mowenz

If someone downvote, can you point out what is incorrect? It feels like saying anything negative about Tesla/EVs on HN is just downvoted without regard for merit.

If this was China or Russia, our media would point and scold, calling them names and declaring them immoral, and the enemy.

However, since it's the US, I doubt this will get much coverage in mainstream media outlets here.

The public value of the anti-authoritarian sentiment as an externality of psychedelic use could be quite high, depending on what it could prevent in our future.

It was not too long ago that in Germany a political artist was prosecuted for a poem insulting a politician.

In other words, governments have already repeatedly proven they should not have authority over what speech is acceptable, even in Germany currently.

Just a different perspective to answer this (and I am open to being wrong): competition b/w societies is decreasing. We live in an increasingly bureaucratic, interconnected, globalized world, and I think it is an undiscussed reason for this.

The incentives and disincentives to care for your neighbour or not, or to care for your group, decreased, and it will keep decreasing if this trend continues.

By that criteria, everything from schoolyard insults to poems insulting Trump could be made illegal.

I know you don't want to be insulted, or let other people be insulted, but it's a dangerous responisbility to give to government to make them arbiter of what speech is acceptable.

The point was that both are unintended consequences of things which generally help people. If we could have free speech, or roads, with no bad side effects we'd have them.

Once you eliminate speech just because you disagree with it, you begin the process of allowing the most powerful to determine that criteria for their own benefit.

The test to outlaw something should not be because it hurts someone. Just because you know some people will drive, or drive drunk, and this will kill people, does not mean you should ban driving, or alcohol.

Another example is democracy. Just because you support someone's right to vote for, and you know a few people will go vote for fascists, it does not mean you support fascism as a human right.

>where you think free speech was too limited in Europe and where this limitation led to a poor outcome for society?

The test for what values we uphold should not always be what has proven to be a good outcome for ourselves or for society.

Your same argument could be used against many human rights. What about torture: can you give me a concrete example of how US torture was bad for society?

Extending your argument from society to individuals, we make the worst tragedies possible. It is an important lesson from the history of Germany itself, in the quote: 'When they came for them, I did not speak, because I was not them. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak for me."

There is value in upholding human rights on principle.

Once you eliminate free speech in cases where it is convenient, you no longer have a free speech principle.

In Germany the thought police has brought people to court for things such as Facebook groups for people who don't like refugees. Maybe that seems fair to you, but then again a comedian also faced prosecution for a poem about Erdogan. Now imagine prosecution for a poem belittling Trump. It's the possibility of that outcome that we want to stay as far away from as possible.

Besides, it seems difficult to believe a legitimate role of government is to protect you from words, and words alone.

It's politics that benefits the 1%'ers in NZ.

Same reason why street crime is a real problem in NZ when it shouldn't be because it goes relatively unenforced, while they run arguably one of the highest War on Drugs cost/GDP per capita in the world. Makes no sense for the dignity of the average NZ citizen.

>"We have not, to date, accepted that freedom of expression requires the facilitation of the unlawful sale of goods."

That precise argument may be well-intentioned, but it threatens free speech because it sets a precedent placing a burden of acceptable effects and results of free speech.

In other words, should Tiamen Square be de-indexed globally because free speech in China does not require it. Should torrent trackers be de-indexed--free speech does not require illegal file sharing, after all? What about bit torrent clients? Tor browser?

This site may or may not be rightfully de-indexed, but it is not because of some limitations of free speech.

I don't think he is nitpicking at all. The US has too many conflicts, incl wars. 26,000 bombs dropped last year. Extremist fighters funded by the US Gov't (Syria, Iran Contra, and who knows what else has yet to be proven). We have 7 cities with higher murder rates than any country in Africa or the Middle East, including Afghanistan. Largest prison population, a publicly known torture camp... I could go on. But I think a lot on HN are obviously absorbed in their comfortable occupations--they're challenging, interesting and demanding, and also rewarding. It's easy to get lost in this and forget what less fortunate are dealing with.