Yes, you’re pretty good at editing your posts after being called out on it. — NOS4A2

Thanks. You're pretty good at committing fallacies to keep me on the ball.

That’s untrue. You’re committing the fallacies, the straw men, the guilt by associations (we’re terrorists now?).

That’s untrue. You’re committing the fallacies, the straw men, the guilt by associations (we’re terrorists now?). — NOS4A2

No, just advocates of terrorism. :grin:

So are you for people dying in car accidents? Thats the implication. You like people dying? Thats the implication of your views on the speed limit, people dying.
So if im for terrorism, you are for people dying. (So am I, by implication of my views on terrorism which are implied by my views on hate speech).
I think you are smart enough to know that we can both get silly with that so lets not.
Where we disagree is the level at which hate speech informs violent behaviour. You think its a big factor, I think its small, negligible.
I have another, more practical view of why we shouldn't have hate speech laws...I think its wiser to let those people speak so they stay out in the open where I can see them.
And then the third reason I dont believe in hate speech laws is because I do not trust that the mechanism will not be abused once in place, by people who see it as a tool of control.
Knock those 3 down and I will have to re-evaluate my position, though one at a time would be best I think. Wanna pick one, or are they so dazzling YOU are going to re-evaluate YOUR position? :joke:

Your humour has no power over me, DingbatJones. I freely decided to laugh at that.

Think about when you don’t understanding the joke initially, but “get it” later. You’ve heard the words but your understanding fails to evoke the response of laughter until a later time, mich after the fact, when you finally understand it. — NOS4A2

Yes, I anticipated this and used the word “can”.... it CAN be an involuntary response. My point stands I think.

Yes, I anticipated this and used the word “can”.... it CAN be an involuntary response. My point stands I think.

Sure, it can and can not. Does the joke cause both responses? Or are the responses contingent on a variety of other factors, such as biology, language, sense of humor, understanding, etc.

Maybe, sure. The point is that in at least some instances of joke/laughter, it is involuntary. Thats what you have to deal with in your view, imo. Your going to have to incorporate that fact into your view somehow.

Well thats not fair at all, what the fuck am I supposed to do with a name like “S”?! No play on words when it just 1 letter. What a jerk.

Laughter is complicated and not limited to humans (though I believe language is) but I would argue that we are not laughing at the joke qua joke, but at the thoughts that arise after we hear and understand it.

What a jerk. — DingoJones

What? Me? A jerk? No one has ever called me that before. I'm shocked and upset. @T Clark said that I'm cute and nice.

Doesn’t matter, again the salient point is that its involuntary (at times).
Are you now changing your mind about laughter at least some of the time being involuntary? I don’t even think it compromises your point of view to accept it is here honestly. It doesnt mean you cannot still be against hate speech bans, it just means you can’t say speech has no influence over actions without contradiction. So just incorporate it, recognise that in some cases speech can in fact influence certain kinds of actions, just not the kind people have in mind when they claim hate speech causes violent action.

Then HE is the jerk.

Doesn’t matter, again the salient point is that its involuntary (at times).
Are you now changing your mind about laughter at least some of the time being involuntary? I don’t even think it compromises your point of view to accept it is here honestly. It doesnt mean you cannot still be against hate speech bans, it just means you can’t say speech has no influence over actions without contradiction. So just incorporate it, recognise that in some cases speech can in fact influence certain kinds of actions, just not the kind people have in mind when they claim hate speech causes violent action.

But because laughter is involuntary does not imply it wasn’t self-caused. One must understand a joke, indeed the language, before he can laugh at it. I see no contradiction there.

Take this joke:

A uniform beam walks into a bar. The barman asks, "What would you like, good sir?"
The beam replies “just give me a moment."

An engineer might laugh (or groan), but to anyone else it might invoke confusion. Is it the joke or the understanding of the joke that brings laughter?

The weird, if not childlike metaphysics of the “words have power” proponents is base superstition, simply because they subscribe magical properties to words and symbols. Word “incite”, “influence”, “encourage”, great words as an agent acting on a person in some way. Why would they defend such a claim, such magical thinking, despite its obvious absurdities?

I would argue that for too long they have believed their aptitude to language gives them some sense of power over those less affluent in verbal combat, less trained in words, more brutish than them. The pen is mightier than the sword, they will tell us, that is until they meet someone with a sword.

This false sense of power is a great lie, one that has barely begun to crumble, but will crumble nonetheless.

:lol:

Well first, I am not convinced anything is any different in a delayed response as you describe. That you find it funny is still involuntary, your not deciding to find it funny or unfunny just because it takes longer to process.
Second, even if that were the case that would just be noticing a particular kind of joke that didnt have an involuntary reaction. Unless you want to now claim that laughter is never an involuntary reaction, then you still have to deal with that in your view.
Would you agree that thus far you havent dealt with it?

So can we consider it causal? Use of advertising at point in time A leads to increased behavior B during time period X. In context overestimation of effects seems to include a concession.

Advertising causes the proliferation of certain information, but it doesn’t cause us to buy or not buy the product.

And you'll notice I didn't say that it did cause any particular individual.. However one of the effects of the advertising is that more people will buy the product. So, it is causal to an increase in products. Of course other causes and conditions affect which ones will be influenced, if only by now knowing the product is available. I could spray a virus in your home and since it may or may not make you and your family sick, or just some of you, one could argue, as it seems to me you are arguing, that if you get sick, my act did not cause your illness. However if I perform this act, more people will get sick that house, than if I didn't. That is an effect of the act. Just as an effect of the act of advertising will have as an effect that more people will buy that product. I am not responsible for customer 235 buying the deoderant. However I did make more people buy it. The relevance for the thread should be clear. It is not about me controlling inviduals, it is me contributing to in increase of something

Of course no one ever bought something because they saw an ad. That would be sorcery. :confused:

But yes, feel free to keep debating this nonsense all over the site in multiple discussions until one of us mods has had enough and deletes the whole lot.

And you'll notice I didn't say that it did cause any particular individual.. However one of the effects of the advertising is that more people will buy the product. So, it is causal to an increase in products. Of course other causes and conditions affect which ones will be influenced, if only by now knowing the product is available. I could spray a virus in your home and since it may or may not make you and your family sick, or just some of you, one could argue, as it seems to me you are arguing, that if you get sick, my act did not cause your illness. However if I perform this act, more people will get sick that house, than if I didn't. That is an effect of the act. Just as an effect of the act of advertising will have as an effect that more people will buy that product. I am not responsible for customer 235 buying the deoderant. However I did make more people buy it. The relevance for the thread should be clear. It is not about me controlling inviduals, it is me contributing to in increase of something

It’s not the effect of advertising. Yes, people who know about a product are more likely to buy it. That’s a true statement, But the ad didn’t cause them to buy it anymore than it caused another not to buy it. It’s just not true, nor can it be proven, that an ad caused the purchase of a product.

By creating this thread I was trying to limit it to one place. I wasn’t aware there were other threads on the topic.

The idea that nothing ever happens because of speech acts has been a repeated theme in several discussions involving Terrapin Station recently. I'm surprised you missed it. I hope, unlike him, you'll eventually see the futility in the argument and qualify it into a more sensible position.

The idea that nothing ever happens because of speech acts has been a repeated theme in several discussions involving Terrapin Station recently. I'm surprised you missed it. I hope, unlike him, you'll eventually see the futility in the argument and qualify it into a more sensible position.

I’m aware of it in one thread, but it was admittedly off topic.

I see no futility in it and in fact believe it is an important idea, for reasons I’ve already stated. I hope someone can muster a coherent counterargument that doesn’t involve magical thinking and appeals to ridicule.

Yes, people who know about a product are more likely to buy it. That’s a true statement, But the ad didn’t cause them to buy it anymore than it caused another not to buy it. It’s just not true, nor can it be proven, that an ad caused the purchase of a product. — NOS4A2

Say two companies want to sell similar consumer products. Company A hires an ad agency and spends a couple million on various forms of advertising. Company B does not advertise at all.

If company A sells more of its product then that is evidence that the advertising was influential.

Say two companies want to sell similar consumer products. Company A hires an ad agency and spends a couple million on various forms of advertising. Company B does not advertise at all.

If company A sells more of its product then that is evidence that the advertising was influential.

I think it goes without saying that people are more likely to purchase a product they know about than one they don’t. In that sense they are “influential”.

But I cannot say the advertisement acted upon the one who saw it, which terms such as “influence”, “encourage”, “incite” presuppose. The advertisement cannot act upon the viewer in such a way that alters or even effects their buying choices, for the simple reason of the first law of motion.

So we have company 1 and it uses advertising and more people buy the product and company 2 where without advertising their sales do not go up. Then 1 stops buying goes down. Uses it, it goes up. We can't test for that. YOu think they don't test for that?

We can try it with a party.

Person one does not send out emails, let's no one know.
Person two sends out emails and makes calls.

Now you can say the communication did not cause people to come. I would say it was one of the causes. But I hope you can agree in scenario 1 less people will come to the party, perhaps none.

Now if we change the communication topic to many phone calls saying:if you bring me a film of you killing my wife, I will give you 50K and someone kills the wife, I would put that husband in prison. Even though the various hit men or criminals he sent it to were not completely caused to perform the act of murder. Of course they brought something to the table. They had their tendencies and desires and this in a mix with the husband's contribution.

And given that criminals have these tendencies, I consider the husband dangerous.

Because we will in this universe, not one where people don't have those tendencies.

So the issue is how much like the latter scenario is hate speech or some other communicatitve act, which is part of what leads to people being violently attacked. If you have intention to have it lead to others committing violence, choose a behavior that statistically leads to certain effects, though of course any invidual directly committing the act of violence also is committing a crime, and it is reasonable to expect your action - communicating - to lead to violence, perhaps it can also be treated as a crime. Not that any of this is easy to determine, but many crimes are tricky to determine, like some tax crimes.

And further, I didn't see any response to my virus spraying. Let's shift it to an office building change it to an allergin. I, a disgruntled former employee, spray an allergin into the ventilation system. Only those workers who stay more than 4 hour sin the building and whose immune systems react to this allergin are affected. Without their immune system responses, overresponses, they would not get the rashes. Without them choosing to be in the building more than four hours, they also would not get it.

Are we really going to say that the rashes were not effects of my spraying the allergin. Must something be the only cause to be considered causal?

The idea that nothing ever happens because of speech acts has been a repeated theme in several discussions involving Terrapin Station recently. I'm surprised you missed it. I hope, unlike him, you'll eventually see the futility in the argument and qualify it into a more sensible position. — Baden

He certainly didn't miss it. He was largely involved in one of those lengthy discussions. He's just lying.