Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

[LeVeL]

See yelling fire in a crowded theater as an example.

Pretty sure it's not illegal to do that.

 

[Firecat]

Are you guys familiar with this recent case in which a girl was convicted of manslaughter for encouraging her boyfriend to commit suicide?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/us/michelle-carter-texting-case/index.html

Would texting someone to commit suicide be considered free speech? or would it be considered inciting violence or some other thing

 

[prizrak]

What advice?

See yelling fire in a crowded theater as an example.

http://civil-liberties.yoexpert.com...-shout-"fire"-in-a-crowded-theater-19421.html

Though the image often represents illegal speech, "shouting fire in a crowded theater" refers to an outdated legal standard. At one point, the law criminalized such speech, which created a "clear and present danger." But since 1969, for speech to break the law, it can?t merely lead others to dangerous situations. It must directly encourage others to commit specific criminal actions of their own

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Are you guys familiar with this recent case in which a girl was convicted of manslaughter for encouraging her boyfriend to commit suicide?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/us/michelle-carter-texting-case/index.html

Would texting someone to commit suicide be considered free speech? or would it be considered inciting violence or some other thing

In my own personal view responsibility always lies with the actor, one cannot compel an action via nothing but words, the decision to act always lies with the actor.

 

[GRtak]

Since suicide is illegal, that would be a criminal act that was encouraged.

 

[prizrak]

Since suicide is illegal, that would be a criminal act that was encouraged.

Fun fact, in NYC it is illegal to jump off a building and is punishable by death. And yes by the statute above you are correct, well assuming that suicide was illegal in that locale.

 

[LeVeL]

Are you guys familiar with this recent case in which a girl was convicted of manslaughter for encouraging her boyfriend to commit suicide?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/us/michelle-carter-texting-case/index.html

Would texting someone to commit suicide be considered free speech? or would it be considered inciting violence or some other thing

She pushed him to commit suicide. Even when he couldn't go through with it and got out of the truck, she convinced him to get back in. I don't know if the specific charges are appropriate but she does deserve to be behind bars, as she is very much responsible for his death.

 

[SirEdward]

In my own personal view responsibility always lies with the actor, one cannot compel an action via nothing but words, the decision to act always lies with the actor.

Actually, psychological manipulation is quite subtle and powerful. Once you have gained the trust of someone, through any means, you can influence their actions by modifying their vision of the world - through suggestions, information, lies - by modifying their emotive response - through empathy, emotional engagement, guilt, need for coherence, etc... - or by simple stimuli, like words, sounds, colors, visual effects; even something as little as a drawing may have an impact.

Clearly, not everything will have the same effect, but there is an amount of suggestion, coming from a source with high enough trust, that can push people to do pretty much anything.

i mean, look at all those desperately lost suicide bombers... but even if we want to stay in a more "standard" reality, shops are deliberately using color schemes, sound, lights, store layout to make you buy more...
Persuasion, maipulation, brainwash are realities, and in the right circumstances all that is needed to brainwash someone is to speak effectively to that aim.

--

I understand you vision on freedom of opinion and of expression, and I think that it is better to err on the uncertainty side that on the control side, but as usual, extremes cannot exist in our society. Damaging behaviours block a society from thriving, so if you want thriving, you have to reduce damages. To do that, you will have to put a boundary to freedom, at some point. The danger, as you note, is that boundary can be used to tie people down and to get the same result of a lack of freedom.

unfortunately, the right answer is a balanced one (and balance is not easy to find).

 

[Interrobang]

I'd argue that your view is more idealistic as you trust the government not to overstep their boundaries.

Yes, there is that risk. And democratic countries like Turkey illustrate that this Risk is a real one, that should not be underestimated. Turkey used to be quite a free country 15 years back in terms of the freedom of the speech, but that has gradually changed for the worse into the terrible situation the people there have to deal with now.
Which is why putting the spotlight on cases like the Cop in Austria that fined someone who did not address him "correctly" is very important. In Germany we have this saying: "Wehret den Anf?ngen!" Beware of the Beginnings. And it fits here. We can not look away when our governments or (here) our police try to hinder the freedom of expression.

And I find it genuinely funny that you are using idealistic as sort of a bad word going "No, YOU are idealistic!". I meant it as a compliment. It's good to have high ideals.

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[...]

There is a very famous (west)german court case from 1983 that covers exactly that topic and is now an exam topic everywhere in the world (the last 2 paragraphs of Part 1 are fictional to set up the exam):

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/library/dynamic/exams/printExam.php?id=72

Spoiler: The defendant was found guilty of (among other things) attempted murder and assault & battery despite suicide not being a crime in germany.

 

[prizrak]

Actually, psychological manipulation is quite subtle and powerful. Once you have gained the trust of someone, through any means, you can influence their actions by modifying their vision of the world - through suggestions, information, lies - by modifying their emotive response - through empathy, emotional engagement, guilt, need for coherence, etc... - or by simple stimuli, like words, sounds, colors, visual effects; even something as little as a drawing may have an impact.

Clearly, not everything will have the same effect, but there is an amount of suggestion, coming from a source with high enough trust, that can push people to do pretty much anything.

i mean, look at all those desperately lost suicide bombers... but even if we want to stay in a more "standard" reality, shops are deliberately using color schemes, sound, lights, store layout to make you buy more...
Persuasion, maipulation, brainwash are realities, and in the right circumstances all that is needed to brainwash someone is to speak effectively to that aim.

--

I understand you vision on freedom of opinion and of expression, and I think that it is better to err on the uncertainty side that on the control side, but as usual, extremes cannot exist in our society. Damaging behaviours block a society from thriving, so if you want thriving, you have to reduce damages. To do that, you will have to put a boundary to freedom, at some point. The danger, as you note, is that boundary can be used to tie people down and to get the same result of a lack of freedom.

unfortunately, the right answer is a balanced one (and balance is not easy to find).

I am not arguing against any of this, however the responsibility always lies with the actor. Those desperately lost suicide bombers still chose to act in that way they weren't forced to do it.

Also I was hoping someone would bring up suicide bombers, if we follow the logic of policing [dangerous] speech then it is not much of a stretch to suggest that we should be keeping close tabs on all muslims. Hell one could argue that we should be keeping close tabs if not straight up outlaw all the judeo-christian denominations as the Bible (Torah) has quite a bit of violent rhetoric (killing for not keeping Sabbath holy comes to mind).

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Yes, there is that risk. And democratic countries like Turkey illustrate that this Risk is a real one, that should not be underestimated. Turkey used to be quite a free country 15 years back in terms of the freedom of the speech, but that has gradually changed for the worse into the terrible situation the people there have to deal with now.
Which is why putting the spotlight on cases like the Cop in Austria that fined someone who did not address him "correctly" is very important. In Germany we have this saying: "Wehret den Anf?ngen!" Beware of the Beginnings. And it fits here. We can not look away when our governments or (here) our police try to hinder the freedom of expression.

Now granted this can be used both ways, but you know the saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"? If you don't give your government/police the tools to have that beginning in the first place you have much less to worry about as far as them taking that road.

And I find it genuinely funny that you are using idealistic as sort of a bad word going "No, YOU are idealistic!". I meant it as a compliment. It's good to have high ideals.

However you meant it, I stand by my opinion, I believe that it is more idealistic to trust the government to do the right thing than to err on the side of freedom. History is rife with examples of governments way overstepping boundaries, I mentioned McCarthyism very deliberately earlier, this is something that happened in the "freest country in the world" extremely recently and had a ton of popular support. That slope gets very slippery as soon as one steps on it.

There is a very famous (west)german court case from 1983 that covers exactly that topic and is now an exam topic everywhere in the world (the last 2 paragraphs of Part 1 are fictional to set up the exam):

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/library/dynamic/exams/printExam.php?id=72

Spoiler: The defendant was found guilty of (among other things) attempted murder and assault & battery despite suicide not being a crime in germany.

TL;DR version?

 

[SirEdward]

I am not arguing against any of this, however the responsibility always lies with the actor. Those desperately lost suicide bombers still chose to act in that way they weren't forced to do it.

I say that reponsibility is shared.

The actor has part of it, and the instigator has another part. And they may vary. it might tend to 100%-0% on the actor, or it may tend to 0%-100% on the instigator, depending on what happens in reality, but if you take, just as an example, the suicide bomber, the instigators are probably more to blame for the resulting sufferings and damages than the blowing idiots themselves (exactly because they are idiots). To extremise this example, think of the children suicide bombers (common in Africa): how much of the responsibility is on them and how much on the monsters that send them to die? Exactly.

Also I was hoping someone would bring up suicide bombers, if we follow the logic of policing [dangerous] speech then it is not much of a stretch to suggest that we should be keeping close tabs on all muslims. Hell one could argue that we should be keeping close tabs if not straight up outlaw all the judeo-christian denominations as the Bible (Torah) has quite a bit of violent rhetoric (killing for not keeping Sabbath holy comes to mind).

I don't think we should be policing speech in the sense that we should ban certain ideas or expressions, that is too much (and if I have to err, I'd prefere on the freedom side); but we should be policing the effect of those ideas. If someone spreads violent concepts around, they should be stopped when violence develops because of them.

In fact, the border sits in the limit that we all have to accept to be free. Freedom is not an absolute, it can only exist within the boundary of acceptance of the freedom of others, for example, so that if you want to be free, you have to renounce the freedom of taking it away from other people. And if you want to be free, you have to force on unwilling people the same thing.

It is the same reason why democracy can't exist if not by forcing a small amount of unwilling people to accept democracy. Without being too newagically boring, light cannot exist alone: it needs darkness.

So freedom of speech cannot be total, it must have a border. Which is upsettingly hard to find.

EDIT

BTW,

Hell one could argue that we should be keeping close tabs if not straight up outlaw all the judeo-christian denominations as the Bible (Torah) has quite a bit of violent rhetoric

Not the book, clearly, but if someone was to incite violence through it, and someone was to actively acting violence because of this, they should both be faced with their own responsibilities and bashed according to the damage caused.

That is if we all agree that freedom from violence is more important than religion. (which I hope we all do)

(in the end, it all resides on what are the most important values for the society as a whole. Be it peace, and the society will be peaceful, and maybe religious, for example; be it religion, and the society will be religious, and maybe free.)

 

[prizrak]

I say that reponsibility is shared.

The actor has part of it, and the instigator has another part. And they may vary. it might tend to 100%-0% on the actor, or it may tend to 0%-100% on the instigator, depending on what happens in reality, but if you take, just as an example, the suicide bomber, the instigators are probably more to blame for the resulting sufferings and damages than the blowing idiots themselves (exactly because they are idiots). To extremise this example, think of the children suicide bombers (common in Africa): how much of the responsibility is on them and how much on the monsters that send them to die? Exactly.

When I talk about personal responsibility I imply adults that are expected to be able to make their own decisions, children are children they are not capable of decision making (hence statutory rape laws that don't concern themselves with consent).

Instigators do share in the responsibility, however it is typically reserved for specific calls to action. There is a legal difference between "Ed, you need to go and bite every apple on that apple kart to please me" and "man I would love it if every apple on that apple kart had a bite on it", even if the result in both is the same, only one is a call to action. Also if you DON'T go and carry out the biting of apples there would be no charge levied against me even though I had clearly called for action.

I don't think we should be policing speech in the sense that we should ban certain ideas or expressions, that is too much (and if I have to err, I'd prefere on the freedom side); but we should be policing the effect of those ideas. If someone spreads violent concepts around, they should be stopped when violence develops because of them.

How do you determine that? Let's take those Scottish laws against certain types of songs at football matches as an example. Does violence develop because of them? The lawmakers think so. However that violence is still a choice made by the people who hear those songs.

In fact, the border sits in the limit that we all have to accept to be free. Freedom is not an absolute, it can only exist within the boundary of acceptance of the freedom of others, for example, so that if you want to be free, you have to renounce the freedom of taking it away from other people. And if you want to be free, you have to force on unwilling people the same thing.

It is the same reason why democracy can't exist if not by forcing a small amount of unwilling people to accept democracy. Without being too newagically boring, light cannot exist alone: it needs darkness.

So freedom of speech cannot be total, it must have a border. Which is upsettingly hard to find.

Freedom is not absolute in the sense that your freedom ends where mine begins, however there is no freedom that free speech can impinge on. There is no freedom FROM speech, there is only freedom TO speak.

Without being too newagically boring, light cannot exist alone: it needs darkness.

Physics disagrees, there is actually no such thing as darkness there is light everywhere around us we only see a very tiny portion of the spectrum.

 

[SirEdward]

When I talk about personal responsibility I imply adults that are expected to be able to make their own decisions, children are children they are not capable of decision making (hence statutory rape laws that don't concern themselves with consent).

This happens to teenagers too, and they sure have the ability to make decisions on their own.

The thing is people -can- be manipulated, even to extreme extents. It is easier to see when children are involved, but it also applies to adults. Sometimes it si more difficult to have a different opinion than to follow instructions and orders. Not to say that everyone is a puppet, of course, but that responsibility is shared, and it depends on the specific case.

Instigators do share in the responsibility, however it is typically reserved for specific calls to action. There is a legal difference between "Ed, you need to go and bite every apple on that apple kart to please me" and "man I would love it if every apple on that apple kart had a bite on it", even if the result in both is the same, only one is a call to action. Also if you DON'T go and carry out the biting of apples there would be no charge levied against me even though I had clearly called for action.

Yes, I agree. Speech is speech, not actions, but there is a point where speech is clearly a willful way to make other people act, and that has to be stopped. It's not the speech, it's the goal, the meaning of the action of speaking.

How do you determine that? Let's take those Scottish laws against certain types of songs at football matches as an example. Does violence develop because of them? The lawmakers think so. However that violence is still a choice made by the people who hear those songs.

Yes it does develop, even if the responsibility in this case is probably mostly on those who hear and choose. Yet I don't like to -ban- things, if possible. I'd like to intervene on the other factors that push people to action.

Freedom is not absolute in the sense that your freedom ends where mine begins, however there is no freedom that free speech can impinge on. There is no freedom FROM speech, there is only freedom TO speak.

Actually, you can impinge on my freedom by speaking and manipulating my free choice through lies, for example. Words are powerful. It doesn't mean I want to see them caged. What I don't like is words without responsibility.

Physics disagrees, there is actually no such thing as darkness there is light everywhere around us we only see a very tiny portion of the spectrum.

The duality is not physical, it's human. We only make sense out of contrasts and differences, not out of absolutes. We only see because we grab information from differences between different electromagnetic waves. If you could only perceive homogeneous light, you wouldn't see anything.

 

[Interrobang]

[...] TL;DR version?

Man meets Girls in discotheque, they forge a long going friendship where the man is a mentor of sorts. She is quite dependent on his council in all walks of life, she trusts this man completely. When he needs money, he makes up some guru- bullshit that he is from another Planet to make her take a loan and give him the money (to save her Soul blabla). He then later convinces her to get a life-insurance in his name and commit suicide by making up some bullshit that he can transfer her mind into another body that he can "get" for her with the money. He tried to get her to stage something that would be perceived as an accident - but ultimately failed due to technical difficulties. She lived, he went to Prison for 7 years. One of the famous lines in the final verdict goes like this: guilty of attempted murder with/by superior knowledge.

 

[prizrak]

This happens to teenagers too, and they sure have the ability to make decisions on their own.

Teenagers are children, which is why there are different legal statutes for them than for those who (in the US are 18+)

The thing is people -can- be manipulated, even to extreme extents. It is easier to see when children are involved, but it also applies to adults. Sometimes it si more difficult to have a different opinion than to follow instructions and orders. Not to say that everyone is a puppet, of course, but that responsibility is shared, and it depends on the specific case.

Irrelevant, a manipulated person still has a choice.

Yes, I agree. Speech is speech, not actions, but there is a point where speech is clearly a willful way to make other people act, and that has to be stopped. It's not the speech, it's the goal, the meaning of the action of speaking.

This is why there is a such a thing as a call to action. However I would again point out that the actor always has a choice when nothing but speech is involved.

Yes it does develop, even if the responsibility in this case is probably mostly on those who hear and choose. Yet I don't like to -ban- things, if possible. I'd like to intervene on the other factors that push people to action.

Not sure how without a ban.

Actually, you can impinge on my freedom by speaking and manipulating my free choice through lies, for example. Words are powerful. It doesn't mean I want to see them caged. What I don't like is words without responsibility.

It's up to you to listen and allow yourself to be manipulated not up to me (or the government) to protect you from it. It's a common misconception that freedom of speech is freedom from consequences, your speech shouldn't be limited via governmental intervention doesn't mean you get off scott free if there are consequences. Easiest example is threats against a POTUS, SS will come and investigate you if they catch a whiff.

The duality is not physical, it's human. We only make sense out of contrasts and differences, not out of absolutes. We only see because we grab information from differences between different electromagnetic waves. If you could only perceive homogeneous light, you wouldn't see anything.

Or you would see everything We can see different colors, which are nothing but different wavelengths of the visible light spectrum, if we saw all of the spectrum we would simply see more "colors"

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Man meets Girls in discotheque, they forge a long going friendship where the man is a mentor of sorts. She is quite dependent on his council in all walks of life, she trusts this man completely. When he needs money, he makes up some guru- bullshit that he is from another Planet to make her take a loan and give him the money (to save her Soul blabla). He then later convinces her to get a life-insurance in his name and commit suicide by making up some bullshit that he can transfer her mind into another body that he can "get" for her with the money. He tried to get her to stage something that would be perceived as an accident - but ultimately failed due to technical difficulties. She lived, he went to Prison for 7 years. One of the famous lines in the final verdict goes like this: guilty of attempted murder with/by superior knowledge.

Thanks. Sounds like just about any religion if you ask me

 

[SirEdward]

Teenagers are children, which is why there are different legal statutes for them than for those who (in the US are 18+)

There is not a clear-cut difference between a child, a young, an adult. We can clearly see the overall changing, but in the end, not one of the many characteristics, taken alone, is necessary and sufficient to change the status. So you have adults behaving like children, and children acting like adults. It's more explainable as a difference in probability for a specific behaviour.

This is why there is no real separation between one phase and the other, and the 18yo boundary is a decidedly smart move and at the same time a complete idiocy. Alas, it is the best solution we have, but it's far from perfect. This is why granitically sticking to it is not smart.

Irrelevant, a manipulated person still has a choice.

Not necessarily. The "still has a choice" is a terrible simplification. It is a good simplification, in the sense that it helps us coping with reality and acting, but it is a simplification nonetheless.

This is why there is a such a thing as a call to action. However I would again point out that the actor always has a choice when nothing but speech is involved.

Again, not necessarily. Figure out the case of someone with a very strict and indoctrinating religious upbringing. The religious authority comes up, issue a "suggestion", and that person will do it. It's just words, yet choice is almost surely not there anymore.

Freedom of choice needs to be nurtured, otherwise it will die out. The idea that a choice is always there is a defense against the idea of people hurting other for no reason at all and still not being responsible. (mind you, I've taken a bit of an example, I know that for the most part people -do- have a say in what they do. But not many times not as much as we like to think.

Not sure how without a ban.

The ban should be the last resort. Like I said, I prefere a place with too much freedom to a place with too few.

It's up to you to listen and allow yourself to be manipulated not up to me (or the government) to protect you from it.

That's a bit selfish, considering how many times people (including us all) are manipulated every day; bear in mind that most of our lives are the sum of small, almost insignificant but continuous manipulations. One builds upon the next, and at some point you may find yourself doing things you don't like for reasons you don't understand, just because they are "normal".

It's a common misconception that freedom of speech is freedom from consequences, your speech shouldn't be limited via governmental intervention doesn't mean you get off scott free if there are consequences.

Yet your line of thought upon the possibility of convincing other people seems to go in a different direction.

I think we probably have a simiilar take on the matter. I don't like restrictions on freedom of speech, and responsibility should be issued for what may happen in relation to them; which is not, I agree with you, equal to actually carrying out the action. In some cases, freedom might even be stopped. That is dangerous, though. Compared to me, you seem to being reducing the impact of word responsibility, thus refusing all possible utility of any restrictions to freedom of speech.

Or you would see everything

Not really; if you cannot make out the differences between one train of waves and the next, you cannot see any difference, thus you cannot see anything. You see because you see the differences between things. It actually applies to the whole of human perception. We all perceive everything we perceive in terms of differences and contrasts, not absolutes.

 

[prizrak]

I agree that it's not clear cut on all fronts, I am fine with case by case persecution, after all we do have laws that cover "conspiracy to X", meaning that even if you didn't carry out the X but were involved in other ways you can be charged. Specific issue i have is things like insult laws, it makes certain speech illegal by default and then courts get to decide how illegal it is.

 

[SirEdward]

Specific issue i have is things like insult laws, it makes certain speech illegal by default and then courts get to decide how illegal it is.

On that I generally agree with you. Words are tools, so no word should be simply banned by law, even when it might be used to hurt someone. Aftersall, if someone really wants to hurt someone else, new words will be invented.

 

[LeVeL]

Bernie and Jane Sanders, under FBI investigation for bank fraud, hire lawyers

 

[NecroJoe]

I keep seeing people say that "Mitch McConnell and the right's health care plan will hurt people...he himself benefited from the March of Dimes when he was treated for polio as a child!"

One has to wonder if they realize they are arguing against themselves. The March of Dimes isn't a governmental entity. It's a non-profit, funded by private donations. One could argue that where the government didn't help, the private sector filled in the gap.

 

[ScarFace88]

Anyone following what's going on in Venezuela? Apparently, a helicopter attacked the supreme court building.