You don't feel there's a difference between a State banning criticism of the State, and a State passing anti-hate speech laws to protect people from, e.g., nazis?
France banned burqas, it would be very funny to insist that Muslims get some kind of special treatment. Not to mention countless French rightwingers have been flinging Muslim refugees under the bus for the last decade with almost no consequences for it.
Glorifying nazis is glorifying naziism, an ideology that's predicated on the need to kill all Jewish people, among other things (gay people and whatever the nazis hated). That easily falls under hate speech.
Glorifying soviets is just glorifying a failed political regime. You can also glorify the Napoleonic era, or the Kingdom of the Franks, or whatever other politics you want. There wasn't genocidal intent baked into the very fabric of Stalinism, despite his genocide of the Ukranians.
No, there isn't a difference. "Hate speech" has no meaning, and laws purporting to be combatting it are actively used to prevent criticism of the State (e.g. in Germany).
This is strange to me. I have no difficulty seeing the difference between hate speech and criticism of the state. Of course if someone tries to muddy the waters, they should be criticized... but that's what you're trying to do here, so you're no better than a State that does the same. Hate speech very clearly has meaning, the legal definition may change a bit of course, but in Germany the meaning is quite clear, banning expressions that incite hatred or violence against people based on race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. What's unclear about that?
I'm not sure what specific incident you're referring to, however I do know that if Germany was more willing to leverage the hate speech laws more strictly, the AFD would have been banned long ago. Now they're finally willing to leverage it to ban the new nazi party, which is a relief.
> I have no difficulty seeing the difference between hate speech and criticism of the state.
You have no difficulty manufacturing what you believe to be a difference (that clearly does not survive contact with reality), because you're ignorant of the world around you.
> Of course if someone tries to muddy the waters, they should be criticized
No, if someone tries to falsely claim that there's a clear and objective difference, as you are, they should be criticized.
> Hate speech very clearly has meaning
No, it very clearly does not, and the fact that you're expressing that opinion indicates that you're extremely uninformed about history. "Hate speech" wasn't even a concept that existed until the 20th century, originally only referred to race when it was defined by the ICERD, constantly changed and increased in scope, and still even today not only has no commonly agreed-upon definition, but is used to suppress relevant-to-society free speech that the State does not approve of.
If you go and ask 10 random people in your country what the definition of "hate speech" is, they will not be able to agree on a definition - anyone who has gone out and actually interacted with different groups in their country (as opposed to being isolated to a single community) knows this to be true. That by itself is factual proof that there is no consensus definition of the term.
Not that there needs to be any further elaboration than that, but...
> I'm not sure what specific incident you're referring to
Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, a German politician, posted a social media post with the text "Afghanistan refugees; Hamburg SPD mayor for 'unbureaucratic' admission; Welcome culture for gang rapes?" and was charged under German hate speech laws. You're extremely authoritarian and progressive, so you probably feel that a penalty should have been given out, but regardless of your feelings, the fact is that that was not clearly incitement to hatred or violence, and that the poster was charged for "hate speech" for making political statements about immigration.
> banning expressions that incite hatred or violence against people based on [...]. What's unclear about that?
It's very clear to anyone who has contact with reality that not only does "hatred" also have no consensus definition, but neither does "inciting", and so both of those terms can be and are interpreted in an extremely wide spread that is abused by the State.
Not only is the lack of consensus of definition of the concept of "hate speech" factual evidence that your claims about it being clear are false, but even your citation of the German legal definition contains terms that have neither consensus population definition nor objective test (legal or otherwise).
> "Hate speech" wasn't even a concept that existed until the 20th century,
And? "Capitalism" wasn't a word in any language until the 17th century. We make new words when we need them.
> originally only referred to race when it was defined by the ICERD, constantly changed and increased in scope
Turns out as we opened our eyes to our collective bigotry, we realized we were doing it in more ways than one.
> but is used to suppress relevant-to-society free speech that the State does not approve of.
Would love to you point to an example of this that isn't racist or bigoted :)
> If you go and ask 10 random people in your country what the definition of "hate speech" is, they will not be able to agree on a definition -
Great, that's why we have representative democracy and laws and dictionaries. I could ask anyone in Texas (my home state) the legally required pre-driving check that must be performed before operating a motor vehicle, every time, and I wager 90% will not even know such a lawful requirement for such a check exists, and 100% will fail to list every step required. This doesn't mean such a law doesn't exist or, if someone learns about it, then isn't clear.
Of course in my opinion more people should know about it and enforce it personally but I accept that one of the unsolved problems of liberal democracy is how to manage the massive nest of rules and regulations in a fair and equitable way. After all, almost everyone speeds.
> "Afghanistan refugees; Hamburg SPD mayor for 'unbureaucratic' admission; Welcome culture for gang rapes?" and was charged under German hate speech laws. You're extremely authoritarian and progressive, so you probably feel that a penalty should have been given out, but regardless of your feelings, the fact is that that was not clearly incitement to hatred or violence, and that the poster was charged for "hate speech" for making political statements about immigration.
Lmfao I knew there was some racist shit behind your position. It's absolutely racist to imply that Afghanistanian refugees are rapists, which is exactly what the tweet does. It makes sense that Germany would have more strict application of hate speech laws, and it makes sense to punish German politicians that swing a bit too far into "But what if one of the types of peoples were not actually totally human?" again.
> that not only does "hatred" also have no consensus definition,
Law should be decided by popular consensus? So you're an anarchist as well? Well, excellent, then we can get into the inherent moral wrongness of racism and our role to engage in direct action against racists. This probably will be sloppier than using liberal democracy and well defined hate speech laws but I prefer it, as do you apparently. In the end, the people who know what hate speech is and abhor it far outnumber those who want to be able to call all muslims racist, I've seen this time and time again at protests across the USA. Even when the nazis are organized into cute little militias (such as when the proud boys came to our city), people are able to organize 10x more counter protestors on the drop of a hat with nothing more than an Instagram post. So, I'm confident that my anti-racist side will win out, and your position of wanting to be allowed to dehumanize people will lose.
What's bizarre to me is you clearly have a more subtle understanding of race relations than this comment would lead me to believe - in another comment for example you demonstrate that you understand that there's a difference between the PRC and its (alleged) "Chinese" race ("Han" is a word that is vague enough to basically mean "white"), so why this desire to defend racist politicians? Cause, that's your argument here, and as of yet the only people that have been negatively affected by these hate speech laws are racists.
Your response is entirely composed of of irrelevant statements, logical fallacies, and emotional outbursts when you can't muster up a fallacy. Statements like "your position of wanting to be allowed to dehumanize people will lose" indicate a chronic inability to actually think like a rational being - you're ruled by your emotions. You should work on being able to control your emotions rather than believing that your emotional outbursts make you not wrong.
> All law and words are manufactured.
Completely irrelevant to my response to your statement. Your statement was "I have no difficulty seeing the difference between hate speech and criticism of the state." and that's because you are inventing the difference between concepts. It does not exist, and that fact has nothing to do with the fact that words and laws are manufactured by humans.
> And?
If you had read two sentences further, you would have seen the "and" - that there is no consensus definition. The fact that the concept itself is so recent reinforces that. That's pretty easy to see if you read the whole paragraph.
> Would love to you point to an example of this that isn't racist or bigoted :)
I already did. Also, calling out the emotional manipulation in your comment in substitute for any actual point.
> I could ask anyone in Texas (my home state) the legally required pre-driving check that must be performed before operating a motor vehicle
Completely irrelevant, yet again. Laws are categorically different than concepts. The fact is that the concept of "hate speech" does not have anything close to a consensus definition. If you ask a sample of people in Texas what a "car" is, you will get a consensus definition of a car (and because I know you're going to try to be pedantic: to a very high level of fidelity, again unlike "hate speech"), because that's a shared concept in way that "hate speech" is not.
> Lmfao I knew there was some racist shit behind your position
Yet again, substitution of emotion for, well, the ability to think.
> It's absolutely racist to imply that Afghanistanian refugees are rapists, which is exactly what the tweet does
No, it does not imply that - you are reading it like that, because your brain has been conditioned to view everything through the lens of racism, and you cannot fathom that there are things other than race (such as the refugees coming from a different culture, coming from a different legal environment, or not being treated legally in the same way as other individuals because of their refugee status) in Afghanistan that can result in the problem of sexual assault. Heck, the presumption that if you come from Afghanistan, you must be Afghani (or of a particular race), wildly exceeds your own standards for what racism is.
Additionally, reality is not racist. The fact is that there is a huge problem with sexual assault and violence from Middle Eastern refugees in Europe. Pointing out that, regardless of whether the problem is cultural, racial (which would be false - this is not a race problem, but a cultural problem), or due to different legal environments or treatment, there is a problem, is not racist. This is a fact. Again: reality is not racist, and pointing out reality is not racist.
> Law should be decided by popular consensus?
Again, multiple fallacies and total failures of logic. First, you're conflating concepts/morality and laws. Those are obviously not the same. You are making moral arguments about "hate speech" that the laws must necessarily flow from. In your original comment you stated "You don't feel there's a difference between a State banning criticism of the State, and a State passing anti-hate speech laws to protect people from, e.g., nazis?" - that is a moral argument, not a legal one. Second - no, I did not make any argument that would imply that "law should be decided by popular consensus" - that's your failure to read what I wrote.
A misunderstanding that you then proceed to spend a paragraph working off of. Again, you have an inability to actually think logically, and instead just try to frame everything into a race issue, and then emotionally react to it. You finish with
> your position of wanting to be allowed to dehumanize people will lose
No, that is not my position - and you know that. The only person doing any dehumanizing here is you - you are intentionally misreading my point, because you want to turn this into a "racists vs anti-racists" issue that you can then use to justify dehumanizing those you perceive to be racist (me, and politicians).
> a more subtle understanding of race relations
Again with the race. Everything is about race and racism.
> why this desire to defend racist politicians
And again.
> Cause, that's your argument here, and as of yet the only people that have been negatively affected by these hate speech laws are racists.
And again.
And the fallacy that outcomes justify perversion of principles. And the labeling of others as "racist" when you have honestly close to zero idea what their actual principles are, and then the logically, legally, and morally insane idea that just because someone is a racist means that they deserve to be legally punished. That claim doesn't even need to be defended against, because it's insane. (it's not really falsifiable, either, because you can always claim that someone is a closet racist, even without evidence)
You should wait to respond to this comment until you can actually learn to use logic at the high-school level, and have the emotional maturity and control of (at least) a college grad. You have categorically not demonstrated either of those things so far.
> indicate a chronic inability to actually think like a rational being - you're ruled by your emotions. You should work on being able to control your emotions rather than believing that your emotional outbursts make you not wrong.
What are you, one of the LessWrong rationalists? You need to re-read your sequences, emotions aren't inherently irrational. I do find it funny that you seem to think you aren't expressing any emotion - your indignation, anger, and fear are writ plain across every sentence. As far as I can tell my emotions in regards to this comment thread are amusement and confusion. Oh no, I think your haughty high-minded defense of racism is kinda funny, I guess I'm illogical! I apologize for my emotional outburst, Mr. Spock.
> because you are inventing the difference between concepts. It does not exist,
Nah, it exists, you're just wrong.
> that there is no consensus definition
Insomuch as liberal democracies believe they represent consensus, there quite obviously is a consensus definition: it's the one the representative legislators wrote into a bill, and then wrote into law. And then the judicial portions of the government continually enforced and upheld this law. Doesn't get more consensus'd than that in liberal democracy.
> I already did. Also, calling out the emotional manipulation in your comment in substitute for any actual point.
Implying all Afghanistanian refugees are rapists is racist, so nah you haven't.
> Yet again, substitution of emotion for, well, the ability to think.
Here's my emotion right now: confusion. I'm confused that you seem to think pointing out something is racist, is an emotional outburst. I'm also confused about your dichotomy between emotion and thinking. All human experience is based at some level on emotion, so too are all human values. I think you may have watched too much sci fi or something, to think otherwise.
> such as the refugees coming from a different culture, coming from a different legal environment, or not being treated legally in the same way as other individuals because of their refugee status
Implying all Afghanistanian refugees come from a culture that promotes rape is the racism to which I referred. Racists often swap around "race" and "culture" when convenient.
> Heck, the presumption that if you come from Afghanistan, you must be Afghani (or of a particular race), wildly exceeds your own standards for what racism is.
Don't concern troll, it's so boring.
> The fact is that there is a huge problem with sexual assault and violence from Middle Eastern refugees in Europe.
Violence against women isn't a uniquely Middle Eastern problem - at the same time right wing politicians are trying to drum up votes by being racist, France has protests about a plague of violence against women. It's not "a cultural problem" at all, it's a universal aspect of patriarchal society. At least immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate per capita than locals, maybe they can help offset the violence that citizens are committing against eachother.
So, once again, the tweet is picking out one thing and blaming a random group of people as if this thing is unique to them, ignoring the rot beneath their feet. Something tells me you wouldn't quite appreciate a tweet along the lines of "More white men elected into government - bringing culture of school shootings into government?" After all, the overwhelming majority of school shootings are performed by white men.
> No, that is not my position - and you know that.
I agree now that you don't think you're racist, unlike many right wingers I've had this same conversation with. However, you are, I guess, by accident. As far as I can tell you think you're some kind of very intelligent hyper rationalist that "sees the world for what it is," including that, I guess, some cultures are inferior? You're blind to your engagement in cognitive fallacies such as cherry picking and selection bias. The fact that you're allergic to emotion is a personal flaw on your part, it doesn't make you smarter at all. It makes it obvious to anyone listening that you have no understanding of your own emotions, and are thus ruled by them. That's how emotions lead to irrational thinking and behavior, having emotions doesn't cause irrationality inherently.
Especially because you seem to think that accusing someone of racism is inherently emotional. What?
> nd morally insane idea that just because someone is a racist means that they deserve to be legally punished.
Not quite, I never argued for thought crime. Just the punishment of hate speech - which is generally defined as public in nature, so isn't even really an argument for your earlier accusation against me of authoritarian leftism (with the requisite pervasive surveillance).
> it's not really falsifiable, either, because you can always claim that someone is a closet racist, even without evidence)
I don't think that's very fair, I never argued for any kind of enforcement without evidence.
> You should wait to respond to this comment until you can actually learn to use logic at the high-school level, and have the emotional maturity and control of (at least) a college grad. You have categorically not demonstrated either of those things so far.
Being haughty and superior because you "don't feel emotions" or whatever tf just makes you obnoxious and cringe, please go read "How to Win Friends" or something, I don't really care, you come off like a reddit /r/atheist poster and it's embarrassing. Or like, one of those twitch streamers that "win" debates when they get the other guy to be mad. "Haha I said something horrid and you got mad about it, you lose!"
You clearly did not read my suggestion to not respond until you'd gained a minimum amount of logical competence and emotional maturity.
> What are you, one of the LessWrong rationalists?
OK, so you don't comprehend the purpose of logic in society.
> emotions aren't inherently irrational
Factually incorrect. Emotions are irrational. This is objectively true. When you feel an emotion, a physically and spatially different part of your brain is being activated than when you think logically. You might be thinking that some emotions are justifiable - and some of them are. But that's not the point I was making, so that would be irrelevant - the point I was making is that you think that your emotional outbursts are equivalent to making a reasoned argument.
There's no point in continuing this. You appear to physically be unable to avoid responding emotionally, to the point where you don't even understand the difference between emotion and logic, or the purpose and necessity of thinking rationally in society - and you're proud that you don't.
Your response merely confirms my observations. You are incapable of using high-school level logic, both in the sense that you cannot use logic correctly, and in the sense that you're unable to prevent your emotions from taking precedence, and even worse, you don't understand the purpose of logic, and faced with someone who can apply logic, you are unable to respond logically, and merely lash out emotionally.
>> What are you, one of the LessWrong rationalists?
> Your pretending to be Spock is a character flaw, not something that makes you superior.
You continue your trend of being unable to come up with any good arguments, and resorting to base character attacks that don't even have any meaning, and (amusingly) aren't even accurate. I'm obviously not pretending to be Spock - I'm not speaking in Vulcan or making other Star Trek references, and I'm capable of feeling emotion. That's a pretty pathetic attempt to try to paint the fact that I'm capable of using logic as somehow a character flaw or a weakness - you can't even make a correct analogy to pop culture!
Because you know what one of the differences between humans and animals is? Humans are capable of restraining themselves from acting based on their emotions, and applying logic to determine what a reasonable way to respond is. Being a slave to your emotions makes you like an animal, not a human. It's not a virtue - it's dehumanizing.
> It makes you irrational.
OK, so you just claimed that trying to make you rational makes you irrational, which is factually false, and clearly you literally don't even know the definition of what it means to be rational. That would explain why you're having so much trouble. Go look it up[1]. You've been the exact opposite of rational this whole conversation - not only are you incapable of correctly applying logic (given that every single thing that you've seen that isn't just an emotional outburst has either been a fallacious inference or factually false), but most of the time you don't even try and just fall back on emotion, thinking that it somehow makes you right or proves your point.
People like you are not a good fit for society. The reason why civilization exists is because people are capable of feeling a feeling, then restraining themselves from acting on it emotionally and using their reasoning skills to determine how they should actually act - which is what I'm doing. You're doing the opposite - you're just acting based on emotion. That leads to barbarism and chaos, and destroys civilizations.
Sure, I'm emotionally immature. I'll admit that, I'm not proud of it, and I'm actively working on improving it. But you're the polar opposite - your condescending statements about people who try to act reasonably (like LessWrong denizens and Spock) prove that you're proud that you're not capable of controlling your emotions.
You should think about the fact that civilization came about, and is sustained, by people capable of using their brains over their feelings (even if they're emotionally immature, like me), and is destroyed by people acting like you.
I suggest not responding unless you can make a logically valid point. You haven't made a single one so far, in this entire thread. Your most recent response doesn't even have fallacies in it - just emotion and falsehoods.
I've given up on you being able to convince you of the fundamentally wrong way that you think - it's clear that you're so carnally driven that unless there's a catastrophic event in your personal life, you're not going to change. At this point, this thread just serves as documentation for future readers that those who claim to be against "hate speech" are unable to use logic to either define what that means or make any convincing arguments around it, and are controlled by their emotions. Are you sure you want to add further evidence onto the massive pile that already exists?
> Sure, I'm emotionally immature. I'll admit that, I'm not proud of it, and I'm actively working on improving it.
Good, I'm happy to hear that, there's no shame in that journey, I went through it as well. I imagine many people on this site have, too.
> You should think about the fact that civilization came about, and is sustained, by people capable of using their brains over their feelings (even if they're emotionally immature, like me), and is destroyed by people acting like you.
This is a mischacterization of history and I'm confident on your journey you'll discover this for yourself.
I wouldn't be so confident that you're demonstrating anything other than the fact that you think things you disagree with are "emotional outbursts." Ironically, you jumping immediately to patronizing me is far more likely to be an emotional outburst than me correctly pointing out the racist nature of a racist tweet.
But, you said you're on a journey about this. How you talk reminds me of me a decade ago. It took me a really long time to grow out of the Less Wrong ultra-rationalist phase of my life and understand the critical nature of things like empathy in rational analysis. Like you I keep my email in my bio, I welcome you to email me any time about it.
No answer. As I thought, because that's a lie, and you know it's a lie. If you look up the definition of "rational" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rational), you'll notice that it's the opposite of being emotional.
> This is a mischacterization of history and I'm confident on your journey you'll discover this for yourself.
Also a lie. Zero evidence provided, because none exists.
> I wouldn't be so confident that you're demonstrating anything
I'm demonstrating logic. You're demonstrating not only a complete lack of ability to use logic, but also an inability to read. You need to go to high school.
Nah no answer because I took a break when I realized this website is infested with people who believe in white genocide / great replacement and I got a comment flagged for pointing this out, I got cynical and decided a break was in order.
I see nothing in your link that indicates rational is the opposition of emotional, or that rational presupposes a lack of emotion, or that rationality is incompatible with emotion, or that rationality is inversely proportional to emotionality. Which part of the definition leads you to believe this link supports your argument?
> Please explain the role of empathy in being rational.
Empathy is key to making rational decisions and having rational solutions to problems involving humans. I recommend reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie as a great introduction to this.
Example from the book: You have a customer coming in yelling at you that you overbilled him. You are 100% sure he's wrong. Your goal is to maintain the customer and lose the least amount of possible in this situation. What do you do?
How can you know without applying empathy? There are a couple options: You could say "well sir you're wrong, here's very clear accounting tables indicating why. I hope this convinces you that you indeed owe us what we billed you and that this shouldn't be surprising information to you." That sounds like a ridiculous tact, right? If so, you instinctively applied empathy. If not, well, I'll tell you, the best solution is to apply empathy: You see that the man is angry, you understand that you'd also be angry if you thought as he did, and so you talk in an effective manner to an angry person. "I'm sorry about the mistake, we have a lot of customers and these things happen. Of course we'll lower this bill to what you expected and give you a discount next month for your trouble, again I apologize." This is the tact Carnegie took in the book, and apparently the man calmed down, went home, realized his mistake, and a check arrived the next day with the full payment and a note of apology.
Who knows if the story is true, but it's quite obvious that the most rational thing to do in that moment was apply empathy to understand the man's emotions and choose a good tact that takes them into consideration.
This is true for everything involving humans: you must apply empathy to achieve the best, most rational outcome. If you're a politician, you must apply empathy not only when writing law but also when directing police in how strictly law must be enforced - if you want a new bike lane, you need to find a way to get it installed without infuriating drivers that got used to parking on the side of that road for example. There's literally no way of determining that without applying empathy - any attempt you make to apply purely rational analysis will at some point be taking into consideration how other people might feel about a given change.
> You should think about the fact that civilization came about, and is sustained, by people capable of using their brains over their feelings (even if they're emotionally immature, like me), and is destroyed by people acting like you.
I say this is a mischaracterization, you say I'm thus lying. Well, then, I say you've made an astounding claim, and astounding claims require a preponderance of evidence to support. Can you support your claim? Can you define civilization? Which civilization? What does it mean to use brains? How are empathetic people destroying "civilization" (all of it? Some of it? which parts? Which ones?)
The greatest leaders in world history were extraordinarily empathetic. Please go read some of Abraham Lincoln's letters, or read Marcus Aurelius (don't tell me you're surprised the stoics were empathetic!). How did Napolean turn an entire army to his side with nothing more than words and opening his coat without applying incredible empathy? Or take Eisenhower's and his legendary EQ.
Throughout history, no Spocks, no mythological benevolent sociopaths, those seem more a modern invention made for "literally me" youtube compilations.
> I see nothing in your link that indicates rational is the opposition of emotional, or that rational presupposes a lack of emotion, or that rationality is incompatible with emotion, or that rationality is inversely proportional to emotionality.
> 1. Rational decisions and thoughts are based on reason rather than on emotion.
> 2. A rational person is someone who is sensible and is able to make decisions based on intelligent thinking rather than on emotion.
Meanwhile, this incorrectly conflates emotional responses with using empathy to predict how people would respond:
> the most rational thing to do in that moment was apply empathy to understand the man's emotions and choose a good tact that takes them into consideration.
By separating them, you correctly stated that rational thinking is not the same as empathy. Using empathy to understand someone's feelings and how they'll respond to an action is a good thing, but it is factually (see above definitions) and categorically not the same as using your brain and being rational.
It's hard to understand how you read that story above and didn't realize that what's going on is that the observer uses empathy to obtain information to use as inputs to a rational decision process. The empathy is NOT part of rational thinking or analysis, any more than learning some information from a textbook and applying that logically makes textbooks part of rational thinking.
Above, you said:
> understand the critical nature of things like empathy in rational analysis
...stating that empathy and emotions are part of rational analysis. They're not, as proved by both my statements, and by the dictionary definitions I was able to find rather easily.
At this point, it'd be better for you to admit that you're wrong and do some self-reflection than continue to argue with the dictionary, because it's clear that either you're not speaking the English that the rest of the world is, or that you're using the words correctly but literally don't comprehend what they mean.
