If the mere act of asserting the claim justifies it, I’ll just assert the opposite. Those books and speeches metaphorically changed the world. — NOS4A2

The burden lies with you, just as it lies with the Flat Earther.

Neither do I. But you do seem to deliberately go against it, — S

Nope. Don't do that, either.

I'm my own arbiter, regardless of whether it goes along with the crowd or not.

What do you see as the value of having a category of "hate crimes"?

Nope. Don't do that, either.

I'm my own arbiter, regardless of whether it goes along with the crowd or not. — Terrapin Station

I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps you just make your own poor judgements regarding topics like this, rather than as a result of an aversion to conformity and common sense.

What do you see as the value of having a category of "hate crimes"? — Terrapin Station

It sends a twofold message worth sending about crime and discrimination.

I’m not the one pretending words can “change the world”, which is the premise of sorcery.

It sends a twofold message worth sending about crime and discrimination. — S

So you think it's decreasing crime over simply just having whatever offense be a crime without being a "hate crime"?

I’m not the one pretending words can “change the world”, which is the premise of sorcery. — NOS4A2

No, you're the one attempting to portray something really fucking obvious as though it is an absurdity, which is just a fallacious appeal to ridicule.

I'm not the one arguing that we live on a giant spinning rock in space! Ha! What twaddle! What fairy tale did you get that from?! What kind of a name is, "Earth", anyway? There's no such thing as planets, that's make-believe!

This argument works just as well from our side:

"No, you're the one attempting to portray something really fucking obvious as though it is an absurdity."

It's an evergreen for whatever we want to use it for, I suppose.

So you think it's decreasing crime over simply just having whatever offense be a crime without being a "hate crime"? — Terrapin Station

I made no such claim.

Well, it's a step too far for me when people deny really important parts of history for the sake of argument. Pathetic really.

I made no such claim. — S

What makes the message worth sending then? What's its practical value?

Well, it's a step too far for me when people deny really important parts of history — S

Important parts of history claimed that speech is causal to actions? I must have missed that class.

Oh, shut up. I don't know why I'm wasting my time here.

“It’s obvious” isn’t a sufficient enough argument.

While it is appropriate to hold everyone personally accountable for his own actions, let's bear in mind that our individual world-views are a product of our environment. Whether or not it fits some legal definition of "hate speech", when people talk in degrading ways about minorities or ethnic groups, it contributes to the spread of bigotry toward those groups. Speech can do even worse than spreading bigotry: it can normalize mistreatment. After the 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue killings, I found some white nationalists saying "what's the big deal? Killing is a crime, but at least there's a few less Jews around". That may or may not constitute criminal hate speech; it doesn't tell people to kill Jews, but it expresses and spreads a horrible attitude - a world view that killing Jews isn't all that bad. It would be a good thing to draw a line somewhere that limits the extent to which people can make such public comments. I don't know where the line is best drawn, but I support having the line.

Rather than having the abstract discussion that seems to taking place so far, I recommend that everyone peruse what bigots are saying on the White Nationalist Stormfront forum. It can get pretty chilling.

Well your historical reference is only compelling if you already have the stance you have. Its not an example that makes your case any more than the Hitler example. You can make as many such references as you want, they don’t agree with you as to whats actually happening in those examples.

Rather than having the abstract discussion that seems to taking place so far, I recommend that everyone peruse what bigots are saying on the White Nationalist Stormfront forum. It can get pretty chilling.

Weimar Germany had fairly modern hate speech laws, under which Hitler and his party were routinely jailed and forbidden to speak. He used the persecution as justification for censoring others and denying civil rights.

That’s the problem. Hitler believed in censorship for views he despised. In a free society we cannot go about silencing views we despise. If you don’t believe in free speech for views you despise, you don’t believe in free speech.

Damn, and here I thought I was so clever. In any case, I assume you get what I am circling around. In your outlook cause is restricted compared to other outlooks, especially when it comes the phenomena causing humans to X. It seems to me this makes it hard to say whether public policy A causes to negative or positive effects T or Zed, since people would often be free to not be affected in those ways. So I am feeling around as to how you justify, if you do, why less is better. I can see where you could say fewer laws is something you like, but how you might get to fewer laws is better I am not sure.

I agree except for Hitler using his persecution as justification. Maybe he did, but thats not really whats salient here. Whats salient is that Hitler used the same laws and policies designed to prevent “hate speech” in order to suppress opposing speech.
Laws, including “hate speech” ones, are like a tool. When Saint Whiteknight the Great puts down the tool after saving us from the 4th Reich or whatever, old Captain Racist Fuckface Mcgee is going to be right there waiting to pick it up and use it.
Lets not put the tools in place for Fuckface Mcgee, ok? Can we be done now?

It seems to me this makes it hard to say whether public policy A causes to negative or positive effects T or Zed, since people would often be free to not be affected in those ways. — Coben

It just depends on the policy we're talking about. People have a choice in how they act, but that doesn't necessarily give them a choice in how they're acted upon. That's the same with speech. You might not have a choice to not hear something someone says (it depends on the circumstance), but you have a choice with respect to how you act in response to the speech.

If you don’t believe in free speech for views you despise, you don’t believe in free speech. — NOS4A2

Exactly.

Sure, yes, I get your position on that, I believe. I meant more in general. You want fewer laws. I think it is tricky for you, given your position on cause and what we must be able to demonstrate to use that word, to demonstrate that fewer laws causes a better society or more laws causes problems X and Y. So that's why I jumped to deontology, skipping the consequentialist problem.

If you don’t believe in free speech for views you despise, you don’t believe in free speech. — NOS4A2

When you refer to it as views I despise, that puts a subjective spin on it. I despise some right wing ideology, but I absolutely believe they should be able to voice their views. It boils down to whether or not there are standards that are more objective that can be applied. For example, do you think we should allow a public call-to-arms to start killing blacks? IMO, it's appropriate to silence that sort of speech.

Found it rather relevant.

okay, but that's what I was asking for. — Terrapin Station

I know that's what you were asking for. I'm interested in why.

Are you really so naive as to think that social sciences are capable of delivering unequivocal proofs of forces in social dynamics? I doubt that.

So you knew full well that whatever I was able to find by way of evidence would be arguable.

So why did you ask me to find it, knowing that you intended to find its flaw in order to maintain your position? Perhaps you thought me naive enough to be thrown by such a response, I don't know.

We all develop theories which fit a narrative we feel some attraction to. We all view evidence to support that narrative with little critical analysis and evidence against it we rip to shreds. I do it, you do it, we all do. So what's the point in you going through this whole "show me the evidence" dance? This is not some outlandish new claim I'm making. I'm not trying to prove crop circles are made by aliens. We're discussing a matter which our epistemic peers have raised as important enough to legislate on. We can take it as given that there is sufficient evidence to convince some of those epistemic peers, but not others. Do you really think that you - an unqualified, chat room poster - are going to spot the killer flaw in behavioural psychology that no one before you has noticed? Are you that arrogant?

Behavioural psychologists think that the link between hate speech and violence is sufficient to warrant limiting hate speech. That is the conclusion of the European courts. That conclusion is flawed by a lack of good evidence in a manner which cannot ever be corrected, evidence of that quality is impossible to come by in social science.

So the real question for anyone not qualified in psychology is not to analyse the evidence, but to ask "what do we do with insufficient evidence when we know that sufficient evidence is impossible to come by?"

Your answer seems to be to not legislate, but I haven't yet heard an argument supporting that position apart from the lack of unequivocal evidence, which was a given in the first place.

To those who argue both that hate speech is not causal to action, and that eroding free speech is bad for society, I'm wondering in what way is erosion of free speech meant to be bad. If speech is not causal to action in any way, then what good would the free speech have achieved such that its removal could harm society?

How come speech is capable of causing good (such that its removal is a loss), but it is not capable of causing bad?

The same way having proper blood flow is beneficial rather than detrimental.

Free speech is what allows a society to thrive, diagnose, improve and correct itself. Stifle it and you introduce stagnation and ignorance. Ignorant folk are the easiest to control.

Does psychology have any kind of data on people exposed to different forms of free speech in parallel? i.e Different ideas? Hate speech and counter-hate speech, for example? Are there demographics more or less likely to succumb to hate speech?

Well your historical reference is only compelling if you already have the stance you have. Its not an example that makes your case any more than the Hitler example. You can make as many such references as you want, they don’t agree with you as to whats actually happening in those examples. — DingoJones

Because they're idiots. You're right, the examples I gave won't work on you if you're an idiot.

Free speech is what allows a society to thrive, diagnose, improve and correct itself. — Necrofantasia

But how does free speech achieve this if speech acts have no causal effects? How does free speech make people diagnose, improve and correct things, I thought speech was supposed to be incapable of making people do anything?

Or, to put it another way. If we can rely on the good sense of individuals not to be swayed by hate speech, why can we not rely on the good sense of individuals to diagnose and correct society's problems without needing to be prompted to do so by an opposition rally?

Does psychology have any kind of data on people exposed to different forms of free speech in parallel? i.e Different ideas? Hate speech and counter-hate speech, for example? — Necrofantasia

No. None that I know of. The massive problem with social sciences is that it is almost impossible to properly control for secondary factors. We just cannot (ethically or practically) set up experiments with sufficient control groups to actually demonstrate anything to the level of accuracy expected in other fields. The question I'm interested in (of which this debate is just an example) is what do we do about that. Do we just throw our hands up and say "we might as well just guess"?

Are there demographics more or less likely to succumb to hate speech? — Necrofantasia

Yes. Take a look at the paper I linked for Terrapin. It talks about the multiple influences which are correlated with hate crime, of which incitement by peers is only one.