclusion. But it is also unfair to throw an entire population out the window by discriminating against them due to a minor and insubsequential difference.

They are both unfair. The first one (withholding study) hurts no one. The second hurts a lot of people. Both are unfair.

I think we should go with the first one.

having an answer does not equate to instant discrimination, despite your clear belief thatbit must be so. Fear of an answer suggests we already acknowledge the discrimination and that we have to suppress anything which could give support to further discrimination. Still a terrible reason to avoid knowledge.

I don't know what an 'equality movement' is.

I do know what principles of equality regarding access to opportunity, equal application of the law, and restraining the concentration of power to a self-selected group of the favored looks like. None of those principles are based upon an assumption that everyone is equal in their abilities or potential to improve their condition given the chance.

What they do assume is that a system based upon providing outcomes purely based upon different standards of measure are inherently prejudicial and suppress the ability of people and groups of people to make their own way amongst others. Upon that basis, communitarians and libertarians both have problems with authority of a kind that ranks outcomes by edict.

From that perspective, the problem of preserving free speech is how to keep the topic upon what should be counted as an authority more than worrying about whether differences between people are permitted to be expressed.

Maybe this thread should die here. — tim wood

It never came alive in the right way. Governmental policies directed toward equality are debatable. Little to do with genetics.

Here you already assume, by letting it be said by people at the top and the bottom, that we can assign values to genes. Like superior and inferior. Which is nonsense. — Goldyluck

Well... I used quite simple and short terms to express that people have a tendency to attribute things that are considered "success" to their genes and a tendency to avoid attributing "failure" to their genes... Its a whole different discussion whether there are objective standards for success or failure... I was talking about the socially perceived "top" to be those with wealth and power and such... and the perceived "bottom" to be those without. I myself don't perceive those things to be that important, but it does seem to be somewhat the way the world sees things and we need to use the expressions that are at least mostly understandable.

But yes, we can assign values to genes... many do and many have done in the past... You can do it right now, if you want... But I did not do such a thing in my text... Nor am I claiming it to be the right thing to do. But just to demonstrate... I will now assign a value of mine to your genes... I like them, whatever they are... I just do... Don't worry about it ;)

More to the point, equal not=equals same. 4 is both equal to and the same as 4. 2+2 is equal to but not the same as 4. If two things (or any number of things) are not the same then they are different. If, then, being different they are still equal, then their equality is based in some standard not the things themselves. Those criteria and how they're applied - even what they are - become subject to question, and from them criteriology and applicability in general. But our OP seems uninterested in these things, these questions. And thus disqualifies himself from his own discussion.

↪god must be atheist having an answer does not equate to instant discrimination, despite your clear belief thatbit must be so. Fear of an answer suggests we already acknowledge the discrimination and that we have to suppress anything which could give support to further discrimination. Still a terrible reason to avoid knowledge. — Book273

Having an answer that supports already established discrimination. You're right, having an answer does not equate to instant discrimination. If I suggested that, I was wrong. However, it seems to me that it's more like your attributing to my having said that, than my actually having said that. Does not matter either way, since that is not my stance. My stance is that having an answer further supports discrimination.

Yes, we do have to suppress further discrimination. You must be on the discriminated end to actually appreciate that, or else you must have some empathy to appreciate that. If you lack both, then yes, it's a terrible reason to avoid knowledge. In my opinion it's a terrible price to pay for knowledge if it supports discrimination.

Each to his own, I guess. You go on your marry way of discriminating, I go on my marry way of supporting ignorance. Governments and public sentiments are also ambivalent. May the best opinion come up triumphant.

Free speech is most definitely under attack in America nowadays. For ex, rather one agreed that the last presidential election was stolen or that the election went off fair and square, both sides should have been able to state their opinions on the matter equally. And yet, as we all saw, they were not.

The same thing happened with COVID. People actually lost their jobs for simply stating their opinions on the policies and mandates. People from both sides of the aisle, so to speak, where attacked viciously and suffered real world consequences simply for stating opinions on highly controversial issues, that few people found to be anything but confusing anyway. But the rule of thumb nowadays seems to be, if someone disagrees with you, they are guilty of “hate speech”. They’re also racist or sexist or some type of phobic or a snowflake or a nazi or a feminazi or a bigot or a man hater or woman hater….and on and on.

It’s just plain nutty out there!

For ex, rather one agreed that the last presidential election was stolen or that the election went off fair and square, both sides should have been able to state their opinions on the matter equally. And yet, as we all saw, they were not. — laura ann

This is not true. People who think that the election was stolen from Trump have fully expressed their opinions many times from many podiums, including mainline and right wing TV, radio, websites, and newspapers. This in spite of the fact that no evidence has been provided in any forum that the election was not fair and well-run. The stolen election is like the flat earth.

There are not two equal sides to every question.

The same thing happened with COVID. People actually lost their jobs for simply stating their opinions on the policies and mandates. — laura ann

Can you name anyone who lost their job just for stating their opinion against the federal government's Covid policy? I'm guessing you can't. If there were people who did, it was a very few. On the other hand, at least one person was prosecuted for telling the truth, e.g. the person who managed the Covid database for the State of Florida. School funding has been withheld to school districts in Florida that implemented Covid policies recommended by the CDC.

800,000 people have died from Covid in the US. How are there two sides to that fact?

If, then, being different they are still equal, then their equality is based in some standard not the things themselves. — tim wood

Yes. More like the legal standard of equitable. A fair assessment, not necessarily equal, as in a divorce proceeding where assets should be shared in an equitable but not equal manner. A softer and more congenial approach.

Equality movement was racist white people offering to pretend other people weren't different. The present equity movement acknowledges and values differences. Pushing for "equality" now is closer to a racist dog whistle than legitimate sociological activism.

I mean no disrespect, but could you please refrain from making this discussion about specifically american politics?... Covid in america and Trump seem to usually distract the topic completely from its trails. I'm sure there are threads that are specifically about those things.

I mean no disrespect, but could you americans (I assume), for once not hijack a thread and make it about america? — Qmeri

Fair enough. We didn't make hate speech laws is that what you referenced in the Op? Our right is convinced being kicked off twitter is a violation of freedom of speech.

Can you name anyone who lost their job just for stating their opinion against the federal government's Covid policy? I'm guessing you can't. If there were people who did, it was a very few. On the other hand, at least one person was prosecuted for telling the truth, e.g. the person who managed the Covid database for the State of Florida. School funding has been withheld to school districts in Florida that implemented Covid policies recommended by the CDC.

800,000 people have died from Covid in the US. How are there two sides to that fact? — T Clark

Laura Krolczyk (you can
feel free to google her and what happened to her, it’s sickening) lost her job for saying, on Facebook, "Trump supporters need to pledge to give up their ventilators for someone else ... and not go to the hospital." And in your own comment you point out that someone was “prosecuted for telling the truth”. Both of these examples illustrate very clearly that freedom of speech is under attack.

I understand in todays climate it’s very easy to just assume that everything someone says is based on their own political beliefs and then go from there.


But my comment wasn’t about political views, I just used two examples to support my stated opinion that everyone’s free speech is under attack.

I’m not at all interested in specifically talking about or debating any election or COVID. I haven’t stated my personal political views or my personal views on COVID anywhere. Why would I? I’m talking about free speech.

However, based on your response to my comment, I can see that the OP’s concerns that my comment will derail their thread about free speech into one about politics in America is legitimate. And I can assure you I absolutely don’t want to do that.

There are several examples of people losing their jobs or being otherwise unfairly maligned for simply stating their opinions on LGBTQ issues, racial issues, religious issues, etc and not just in America but other countries as well. I just picked two examples to illustrate that, that doesn’t mean I want to talk about those topics specifically. On the contrary, I don’t debate those specific issues online or anywhere else because they always spin out of control.

My point is simple. I don’t care what your beliefs are, everyone on the planet should be granted freedom of speech to express themselves, without fear of prosecution, losing their job or being labeled some negative term. Sadly, that’s not the case.

There are several examples of people losing their jobs or being otherwise unfairly maligned for simply stating their opinions on LGBTQ issues, racial issues, religious issues, etc and not just in America but other countries as well. I just picked two examples to illustrate that, that doesn’t mean I want to talk about those topics specifically. — laura ann

While you did supply a name, which I checked; it does not prove or has any logically necessarily link that speech is not free. The people you quoted were fired, shamed; but not by the law. They were fired and shamed by the public, or by their employers, or by their community. This only proves that the community, employers, friends, etc. also have a free will, and a freedom to express themselves. The employers etc. would not be free if they were stopped from firing employees.

These need to be verified. And since you made the claim, you need to verify these claims. I am sorry.

You need to cite some examples of your claim, with names and dates and location which we can verify independently. If you don't, your claim does not have any power of reason or any valid value for an argument. — god must be atheist

Why are you sorry for stating your opinion?