Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Intended for constructive conversations. Exhibits of polarizing tribalism will be deleted.
nomadscientist
Posts: 401
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2020 12:54 am

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by nomadscientist »

Mister Imperceptible wrote:
Sat Nov 14, 2020 10:25 pm
If success is determined by proximity to a copying machine, and the entire political Machine is dedicated to gaslighting everyone about it, then the idea that the Machine would be honest about anything else is a joke.

Edit: I believe the phrase used to describe people who did not have proximity to that copying machine were referred to as “economic roadkill.” Those people helped create the wealth that the copying machine uses printed money to buy. To gloat over their fate as roadkill and then claim a meritocracy is preposterous. The people who have no access and worked their whole lives do not believe what they are told because many of them broke their backs and now they have nothing to show for it.
Could you clarify who is the "roadkill" here? Most people don't aspire to accumulate wealth and don't try. The lowest fraction of society for which this is even an issue is already relatively high up compared to the whole.

User avatar
Mister Imperceptible
Posts: 1669
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:18 pm

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

The people who worked in manufacturing that saw their jobs shipped overseas. The people who saw their pensions stripmined by private equity firms and hedge funds. The people who, not wanting the same fate for their children, sent their children headlong into the Education Bubble, and saw their children become indentured servants and monetized rent streams. The overwhelming majority of these people have good family values. They worked hard. They sacrificed. They were team players at work. Many of them served in the military, including in Vietnam. Most of these people do not have any animus towards other ethnic groups, provided there is a level playing field. And yet these are the people expected to bear the moral burden, after they have already endured the economic burden. Do too many of them easily believe in a flat earth or lizard people? Sure. But do you blame them? How can you reasonably expect them to have any faith whatsoever in “reputable sources?”

If we are talking about competence, these were not the people that gutted the country to temporarily maximize shareholder value in a financialized corporate regime. The class of people selling out the country’s future are the ones doing the censoring. Once again the answer to government incompetence and too much centralization of power is apparently even more centralization of power and even more unaccountability for incompetent leadership.

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by Alphaville »

Seppia wrote:
Sun Nov 15, 2020 12:06 am
I have been thinking about this very topic for the last few months.
lately i’ve been looking at it as a system 1 vs system 2 problem, but aggregated at a social level.

system 1 runs on emotion, wants to feel good, is bad at statistics and strategy,

system 2 is smarter, good at math and strategy, but makes people frown from the effort.

humans are irrational and operate mostly on the basis of system 1. but we need system 2 for long-term welfare and survival.

ideally, the people can choose good and capable system 2 leaders to operate the machinery of the state, replace them when they fail. but in practice, people often choose whoever appeals to their system 1 emotions, like so many political deceivers (i’m assuming you have berlusca in mind? matches the dates).

real freedom would be freeing people to use their system 2 and act responsibly, in a libertarian utopia. which allows society as a whole to compute and solve problems better than an elite. enlightened self-interest etc.

in practice though... we default to system 1 and irrational instinct too often :lol:

nevertheless, system 2 elites can generate their own nightmares. soviet history is probably a good example of this. they reduced the use of system 2 at the local level. hard to check their math & strategy once 5 year plans were issued.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by Riggerjack »

I believe the phrase used to describe people who did not have proximity to that copying machine were referred to as “economic roadkill.” Those people helped create the wealth that the copying machine uses printed money to buy. To gloat over their fate as roadkill and then claim a meritocracy is preposterous. The people who have no access and worked their whole lives do not believe what they are told because many of them broke their backs and now they have nothing to show for it. And then they become the repository of the elites’ white guilt, something to be denigrated and despised, so the anger of the servants in the city is deflected. So after being used, discarded, dehumanized, and gaslighted, they then get cancelled, censored, and told to shut up. Here, have some opioids.
"Freedom is what we do with what is done to us."
Sarte

I guess my point is something inconsiderate like "Yeah. So?"

Life is unfair, and always has been. The only real question then becomes what you do with that information.

So, let's pretend I agree with all your points about how the world is rigged. What does that change?

A have a good friend who told me about his thoughts along these lines. He said watch squirrels. They are driven to gather nuts. They HAVE to get enough to get thru winter. But there are cats, and owls, and hawks in the world. And they all HAVE to get enough squirrels to get by.

So when you watch squirrels move out of their trees, they are cautious, and speedy, and watchful. But they have to go get their nuts.

It doesn't matter that painful failure is possible, or even probable. It doesn't matter that someone else gets a better grove to gather from. It doesn't matter what happens after failure.

And when you internalize those lessons, you can focus on getting your nuts, rather than worrying about the ratio of predators to prey or nuts to squirrels, or other aspects of the world over which we have no control.

This is the wisdom of squirrels. I still struggle with this path myself.

But with the wisdom of squirrels in mind, is your focus where you want it to be?

User avatar
Seppia
Posts: 2016
Joined: Tue Aug 30, 2016 9:34 am
Location: South Florida

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by Seppia »

@Alphaville I didn’t specifically have Berlusconi in mind, tbh the situation has gotten so bad that in a recent call with one of my two best friends (someone who also left Italy, now in Sweden) he said to me “I never expected to miss Berlusconi”.

Berlusconi wasn’t SO bad, in the end he was a populist leader who was a (real) self made billionaire.
Kinda like an ante-litteram Trump with similar weaknesses but more likeable and with actual business acumen.

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by Alphaville »

@seppia - wow! i didn’t know it had gotten so bad. i’ve been seeing things about the growing debt, but have not looked in depth at any european news lately, not for over a year. slowly returning to it now.

my problem with populism these days is that it often caters to the cravings of the masses as opposed to what’s necessary. i.e. it utilizes propaganda techniques to make people “feel good” even when acting against their own interests. in other words, it foments irrationality to run scams on the public. but elitism too can be self-preserving and deaf to public needs. and so we bounce somewhere in the middle, between the extremes of autocracy and mob rule.

regardless... governing people is the most difficult and contradictory art. it’s hard enough to govern one’s self; adding millions to this is beyond complicated. i have no solution for it, and i don’t think anybody really does... good government, rather than a theory, it’s more of an “i know it when i see it,” a bit like this board or your singapore experience. and then something happens, and things go to pieces. :lol:

nomadscientist
Posts: 401
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2020 12:54 am

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by nomadscientist »

@Mister Imperceptible

I agree those things happened, but why did they happen due to proximity to the printing machine (or any other form of political corruption)?

Surely they happened because of the inherently low value of the skills those people possess, at least in the present state of technology?

That combined with a propensity not to build wealth which imo shields them from the effects of the printing machine/political favouritism (America actually makes the debt-consumer a sort of privileged person although, like a drug addict, any amount of privileging tends to still leave the lifestyle worse than alternatives).


Campitor
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:49 am

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by Campitor »

Seppia wrote:
Sun Nov 15, 2020 12:06 am
Now when I compare this with say Singapore, which is basically a soft dictatorship, I cannot help but notice how things work flawlessly, how public sector corruption is almost non-existent, how the quality of education is sky high, how they plan 30-50 years ahead as opposed to 3-4 months.

I honestly think that now, I'd prefer the latter. I've basically came to realize that what I want from my government is not as much freedom as possible, but rather to maximize quality of life for the overall population.
How deeply have you actually looked into Singapore? They still use judicially mandated canings as a deterrent to crime. And you can get caned in school up to junior college - publicly if you are a repeat offender or have done something especially egregious. And parents can legally cane their children. And they can also cane anyone who has overstayed their visa by 90 days which discourages illegal immigration.

An observation of the after effects of a prisoner caning:
The wounds usually take between a week and a month to heal, depending on the number of strokes received. During this time, offenders cannot sit down or lie down on their backs, and experience difficulties controlling their bowels. Bleeding from the buttocks may still occur in the days after the caning.[41][57] M Ravi, a human rights lawyer, described the injuries of his client, Ye Ming Yuen, who received 24 strokes, as follows:
All over his buttocks were multiple marks and deep lacerations. It was so shocking [that] my female paralegal who was with me almost fainted. [...] The wounds were so deep with blood, flesh and layers of the skin exposed. He didn't have any bandages, just a towel to put over the buttocks. He couldn't sit for too long so he was standing up.

Permanent scars remain even after the wounds have healed.
And LGBTQ rights are restricted: they can't marry, they can't adopt children. Only heterosexual marriage is allowed.

And they also have the Internal Security Act. Pasted below are some aspects of the ISA:
(1) If an Act recites that action has been taken or threatened by any substantial body of persons, whether inside or outside Singapore —

(a) to cause, or to cause a substantial number of citizens to fear, organised violence against persons or property;
(b) to excite disaffection against the President or the Government;
(c) to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or other classes of the population likely to cause violence;
(d) to procure the alteration, otherwise than by lawful means, of anything by law established; or
(e) which is prejudicial to the security of Singapore,
...it is sufficient for the President to be subjectively satisfied that a detainee is a threat to national security in order for a detention order to be issued under the ISA. Notable ISA cases include Operation Coldstore in 1963 which led to the arrest of some 100 left-wing politicians and trade unionists, including members of the socialist opposition party, the Barisan Sosialis. Chia Thye Poh, an alleged Communist, was detained and subject to other restrictions on his liberty under the ISA from 1966 to 1998. The Chng Suan Tze and Teo Soh Lung cases resulted from a 1987 security operation called Operation Spectrum in which 22 Roman Catholic church and social activists and professionals accused of being members of a Marxist conspiracy were detained under the ISA.

The ISA also empowers the authorities to prohibit political and quasi-military organizations, ban subversive documents and publications, shut down entertainments and exhibitions that are or are likely to be detrimental to the national interest, and to suppress organized violence by declaring parts of Singapore to be security areas...
And then there are the laws regarding illegitimate children in Singapore. Here are some features of that policy:
  • Your illegitimate child is not eligible for the Child Development Co-Savings (Baby Bonus) Scheme which includes the Baby Bonus cash gift and the dollar-for-dollar matching of savings for the child
  • Your illegitimate child is not eligible for the Child Development Co-Savings (Baby Bonus) Scheme which includes the Baby Bonus cash gift and the dollar-for-dollar matching of savings for the child.
  • ...under Singapore law, a child born out of surrogacy is not considered the child of the biological parents, and hence illegitimate.
Singapore does have an extremely low crime rate but it's a very conservative country. Would you be willing to accept the above practices (there are many other laws of the same character) to achieve your socially stable society? Would your fellow citizens? Just like freedom isn't free, so is social stability - there are always tradeoffs.

User avatar
Seppia
Posts: 2016
Joined: Tue Aug 30, 2016 9:34 am
Location: South Florida

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by Seppia »

@campitor
That was precisely my point.
It is a very sad thing, but I have come to the conclusion that it may be better to live in a “democracy minus” run by smart people VS a “full democracy” that leads to idiots running the show.

chenda
Posts: 3289
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:17 pm
Location: Nether Wallop

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by chenda »

@Seppia - I have followed a similar thought trajectory as yours. I think there is maybe too much freedom in the west, and there is a cost to that which is becoming too high. Like most things, you want an optimum balance between personal freedom and the collective good.

Consider Singapore in the 1950s was a corrupt, resourceless, impoverished, crime ridden hell hole, ravaged by war and was about to be kicked out of Malaysia because it was considered a nuisance. Lee Kuan Yew transformed the country into one of the most successful nations on earth. He did through a lot of big government, central planning and the heavy suppression of individual rights for the collective good (some westerners very wrongly believe it to be some kind of free market Libertarian society, which it manifestly is not)

Yes there is a cost to that, but I for one would like to live in a nation where I can walk down dark alleys at night knowing I won't get raped or murdered. And if I was, I'd certainly want the perpetrators flogged so hard they'll have to sit on an air cushion for many years. Imagine if Lee Kuan Yew was in charge of Italy; the mafia would be liquidated, corruption would be eradicated and the country would be an earthly paradise, at least for those who behaved themselves. Ireland is in need of similar treatment.

Maybe Singapore goes too far, at least by western standards. I don't agree with everything they do, especially the lack of judicial independence and arcane notions of 'illigitimate children', an evil concept which needs dumping in the dustbin of history.

But maybe we don't need to look to the far east. Maybe Switzerland and Scandinavia provides us with more workable examples of much better run societies which don't need to cane people to get them to behave better.

Perhaps Italy is just too big and too provincealist to work. Maybe unification was a mistake and the country would better off broken up into smaller parts, perhaps adopting the Swiss model of direct democracy ? I see smaller countries as having an increasing competitive advantage in the future, and larger nations (say 10/15 million +) will need to decentralise heavily to compete. This might be a better and more sustainable way forward than dictatorship-lite.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by jacob »

I don't like this thread.

I appreciate that facebook and twitter finally cleaned up their act somewhat. I considered the idea that "the best way of countering bad speech is with more speech" to be somewhat disingenuous (ideologically blind?) and rather self-serving on part of Zuckerberg et al. It is definitely not a sentiment that I condone as should be clear from viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6780 (5, 6, 7, 8, 10)

To put it in slogan form: "Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn't freedom. It's adolescence." However, that is somewhat the juvenile attitude one might expect from the Silicon Valley mindset. "Move fast and break things" sounds a lot better when one isn't stuck with the parental role of having to clean up the resulting mess.

The practical (human cognitive liability) problem with the "open-season" strategy is that there's only one objective truth but a potentially infinite number of falsehoods(*) creating very long odds indeed for a fact-based reality in the minds of a mostly uninformed public(**). The idea that a bunch of uninformed people can somewhat arrive at objective conclusions by hurling insults at each other on facebook is a lot more unlikely than the idea that maximizing "angry engagement" is a profitable business model.

(*) There seems to be no upper limit to the level of stupid things people are willing to believe... or at least I keep underestimating it anyway.
(**) Measuring the level of political knowledge in the general public shows that the average is low but the variation is high. This means that most people know very little, some know a lot, and some know less than nothing---they're actively disinformed.

Apparently this was resolved by tweaking the algorithms just enough to remove the worst disinformation while retaining engagement (and the resulting monetization). IOW, they found a tech solution that didn't cost them any monies.

Social media companies monetized and spent down much of the social capital that is the trust that was built up over the past century(***). Good for them, I suppose. They got rich ... and the cost was externalized to the public in the form of broken relationships, family members who no longer talk to each other, and a completely polarized political environment in which many don't know anything about politics beyond the gut feeling that they're definitely against the other team.

(***) I've been online since the beginning (1980s). I remember welcoming the [inter]net and its loss of institutional gatekeepers because it allowed opinions beyond the mainstream to be heard. However, back then people still retained the classical values of self-moderation that fostered being polite, maintaining personal reputation, doing unto others, and not lying. That's the social capital I mentioned above. Freedom of expression was a positive under those legacy self-constraints. However, Eternal September, anonymity, viral sharing, algorithms pushing people's buttons (fake news is liked and shared more rapidly than real news), and bad actors (bandits) have effectively destroyed this. Therefore I no longer believe that unmitigated freedom of expression is a 100% positive good. Indeed, that level was lost at least a decade ago.

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by IlliniDave »

Seppia wrote:
Thu Dec 31, 2020 10:34 am
@campitor
That was precisely my point.
... I have come to the conclusion that it may be better to live in a “democracy minus” run by smart people VS a “full democracy” ...
Ugh. I have no desire for a place where (to steal a line from one of my favorite songs) those who know what's best for us must rise and save us from ourselves. We'll be back to (stealing another line from another song by the same band) there's no bread, let 'em eat cake. Ruling classes rule for themselves, not for altruism. If they did people would probably elect the "smart people" consistently. But when they see themselves screwed for generations, they use their vote to try to expel the screwers from power. That's sometimes a scary proposition for elitists, but t is a necessary tension to preserve balance.

User avatar
Mister Imperceptible
Posts: 1669
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:18 pm

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

It is pretty indicative that the points likes ones raised by Greenwald in his article were cause for him to be censored. If journalists at reputable institutions brought up the points he raised, it would not be necessary for him to migrate to Substack as an independent.

For example, repeatedly insisting that Trump was authoritarian (when Greenwald demonstrates how far that is from the truth), and insisting upon only having political conversations based on that assumption, you force those who know that is not true to either accept the dissonance or end the conversation.

User avatar
Alphaville
Posts: 3611
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:50 am
Location: Quarantined

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by Alphaville »

Mister Imperceptible wrote:
Thu Dec 31, 2020 3:03 pm
demonstrates
opines

the piece reads to me not so much as actually exonerating him of authoritarianism ("unknowable and irrelevant") but simply casting him as ineffectual in his threats and pursuits.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by jacob »

Indeed. It smells like sophism (rather than journalism?) to argue at which point "a bad driver" is so bad at driving that they're no longer "a driver". As long as they're behind the wheel and the engine is on, they're driving, hence they're a driver. Mens rea (to use a legal term) is fairly established when it comes to political orientation. And there are actual ways of identifying political orientations. Bernie Sanders is not less of a [democratic] socialist just because he isn't the president. But that's a separate point ...

More to the point, just because, to take a personal example, I get interviewed by mainstream media and they choose not to run with my story and instead pick some millennial spending 10x as much as I do so as not to alienate their readers or advertisers doesn't mean I'm getting censored [by the media] either. It is actually the function of [traditional mass] media to somewhat "keep the gate" and not just publish any old opinion or story. In response, people are free (from government interference) to publish their own blog or book. (Incidentally what I did after getting rejected by the publisher that initially contacted me.)

User avatar
Mister Imperceptible
Posts: 1669
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:18 pm

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

Another unfortunate development has been tribalism parading as objectivity or true neutrality.

For example, if it is posited that a new tribe emerges composed of “connected insiders, meritorious, and minorities” against “a previously privileged majority,” to use the Gervais classifications, we could call the insiders “Sociopaths” and the minorities “Losers.” Which leaves the “meritorious” as “Clueless.” However the Clueless seem clueless about how many of the previously privileged were formerly meritorious, and also clueless what the future holds for those who think themselves meritorious now.

The dissonance is perfectly expected in a decaying civilization. It is essential to the survival of a tribe to delude themselves that they are the truthful, objective, Good Ones, when true objectivity would have one conclude there is no such thing.

Greenwald seems to hedge against the possibility of being wrong by suggesting that if Trump wished to be authoritarian, he was ineffective, but that more likely he was not because he did not use the pandemic as did Orbán in Hungary to declare martial law and seize power. The piece will of course read to you however it might.

Of course we can just gloss over the prosecution of Julian Assange, the record number of crackdowns on whistleblowers by the Obama administration, the centralization of economic power by the Federal Reserve and the censorship of the Hunter Biden story by a media that spent 4 years shrieking about Russiagate.

Loner
Posts: 221
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 2:26 pm

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by Loner »

Whatever one wants to call it ("Censorship", "Bias", etc.), the current situation in the media (including social media), is worrying. It's true that it'd be wrong to call it censorship if the simply media refuses to speak to you (or use an interview he did with you). A journalist's real job, much more than following guidelines such as "Objectivity", "Balance" and "Neutrality", is to find the truth, and for this purpose he can tell the stories he finds most suitable. (The media's job has never been traditionnaly to somewhat "keep the gate", whatever that means, unless you meant "to protect the elite's [owner's] interest", as traditionnaly, journalists were mostly uneducated.) The problem is that it is difficult to do just that now (i.e. searching for truth), for certain journalists in the big media (who have certain viewpoints). Greenwald and Taibbi have written and spoken about this many times, and even a casual observer must have seen how difficult it's becoming for journalists to do good work in certain outlets (thus the need for some of them to fly to independent platforms). It should be of some concern that it just doesn't do, in the country's (world's) foremost media, to point out the Democrats' failings as forecefully as one does the Republicans'. US media has been biased in favor of the elite for a long time (Watergate wouldn't have made much noise had it simply been another case of getting one over the general population, and had it not upset an important faction of the elite), and many of them have had a liberal-lean for a long time, but it seems to be worsening.

And as Greenwald showed, censorship (in the true sense of the word) has now begun on social media, and it's also concerning (see Hunter-Biden story). They have become part of the public space and should be regulated as such.

As for democracy, I think much of the current social drama is caused by a lack of it rather than being a symptom of it's overabundance. Inequality has been increasing, injustices are rife, goverments and big corporations have been lying big for long, and many people are learning that the only way they can have a voice is to set buildings and cars on fire, since otherwise, they have no meaningful way to participate in decision-making, which is instead put into the hands of technocrats and other utility-maximizing economists and do-gooders, which are a often nothing more than a clever way of bypassing the democratic process.

Let's see how the followings years will go.

Campitor
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:49 am

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by Campitor »

jacob wrote:
Thu Dec 31, 2020 3:37 pm
In response, people are free (from government interference) to publish their own blog or book. (Incidentally what I did after getting rejected by the publisher that initially contacted me.)
And here is my worry: what if censorship becomes so powerful that we can't even self publish on any platform? We could buy printing presses and try to publish our own work but we’re still denied the wide dissemination of our ideas.

And I do agree that speech has become vitriolic especially on all social media platforms. But the policing of that vitriol isn't consistent. I'm amused and sometimes perturbed by what is allowed versus what is censored or flagged as "sensitive". I worry legitimate ideas may be stifled because they are offensive to those who are unenlightened to the truth while functioning as censors. Galileo was thrown in jail for stating the earth revolved around the sun. Martin Luther King was repeatedly arrested on charges unrelated to speech but their undeniable intent was to suppress his speech regarding desegregation. And while I agree my concerns may be far fetched when viewed in isolation, they become more reasonable when you start to aggregate the related ideas of a stronger centralized government that can suppress rights in the name of public safety. In the example of Singapore, their laws concerning certain activities has been used to suppress the speech and activity of opposing political parties: https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/12/12/k ... -singapore

Personally I applaud Jacob because he has been, in my strong opinion, fair in his censorship and very tolerant of opposing ideas as long as they adhere to his forum guidelines. I also acknowledge that my approval or lack thereof, has little bearing here - this is Jacob's forum and he is free to do as he wishes - his rules because it's his forum - I'm a guest in his house.

However I see Google, Facebook, and Twitter as different. I'm no longer a guest in someone's home but a participant at a block party; their size and global domination now makes them more of a public square. And what they choose to allow in the public square might be presently agreeable to the majority but there may be a time where their moderation may slant away from the majority’s interest or the public’s well being. And if I believe this of Google, Twitter, and Facebook, I certainly have a more heightened concern on government sponsored censorship.

I can see the other side of the fence on why not every piece of speech should be allowed. But I wonder if those on the other side of the fence share any of my concerns about censorship sliding into the tyrannical especially when disguised under the protections of "privately owned business" which may start to act more and more like the East India Trading Company.
The East India Company (EIC) was an English and later British joint-stock company founded in 1600.[2] It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), and later with Qing China. The company ended up seizing control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong after the First Opium War, and maintained trading posts and colonies in the Persian Gulf Residencies.[3] The company is also known as the Honourable East India Company (HEIC), East India Trading Company (EITC), the English East India Company or the British East India Company, and informally known as John Company,[4] Company Bahadur,[5] or simply The Company.

Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies",[6][7] the company rose to account for half of the world's trade[when?],[8] particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium. The company also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.[8][9]

The company eventually came to rule large areas of India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions. Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey and lasted until 1858 when, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown assuming direct control of India in the form of the new British Raj.
Our governance is being outsourced to private technocrats that lack any political accountability and are given broad immunity to legal remediations concerning speech suppression.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: Free Speech: Thank You Jacob

Post by jacob »

Campitor wrote:
Sat Jan 02, 2021 2:03 pm
We could buy printing presses and try to publish our own work but we’re still denied the wide dissemination of our ideas.
This is where I disagree. I say that people have a right to speak (and not be hassled by the government for speaking) but that does not imply that people have a right to be widely heard. This means the people who own the "megaphones" are free to regulate who gets to use them. Don't agree? Build your own megaphone and work to make it bigger. People do not have a right to free ride on other people's megaphones. Or to put it in old-school terms: You have the right to publish a book, but you don't have the right to get it into every book store. Or to start earlier, you have the right to write a book, but you don't have the right to force someone else to mass-print it.

This implies that I definitely favor the old mass media style "gate keeper" role. Incidentally, since what I mean by "gate keeper" apparently wasn't obvious, I meant serving as a filter of certain ethical standards. To elaborate, in order to publish in a science magazine, the author has to abide the scientific code of conduct; in order to publish in a newspaper, the person has to abide the journalistic standards; and so on... This avoids bad actors free-riding on the goodwill that the gate keeper has otherwise established.

(Part of the problem here is, as I described above, is that a lot of the goodwill up from a history of following these codes has been capitalized/monetized. E.g. news organizations have admitted "opinion" pieces to such a degree that many people can no longer tell the difference between an opinion host and a news host ... all the while the news outlet continuing to pretend that it's a news outlet rather than a propaganda outlet for a certain opinion... resulting in many functionally incapable of differentiating between facts and opinion in general or putting the latter above the former. Ditto web2.0 sociopaths capitalizing on the overall helpful friendly and truthful environment of expectations that the web1.0 nerds built up.)

This does not mean I could not see companies or organizations going into the business of lending their megaphone to everybody with no exception. The *chans, Parler, ... and other "free speech"-sites have famously or notoriously profiled themselves on that. However, the market also shows that there's relatively little demand for their services. In other words that particular free-for-all megaphone will be a relatively small one. IOW, it'll be a soap box in the town square rather than an appearance on national TV. FWIW, I also remember the existence of publishers willing to publish what most other publishers wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. These publishers were obscure but because of the first amendment they did exist.

In short: Just because something becomes popular does not mean it becomes public!

Locked