Freedom to curse and to thief..but this?

[provo]

My fucking hippies comment was out of frustration and not directed so much at you (trev), but every hippie i have ever meet. and to add some colour to my post.
Since you asked i will clarify my position. Sry for the wall of text. Read it twice and i hope it will make sence.

"By saying you would call the cops on him you lend your support to denying people political speech on the grounds that they're dickheads and would have us all castrated at birth." trev

My problem with this comment is that it makes any limitation of freedom of speech the moral equal to a total limitation of free speech. It demonises any middle ground and doesn’t allow any discussion.

it has a similar effect on debate as
Pro-lifers accusing all prod-abortion supporters of being murders
Any religion calling all non believers as wrong for heretics.

I know you call it exaggeration to make a point, i would call it making a straw man. It much easier to condemn castration at birth ect/ then race-hate laws.



"It's a smaller version of the same evil. I exaggerate to make a point, free speech IS black and white, you're either free to express yourself, or you're not allowed use naughty words without the cops being called." trev

You call it using nasty words, the reality is the laws that prevent showing swastikas is part of a package of laws designed to combat neo-nazi's and racism. Unfortunately laws need to draw the line somewhere and it can seem arbitrary and when taken out of context appear over the top. However most countries have anti-hate/race hate laws and the anti-nazi laws fall into this category. So unless you live in the USA you probably currently live with some form of anti-hate laws.

These laws aren't designed to stop nasty words but prevent the spread of populist, offensive, ill thought out racism from capturing the public imagination and doing terrible things. The capacity for racism to do violence is very clear and often fundamental to the means of grabbing power (neo-nazis often idolise the 1930's nazis physical presence on the streets in dominating there enemy), modern right-wing racism in the USA exists in a world of free speech and has committed several acts of terrorism let alone street violence. Neo-Nazi in Russia are extremly violent and known to attack immigrants. And the classic 1930's Nazism and its effects on the public are well known to us all.

It is alot easier to say "don't ban bad words" but the reality is its part of violent prone world view, devoid of any academic rigor that does not seek to discussion about issues and spreads among the un-educated masses looking for easy solutions.

once again my problem is that those who support free speech often diminish the consequences of total free speech by downplaying the actual targets of free speech. because its a lot easier to defend bad words compared to defending doing nothing and allowing a violent world view that dosn't seek rational debate, instead looks to populism and encourages violence.


“'Inciting' a crime is another stupid concept. Rich people are inciting thieves by having more stuff than them. Why is using words any worse?” Trev
“I hate this argument so much. Why can't people just stop caring about certain words/phrases? Can't you see that trying to stop certain expressisions/communications only makes them more powerful whenever they do occur? Political correctness has never worked, nor ever will” Tev

Inciting
1. People are pretty easily lead and people get incited to riot and commit crimes. And the problem is gang/political leaders deliberately incite their follows and sit back and watch the violence. Its morally the same thing as doing it. If you don't believe that people are deliberately incited or manipulated to commit crimes you don't live in reality. The distinction between being rich and inciting crime and inciting a riot to pressure political goals is that one is deliberate the other is not.

Just words?
1. Politics is about inciting people either by campaigning lobbying whatever to get your views seen, heard and turned into policy. People don't say things so they have no effect. if i scream "no taxes" its because i want to influence people. Thus all political acts violent, passive, written or verbal are an attempt to achieve political ends, they are not words in the air for no purpose.



Stopping expression.
Limiting free speech of racism works in reducing its influence.
Suggesting that limiting free speech helps the ideology is something made up to strength the case for total free speech.

1. The assumption is that when certain incorrect views are exposed to the public they are exposed as incorrect due to public scrutiny of the views. Which is generally true, particularly among serious political actors and intelligent people who critical things. The idea is that certain views "wither on the vine of public opinion".

2. the problem is that racism isn't particularly complex and doesn’t stand up well to investigation. So by various means, (crisis mentality, being argumentative, dismissing "intellectuals" as being out of touch) it avoids any serious analysis and doesn’t allow itself to be shown as the bit of crap that it is. Unfortunately it spends more time politicking. Being a populist ideology it knows what to say to get supports and incite political actions (either violent or at the ballot box). It knows how to find easy solution to complex problems.

Essentially racism doesn’t play the intellectual debate and critic game that requires open discussion, that os played by the free market economic, Marxism, liberalism or democratic movements . These movements embarrass dialogue and expression because they have a deeper academic back ground that stands up to scrutiny. Racism does not want to engage in a debate, it wants to avoid it. Essentially the path way that free speech provides in ensuring ideas are heard and considered by the population isn't utilised by racist ideology.

As racism doesn’t participate in the debates and explain the complexities of its world view, it doesn’t wither on the vine of public opinion. It beats its drum or popularise and grows.

3. Proof is seen of this in that racism is continually having an influence on society. Take the USA with all its free speech protection, racism continues even with some strange and violent views. The 1930's Nazis came to power in an open form of debate, they simply washed up the crowds in a popularise frenzy.


Making something illegal does make it weaker in that it allows authorities to act against it. and acting against it is what damages the movement.

1. If we scrubbed all mention of murder from the laws books, would that mean there would be less murders? of course not, acting against murders discourages people from doing it, it doesn’t inspire people to become a murder for the romantic thrill of resisting authority.

2. Should organised crime be left untouched by authority? because it just romanticising the activity?

3. The drug epidemic in 1980's USA was prevented by a range of social and police measures. The active participation of the government allowed them to disrupt drug flows. Reduce demand on the streets for drug and provided better drug rehab. By acting against the drug problem and defining it as a problem to be solved, they achieved more than sitting by and doing nothing would have. The drug taker of the US didn't rise up and say "fuck you i will take drugs if i want".

4. (a more relevant example). The efforts against Islamic extremists have been a combination of military diplomatic and economic strategies from both the west and middle eastern countries. Sure some actions may have been poor choices and inspired the enemy. The disruption caused by government efforts create real physical disruption to the workings of the organisation. The arrest of leaders, killing follows, undermining support by paying people off , forcing them from Afghanistan to Pakistan, is a complete fuck around on a practical level.

5. I understand what you’re saying about romanticising the movement by making it outlawed, but the power to disrupt the political movement is vast. Leaders can;t travel to different countries, web sites shut down, fines, imprisonment. Its not easy running political groups when the interference by authorities is great.

So essentially i don’t see how these groups are magically strengthened. It seems a to be more a product of wishful thinking.

Slippery Slop
1. I know the argument well, the thin edge of the wedge or the slipper slop, we allow one limitation of a right, and it will erode the lot. The problem is that Germany has had the same political system for 60 years, with the limitation on freedom of speech. So does the rest of the entire western world, most countries have limitations on freedom of speech and they are still vibrant democracies. The USA has freedom of speech and isn't that different from any other western country. I got a pro-fascist book signed by Mussolini from the library and presented a fascist critic of democracy at uni. And i didn't get arrested. I have downloaded how-to-riot manuals of the internet. I didn;t get arrested. Yet these anti-free speech laws are used by the authorities.

The reality is with some limitations on freedom of speech, the rest has NOT been eroded. The slippery slop and thin edge of the wedge is a fantasy, it hasn't happened.

So people demonize the prospect of limited freedom of speach, and with it anyone who supports current laws, for something you claim will happen, but hasn't.

So to qualify my position, im in favour of the status quo regading freedom of speech laws, modified to specific country conditions.

[theTrav]

Sry for the wall of text.

no shit ey

Read it twice and i hope it will make sence.

It makes sense, but I don't agree with it.

So unless you live in the USA you probably currently live with some form of anti-hate laws.

Australia. We've got plenty of anti-discrimination laws... They're stupid and they don't work. We also don't have any protected right to free speech at all, some will argue however that because our constitution is a "this is what the gov't can do and no more" we've got implied protection because there's nothing in there that says the gov't can legislate against saying things... IANAL so I don't know.

the reality is its part of violent prone world view, devoid of any academic rigor that does not seek to discussion about issues and spreads among the un-educated masses looking for easy solutions.

That's kind of what it all boils down to in my view. Stupid people are out there and it's been shown that they can be tricked into doing stupid stuff... Let's coddle them up and make some laws that make it harder to trick people into doing stupid stuff.

I don't assume people are stupid, and I don't think they should be able to shrug off responsibility for their actions and their world view because they're uneducated.

once again my problem is that those who support free speech often diminish the consequences of total free speech by downplaying the actual targets of free speech. because its a lot easier to defend bad words compared to defending doing nothing and allowing a violent world view that dosn't seek rational debate, instead looks to populism and encourages violence.

I agree that defending naughty words is the easier argument.
I disagree however with your implied argument that if you don't ban naughty words then you're not discouraging racism.

gang/political leaders deliberately incite their follows and sit back and watch the violence. Its morally the same thing as doing it.

That's a fundamental disagreement there that I doubt either of us are going to budge on. It's not morally good, but it's not the same.

If you don't believe that people are deliberately incited or manipulated to commit crimes you don't live in reality.

I don't disagree that it happens, I disagree that it's legitimate to transfer the responsibility simply by being easily led / manipulated.

Limiting free speech of racism works in reducing its influence.

I agree, however I don't think it makes enough difference to make up for the damage it causes in misuse of the law and in the way it promotes restriction of expression as being acceptable.
The real thing that reduces the influence of racism is changing societies attitude. There are plenty of ways to do that that don't involve legislating against specific words or symbols.

The drug epidemic in 1980's USA was prevented by a range of social and police measures. The active participation of the government allowed them to disrupt drug flows. Reduce demand on the streets for drug and provided better drug rehab. By acting against the drug problem and defining it as a problem to be solved, they achieved more than sitting by and doing nothing would have. The drug taker of the US didn't rise up and say "fuck you i will take drugs if i want".

Don't get me started on the "War on Drugs". There's plenty of drug takers who DID rise up and tell the US to fuck off, and there's also plenty who just went on with their lives and take their drugs quietly in the corner. The war on drugs is the reason I now get treated like a criminal when I try to get some damned cold relief medication that works, and in some cases are outright refused medication.

Yet you demonize it like it has.

I don't think I made the slippery slope argument, I don't think I was going to either. I made the black and white argument that banning swastikas does not give enough benefit to counter the cost.

[Ferinex]

Thank you for highlighting the main points of that WallofText(TM).

My one and only point: Hushing dissent only makes it that much more legitimate and powerful.

[JTG]

The thing is If you don't like dissent snuff it out with brute force. It works. You may have casualties and troubles but the dissent side will eventually lose steam trying to compete with a empire with far more resources and skill, and burn out.

[Blaze]

"And when they no longer care about their own lives, Show them something worse."

[provo]

To Trev.
If we can close up some arguments that go no where, otherwise my walls of text will turn into a cabin. and soon ill put a roof on it too.

But warning WALL OF TEXT: and if your going to comment you need to read it.

Australia. We've got plenty of anti-discrimination laws... They're stupid and they don't work. We also don't have any protected right to free speech at all, some will argue however that because our constitution is a "this is what the gov't can do and no more" we've got implied protection because there's nothing in there that says the gov't can legislate against saying things... IANAL so I don't know.

Anti-discrimination laws may have some anti-hate elements, but im not sure why you bought this up. Other then general info.

That's kind of what it all boils down to in my view. Stupid people are out there and it's been shown that they can be tricked into doing stupid stuff... Let's coddle them up and make some laws that make it harder to trick people into doing stupid stuff.

Cool you agree that some people are stupid,
(im not sure if you’re saying race-hate laws make it harder to trick people? or that other some other laws should be used?) If so which laws do you intend to use that don't trample on rights?

but you say

I don't assume people are stupid, and I don't think they should be able to shrug off responsibility for their actions and their world view because they're uneducated.

I don't assume any single person is stupid, just that many are. Maybe not the majority but enough to cause problems with their idiocy.

So your asserting that their ignorance/being uneducated/ stupidity is not excuse for them to shrug off their responsibility to examine their world view/opinions ect.

The problem is they don't and will not take responsibility for their views and actions and examin their opinion critically. Ideally i agree if everyone was self critical and examined their arguments carefully the world would be a better place, and if they did their wouldn't be such crazy racism, but they don't.

You have a utopian vision of what people should be. You then turn and suggest government policy designed for what you want people to be not what they are. And this is the fundamental difference in our opinions, my view of how people behave is based on observation on behaviour (to a certain extent), whilst your view is less grounded in reality and more on a ideal.

Its great to think about how people should behave and how to encourage such behaviour. But its no basis to make government policy.

At the end of the day, we can demand people SHOULD be good people, but they aren’t, no amount of scoring them for their lack of self critic will make them examine there views. And demanding that people accept their responsibility and examine their view will not stop racism and wouldn't stop any other populist crap from gain ground and asserting its power.

I agree that defending naughty words is the easier argument.
I disagree however with your implied argument that if you don't ban naughty words then you're not discouraging racism.

We both know no government bans naughty words. The way anti-hate laws are described is in an effect concerned manner "any communication that incites hatred or violence". Ensuring they look at the effect and intent of actions and comments, and don’t mention particular words like Nazi (unless they are old laws). The term "ban naught words" (as you used by me anyway in the forum) is to describe these race-hate laws in general.
Im certainly not going to argue that anything is the KEY to discouraging racism. But race-hate laws works....

gang/political leaders deliberately incite their follows and sit back and watch the violence. Its morally the same thing as doing it.

That's a fundamental disagreement there that I doubt either of us are going to budge on. It's not morally good, but it's not the same.

Do you disagree that inciting violence is the same as committing it? Or that they gang/political leaders deliberately incite their follows and sit back. Are the Nazi leaders not responsible for ordering genocides?

Either way, inciting violence or race hate, is by your own admission morally wrong. Which i agree with i think that issue is a miss understanding.

If you don't believe that people are deliberately incited or manipulated to commit crimes you don't live in reality.

I don't disagree that it happens, I disagree that it's legitimate to transfer the responsibility simply by being easily led / manipulated.

I agree they still are responsible for their actions but so is the person for inciting it. Once again are Nazi leaders responsible for ordering a genocide? However as i said above wishing and hoping they take responsibility will not make it so. Just because you think they have a more responsibility doesn't mean they will.

Limiting free speech of racism works in reducing its influence.

I agree, however I don't think it makes enough difference to make up for the damage it causes in misuse of the law and in the way it promotes restriction of expression as being acceptable. The real thing that reduces the influence of racism is changing societies attitude. There are plenty of ways to do that that don't involve legislating against specific words or symbols.

Thank you for at least admitting limiting free speech of racism CAN reduce its influence. Given the follow up comments by others (ie not trev) it appear someone still hasn't conceded that it does work.

Sure influencing social attitudes can work. And how do suppose we do that? Education. These people are uneducated they hate it, you going to force them to the class room via gun point? Social engineering, you going to make racists and immigrants live together? I agree there are lots of ways that will also fix this. But not without stomping all over the rights of people that your attempting to influence.

The problems is liberalism demands that you don't interfere with other people, including racist ignorant uneducated people, it’s their right to be left alone and be stupid racists. And liberalism allows for the concept of unlimited free speech as a right. So what right do you have to demand a racist idiot gets an education, examines his view or lives next’s to immigrants, NONE. Lliberalism does not give you the right to demand anything of another person’s views.

You could force people into education camps until they realise the error of there ways. . . but that doesn’t protect there rights . You could force people into community works with people with races, but breaches heaps of rights again.

No matter what other policy you suggest to reduce racism by affecting societal attitudes you are abusing these peoples rights in some way. Which is a problem for anyone who holds rights and the fundamental and most important thing in politics. How exactly do you influence others to do the right thing, you can't you got to hope they all figure out how to be good people on their own. And hope they don't fuck themselves up or get misguided by some power hungry politician making flashy promises.

The drug epidemic in 1980's USA was prevented by a range of social and police measures. The active participation of the government allowed them to disrupt drug flows. Reduce demand on the streets for drug and provided better drug rehab. By acting against the drug problem and defining it as a problem to be solved, they achieved more than sitting by and doing nothing would have. The drug taker of the US didn't rise up and say "fuck you i will take drugs if i want".

Don't get me started on the "War on Drugs". There's plenty of drug takers who DID rise up and tell the US to fuck off, and there's also plenty who just went on with their lives and take their drugs quietly in the corner. The war on drugs is the reason I now get treated like a criminal when I try to get some damned cold relief medication that works, and in some cases are outright refused medication.

My point was that drug abuse declined after government action. Simply government action achieved results thats it, i don't want to start something over "the war on drugs". Even if we pull stats out and im wrong i had other example and can find more of how governments can effect change.

But the reality is you conceded the point that limiting free speech works. So the attempt to abstract how limiting free speech would work isn’t needed.

Yet you demonize it like it has.

I don't think I made the slippery slope argument, I don't think I was going to either. I made the black and white argument that banning swastikas does not give enough benefit to counter the cost.

[/quote]

Sry pre-emptive slipper slope comment... im sure someone reading this was thinking it.

I agree banning a swastika is probably not effective and the best thing it achieves is allowing police to investigate someone further. But banning a swastika is the least of limitations of free speech the anti-hate laws produce. And would ask you this "Laws that prevention people for inciting others into racial violence are they valid limitation of free speech" Or is the risk of racial violence an acceptable consequence to allow total freedom of speech?

And my post was about you suggesting banning the swastika as equating to castration which as i said at beginning unhelpful and demonising anyone with an slightly varied views.

If all your saying is banning a swastika taken as one ban alone has limited effect on reducing racism, i would say it has a limited effect on free speech. But its not really about naughty words or banning a swastika, its about laws that would put you in prison for encouraging race-hate.

Thank you for highlighting the main points of that WallofText(TM).

My one and only point: Hushing dissent only makes it that much more legitimate and powerful.

If you are going to comment on my views please read what i said, and not what someone else said about what i said. Both me and trev have agreed the limiting free speech can reduce racism. Not making it more legitimate and powerful as you claim, had you read my post you might have commented on my argument. Its frustrating carefully explaining something because someone asked my views then have someone who can't be fucked reading it, comment on it.

[Blaze]

Gah, it's things like this that show that people need lower salaries and more working hours.

We're talking about the game, not laws, not rights, not hate, not morality; stop branching out. The devs made a game where people - meaning EVERYONE, including the less-than-decent - can do what they want, provided the features can fulfill it. If you absolutely feel like something should be changed, bring it to the dev's attention, they'll decide. As far as my knowledge of their intentions go, they want as little "divine intervention" and "censorship" as possible.

Bottom lines:
1. Is it illegal? No (At least in my area).
2. Is it rude? Yes.
3. Is it appropriate for children? No. (Though children shouldn't be on the internet unsupervised in the first place.)
4. Can it be interpreted to symbolize discrimination in some form? Yes.
5. But is it illegal? No.
6. Are you being forced to play the game? Not likely.
7. Is the game costing you anything other than the time that you decided to put into it? Doubtful.

We've gone over this haven't we? If someone does something you don't like and refuses to stop, make them. (I'm probably going to get reasons why they can't be forced to stop; and the reply for those types of questions will be "Alpha".) I'm sorry, but if this is the way it's going to end up whenever something offends your sensibilities; then please, turn off the computer, unplug it, and bury it 35 feet below the ground.

We're always going to have 'tards, they'll always act like 'tards, they'll always find a way to get around measures taken to stop them from acting like 'tards. And internet humanitarians are not going to accomplish anything. Just save us the bandwidth, please?

Though I'm not going to go around digging swastikas or discriminatory symbolizations on the ground, please don't decide on a rule and expect the rest of us to obey unconditionally; I believe the term for that is: Dictatorship. (This is not pointed towards the OP or anyone else in this thread, even though it may sound like it due to the wording of the phrase. Please consider it as general advice.)

You're thinking too much; go login and kill a couple of foxes.

[Ferinex]

@provo: stop.

No one wants to read your walls of text. You're wasting your time.
Learn to state your argument concisely, or no one is ever going to listen to you.

[theTrav]

To Trev.

Ok, I gotta say something now, please, the name's Trav it's an A not an E

Sure influencing social attitudes can work.

After you thanked me several times for "admitting" things, I gotta return the favor and thank you for "admitting" that influencing social attitudes can work.

And how do suppose we do that? Education. These people are uneducated they hate it, you going to force them to the class room via gun point?

Yes. Losing the right to be uneducated is far less important than the right to free speech, additionally, people ARE already forced to classrooms in Australia (as minors your parents can get into serious legal trouble for not ensuring you are educated).
For sure I agree that it violates a few tenants of liberalism and also throws up a whole lot of problems around what's appropriate education to be mandated but I think it's fairly well established that to force people from a young age into an environment where critical analysis and learning is encouraged has a big positive effect.

I'll let the whole war on drugs thing drop because I don't really want to get embroiled in it. We both know that there are some extremely varying opinions on whether the campaign has had much positive results and what stats are even remotely believable. I will certainly concede that they have convinced a lot of people to demonize some substances beyond rationality.

I think we agree on a lot more than we disagree on. I DO agree with you that it is morally wrong to incite violence, however I also think that not everything that is morally wrong should be illegal. You're also right in that I'm first and foremost an idealist, and have no experience in setting policy or fulfilling any sort of large scale leadership role.

Gah, it's things like this that show that people need lower salaries and more working hours.
We're talking about the game, not laws, not rights, not hate, not morality; stop branching out.

Some people WERE talking about censorship in the game. That discussion has more or less ended. WE are NOW talking about laws, rights, morality. If you don't want to participate in the current discussion then leave the conversation, don't run around shouting for everyone to shut up, it makes you seem like an ass hole and you're not.

@provo: stop.
No one wants to read your walls of text. You're wasting your time.
Learn to state your argument concisely, or no one is ever going to listen to you.

I want to read his big walls of text, and I'm doing so and responding to them. His points are quite clear and concise, he's just got a lot of them. See my above response to Blaze, same thing applies to you except I'm less sure of whether you're an ass hole or not.

[Blaze]

Some people WERE talking about censorship in the game. That discussion has more or less ended. WE are NOW talking about laws, rights, morality.

That's the problem, this ISN'T the law, rights, and morality discussion section, this is the bug discussion section. Which also makes me bring up why the hell is this thread here in the first place. For now though, I'll treat this as a development thread.
If people are going to argu- discuss topics that are only marginally related to game development, then please take it to the appropriate section; you're not contributing to the point, and your text walls are turning people off from giving otherwise valuable input.

It's a simple question:
Should we limit features to prevent people from creating offensive content? Yes or No?
Should we punish players that create offensive content? Yes or No?

Then again, exactly what is considered to be offensive content is a massive quagmire, since its definition is different between people, and changes over time.

Also: Need off-topic section, Nao.