By deduction of the validity of what someone says is meant to stir up hate as in point 3, or is valid criticism, as in point 4. — Christoffer

One thing at a time for a moment.

Not how. Who? Someone has to decide these things. Who is going to?

Read the entire thing and you will understand that your fixation with "who" is irrelevant.

How do we get to "This isn't factual and reasonable" if someone doesn't decide that?

How do we get to "This isn't factual and reasonable" if someone doesn't decide that? — Terrapin Station

By deduction of what the speech is saying. Or are you not able to break down what someone is saying to find if it's based on rational ideas or if it's based on emotional unreasonable ideas about another group of people? Are you unable to form a dialectic with the one who formed the speech to question the validity of their speech through pointing out the lack of facts?

If you encounter someone who says "I think black people shouldn't be mixed with white people". Are you unable to break down that thing into: "Is this based on facts and if so what?". If that person then reply saying "I think white and blacks are too different to exist together". Are you unable to question: "Are black and white people so different that this is true?" and "Does keeping black and white people separated creating a healthy balance in society that has a positive effect on people and society?"

The deduction of a person's speech is kindergarten-level breakdown of intentions. If you can't see what is harmful to groups of people, what is dividing people and what can lead to things like genocide and racism, then you might be too uneducated to spot these things. It's a very basic form of questioning someone's opinion that should be obvious for anyone with a normal education.

The problem is still that you view this as an authority, a "who" that decides something. It's like you intentionally misunderstand what "deduction" means in order to push the idea of an authoritarian agent deciding things.

Deduction bypass authority. It's the breakdown of a speech that informs if it's harmful or not, no one decides.

If we moved just a little bit away from formally-verifiable statements and deniability, we all know the difference between hate speech and a robust argument. Especially as a robust argument can always be expressed with courtesy.

All IMO, of course. :up:

The problem is that that's your opinion, and you incredibly seem to be assuming that we're all going to agree if we just, well, whatever aside from simply stipulating that we must agree (and then who takes the lead to agree with?)

We don't all agree though. Not at all.

So someone has to make the decisions about what counts and what doesn't, etc.

Who gets to make those decisions and why do they get to make them? (And what do we do with the folks who don't agree with those decisions?)

Who gets to make those decisions and why do they get to make them? — Terrapin Station

If the arguments lead to a justified conclusion, that's how we decide. If not, then no decision, except a random one, seems possible. :chin:

We don't all agree though. Not at all. — Terrapin Station

Deduction, making a rational and reasonable argument bypass disagreement.

So someone has to make the decisions about what counts and what doesn't, etc. — Terrapin Station

No, deduction bypass personal opinion, that's the point.

Who gets to make those decisions and why do they get to make them? (And what do we do with the folks who don't agree with those decisions?) — Terrapin Station

If the deduction of a speech that criticizes a specific ethnic group, concludes that it is not based on facts and that the criticism is coming from an emotional reaction out of a fear of the unknown (fear of another ethnicity). The deduction itself has proven it to be a harmful speech against this group and that the possible consequences of such a speech may stir up hate against this ethnic group, further pushing a division between people and the rise of racism between them. No one decided this, the deduction and breakdown of the speech decided this.

Why is it so hard to understand that "who" is irrelevant to this process? What actions to take after a deduction has concluded is another question entirely. This is about spotting harmful speech vs free speech. "Unlimited tolerance leads to intolerance" is something I think you know about? So the question is, how do we spot intolerance in order to limit that without infringing on free speech? To view this as a binary "free or controlled" question is an extremely simplified and naive take on the subject.

It's like you don't even read the arguments put forward and just keep pushing the "who's deciding" argument. It's already been answered.

Purple Pond
275
Freedom of speech is important in that censorship can be abused by powerful institutions as a tool to disenfranchise certain people, making them less influential. If liberals and their ideas such as freedom, democracy, human rights are censored, their messages will not reach everyone. However, on the same coin, if fascist, Nazi, racist, and other hateful speech are censored, their toxic can be contained.

Some speech harms society, some speech hurts society, most speech does neither. The question is who should stem the flood of harmful speech? Well, it depends on the domain. In the public domain, the government can do something about harmful speech. But here's the key question, can we trust them? Governments have been known not to act in the interest of the people. As for the private domain (such as here in the philosophy forum), it's really the owners pejorative prerogative. Your house, your rules. For example, I see nothing wrong with YouTube banning Alex Jones form their website.

So it comes down to two questions:

In the public domain, can we trust the government to censor "harmful" speech?

In the private domain, do you agree that what can be said is the owner's pejorative prerogative? — Purple Pond

Well, I have considered leaving the forum because of the increase in unpleasant experiences with immature and disrespectful people. I am strongly in favor of freedom of speech that is freedom to reason. However, statements like this are not what I consider the reasoning that we need to protect.

Okay, I'm sorry. There-there, hush now, mummy make it better. Would you like a tissue? How about a hug?

Are you done now? Can we continue? Or would you rather drag this out some more? — S

If I were a mod, I would nib this kind of posting in the bud. Post like that can ruin the forum because more mature people who are looking for intelligent and polite discussion what talk like that like they want trash thrown in their front yard. When talk like that takes over a forum, quality people leave.

Perhaps we want to understand reasoning a little better before making judgments about freedom of speech. Not all reasoning is the same. Humans can function on different levels from the level of alligators in the swap to the level of sages. Here is an explanation of the different levels of thinking...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8gpV-xjECM

The example of the post that should not be accepted as the freedom speech is not focused on the topic but is an intentional badgering that leads to trouble. That badgering is not defensible and it is not something we should protect.

If the deduction of a speech that criticizes a specific ethnic group, concludes that it is not based on facts and that the criticism is coming from an emotional reaction out of a fear of the unknown (fear of another ethnicity). The deduction itself has proven it to be a harmful speech against this group and that the possible consequences of such a speech may stir up hate against this ethnic group, further pushing a division between people and the rise of racism between them. No one decided this, the deduction and breakdown of the speech decided this. — Christoffer

That is beautiful! :hearts: That is the kind of thinking that attracts me to the forum and gives me hope for humanity. We must get back to education for the higher order thinking skills, so that we have a civilization that understands them. That is essential to defending our liberty and democracy.

The are two ways to have social order, culture or authority over the people. In the US we stopped transmitting our culture when education for technology replaced our liberal education. We killed the education Thomas Jefferson thought we must have to have a strong and united republic. Republic is our politic order. Democracy was our cultural/social order and it requires good logic skills and devotion to gaining knowledge. That leaves only authority over the people.

If we all understood the reasoning you gave us, we wouldn't need moderators because logical and social agreements would rule. We need moderators now because we have neither the understanding of logic nor the social agreements and things spin out of control without authority over us. That reality pushes the question of who has that authority and what qualifies someone to be a moderator, and should the accused have a defense and a trail? What is to prevent moderators from functioning like defensive alligators, and forcing us to submit to their authority simply because they have the power? I am new here, but I have been in forums for many years and mods who do not understand what you said may not be good mods. They can just be having a bad day, and some is banned with no defense. If we knew our history we might object to mods having that kind of power.

If the arguments lead to a justified conclusion, that's how we decide. If not, then no decision, except a random one, seems possible. — Pattern-chaser

To Joe, they lead to a justified conclusion. To Bill, they do not. Now what do you do?

No, deduction bypass personal opinion, that's the point. — Christoffer

And we non-personally figure out if we've deduced a correct conclusion via?

That is beautiful! :hearts: That is the kind of thinking that attracts me to the forum and gives me hope for humanity. — Athena

Kind words are rare, thank you!

If we all understood the reasoning you gave us, we wouldn't need moderators because logical and social agreements would rule. We need moderators now because we have neither the understanding of logic nor the social agreements and things spin out of control without authority over us. That reality pushes the question of who has that authority and what qualifies someone to be a moderator, and should the accused have a defense and a trail? — Athena

And this is the challenge really. I think that a balanced and strong moral compass comes out of a balanced life in which both positive and negative events form the identity of the adult thinker. This balance is however very hard to achieve for every person in a civilization. This is why decisions need to be formed out of a process, a deduction, a way of reaching a balanced answer through research rather than influenced by pushing a morality that is essentially a past down doctrine.

Throughout history, we have only taken positive steps forward in society by questioning the norms of the day with rationality and reason. Each time we have changed the world through that, we have improved the quality of life and well-being. Each time we have changed something with questionable logic or through other reasons than what equates to the most well-being for all, we have opened up society to the horrors of mankind.

The baseline should not be that someone in power has authority over others and through that creates balance. It should be through a process of logic based on the well-being and quality of life for all. Philosophical deduction and dialectics about everything should be the foundation of society. All can participate in the discussion, but only the most well-thought and rational arguments should be what guides society. If someone proposes an argument that is good for 10 people and someone disputes it by pointing out that there are 12 people and they have an argument that is good for all 12, that solution is the norm before someone points out something better.

This foundation is however never settled on a solution to fit all, it's a dialectic over time. Always balancing what is best for people.

In this case, the question is freedom of speech vs harmful speech. For those not using "the process of deduction" to reach a balanced answer, it pitches them to either binary side of the argument. Generally, this is the majority of how people behave with these types of questions, tribalism rather than actually thinking. But it's easy to get started, just think about the positives and negatives of each side, see if there's a way to find that balanced position. Harmful speech can destroy lives, it can lead up to such horrors as genocide if left unchecked, but blindly limiting it can lead to state control or even personal censorship that limits people's ability to think freely. How does one balance between freedom and protection of the people?

First off, pinpoint what harmful speech is, is it personal, general?

In a liberal place, all people are agents of their freedom, they make decisions for themselves and have obligations to society only through self-interest. It reflects much how human psychology actually works. Limiting peoples freedom leads to corruption and control by others over that freedom. But an unbalanced person could create havoc on other people if everyone is free to do anything. The self-limitations only work if a person already has a balanced moral code. And if one unbalanced person becomes powerful enough to have followers under their ideas, it could lead to things like Nazi-Germany.
So the conclusion here is that freedom of the individual is essential for the well-being of a person since it's the natural psychological state we have. But unlimited freedom can lead to very dark places. Unlimited freedom is therefore not the answer and we can't have unlimited freedom of speech since it can lead to harmful results. But how do we limit freedom of speech? First, we already apply laws to crimes like murder, physical harm, and even psychological harm through harassment, insults, libel etc. We have defined laws against individual actions against another individual. So defining harmful speech already has some basics within it, like those we have laws against, those defined by actual harm to others. So what is the balance between? Crime vs freedom? No, it has to be about the things that can't be proven as crimes since the causality can't be direct. If a large group of millions of people uses a speech that builds up hate for a specific group of people over a set of 10 to 20 years, that is not possible to punish in court or for any law to prosecute. Most people don't even realize transitions through this period of time and children growing up within this timeframe might even learn that this is the norm of society.

Harmful speech vs freedom of speech is therefore about long term consequences within a free society. By looking at it like this, it's easier to start seeing how to draw up a deduction to define when someone is making a harmful speech and when someone is expressing themselves backed up by the freedom of speech. For me, the baseline is those four points I made in an earlier post. By using them, we can define what someone is actually saying. Like for example, if someone is blaming Muslims for all terrorist attacks. Is that statement based on facts? Looking at those facts it's clear that there's a very small fraction of Muslims that are actually fundamentalists doing these terrorist acts, it's in the numbers and makes the statement not based on facts but through racism against this group. The statement is, therefore, a harmful speech and should be removed, blocked and erased since it's not an expression of freedom of speech, it's an expression that pitch groups against each other, it's creating conflict and rise of racism. If someone or many are killed down the line because of such speeches, it's comparable to when someone talks about killing someone and someone who hears it commits that act. It should not be tolerated because the causality is there. But if someone is criticizing how Islam has violent ideas in their religious texts and that there's a wide-spread limitation of women's rights that is destructive for people's well-being within Muslim states and you look into those facts, it's clear that there are violent ideas that some could twist into dangerous acts and women's rights are in fact limited to the point that they are not equal to men and violence within families, honor killings by husbands and brothers occur. This is a speech that is based on those facts and therefore is a reasonable and rational criticism against Muslim ways of life with the well-being of people in mind.

This is why so many jump to conclusions, because they do not look into facts, they do not understand where on the scale someone's speech is put and if someone use both facts and twist them into arguments that are racist, if people did breakdown their argument they should demand the person to put forth an argument that is without that racism otherwise be blocked or censored.

So back to the question of authority, the deduction process is the decision making for what is and what is not harmful. But the authority should be the one making this deduction. If a person does not have the qualifications to be able to do a deduction of this kind, they should not be in this position. In terms of moderators of a forum, they should be on that level, if they aren't, they are essentially advocating destructive censorship over free speech and if they don't care at all, they are putting out the red carpet for destructive causality.

This is why I think there's a point to the philosopher kings. I'm very critical against the unlimited democracy that we have today since it creates demagogy. The people in power should be elected, but having anyone who just decided to become a politician be able to reach those levels because they know how to play it rather than being balanced thinkers creates a very unbalanced society. The only reason why most western societies haven't crashed and burned is that we've had enough restrictions on these politicians to keep the machine from becoming too corrupted. But my opinion is that we should have a little more demand on the moral compass and knowledge that politicians have. We have it for any other occupation in society, but not politics.

have you considered if the inevitable end to most of your assertions on this thread lead to a form of destructive Nihilism? — Mr Phil O'Sophy

I'm not sure what definition of nihilism you'd be using (especially so that it would be "destructive").

To Joe, they lead to a justified conclusion. To Bill, they do not. Now what do you do? — Terrapin Station

Because it's based on facts outside of Bill's and Joe's opinions, biases, and past down doctrines. That's why. If so, Joe might think the conclusion isn't what he hoped for, but it's proven to be best for most people and the most balanced conclusion at the time. For Bill, he just wants reality to be formed by his own opinion and is in the wrong.

This is what deduction is. You don't seem to understand the foundation of what a reasonable argument is composed of.

And we non-personally figure out if we've deduced a correct conclusion via? — Terrapin Station

The facts. I'm wondering, have you ever done any deduction or induction? How do you reach conclusions in your philosophical thinking? Are you just expressing opinions? Because just expressing opinions is quickly picked apart in philosophy, you need to have more than just Bill and Joe's opinions.

Because it's based on facts outside of Bill's and Joe's opinions, biases, and past down doctrines. — Christoffer

And so who decides?

And so who decides? — Terrapin Station

If the argument is solid it's the argument that decides. This has been answered many times to you, but I'm starting to believe you don't know what a rational argument is or how it works. I'm not going to answer anymore to someone who doesn't seem to understand the answers given. You aren't building on them, you are just asking your questions over and over without even listening to the answers given. If you aren't interested in a proper dialectic then there's no point.

If the argument is solid it's the argument that decides — Christoffer

Even if it were somehow possible for an argument to "decide for itself," we'd need to be able to recognize this, wouldn't we?

Even if it were somehow possible for an argument to "decide for itself," we'd need to be able to recognize this, wouldn't we? — Terrapin Station

You see a blue pen. Someone says it's green. There's a definition of blue by measuring the spectrum of light bouncing from that blue pen. The spectrum shows its green. You are wrong, it is green. You might have color blindness, you might have an issue with how your brain process visual sensory information. Doctors find a tumor.

Did someone decide you had a tumor? Did someone decide the pen was green?

Someone say black people should be restricted in society. Why?
He says they do more crimes than white people. Is this true?
He says some black people in his neighborhood has committed crimes against him.
Conclusion: his opinion is based on flaws and emotion that when expressed push hate between black and white people, segregating them. This is harmful speech, concluded by breaking down his speech and analyzing the intention or the reason for it. It breaks point 4 and upheld point 2 and 3 of my previous list.

Someone say black people should be restricted in society. Why?
He says they do more crimes than white people. Is this true?
He says that statistics of the city has shown there to be more crimes among black people.
Conclusion: his opinion is dangerous in its conclusion but still within the freedom of speech since he presented a reason for his argument that demands taking a look at the facts. This simplified conclusion of his might stir up emotion, but it can also lead to looking into these statistics and researching why it is like it is. Further down the road, it might lead to tackling crime by working on the socioeconomics of the city. His argument might feel like a personal attack, it might look like it's point 2 and 3, but because it's based on facts in point 4, the causality is not leading to pitching black and whites against each other but improvements to the well being of society.

Pitching people's arguments against those four points, testing them through a rational deduction, gives an answer to if the opinion is harmful or constructive freedom of speech.

If you can't recognize what is a valid argument you are not educated enough to be able to break down an opinion to find out if it is. The list I presented earlier is a good starting point to validate someone's opinion. If you think there are flaws in that list, then that's in line with what I said that it's a process that, like anything else, need to be evolving. But the four points aren't an opinion, they're a framework based on the well-being of the self and others. If you can't agree to a foundation that is about the well-being of the self and others, then you need to present an argument for why we should form conclusions about a society based on anything else as a foundation and what that other thing should be.

The framework is the well-being of the self and others and the deductive argument through that decides if something is harmful or constructive through freedom of speech. No one decides out of opinion through this and if someone is unable to conclude if something is harmful through a rational argument because they lack the knowledge to do so, they should not be the ones doing the deduction. If this is something you cannot agree with you first need to explain why well-being of the self and others isn't a foundation to build a strategy on. It's the framework for the argument that decides what is what and it's the framework that removes the individual opinion about what is free speech and what is harmful speech. This is the basic elements for the argument's use.

Generally, this is the majority of how people behave with these types of questions, tribalism rather than actually thinking. — Christoffer

Your writing is so beautiful and I regret I am out of time and energy. I what to share a couple of thoughts just to keep the momentum moving forward.

I want to nominate Daniel Kahneman for a noble prize. His explanation of our two systems of thinking is perhaps something we want to add to your thoughts of universal thinking verses being tribal. The issue is a most important education issue that we seriously need to discuss. We can not do better unless we learn better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8gpV-xjECM

Secondly, we used to read moral stories to our children. A moral is a matter of cause and effect. At the end of the moral story, we would ask, what is the moral of that story, and the answer would be something like, because he didn't give up he succeeded.... Because no one helped the Little Red Hen, she did not share her bread with them... the king and all the adults, were vain and foolish when they believed the tailors who said the cloth of the new suit would reveal who was smart and who was stupid, and when the king paraded down the street in his underwear, the little boy who called out he had no clothes on became the hero. We should not be afraid to call it as we see it.

When we understand morals as a matter of cause and effect they are easily changed with better reasoning. The other side is understanding morals are about cause and effect, is it is vital to our liberty and democracy to hold that understanding or morals. Our reality is as Cicero said- if we do the right thing we get good results and if we do the wrong thing we get bad results. That makes our moral judgment vitally important. No amount of prayers or animal sacrifices or popularity will get good results if we are wrong. Whatever happens, it is the consequence of what we say and do.

Our freedom of speech is the freedom to reason, not the freedom to say anything we please. We have anarchy confused with freedom and this is disastrous! Freedom comes with responsibility. Like it is foolish to walk a dog in a city without a leash, it is also foolish to allow some humans off the leash because their judgment is no better than their dog's. This is an education problem that is not being addressed by education for technology.

You see a blue pen. Someone says it's green. There's a definition of blue by measuring the spectrum of light bouncing from that blue pen. The spectrum shows its green. You are wrong, it is green — Christoffer

What happened to the person who says "There's a definition of blue by measuring the spectrum of light bouncing from that blue pen. The spectrum shows its green. You are wrong, it is green." Even if "the world itself" can do all of that somehow, for us to know about it, note it, do anything about it, someone has to think and assert those things, right?

Even if "the world itself" can do all of that somehow, for us to know about it, note it, do anything about it, someone has to think and assert those things, right? — Terrapin Station

Somehow? We have spectrometers that define the color spectrum. We can conclude that if someone defines a color different to other people and to results of facts a priori, there might be something wrong with that person's sight or visual centers in their brain, hence further looking revealed the tumor. There are no assertions with this. It's a deduction and research. It's how you are able to write on your computer, someone researched and used facts we have concluded in order to create the computer.
As an example, in science, in order to reach a theory, you need to prove it. There are no opinions involved. Someone research, develop the theory, test it, it's there, a priori.

You are making a Reductio ad absurdum fallacy. You haven't really cared for the argument presented.

Can we get to the rest of the sentence? "for us to know about it, note it, do anything about it, someone has to think and assert those things, right?"

You have been given answers to everything you asked, please re-read what has been said.

Right, so no, we can't get to that part of the sentence.

You are not clear in what you are asking. Please form an argument that is taking into account what has been said and ask again.

Again, take "There's a definition of blue by measuring the spectrum of light bouncing from that blue pen. The spectrum shows its green. You are wrong, it is green"

Some individual has to know this, and has to note it--that is, make a claim about it and so on, in order for us to take any action with respect to it, correct?

I think you are missing the point, the fact is that regardless of who is actually right, people will disagree even after going through your proposed tests of wrongness. When they do, an additional
appeal to what is objectively right isnt going to solve anything. The appeal that must be made is to an objective standard of some kind that functions in spite of peoples feelings about their rightness/wrongness. That way, no one can force their own standard on anyone else based on how convinced they are of the argument. For freedom of speech its the same reason that freedom of religion necessitates the seperation of church and state. Its a safeguard against when the process you are describing fails, and it does often fail. If it didnt, I would agree with you 100%.

Some individual has to know this, and has to note it--that is, make a claim about it and so on, in order for us to take any action with respect to it, correct? — Terrapin Station

Has to know what? That the spectrometer has that as its definition of blue? Here's another definition of pure math #0000ff.
If you see it like #0000ff and the spectrometer sees #00ff00, then based on the facts about how the cones and rods in our eyes work and how they are processed in the brain, we can conclude there is something wrong.

We can move on to talk about the nature of perception, but that wasn't the point of the argument. This example was part of the argument you ignored because... whataboutism.

So once again, please form an argument to answer what this topic is about rather than irrelevant nitpicks about other topics. The example was about the deduction of something a priori, that a specific color is something defined and if suddenly experienced differently, it's not proven as an error of the senses by opinion, but by deducing where something is wrong. The one who said it was blue or the one who said it was green.

Answers have been given to your previous questions.

Has to know what? — Christoffer

The stuff in quotation marks. "There's a definition of blue by measuring the spectrum of light bouncing from that blue pen. The spectrum shows its green. You are wrong, it is green"