So I get you are making a distributed reddit alternative. I read that most of you are left politically. You also view reddit as right politically. Which is interesting because I view reddit as left politically in fact extreme left but not as extreme as you are here. Given that reddit has purged many right people and those people have now attempted to also make reddit alternatives like ruqqus, saidit, .win, I get from their perspective they want more freedom which is to basically not have their speech deleted. Then on the left there seems an obsession to silence anyone or thing they don’t like, which I feel I am running that risk just typing this. So if lemmy feels reddit is not left enough as in the words of your comrade nutomic “reddit is far right”, to which i completely disagree but lets play with it, if reddit is not left enough I take it you mean it is not deleting and censoring enough? To which if lemmy is being created as a solution to that then I think the point of lemmy is to allow and enable even more censorship? I have to say if this is the point of lemmy that is both scary and stupid, scary that people think more censorship is in fact needed and stupid in that people would think more censorship is in fact needed, no well I just wanted to type that but stupid in that they need to make a new platform to enable more censorship, like wow.

  • Travis Skaalgard@lemmy.ml
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    Reddit isn’t far-right. It’s liberal. Liberals aren’t leftists. Leftism is about anticapitalism. Reddit is literally owned by Conde Nast. It’s just a corporate liberal circlejerk.

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    It’s worth distinguishing between:

    1. Lemmy, the software project, which is a federated alternative to Reddit written in Rust
    2. Lemmy, this specific instance of the Lemmy software, which for all intents and purposes is the flagship instance
    3. Lemmy, the federation of all instances of the Lemmy software (which, to clarify, does not exist yet - it is on the roadmap)

    Yes, the developers of 1) (who also run 2)) are leftists, and so the software is written through that lens. However, the moderation policies of this instance are completely separate from any other instance using this software, and you could start up an instance with a different moderation policy.

    Moderation under a federated model (federation -> instance -> user) is completely different than under a centralized model (website -> user), because of that extra layer. Instances can ban specific users and block other instances from federating. It is to be expected, then, that instances will be much smaller and can have varying moderation policies, because any user that disagrees with those policies can find or start their own instance. Because of this, I don’t think we will know what the common ground of Lemmy moderation policy is until the Lemmy federation is established. You could look to Mastodon (federated Twitter alternative) for an already established example.

    All in all, I would say that “the point” of Lemmy (as a project) is to establish a federated alternative to reddit. This particular instance is only part of that.

    • AshliMeachem2@lemmy.ml
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      Can’t login to my original account so I made another. Thank you for your reply it’s quite clean. I would like to learn more how federation will work and I guess you aren’t fully decided though. I will do some searching here on it. I am interested in how users will exist from instance to instance, if they could somehow be universal that would be great but I guess that may either cause security issues or a point of centralization…

      The issues I have with the left are censorship which they strangely try to deny while being blatantly obvious about it. I am somewhat fine with you censoring what ever instance you run I guess if it is small, but my main concern is that you won’t code with an eye against censorship and so the platform may not be all it could possibly be.

  • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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    Censoring racists is cool and good, I wish reddit actually did that instead of letting it fester for years until people point out that multiple mass shooters and hate crimes were committed by people radicalized to hate minorities on reddit. Reddit is then forced to remove those communities because of the bad PR their shareholders don’t want to be burdened with.

    What value is there in “debating” whether X race should exist or not? Below you defend multiple white supremacist platforms like voat, ruqqus, thedonald.

    Again, lemmy is not a free speech platform, we don’t allow bigots or hate speech. If the only “point” of a reddit alternative for you is to be able to say those things, even reddit is going to be a better platform than this for you, as they allow all kinds of hate speech we would never allow here.

    • Stoned_Ape@lemmy.ml
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      Censoring racists is cool

      From Wikipedia :

      Coolness is an aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance and style which is generally admired. Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well as its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning. It has associations of composure and self-control and often is used as an expression of admiration or approval. Although commonly regarded as slang, it is widely used among disparate social groups and has endured in usage for generations.

      • AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
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        Fine. It’s not “cool”. We’ll say it’s beneficial for society and especially the marginalized groups racism is meant to abuse. Happy?

    • forgotmylastusername@lemmy.ml
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      Users like OP make money for reddit which is why they allow it to fester. It drives clicks and views which translates to valuation. Same goes for every other social platform. It’s commonly referred to as “valuable discussion” but really that’s just coporate jargon. This whole social media experiment has been a sort of gradient search for monetizing hate speech.

      As long as users keep on dancing on puppet strings, corporate is grinning from ear to ear as the slot machine bells ring away and coins continuously tumble out the machine.

      • AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
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        Users like OP make money for reddit which is why they allow it to fester.

        Bingo! It’s money, not political affiliation, that drive commercial websites.

    • AshliMeachem@lemmy.mlOP
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      The thing is if you segment the racist from the main community and then they just go form another, probably with a new instance of lemmy what do you think is going to happen? They are going to be more radicalized because opposing views become totally gone. Then you get more shootings. I thought the shootings were connected to 8chan and facebook ?

      There should be no value in debating the existence or nonexistence of any race but you can debate differences in races because there is differences (did I just commit a thought crime saying that?).

      I defend voat, ruqqus, thedonald because they allow speech not because they are white supremacist, which they are not, except well voat is…

      So I am getting mixed messages, on one side apparently instances can do what every they want then on the other lemmy is only going to allow certain speech? So does that mean lemmy can, will or will try control instances some how? hard code in certain filters?

  • AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
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    The point is to create a distributed forum. The fact that it’s mostly leftists in this instance does not reflect what the entire network will look like once it’s established. Maintainers of each instance can moderate however they want, and the other instances can choose either to connect to them or block them. It’s literally just a bunch of independent forums but with plans to be able to link agreeable ones together.

    Then on the left there seems an obsession to silence anyone or thing they don’t like

    Really? Try disagreeing on the “the donald” site and see how fast you get banned. Try it in /r/conservative on Reddit. The fact that you think that “leftists” are the only ones that do this is ridiculous.

    I think the point of lemmy is to allow and enable even more censorship?

    You’re confusing this instance with the entire fediverse. This instance might be moderated tightly but not all of them will be. Again, it’s an open source forum software that anyone can run, for better or for worse, just like your more traditional forums.

    scary that people think more censorship is in fact needed and stupid in that people would think more censorship is in fact needed

    I actually disagree that “censorship” is objectively bad. Yes, political censorship in general is objectively bad, but there are things that are actually harmful to people and shouldn’t be tolerated at all: racism, sexism, discrimination in general, content depicting or advocating or condoning sexual abuse, pedophilia, stalking/doxxing, threats, slander, incitement of violence, the list goes on. Those things cause actual, tangible harm, so why shouldn’t they be censored? The law agrees with me too as many/most of those things are outright illegal in most countries. Unmoderated social media always turns into a cesspool of racists, sexists, LGBTQ-phobes, and edgelords. Show me one unmoderated place on the internet that doesn’t follow this rule.

    • AshliMeachem@lemmy.mlOP
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      The point is to create a distributed forum. The fact that it’s mostly leftists in this instance does not reflect what the entire network will look like once it’s established. Maintainers of each instance can moderate however they want, and the other instances can choose either to connect to them or block them. It’s literally just a bunch of independent forums but with plans to be able to link agreeable ones together.

      Thanks for you detailed reply. It’s good that yes anyone can use this platform to make any instance they like. It is after all open source. I am concerned that non agreeable forums could not still link somehow. I am also concerned that given the lefts pattern of censorship too much focus with lemmy will be put on that instead of how to be against censorship.

      Then on the left there seems an obsession to silence anyone or thing they don’t like

      Really? Try disagreeing on the “the donald” site and see how fast you get banned. Try it in /r/conservative on Reddit. The fact that you think that “leftists” are the only ones that do this is ridiculous.

      I am going to have to agree and disagree, it is clear that the current round of censorship that is hitting most is from the left. We even have a case now on thedonald.win of someone having their smses blocked and shadow banned by their carrier for mentioning thedonald.win. This is in clear violation of common carrier laws. The left also has a long list of nonos when it comes to speech, you only need to look at the rules on this site for an example. The right however has a history now of establishing sites that protect speech, with for example voat, ruqqus, saidit, 4chan, 8chan etc.

      Yes I would agree if a leftist goes to a right haven like say voat you will get destroyed, verbally and with votes etc and probably banned. I see this though as even more incentive that solutions that truly protect speech are found so it doesn’t happen. For example maybe you allow instances to store content and users from other instances but also block moderator actions. So if for example like we have on reddit now where popular or controversial posts will build many comments and votes but get deleted they can still continue somewhere else.

      You’re confusing this instance with the entire fediverse. This instance might be moderated tightly but not all of them will be. Again, it’s an open source forum software that anyone can run, for better or for worse, just like your more traditional forums.

      Ok so I did cover this before, but to reiterate I am not confusing them I understand that is how things are and will work. My concern is given the stance on this instance and some developers like nutomic I am concerned with the development path. I would really like you had more focus on tools to protect speech and less on looks, though from comments on ruqqus your looks do need some work but I mean to me how hard is it to make text work ok?

      I actually disagree that “censorship” is objectively bad. Yes, political censorship in general is objectively bad, but there are things that are actually harmful to people and shouldn’t be tolerated at all: racism, sexism, discrimination in general, content depicting or advocating sexual abuse, pedophilia, stalking/doxxing, threats, slander, incitement of violence, the list goes on. Those things cause actual, tangible harm, so why shouldn’t they be censored? The law agrees with me too as many/most of those things are outright illegal in most countries. Unmoderated social media always turns into a cesspool of racists, sexists, edgelords and other general toxicity. Show me one unmoderated place on the internet that doesn’t follow this rule.

      Yes not all censorship is bad, the problem comes when who gets to decide what to censor? The level of censorship on for example reddit has gone well out side what you describe but then also allows racism and sexism and discrimination if it is from a certain group to another certain group.

      The thing is speech in of itself does not cause harm. Speech is not violence. Violence in reaction to speech is harm. Now just because some people can not control themselves in reacting to certain speech does not necessarily mean you should stop certain speech but more that it is you should give tools so certain people are protected from certain speech. Which is largely what moderation is. It’s just not everyone needs protection. Think like a website block that stops your kids seeing porn, but you don’t ask the porn sites to be deleted do you? Well maybe in some extreme christian cases they would. The point is content doesn’t need actually be deleted to achieve moderation just hidden from the people that don’t want to see it.

      With regards to laws they vary widely, just because something is illegal does not necessarily make it wrong. All speech is meant to be legal in the US but exceptions have been carved out for a variety of reasons. The problem when you get into stopping speech is where do you stop? On the left there seems to be no limit to seeking censorship.

      You seem to be arguing in borderline bad faith but you can not show me possibly one instance of speech causing harm. The light puffs of air from a mouth and taps of keys or movements of a pen are not physically capable of harm. It is the linked actions to speech you claim as harm. And that I think is the problem, as on the right they have far more impulse control and so are less likely to react so the left will always be at a disadvantage to freer speech as they have less impulse control and as with their favorite word “triggered” so easily. This is a fundamental problem though because to be civilized you must be less triggered and able to discuss things without resulting to destructive actions. There is value to be had on discussing everything, including race and sex and more. With no discussion there will be no real progress and to that how can you call yourselves progressives?

      • AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
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        I am concerned that non agreeable forums could not still link somehow.

        Why? If one forum is an absolute cesspool of toxicity and abuse, then why should my forum link to it? Why should I be forced to implicitly participate?

        If you force me to host content I’m highly against, I’m just going to shut down the whole service. I don’t owe you or anyone else an uncensored space and I definitely shouldn’t be forced to provide it.

        I am also concerned that given the lefts pattern of censorship

        There you go with the “left” thing again.

        it is clear that the current round of censorship that is hitting most is from the left.

        Lol, have you even read up on American politics lately? Who is trying to suppress voters, the ultimate form of censorship in a democracy? Who is spewing misinformation to down out all the facts? Which president keeps saying that journalists who report on him negatively should be fired and threatens to cut funding to universities if they don’t agree with him?

        The thing is speech in of itself does not cause harm.

        You’re objectively wrong. Anyone who has been verbally or emotionally abused can attest to this. Anyone who has been stalked or doxxed, or had their intimate pictures leaked can attest to this. Anyone who has their life ruined because they were accused of something they didn’t do can attest to this.

        Now just because some people can not control themselves in reacting to certain speech does not necessarily mean you should stop certain speech

        If you say something knowing that someone else could see it and cause them to do something violent, why shouldn’t you be liable? If I told someone else to beat you up, knowing they probably will after hearing me, am I innocent because I didn’t personally do it?

        You seem to be arguing in borderline bad faith but you can not show me possibly one instance of speech causing harm.

        You seem to think harm means physical harm when mental/emotional harm can just as easily break a person. People have been permanently traumatized or even committed suicide over verbal abuse or false allegations. People have literally killed themselves over racism, sexism, homophobia and all manner of other non-physical bullying, try telling any of them or their friends and family how harmless those words were.

        All speech is meant to be legal in the US but exceptions have been carved out for a variety of reasons.

        In order of increasing severity: Slander, threats, aiding and abetting less serious crime, obscene material, aiding and abetting serious crime, and child pornography are all banned and all for very good reason. Those are all non-physical things yet they’re all harmful, so what’s that about speech not being harmful.

        on the right they have far more impulse control and so are less likely to react so the left will always be at a disadvantage to freer speech as they have less impulse control and as with their favorite word “triggered” so easily.

        If you literally can’t debate in a polite and civilized manner, which includes not dropping offensive words left and right or attacking your opponents, then your opinion probably sucks.

        And I’m not even going to comment on what kind of person you are if your “favorite” word is a slur that objectively has a definition meant to insult a certain group.

        With no discussion there will be no real progress and to that how can you call yourselves progressives?

        Discussion, not abuse. Spewing slurs is not discussion. Attacking people is not discussion.

        • AshliMeachem@lemmy.mlOP
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          I am concerned that non agreeable forums could not still link somehow.
          

          Why? If one forum is an absolute cesspool of toxicity and abuse, then why should my forum link to it? Why should I be forced to implicitly participate?

          If you force me to host content I’m highly against, I’m just going to shut down the whole service. I don’t owe you or anyone else an uncensored space and I definitely shouldn’t be forced to provide it.

          Well no I would not force you to link to it or participate, you seem to have missed the point I made which is if things get banned etc the conversation could continue. For that end I would guess that lemmy have some open api that you can continually pull content from.

          I am not asking to force you to do anything, you can restrict speech however you want just don’t expect to be popular at all or to be beneficial to society or to achieve those utopian socialist goals you probably aspire to, no one has yet and infact free capitalist society is the closest yet L-)

          it is clear that the current round of censorship that is hitting most is from the left.
          

          Lol, have you even read up on American politics lately? Who is trying to suppress voters, the ultimate form of censorship in a democracy? Who is spewing misinformation to down out all the facts? Which president keeps saying that journalists who report on him negatively should be fired and threatens to cut funding to universities if they don’t agree with him?

          Yes I follow politics very closely. If you think voting is the problem you a few levels not deep enough. Your vote doesn’t matter at all, you are not even given an option. The fact you think you have an option is how effective they are at this. You are watching theater all designed to convince you it’s real.

          As a capitalist I think government should not fund education at all, in fact I think many of the societal problems with for example woke culture and identity politics and disconnect from reality socialist ideologies are a direct product of socialized government funded education.

          The thing is speech in of itself does not cause harm.
          

          You’re objectively wrong. Anyone who has been verbally or emotionally abused can attest to this. Anyone who has been stalked or doxxed, or had their intimate pictures leaked can attest to this. Anyone who has their life ruined because they were accused of something they didn’t do can attest to this.

          Stalking is not speech, doxxing is used to produce a physical threat so it is problematic, verbal abuse is not great but you can learn to resist it, for example police put up with it daily and the effect wears thin. False accusations are a problem. I had always thought doxing was only a tool used by the left or well the examples I have seen are that, can you show me opposite examples?

          Now just because some people can not control themselves in reacting to certain speech does not necessarily mean you should stop certain speech
          

          If you say something knowing that someone else could see it and cause them to do something violent, why shouldn’t you be liable? If I told someone else to beat you up, knowing they probably will after hearing me, am I innocent because I didn’t personally do it?

          The person doing the physical harm should always be responsible. Obviously there is laws where say if a person asks harm to be done and it is they are responsible. It gets complicated for certain like that, because you can have for example criminal arrangements where speech is like pulling the trigger on a gun. One person orders others to commit crimes etc. Still the speech is not the direct cause of harm it can be viewed as a link, but the speech in of itself does not do harm.

          You seem to be arguing in borderline bad faith but you can not show me possibly one instance of speech causing harm.
          

          You seem to think harm means physical harm when mental/emotional harm can just as easily break a person. People have been permanently traumatized or even committed suicide over verbal abuse or false allegations. People have literally killed themselves over racism, sexism, homophobia and all manner of other non-physical bullying, try telling any of them or their friends and family how harmless those words were.

          Again these are peoples response to the speech, its the response that is causing the harm. I mean you literally give the example of suicide which is self harm. You will I think find that society has become much softer verbally and also much more sensitive, they go hand in hand. You can toughen and handle these with mental exercises. I am most sensitive to their problem but the thing is why does anyone have the right to control others speech when they can’t control their own emotions? This is a problem of responsibility and passing your own problems onto others only makes you less or even not in control of them.

          Interesting problem you bring up like with homophobia, this is a persons response to the expression aka speech of someone overtly homosexual, by your reasoning it’s the homosexuals problem because it’s his speech that is caused the problem for the homophobe. You see where this is going? you can draw similar reasoning for most anything even sexism or racism. Another thing is I am not so sure gays fair to well in socialist utopias…

          All speech is meant to be legal in the US but exceptions have been carved out for a variety of reasons.
          

          In order of increasing severity: Slander, threats, aiding and abetting less serious crime, obscene material, aiding and abetting serious crime, and child pornography are all banned and all for very good reason. Those are all non-physical things yet they’re all harmful, so what’s that about speech not being harmful.

          I disagree and agree. Again the speech itself is not causing the harm, but it’s the response to the speech, in those cases, like particularly slander stopping the speech seems the most effective means to prevent the problem. The thing is in many cases no one is sure if someone is slanderous until it is too late. Like with child porn too there is a gray area where it can be hard to guess an exact age. People get really sick having to filter it so like on saidit a general porn ban is just much easier.

          on the right they have far more impulse control and so are less likely to react so the left will always be at a disadvantage to freer speech as they have less impulse control and as with their favorite word “triggered” so easily.
          

          If you literally can’t debate in a polite and civilized manner, which includes not dropping offensive words left and right or attacking your opponents, then your opinion probably sucks.

          Not a fan of comedy I take it? Well it can be really good and uses a lot of language. Given that you just used offensive language to me what am I to think? What if I just start being offended by more and more words you use? I could easily throw this back at you and say if you can’t get past words that could be considered offensive in a debate your mind probably sucks, and I apologize I really do not mean to insult your mind it’s just an example.

          And I’m not even going to comment on what kind of person you are if your “favorite” word is a slur that objectively has a definition meant to insult a certain group.

          Words truly only have the power you give them, by being offend and labeling things slurs etc you are literally creating the problem around the word. Again it’s not the speech but the response that is the problem.

          If I started abusing you in a foreign language which I can, and you didn’t understand it at all, didn’t use a translator etc, how would you feel? Remember you don’t know it’s abuse, you don’t even know what it is except some weird words. Like if I typed some numbers 234234 and they were an encryption for a slur etc? I still used a slur I still abused you but you had no response, these things rely on the response and trust me you can control that. By insulating your world you are actually making that control harder.

          With no discussion there will be no real progress and to that how can you call yourselves progressives?
          

          Discussion, not abuse. Spewing slurs is not discussion. Attacking people is not discussion.

          Fair points. I get abuse, I get slurs, but attacking? You have to attack the ideas of someone else to have a good discussion and that can mean their beliefs and identity sometimes.

          It is sad the segmentation of communities online, it makes it harder for people to talk to each other and fosters bubbles, which will push further separation and in some cases radicalization. I look at the riots as a product of this. The super sad thing is this play is straight out of divide and rule or conquer. The rich minority that controls everything are the ones that benefit from this. The internet should be the most powerful tool to bring us together and organize but instead it seems to be ripping us apart.

          I would love to fix our democracy, and that means people knowing they are represented and by who and that those people share their values and ideas instead of just their geography… I get you probably believe in socialism, but I hope we at least share in a belief in democracy. I would be very willing to concede that a lack of democracy was the major flaw in communism. I hope for a startrek future where physical products are so easy to make wealth and capital become irrelevant. but we are very far from that future and to get their is going to take a lot of smarts and work still. You may despise capitalism but someone like Elon Musk having all the money and power he has now is our best hope we make things better. Because ultimately it doesn’t matter about most terrestrial problems something eventually a huge asteroid something else will destroy us here so we better move off at some point.

          • AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
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            If you think voting is the problem you a few levels not deep enough. Your vote doesn’t matter at all, you are not even given an option. The fact you think you have an option is how effective they are at this.

            I’m not American lol. I don’t live in a two-party system with an electoral college. Voting over here, while still has many problems, works far better.

            As a capitalist I think government should not fund education at all

            Yeah, profit driven companies funding the education of our next generation. What could possibly go wrong?

            verbal abuse is not great but you can learn to resist it

            I take it you’re the kind of person who unironically calls people “snowflakes”.

            Interesting problem you bring up like with homophobia, this is a persons response to the expression aka speech of someone overtly homosexual, by your reasoning it’s the homosexuals problem because it’s his speech that is caused the problem for the homophobe.

            Am I reading this right? Your logic is:

            1. Homosexuals come out and say they’re homosexual

            2. They’re mercilessly bullied and abused and shunned by homophobes

            3. They are broken by all the abuse

            4. But because they chose to say they’re homosexual in the first place, it’s all their fault.

            If that’s right, then just wow. Way to victim blame someone who’s already at potentially the most vulnerable time in their life.

            Or are you saying that it’s the homosexual’s fault that them being homosexual (something you’re genetically predisposed to and is not a lifestyle choice) “harmed” the homophobe because “hurr durr it’s a sin”? That’s even worse!

            you can have for example criminal arrangements where speech is like pulling the trigger on a gun. One person orders others to commit crimes etc.

            Exactly. If I know that my speech will cause physical harm to be done, I’m also responsible, because I could have chosen not to say it and avoided the harm.

            Again the speech itself is not causing the harm, but it’s the response to the speech, in those cases, like particularly slander stopping the speech seems the most effective means to prevent the problem.

            Here’s a thought experiment based on biology: Methanol is extremely toxic if ingested and can kill you. However, the methanol molecules by themselves does not cause much harm to the body, but when it’s broken down in the liver to formaldehyde and methanoic acid, it causes a massive amount of harm. Would you say that methanol itself is not harmful, it’s just the body’s response to it? In that case, we should obviously not discourage the drinking or methanol but tell our bodies not to be snowflakes and stop breaking it down into poison, right?

            Another example: a major reason why COVID-19 is such a serious disease is because it tricks the immune system into attacking the body. It evolved to do this and it’s clearly a survival strategy. Would you say in this case that COVID-19 is not the aggressor, but the immune system is? Actually, I think this is a great analogy because the immune system is designed to defend against or “censor” pathogens.

            Another apt analogy to your “argument”: “It’s not the bullet that kills you, it’s the trauma and blood loss of your own body, so it’s really your fault, not the gunman’s”

            Words truly only have the power you give them, by being offend and labeling things slurs etc you are literally creating the problem around the word. Again it’s not the speech but the response that is the problem.

            See my previous point.

            Not a fan of comedy I take it? Well it can be really good and uses a lot of language.

            The best comedy is fun for everyone. That necessarily means not using language that insults a specific group.

            And swearing and slurs are two different things. Colorful language is not necessarily harmful, but slurs always are.

            What if I just start being offended by more and more words you use? I could easily throw this back at you and say if you can’t get past words that could be considered offensive in a debate your mind probably sucks, and I apologize I really do not mean to insult your mind it’s just an example.

            The difference is that slurs like the n-word has a long history of being used specifically to insult a specific group. In most cases, slurs were created with that express intention.

            If I started abusing you in a foreign language which I can, and you didn’t understand it at all, didn’t use a translator etc, how would you feel? Remember you don’t know it’s abuse, you don’t even know what it is except some weird words. Like if I typed some numbers 234234 and they were an encryption for a slur etc? I still used a slur I still abused you but you had no response, these things rely on the response and trust me you can control that. By insulating your world you are actually making that control harder.

            Ah yes, the “what you don’t know can’t hurt you” argument. No. If it was your intent to harm someone or what you did was objectively harmful, you’ve harmed them. It doesn’t mater if they realize it or not.

            An example: Punching someone when they’re passed out is still assault, even though they didn’t consciously feel it.

            Finally, with the proliferation of machine translation services, if you said something to them in another language, they can trivially look up what it means. Language isn’t some barrier that forbids all information exchange anymore.

            You have to attack the ideas of someone else to have a good discussion and that can mean their beliefs and identity sometimes.

            Attacking their ideas is different from attacking them personally. You can say someone’s ideas are terrible in your rebuttal, but I won’t tolerate you insulting them as a person or insulting their race, sex, etc because those things aren’t choices!!

            • AshliMeachem2@lemmy.ml
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              4 years ago
              As a capitalist I think government should not fund education at all
              

              Yeah, profit driven companies funding the education of our next generation. What could possibly go wrong?

              Nothing but things go right and innovation occurs, prices go down. Look at something like the Khan academy there is so many obvious things to be improved in education. The public system is just a slosh of waste and more akin to a child care system than education.

              verbal abuse is not great but you can learn to resist it
              

              I take it you’re the kind of person who unironically calls people “snowflakes”.

              No not generally, I try to avoid insulting people as it is not good for discussion. I would however discuss people as being snowflakes or as a group like that but it is all how it is relevant to the discussion.

              Interesting problem you bring up like with homophobia, this is a persons response to the expression aka speech of someone overtly homosexual, by your reasoning it’s the homosexuals problem because it’s his speech that is caused the problem for the homophobe.
              

              Am I reading this right? Your logic is:

              Homosexuals come out and say they’re homosexual
              
              They’re mercilessly bullied and abused and shunned by homophobes
              
              They are broken by all the abuse
              
              But because they chose to say they’re homosexual in the first place, it’s all their fault.
              

              If that’s right, then just wow. Way to victim blame someone who’s already at potentially the most vulnerable time in their life.

              In some regard you got it right but I was not considering the response in return from the homophobe. That is something different I think but obvious connected. I do not condone such behavior. The point I am trying to make is things other than speech can be considered speech and can have a wide variety of effects on different people. There is things that affect the homophobe like someone expressing as homosexual and then things that affect the homosexual like being hated upon, in fact I would say too the homophove would like being hated on either, but maybe he also views the hommosexials expressions as hate or offensive? You go down this path of only feelings matter and you end up in a very strange world.

              Or are you saying that it’s the homosexual’s fault that them being homosexual (something you’re genetically predisposed to and is not a lifestyle choice) “harmed” the homophobe because “hurr durr it’s a sin”? That’s even worse!

              No I am saying people have a wide variety or response to a wide variety of things. Do you think muslims kill gays because they find them just wonderful?

              Exactly. If I know that my speech will cause physical harm to be done, I’m also responsible, because I could have chosen not to say it and avoided the harm.

              Yes there is a connection there but the speech in itself is not the harm, it’s the physical harm that is the real problem and the person doing that has to bear the most blame. To draw the vonnection there has to be intention and knowledge it will have a result.

              Again the speech itself is not causing the harm, but it’s the response to the speech, in those cases, like particularly slander stopping the speech seems the most effective means to prevent the problem.
              

              Here’s a thought experiment based on biology: Methanol is extremely toxic if ingested and can kill you. However, the methanol molecules by themselves does not cause much harm to the body, but when it’s broken down in the liver to formaldehyde and methanoic acid, it causes a massive amount of harm. Would you say that methanol itself is not harmful, it’s just the body’s response to it? In that case, we should obviously not discourage the drinking or methanol but tell our bodies not to be snowflakes and stop breaking it down into poison, right?

              Yes I would say the methanol is not harmful but ingesting it is. Your argument here goes absurd. I will concede you can have speech that can cause harm, go stand next running jet engine with no ear protection. You won’t hear any slurs or words you think cause harm at all but trust me you stand there long enough you will know harm.

              Another example: a major reason why COVID-19 is such a serious disease is because it tricks the immune system into attacking the body. It evolved to do this and it’s clearly a survival strategy. Would you say in this case that COVID-19 is not the aggressor, but the immune system is? Actually, I think this is a great analogy because the immune system is designed to defend against or “censor” pathogens.

              Most people and hence cells have no problem with the china virus like most people have not prolem with speech that is apparently “harmful”… ]

              Another apt analogy to your “argument”: “It’s not the bullet that kills you, it’s the trauma and blood loss of your own body, so it’s really your fault, not the gunman’s”

              Well that is correct, but more correct it’s not the bullet but the bullet damaging your body. Again these are absurd arguments comparing speech to bullets.

              The best comedy is fun for everyone. That necessarily means not using language that insults a specific group.

              No you clearly are not a fan of comedy. Enjoyment is subjective and so is humor.

              The difference is that slurs like the n-word has a long history of being used specifically to insult a specific group. In most cases, slurs were created with that express intention.

              Labeling and controlling peoples language is just game of power play to control people. The hailing point that breaks why the use of nword being bad is bs is the fact that nwords use the nword so much.

              Ah yes, the “what you don’t know can’t hurt you” argument. No. If it was your intent to harm someone or what you did was objectively harmful, you’ve harmed them. It doesn’t mater if they realize it or not.

              Sorry but this is insane. Harm has to be actually to exist you can’t just make it up.

              An example: Punching someone when they’re passed out is still assault, even though they didn’t consciously feel it.

              Punching someone is actually physically harm calling them a 183383 is not.

              Finally, with the proliferation of machine translation services, if you said something to them in another language, they can trivially look up what it means. Language isn’t some barrier that forbids all information exchange anymore.

              That is why I sad for the though experiment you had to not use them. Sigh.

              Attacking their ideas is different from attacking them personally. You can say someone’s ideas are terrible in your rebuttal, but I won’t tolerate you insulting them as a person or insulting their race, sex, etc because those things aren’t choices!!

              Definitely agree with you which is why I don’t get the lefts obsession of attacking people based on identity?

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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        4 years ago

        I am also concerned that given the lefts pattern of censorship too much focus with lemmy will be put on that instead of how to be against censorship

        This concern is very easily addressed by using a different platform. Nobody is forcing you to use Lemmy, so if this doesn’t appeal to you then feel free to use reddit, Voat, or any other platform that fits your values. The amount of censorship Lemmy has is not your problem.

        • AshliMeachem@lemmy.mlOP
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          4 years ago

          Yes I get that and I do use other platforms I am genuinely trying to understand the motivations behind lemmy. There is now a lot of platforms doing their own development, many open source and this seems wasteful. Lemmy interests me. I am wondering if like one of my favorite platforms saidit should migrate to it? Should I advocate this to magnora7 and d3rr? I know d3rr is interested in lemmy.