That's often true, but the obvious question is, who gets to decide which speech is too dangerous to permit? I'd say that's something for the private sector to work out as best as it sees fit, but not the province of government. BTW I'm not saying that UCal is therefore obliged to hire David Duke in the name of free speech, just that if…
That's often true, but the obvious question is, who gets to decide which speech is too dangerous to permit? I'd say that's something for the private sector to work out as best as it sees fit, but not the province of government. BTW I'm not saying that UCal is therefore obliged to hire David Duke in the name of free speech, just that if he were otherwise qualified for a job there it could not fire him solely for his views. Ie, I think that on balance the First Amendment is worth the cost.
An historical fact also worth mentioning is that the Nazi Party was actually declining in popularity when Franz von Papen convinced Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Adolf Hitler Chancellor. Go figure.
Whoever has the power gets to decide--that is the way things usually work. We can pretend to argue about it, but if and when it happens, it will be the people with wealth and power that decide.
Right now, it is in the interest of these people to feed you all the garbage you are currently being fed. It makes them money and gives them power. When that is no longer the case, or the people who have the force to "convince" them to do otherwise, ten things will change.
The government is no more and no less qualified to determine who can speak and who cannot than some plutocrat. Each entity or person will choose what they believe serves their interests best.
Actually judging what speech is too dangerous is pretty easy. It merely depends upon what your goal is. When in doubt, do not spare the ban hammer.
I trust the private sector no more than I trust the government. Actually, I trust the private sector less--because I KNOW who their master is (mammon) and what their goals are and they aren't really interested in MY well-being or in the well-being of society. Just look at Zuckerberg. The government is at least better at pretending and is a locus of contending powers and interests, even in an authoritarian state.
I do not think most people actually have an idea of what the First Amendment actually costs. particularly since we tend to look at it through through individual rather than societal eyes. But that is the way we have been trained to look at things. in our society. It is not really possible, I think, to make an accurate judgment of the cost/benefit ratio--and that will change depending upon what you value, anyway.
We exist in a narrative that says that everybody has something useful and important to say and where individual opinions have meaning and import.. and that these things should, in most cases, be respected.
We exist in a narrative that says that individuals have worth, in and of themselves (which leads to the belief that their thoughts and opinions also have worth, above).
This is narrative, it isn't actual fact. It IS a better narrative than many that we have had. There are certainly narratives I do not want to live within--but maybe that is also an artifact of the narrative I was born and raised in and I believe that because I do not know better.
If you are lucky, you live in a time and place where you can at least pretend that you get to choose your story. For most of human history this has not been true.
Zuckerberg can't throw me in jail for saying the wrong thing. He can't take away my right to say it at all or frighten me into keeping my mouth shut. To claim that plutocrats are as dangerous as government apparatchiks is very naive. Maybe if we lived in a Central American gangocracy it would be true. But so far we don't.
Your understanding of the power of plutocrats/corporations is naive. Who do you think ultimately runs the US government? It isn't the people. Why do you think we have the laws and the tax structure we do? Yes, Zuckerberg (or Musk or Bezos or Megacorp) isn't going to DIRECTLY put you in jail. But not all jails have walls and iron bars and they can influence and create laws through the government that CAN put you in jail--but their hands are clean, sort of.
Zuckerberg CAN ban you from saying things on his property (FB or other iterations) and you can be effectively silenced by the raging hoard that takes offense at what you say (or even injured or killed in extreme cases). How is being silenced/killed by some private citizen for what you say better than being silenced/killed by the government? Dead is dead. silent is silent. But you have been told/taught that one is acceptable and the other isn't... because of arbitrary rules.
I distrust power, period. Not that it does me much good, because power IS power regardless of whether I trust it or not.
Eh, I don't know if you've ever had ten cops show up at your door merely because you told a social worker you were having suicidal thoughts, and the law arguably obliged her to inform on me. Trust me, it's worse than being kicked off a comment section.
As for actually being murdered by private citizens, there are still laws against that sort of thing. Once the cops start doing it with impunity, laws are out the window and there's no turning back.
It's nice that there are laws against it... and you are still dead... and looking at some of the trials recently, they may well be able to do it with impunity.
Cops already kill people with impunity for no real reason other than either carelessness or fear or animus against the other.
I am not necessarily disagreeing with you here. What I am trying to do is point out the arbitrary nature of some of the distinctions that are being made and the reasoning (or lack thereof) behind them.
If the SA (or a contemporary equivalent) kills you or trashes your place of business or merely puts enough fear into you that you censor yourself (and they have the tacit support of people powerful enough so that they can avoid punishment) is it REALLY that different from the government doing it?
On an abstract level, certainly--but that is an artifact of our particular society/culture/abstract rules. The results are certainly the same.
This also begs the question: While A might be better than B for YOU, is A better than B for society? We are largely trained to not even ask that question or, if we do ask it, devalue the answer if it doesn't come out in favor of the individual.
I can't comment on the Social worker thing. I also work in a profession where I am a required reporter. It sometimes comes down to a judgment call. Sometimes the call is wrong. The general thought is that it is better to possibly save a life than it is to do nothing.
Doesn't sound like it was necessarily a problem with the reporting so much as the nature of the response. part of that is the general social perception of an animus towards certain behaviors or psychologies. Part of it is a lack of proper resources and training.
We hold (because we have been taught that way) that private censorship is okay but government censorship is not. The arguments put forward generally rely upon the extreme applications (imprisonment/death scenarios) which serve to hide the central incongruity/ambiguity about censorship.
I would argue (in this case), ultimately, that censorship is censorship, regardless of the source--and so you are either okay with it or not okay with it. If you are okay with it, who does it is really kind of beside the point. I would then argue, from a societal standpoint, that it is better for the government to do it than vigilantes.
Gov't control of speech does not necessarily preempt private control of speech. So you don't get to choose between the gov't and "vigilantes," legal or otherwise. In our system, private control of speech does essentially preempt gov't control.
That of course doesn't prove that private control is good. Eg the Hollywood production code and later blacklist, which arose out of the industry's fear of gov't oversight, were debatable to say the least. But it's doubtful gov't oversight would have averted either. (Cf. Vichy France's doing the Gestapo one better.)
As I've indicated, when it comes to speech I'd rather take my chances with the private sector than with the gov't, let alone both, unless you can show that the private sector literally controls the gov't across the board and isn't just interested in protecting itself from hostile antitrust suits and the like. (Industry leaders often actually welcome gov't regulation as it tends to freeze the status quo and stifle incipient competition.) Last I looked, corporations as indiscriminately ravenous octopusses has been a popular populist talking point (on both left and right) for well over a century, but I still don't buy it. (Even though don't think they're "people" either.)
My ultimate point is that censorship through coercion is bad, period--regardless of whether public or private. While public (government) control has its obvious issues, particularly in extremis, private censorship is often more pernicious and you have less recourse against it in a system such as ours.
I don't think that corps are indiscriminately ravenous, they tend to be discriminate. Their saving grace, so far, is they are generally not concerned with speech, preferring instead to ape the speech of whatever market segment they are most desirous of reaching at the moment.
Government regulation (from a corporate standpoint) is often a good thing because it sets the boundaries of expected opportunities and threats and--as you note--tends to freeze the status quo.
Much of what "evil" they do is incidental evil--something that just kind of occurs while they are trying to do something else. To my mind that actually kind of makes it worse... the banality of evil (though, of course, evil is perhaps too strong a word especially without the intentionality).
That's often true, but the obvious question is, who gets to decide which speech is too dangerous to permit? I'd say that's something for the private sector to work out as best as it sees fit, but not the province of government. BTW I'm not saying that UCal is therefore obliged to hire David Duke in the name of free speech, just that if he were otherwise qualified for a job there it could not fire him solely for his views. Ie, I think that on balance the First Amendment is worth the cost.
An historical fact also worth mentioning is that the Nazi Party was actually declining in popularity when Franz von Papen convinced Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Adolf Hitler Chancellor. Go figure.
Whoever has the power gets to decide--that is the way things usually work. We can pretend to argue about it, but if and when it happens, it will be the people with wealth and power that decide.
Right now, it is in the interest of these people to feed you all the garbage you are currently being fed. It makes them money and gives them power. When that is no longer the case, or the people who have the force to "convince" them to do otherwise, ten things will change.
The government is no more and no less qualified to determine who can speak and who cannot than some plutocrat. Each entity or person will choose what they believe serves their interests best.
Actually judging what speech is too dangerous is pretty easy. It merely depends upon what your goal is. When in doubt, do not spare the ban hammer.
I trust the private sector no more than I trust the government. Actually, I trust the private sector less--because I KNOW who their master is (mammon) and what their goals are and they aren't really interested in MY well-being or in the well-being of society. Just look at Zuckerberg. The government is at least better at pretending and is a locus of contending powers and interests, even in an authoritarian state.
I do not think most people actually have an idea of what the First Amendment actually costs. particularly since we tend to look at it through through individual rather than societal eyes. But that is the way we have been trained to look at things. in our society. It is not really possible, I think, to make an accurate judgment of the cost/benefit ratio--and that will change depending upon what you value, anyway.
We exist in a narrative that says that everybody has something useful and important to say and where individual opinions have meaning and import.. and that these things should, in most cases, be respected.
We exist in a narrative that says that individuals have worth, in and of themselves (which leads to the belief that their thoughts and opinions also have worth, above).
This is narrative, it isn't actual fact. It IS a better narrative than many that we have had. There are certainly narratives I do not want to live within--but maybe that is also an artifact of the narrative I was born and raised in and I believe that because I do not know better.
If you are lucky, you live in a time and place where you can at least pretend that you get to choose your story. For most of human history this has not been true.
Zuckerberg can't throw me in jail for saying the wrong thing. He can't take away my right to say it at all or frighten me into keeping my mouth shut. To claim that plutocrats are as dangerous as government apparatchiks is very naive. Maybe if we lived in a Central American gangocracy it would be true. But so far we don't.
Your understanding of the power of plutocrats/corporations is naive. Who do you think ultimately runs the US government? It isn't the people. Why do you think we have the laws and the tax structure we do? Yes, Zuckerberg (or Musk or Bezos or Megacorp) isn't going to DIRECTLY put you in jail. But not all jails have walls and iron bars and they can influence and create laws through the government that CAN put you in jail--but their hands are clean, sort of.
Zuckerberg CAN ban you from saying things on his property (FB or other iterations) and you can be effectively silenced by the raging hoard that takes offense at what you say (or even injured or killed in extreme cases). How is being silenced/killed by some private citizen for what you say better than being silenced/killed by the government? Dead is dead. silent is silent. But you have been told/taught that one is acceptable and the other isn't... because of arbitrary rules.
I distrust power, period. Not that it does me much good, because power IS power regardless of whether I trust it or not.
Eh, I don't know if you've ever had ten cops show up at your door merely because you told a social worker you were having suicidal thoughts, and the law arguably obliged her to inform on me. Trust me, it's worse than being kicked off a comment section.
As for actually being murdered by private citizens, there are still laws against that sort of thing. Once the cops start doing it with impunity, laws are out the window and there's no turning back.
It's nice that there are laws against it... and you are still dead... and looking at some of the trials recently, they may well be able to do it with impunity.
Cops already kill people with impunity for no real reason other than either carelessness or fear or animus against the other.
I am not necessarily disagreeing with you here. What I am trying to do is point out the arbitrary nature of some of the distinctions that are being made and the reasoning (or lack thereof) behind them.
If the SA (or a contemporary equivalent) kills you or trashes your place of business or merely puts enough fear into you that you censor yourself (and they have the tacit support of people powerful enough so that they can avoid punishment) is it REALLY that different from the government doing it?
On an abstract level, certainly--but that is an artifact of our particular society/culture/abstract rules. The results are certainly the same.
This also begs the question: While A might be better than B for YOU, is A better than B for society? We are largely trained to not even ask that question or, if we do ask it, devalue the answer if it doesn't come out in favor of the individual.
I can't comment on the Social worker thing. I also work in a profession where I am a required reporter. It sometimes comes down to a judgment call. Sometimes the call is wrong. The general thought is that it is better to possibly save a life than it is to do nothing.
Doesn't sound like it was necessarily a problem with the reporting so much as the nature of the response. part of that is the general social perception of an animus towards certain behaviors or psychologies. Part of it is a lack of proper resources and training.
We hold (because we have been taught that way) that private censorship is okay but government censorship is not. The arguments put forward generally rely upon the extreme applications (imprisonment/death scenarios) which serve to hide the central incongruity/ambiguity about censorship.
I would argue (in this case), ultimately, that censorship is censorship, regardless of the source--and so you are either okay with it or not okay with it. If you are okay with it, who does it is really kind of beside the point. I would then argue, from a societal standpoint, that it is better for the government to do it than vigilantes.
That is one argument. There are contrary ones.
Gov't control of speech does not necessarily preempt private control of speech. So you don't get to choose between the gov't and "vigilantes," legal or otherwise. In our system, private control of speech does essentially preempt gov't control.
That of course doesn't prove that private control is good. Eg the Hollywood production code and later blacklist, which arose out of the industry's fear of gov't oversight, were debatable to say the least. But it's doubtful gov't oversight would have averted either. (Cf. Vichy France's doing the Gestapo one better.)
As I've indicated, when it comes to speech I'd rather take my chances with the private sector than with the gov't, let alone both, unless you can show that the private sector literally controls the gov't across the board and isn't just interested in protecting itself from hostile antitrust suits and the like. (Industry leaders often actually welcome gov't regulation as it tends to freeze the status quo and stifle incipient competition.) Last I looked, corporations as indiscriminately ravenous octopusses has been a popular populist talking point (on both left and right) for well over a century, but I still don't buy it. (Even though don't think they're "people" either.)
My ultimate point is that censorship through coercion is bad, period--regardless of whether public or private. While public (government) control has its obvious issues, particularly in extremis, private censorship is often more pernicious and you have less recourse against it in a system such as ours.
I don't think that corps are indiscriminately ravenous, they tend to be discriminate. Their saving grace, so far, is they are generally not concerned with speech, preferring instead to ape the speech of whatever market segment they are most desirous of reaching at the moment.
Government regulation (from a corporate standpoint) is often a good thing because it sets the boundaries of expected opportunities and threats and--as you note--tends to freeze the status quo.
Much of what "evil" they do is incidental evil--something that just kind of occurs while they are trying to do something else. To my mind that actually kind of makes it worse... the banality of evil (though, of course, evil is perhaps too strong a word especially without the intentionality).
horde not hoard... in paragraph 2