The Science Of Stupidity.

[mistermack]

In Iceland, you can't be called Zoe. Or Zelda. Or Ariel. Or Ezra. 

In fact, you have to choose your baby's name from an approved list. 

True fact. 

[CharonY]

18 minutes ago, mistermack said:

In Iceland, you can't be called Zoe. Or Zelda. Or Ariel. Or Ezra. 

In fact, you have to choose your baby's name from an approved list. 

True fact. 

Or you can ask for a name to be appended to the approved list. It does need to follow certain rules, though (edit: in hindsight not sure whether a name was actually approved or just a nickname).

[Ken Fabian]

Some interesting and worthwhile comments - from pretty much everyone except cultsmash, who seems to want to pre-emptively play the victim card despite not having been prevented from expressing his views here.

I think lots of people want limits on freedom of speech for a variety of reasons -  often to limit hateful and violence provoking speech or malicious falsehoods generally, which I agree with. But many also may support limiting access to opposing opinions for partisan purposes, which I don't agree with... so long as it isn't hateful, violence provoking and promoting malicious falsehoods. Freedom to tell the truth is not equivalent to freedom to promote falsehoods.

There are also all those nations and communities where criticism of governments and institutions and officials and policies are indeed illegal - and yet those laws can still enjoy wide public support, perhaps influenced by social conventions and misinformation and not entirely "freely" - but in the absence of credible alternative government, they may be perceiving harms to the govenment's reputation as hurting them.

Here in Australia we get "culture war" arguments that rosie glasses views of history should be defended for the sake of national identity and pride and "black armband" views that might induce shame or regret (like teaching about brutalization and massacres of aboriginal people in schools) should be left out - much like the US and learning about historic slavery and current institutional inequality via "Critical Race Theory".

As for US constitutional "freedom of the press" aka "freedom of expression" - it appears to me (from outside) to be about the freedom of "press" owners (nowadays, media owners) to promote whatever political causes they like, without any direct requirement for what they say to be true. The US still has civil law remedies for slander - for falsehoods that cause harm to reputations and incomes but those are only for those who can afford to pursue them, after the lies have done the rounds and done them harm. I suppose some jurisdictions do include criminal laws against slander - limiting the right of citizens to spread lies about people - but I am not familiar with any.

Edited February 17, 2022 by Ken Fabian

[beecee]

24 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

Some interesting and worthwhile comments - from pretty much everyone except cultsmash. As is often the case here the person asking the question isn't necessarily the one with interesting things to say.

And also, not actually interested in correct and interesting answers.

24 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

Here in Australia we get "culture war" arguments that rosie glasses views of history should be defended for the sake of national identity and pride and "black armband" views that might induce shame or regret (like teaching about massacres of aboriginal people in schools) should be left out

While that is certainly true, past Labor governments, have and are making efforts to right the continuing wrongs, and of course ex PM, Kevin Rudd, did apologise officially in parliment for the stolen generation. We can and will do better, perhaps after the next elections, where I hope the current ScoMo and company are thrown out on their ear and a sympathetic Labor government installed.

Edited February 17, 2022 by beecee

[Ken Fabian]

@beecee - be aware I did some edits while you were typing your comment - I changed some of what you quoted. Which hasn't really changed the meaning of either comment.

[joigus]

1 hour ago, Ken Fabian said:

Some interesting and worthwhile comments - from pretty much everyone except cultsmash, who seems to want to pre-emptively play the victim card despite not having been prevented from expressing his views here.

 

Beautiful flowers frequently sprout from an excrement or a piece of rotting flesh. I suppose that's what's happened here.

[swansont]

4 hours ago, Agent Smith said:

That would be censorship.

In most cases, censorship is accompanied by some form of legal action (e.g. incarceration).

Then censorship should have more appeal than it does.

But you’ve still saiid what you want. You were sent to prison for it, but you still said it.

 

And if it’s for a very narrow scope, e.g. it’s illegal to say “semprini” and you can say whatever else without legal consequences, that counts as “can’t say whatever you want” even though 99.9999% of speech would be permitted. So it’s not very illuminating to put this in absolutes.

 

1 hour ago, Ken Fabian said:

As for US constitutional "freedom of the press" aka "freedom of expression"

These are separate rights enumerated in the first amendment. Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press

Quote

Some interesting and worthwhile comments - from pretty much everyone except cultsmash, who seems to want to pre-emptively play the victim card despite not having been prevented from expressing his views here.

He is now prevented, having been banned. But their first amendment right to free speech has not been violated.

[Agent Smith]

4 hours ago, swansont said:

But you’ve still saiid what you want. You were sent to prison for it, but you still said it.

That's true. However even actions are similar in that respect, and we have laws specifically forbidding certain acts (murder/rape/theft/etc.)

The question then is should we have laws that prohibit certain kinds of speech i.e. is censorship justified?

 

18 hours ago, studiot said:

18 hours ago, Agent Smith said:

but only a few agree that you can't say whatever you want.

Somewhere between a quarter and three quarters of the world's population suffer this.

Is that good/bad?

Edited February 18, 2022 by Agent Smith

[Ken Fabian]

5 hours ago, swansont said:

These are separate rights enumerated in the first amendment. Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press

Thanks for that. And scienceforums.net isn't Congress.

5 hours ago, swansont said:

He is now prevented, having been banned.

Cultsmash can feel vindicated about being oppressed whilst remaining free to express his/her opinions in a variety of ways without restriction, but somewhere else - sounds like win-win to me.

[swansont]

6 hours ago, Agent Smith said:

That's true. However even actions are similar in that respect, and we have laws specifically forbidding certain acts (murder/rape/theft/etc.)

And yet we still have murder/rape/theft/etc.

Certainly laws might have a chilling effect, but even in places that harshly punish free speech, people speak out.

The issue here is the characterization of this as an absolute - "you can't say whatever you want." There are a few exceptions to this out in the world (and no, shouting "fire" in a theater is not one in the US, but that's not for this thread), and if you think that most people aren't behind such exceptions, I'd like to see something stronger than assertion or opinion to back that up.

[Agent Smith]

20 minutes ago, swansont said:

And yet we still have murder/rape/theft/etc.

That would mean laws & the very detailed and severe punishments that accompany them are not enough of a deterrent. The same is true of censorship, where and when it exists.

Some people, usually when backed into a corner, will fight talk back, law/no law. These are the exceptions you're referring to. 

[swansont]

39 minutes ago, Agent Smith said:

That would mean laws & the very detailed and severe punishments that accompany them are not enough of a deterrent. The same is true of censorship, where and when it exists.

My point was that even where you have a right to free speech, it is not absolute. You can't speak in absolutes when discussing real implementations of this right.

 

39 minutes ago, Agent Smith said:

Some people, usually when backed into a corner, will fight talk back, law/no law. These are the exceptions you're referring to. 

No, the exceptions I was referring to was inciting to riot/illegal action, fraud and "fighting words" (actual threats), among others. Things that are not protected even where the right to free speech exists, i.e. the exceptions.

[studiot]

7 hours ago, Agent Smith said:

On 2/17/2022 at 10:22 AM, studiot said:

On 2/17/2022 at 10:18 AM, Agent Smith said:

but only a few agree that you can't say whatever you want.

Somewhere between a quarter and three quarters of the world's population suffer this.

Is that good/bad?

Thank you for your reply.

I made that comment not realising that you might have meant something totally different from what I understood your statement to mean.

That is why I subsequently asked you to clarify it.

 

I still don't know what you meant.

 

Only a few agree is quite clear, but what they agree to is not.

Do you mean that they are prevented in some manner from speaking whatever they want

or do you mean

that they should not speak whatever they want (common colloquial use of can't)

?

[uncool]

On 2/17/2022 at 9:13 AM, zapatos said:

Including the Western world where you cannot yell "Fire!", slander someone, or praise Nazis.

Yell "Fire!" - it's worth noting that at least in the originating country of the relevant phrase ("shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater"), the original case is outdated and generally considered superseded by a more permissive standard, especially since the original was a case of jailing people for opposing the draft.

Slander someone - this is true, but the definition of "slander" is often heavily circumscribed (especially, again, in the US).

Praise Nazis - that depends heavily on where in the Western world; again, in the US, you can praise Nazis. And to the extent that people can't elsewhere, I think that is a bad thing. Not because anyone should praise Nazis, but because the government should not be able to assume the power to prevent it. "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."