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The Internet Is About to Get a Lot Worse (US focused)
(buttondown.email)
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this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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You really can't pick and choose. There's really no such thing as 'good' government censorship of the internet, you have to block all of it or you're getting the bad stuff.
Yes there is. And yes you can. The only people that say this absurd fucking bullshit are literally nazis who don't want to be targeted.
"Hurr hurr you have to block lgbt with the fascists or you have to accept them both" is a fucking stupid thing to say and you should be ashamed of yourself and the general state of your life leading you to say this stupid shit.
Legal principles preventing government censorship are simple and effective. If you erode those, you have not a lot protecting you from shit like the OP bill. Nothing stupid about that, just how it works.
Preventing how? Clearly these principles don't work because the government that's supposed to be following them can just choose not to.
As evidenced by the myriad of "human rights" abuses done by a state founded on the idea of "civil rights".
The rights of man are predicted on power. Otherwise it's just talk.
It is a mistake to think of a government making choices in the same way an individual might make choices. A government is not a person, and a collection of people is not equivalent to a single individual in its ability to have coherent values and act on them. Instead, some framework for cooperation and compromise must be used. If your framework sucks, if it's especially wishy-washy and subjective, power seeking assholes will be more able to twist it around and abuse it. Civil rights don't always work perfectly, but they work better than the alternatives (like hoping a dogmatic ideology will be able to seize absolute power, agree with itself, and maintain sane values all at once).
It seems obvious to me that if free speech protections are eroded in the United States, that opens the door to the right in particular suppressing the sort of speech they clearly want to suppress and are actively trying to suppress. They have control of state governments, they get in power federally and pass laws on a regular basis. Is there any reason to think that wouldn't happen? This bill seems to be a perfect example: bipartisan legislation giving both sides censorship and intimidation powers.
As for whether the approach works in practice, and can avoid being a bare expression of the power of whoever is in charge at the time, here is a summary of historical supreme court cases related to Free Speech. I don't think all of these are necessarily for the best, but it seems clear that for the most part (with some notable exceptions) they are not egregious deviations from the principle, and are not expressions of the whims of whoever is in power at the time. It represents an actual restraint on those who would like to exercise power over others.
Since you seemed to reply in earnest, I'll link this and highly suggest you watch it. Even if you don't end up agreeing, I think it lays out the crux of the issue with human rights as an idea in a clear concise manner. It's only 20 minutes long and it's well put together.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AhRBsJYWR8Q (I dunno how to do the in line text link)
I'd go point by point through your post (which I did read) but I'm swamped with work and shit.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=AhRBsJYWR8Q
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
There is a lot here I agree with. I've seen stuff from this channel before and it's pretty good. Human rights are somewhat arbitrary, and are influenced by what makes a convenient compromise between power interests. However I don't think that necessarily contradicts what I am saying, because what I am arguing against is not the rejection of civil rights as a concept, but the catastrophe that would come from the dismantlement of this particular one in this particular way given the context of our present society.
From the video:
So removing rights is not by itself a solution, and can do harm. We do not exist in a society where the fabric holding it together is "significance of community". The spirit of discourse I see from authoritarians is very far from suggesting a way to reorder our world around "significance of community". Rather on all sides it seems to be rage manifesting as a desire to silence and dominate their enemies, with the consequences only an afterthought, that can or should not be seriously considered. Even while claiming mutual hatred, they pursue this shared objective together, and things like this bill show that they aren't even very committed to hiding it. The reasons why the success of one means the success of the other in this case are obvious; the loss of the right of Free Speech in this context means the empowerment of people who want to use censorship as a weapon, and weapons don't discriminate.
If you learn more about political science you'll find that there is more nuance, it's not so simple as all or nothing.
How so?
You'll have to go and learn to find out! Can't do any harm.
This book is excellent https://www.amazon.ca/Canadian-Regime-Introduction-Parliamentary-Government/dp/1487525370/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2YHH09AXAW3HG&keywords=canadian+regime&qid=1693850943&sprefix=canadian+regim%2Caps%2C259&sr=8-1
You can also ask pi for an introduction https://pi.ai/talk
I was more prompting you in case you wanted to elaborate on your argument. If you wanted to cite relevant passages from that book to support it I would read and consider them and maybe read the rest, but as it is I can't help but interpret your intent as being snidely condescending. Am I wrong about that? You're citing the entire field of political science, throwing a book at me that may or may not have anything to do with the internet or the erosion of legal rights, and linking to an AI chatbot.
I keep making the mistake of commenting on things that I have no desire to dig into. Apologies if I was rude. It really is an interesting area if you find yourself curious about it one day.