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this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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I don't know that we are. It seems to me that we agree on what's in it, but disagree on whether or not it's valuable.
I assign no moral judgement to that assessment, it's just a statement of fact: a sociopath shows disregard for the social structures and mores that govern society. You literally said as much. But a lot of very successful, very moral people have an antisocial disorder.
No. They're just the most important parts of the social contract; the ones which are simple to break but have greater consequences for society. The majority of people do generally have to agree with them (at least in a functional democracy), but that's not the reason they exist. Outside a democracy, laws exist without a majority of people agreeing with them, but they still serve to maintain a societal structure. And, most importantly, a social contract still exists in those societies; it's just significantly different.
You can't unilaterally decide to shift the social contract. Sure, it's amorphous, but it's not a free-for-all. If you want to change how we do things as a society, you still need buy-in from others.
This has never, in the history of humanity, been how a "marketplace of ideas" works when a massive power differential exists.
Maybe. It remains to be seen. The night is young.
There are a lot of assumptions in that sentence:
first, that banning bad actors from a site is an expression of censorship. It may be, but I'm doubtful.
second, that there is an inherent moral good in free speech that makes more powerful people harming less powerful people into an acceptable sacrifice. I vehemently disagree with this.
third, that allowing more powerful people to express their opinions on a platform alongside less powerful people is equality. I don't think it is; a powerful organization or person could implement coordinated inauthentic behavior to boost their viewpoint's reach far beyond where it could go organically. So there's already an inherent and intractable inequality to begin with. Allowing bad faith actors to use that goodwill to spread disinformation is not an expression of equality, but one which supports the bad actor at the expense of the people they are harming.
fourth, that bad actors' goals are aligned with those of us who want a generally equal society. Fox (and conservatives in general) has shown no signs of this desire, except when they're on the ropes. When their people are in office, they pound their chests and make a lot of noise about how important they are and how everyone should just shut up and follow them. They don't want an equal society, they want an inequal society where they are on top.
Again, this is not the way that the free market has ever worked when there is any substantial power imbalance. If Fox's ideas aren't supported, they pay for them to seem supported and sow disinformation until they gather enough traction to gain the appearance of pluralistic support. They don't need support in a purely equal system, because they have money and a platform.
Ok, but what if they're not? We have seen time and again the "free market" making decisions that harm a lot of people. What if cannibals aren't filtered out? What if blood sport is legalized? Is that level of intentional harm justified by the moral good of free speech?
Yes, that's reducto ad absurdum. So let's make it more grounded.
What if the "free market" decides that a candidate should be elected who thinks that Israel should drop a nuclear bomb on innocent civilians in Gaza, or who thinks all immigrants into the US (legal or not) should be deported, or who thinks that LGBTQ+ people should be put through a "therapy" which has been well-proven scientifically to be harmful to those who are subjected to it, or who supports a complete stripping away of privacy online and "real name" mandate, or who thinks that free speech should only be allowed to those who agree with him? These are all real viewpoints espoused by real politicians running for office today. What if the "free market" makes those viewpoints mainstream enough that they begin to be enacted?
Is the real harm they cause justified by the moral good of free speech?
This is not a reducto ad absurdum argument. These people are actually trying to get those things to happen, and with enough manipulation of the market, and enough apathetic or "neutral" people, they can probably get it done.
(Continued in next comment)
(I had to break up my reply to get it to fit in the character limit)
Yes. But time and time again, courts have ruled that the first amendment protections of free speech end when you use them to harm others.
Aha! So you do have a line. You do think that some things are too far. You do think that we should follow the social contract, and that there's a point beyond which first amendment protections should not extend. You just think that line is when it could harm a specific group, not when it could cause general harm. So you recognize the need for the social contract, and you would even enforce it, you just think that the line is closer to the abyss than me.
No, it's called lying. And if you're lying, you're not a news organization and shouldn't be treated as one.
No, they just have an obscene amount of money, which gives them the ability to move the market to their own whims, and to cast people who express dissenting views as evil, or demonic, or monsters. And they have the trust of millions of people to whom they have lied and scared into believing them. They have inauthentically manipulated the market into becoming a monopoly for a certain subset of the population.
Think about what you're saying and what conservatives are actually trying to do. They're manipulating the conversation to make it seem like every person or organization capable of independent thought is out to get the citizens of this society. They actively call for censorship of views or facts they don't like. They shut down stories at news outlets they own that would make conservatives look bad. They fire pundits who don't toe the line. They've got the power and the financial backing to be able to do all of the things you're talking about.
...yes. A set of standards and mores that people have mutually agreed make society better. The reason that it's called a "contract" is that it's reciprocal: act in good faith and you are extended the benefits of having acted in good faith. Act in a way that seeks to cause harm, and you are no longer allowed to participate in society at the same level.
We're sapient beings. We didn't have to live at the whims of evolution anymore. We can decide what we want to be. We can decide to shun people who want to harm others, and we can decide to uplift the oppressed.
That's pretty much the definition of sociopathy: thinking that you get to decide how you interact with society, which values and mores you follow and which you don't.
Or it's narcissism, thinking that you know better than others how they want to be interacted with. I guess it could be either.
I'd much rather live at a disadvantage and be a part of a community than cutthroat my way to the lonely top of a pyramid that society might well decide needs to be dismantled.
The stupid "NPC" thing again, eh? That's just inane "alpha-male" Andrew Tate drivel. Sounds like narcissism might actually be the right answer here, since you think you're the "player" and everyone else are just "NPCs" in the game that you're playing.
Throughout history, when humans advance and grow as a society, it's when we move beyond that brain-dead mindset and work together as a community to become something more. And every time we do, the person with the least power in the new structure has a better life than the person at the top of the old one.
Think about it. Early humans worked incessantly to get the sustenance to keep going and reproduce. Once they formed small farming communities, they were able to withstand bad weather and poor crop seasons, and suddenly they didn't have to work as hard; even the poorest farmer had a better life than the richest hunter/gatherer. Once the communities got larger, they were able to specialize, and some people didn't even have to specialize in hunting or farming; even the poorest artisan had a better life than the richest subsistence farmer. Once we developed cities and nation-states, we could decide to build infrastructure and even bigger works; even the poorest engineer had a better life than the richest craftsman in an agrarian context. Once we decided to democratize, we were able to focus on making life better for individuals; and then most people, even in the lower class, had a better life than the kings they dethroned.
We became modern humans by becoming social creatures.
So if you're going to keep on your free-market, Jordan Peterson/Ayn Rand tomfoolery, you might one day find yourself at the top of a dying civilization (though it's pretty unlikely, unless you happen to have been born very rich).
Or you could give up your adherence to the religion of the Free Market, and we could follow the proven track record of humans working together to do better things all the way to the stars.