Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Chambers wrote:
>>> I'd be interested in knowing, who do you think had a significant
>>> negative effect on society by not being censored?
>> Hitler?
> 
> Godwin's law, here we go?

	Godwin's Law does not imply a faulty argument.

-- 
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?


                    /\  /\               /\  /
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                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Chambers wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mueen Nawaz [mailto:m.n### [at] ieeeorg]
>> 	If you want to invoke this, you have to provide a sense of all
>> those
>> people who did likewise and had a negative effect on society, which I
>> suspect occurred much more frequently than the people you speak of.
> 
> I'd be interested in knowing, who do you think had a significant
> negative effect on society by not being censored?

	If you're going to invoke people who did great things via their
expressions, then it's only fair to allow people who did horrible
things. Darren provided an obvious answer, but the number is simply
numerous. All the way from Charles Manson to Pol Pot to some guy in a
cave somewhere.

-- 
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Chambers wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mueen Nawaz [mailto:m.n### [at] ieeeorg]
>> 	If you want to invoke this, you have to provide a sense of all
>> those
>> people who did likewise and had a negative effect on society, which I
>> suspect occurred much more frequently than the people you speak of.
> 
> I'd be interested in knowing, who do you think had a significant
> negative effect on society by not being censored?

	It was hard for me to understand the relevance of your question to my
point - but I think I have it.

	Suffice it to say that not finding individuals who had a significant
negative effect on society says little. If you have, say, 1000 people
who had (relatively) small negative effects for each person who had one
large effect, it adds up.

	My point was that you're looking only at those individuals who had a
great impact. Look also at the numerous individuals who had
significantly less impact (as well as those who had a great one) - if
they are large in number, they may outweigh the positives.

	Also, it's hard to give examples because most societies have
censorship. What you're saying essentially is, "Remove censorship, and
there won't be many bad people whose net impact is significantly
negative. Trust me."

	And I'm saying, "I won't trust you - give me better data. Arguments
don't count as data."

	Which is different from me saying "I think you're wrong".

-- 
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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"Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> It seems like an extremely vocal minority is complaining about the
> behavior of the majority.  How, and why, should the minority be given
> the power to censor?

Indeed, and here I agree with you.  OTOH, aren't governments a minority with the
power to censor?  It's only the will of the people in a democracy until getting
there...

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Darren New [mailto:dne### [at] sanrrcom]
> Chambers wrote:
> > I'd be interested in knowing, who do you think had a significant
> > negative effect on society by not being censored?
>
> Hitler?

There are two major negative events associated with Hitler, being the 
Holocaust and World War II.

Of the two, neither can be attributed to Hitler himself.

As far as the Holocaust goes, antisemitism had been around for centuries 
before Hitler, and had been particularly strong in Germany in the decades 
leading up to the 30s.  For instance, Richard Wagner, the noted composer, 
was widely known for his hatred of the Jews, and he died six years before 
Hitler was born.  Yet even he didn't cause popular opinion, but rather 
expressed and echoed it.

In other words, Germany as a societal whole had been moving towards the 
Holocaust for some time.

And as far as the Second World War goes, if Hitler hadn't started it, 
someone else would have.  Most of the material I've read on the subject 
agrees that the economic sanctions imposed after the first World War, 
combined with the widespread death, destruction and poverty that naturally 
followed it, ripened Europe for another conflict.

So again, we have an outspoken individual, yes, but society accepted him 
because he mirrored popular opinion at the time.  Removing Hitler from the 
scene would have prevented neither the Holocaust nor WWII.

Here's the thing about censorship that always got to me: they're going 
after the symptom, but ignoring the underlying problem.  If, to go back to 
the original example, people often post crude and vulgar comments on 
YouTube, *can* you solve the problem by censoring YouTube?

The answer, of course, is "no."  While you will trim the comments from 
YouTube, those same people will continue to use foul language in their 
daily lives and on other web sites they frequent.  In other words, the 
symptom of offensive YouTube comments will be gone, but the underlying 
problem of people using offensive language will remain (and will be 
unchanged).

If you really want to affect people's actions and attitudes, then you 
can't legislate or proscribe your own mores on them.  All you'll do is 
inspire resentment, anger and bitterness (and a resentful, angry and 
bitter crowd of internet commenters deprived of their favorite outlet is 
not a group you want to have pissed off at you, *especially* if you don't 
like foul language).  The long-term solution, of course, is for parents to 
teach their children what is and isn't appropriate.  And if, over time, 
parents neglect to teach their children that certain language is 
inappropriate, doesn't that language become appropriate - and make 
censorship of it a moot point in the process?

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: nemesis [mailto:nam### [at] gmailcom]
> OTOH, aren't governments a minority with the
> power to censor?  It's only the will of the people in a democracy
until
> getting there...

In theory, democratic governments are meant to represent the will of the
people*.

I'd like to live in Theory; everything works there.

*Doesn't that sound suspiciously like mob mentality? :o

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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"Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> I'd like to live in Theory; everything works there.

Except when the theory breaks and something has to replace it. ;)

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Chambers wrote:
> The answer, of course, is "no."  While you will trim the comments from 
> YouTube, those same people will continue to use foul language in their 
> daily lives and on other web sites they frequent.  In other words, the 
> symptom of offensive YouTube comments will be gone, but the underlying 
> problem of people using offensive language will remain (and will be 
> unchanged).
> 

Actually, I would argue that the issue is even stupider than that. There 
are a lot of words people have made up "since" the whole "list" that 
usually gets censored, due to being often highly cultural, worse than 
the "list", but most of the time they only get censored as an after 
thought, if at all. Like the idiot thing a while back where Mythbuster's 
had, "Is it possible to polish a turd", and where told they couldn't use 
that word, but you could use just about any other word you wanted, 
including I think "crap". lol And, most of the words on the various 
lists around where "at one time" common place and inoffensive, until 
people started using them as negatives. So.. What do you do to solve it? 
Well, some fruit loops **admit** that even they, with their high 
supposed religious morels, can't stop using them, so they suggest, 
"replacing them with nonsense words, which don't mean anything or sound 
bad."... Uh, huh. And that works right up until society in general 
figures out that made up terms like frell or frack (though, mind, they 
want to use stuff like shazbot, or the like, not sci-fi terms) are being 
used in the same "context", and to have the same "meaning" as fuck. In 
fact, the Second Life forums will already get real unhappy with you if 
they catch you "trying to intentional circumvent their automatic message 
censoring system", but using them, a system that, BTW, is quite happy to 
replace something that is, in some contexts, entirely inoffensive, in 
context, with a replacement that is intended to "not use the word", but 
replaces it with the definition of the word, or some other alternate, 
which has entirely a different meaning, so that you **do** offend the 
person you are writing to, because their system insists that, I don't 
know, you called them a "part of a womens anatomy" cat, which could be 
interpreted as... well, not so good, when you really meant to say 
something like pussycat (as in, a nice person), but accidentally 
inserted a space.

You can't stop people from disliking things, from them making up, or 
using existing words, to describe them, or from those words becoming 
common place enough that some people start seeing them as offensive, 
instead of just used to add tone. You certainly can't stop people, and 
even the censor idiots admit it, from hating, being angry, or saying 
things that express it.

So, you eliminate the list of "known" bad words from everyplace on the 
planet, and all you get is a new list of words, you don't actually 
"solve" anything, other than to pander to some idiots that, imho, 
should, maybe, in some cases, be classed as have some mental illness, a 
bit like.. functioning Aspergers, or something like OCD. Not incapably 
of functioning at all, but.. not normal, not entirely socially 
functional, and possibly in need of serious treatment. Unfortunately, 
calling your self obsessed fear, paranoia and irrational hate people 
that don't think like you do "religion" tends to give people a "get out 
of the clinic free" card, and most of them are no where near 
dysfunctional enough for the more rational ones to do anything but tag 
them with a label of, "Well, they are a bit nuts, but mean well, and at 
least they believe, which is what is really important!"

Umm, no... What is important is if they are right, or just fracking, 
mentally frelled, and bat guano crazy, in the context of what they 
"imagine" the consequence of bad language is. And given that this is the 
same bunch of half wits that are almost constantly whining about how the 
entire US is on the verge of social collapse into socialism and mass 
murder, because having 90% of 300,000,000 people all believing in Jesus 
just isn't enough, you can't, almost, turn a corner in your own house 
without someone shoving a Bible or a cross in your face, and that other 
10% who are not Christians are driving us all to hell... Well, I don't 
think they make medication strong enough to deal with this level of 
delusion... lol

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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"Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote in message
news:FB978802D67148D588E07FAC63485DAD@HomePC...
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: somebody [mailto:x### [at] ycom]

> > Well said. I often use a quote from Sagan to those who presume that
> the
> > more
> > outlandish, the more against-the-grain and the current thinking an
> idea
> > is,
> > the more it has to have merit:

> I didn't say anything of the sort.  I just think you shouldn't
> automatically dismiss them just because they offend you.

True, but you said "every major change in thinking has been preceded by
outspoken individuals who offended those around them". I don't believe
offending those around you is either necessary or sufficient for change.
With Sagan's quote, however, I was going on a tangent.

> > Yes, freedom of expression is a good thing, but let's say it as it is,
> > 99.9%
> > of all expression is worthless, even if it's (maybe especially if
> it's)
> > laced with vulgarities.

> Yes, the "90% of everything is crap" rule.  Does it matter, though?  If
> 90% of YouTube comments contain certain words, those words can't really
> be said to be offensive to the majority of society, can they?

I sincerely hope YouTube is not the barometer of society. In any case, I
don't think 90% of YouTube comments include the type of language being
objected to.

> (Obviously, sample sets come into play here... that is, the set of
> people who post YouTube comments is not necessarily representative of
> Society as a whole, but that's another issue).
>
> It seems like an extremely vocal minority is complaining about the
> behavior of the majority.  How, and why, should the minority be given
> the power to censor?

If it's a minority, they will likely be ignored. I frankly don't know the
numbers. But this (that it's a very small minority that seeks moderation)
would be a good argument. Freedom of speech, IMO, is not.

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"Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote in message
news:E79FF8044B52463D9BDCCAF39E66EE3A@HomePC...
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Darren New [mailto:dne### [at] sanrrcom]
> > Chambers wrote:
> > > I'd be interested in knowing, who do you think had a significant
> > > negative effect on society by not being censored?
> >
> > Hitler?
>
> There are two major negative events associated with Hitler, being the
> Holocaust and World War II.
>
> Of the two, neither can be attributed to Hitler himself.
>
> As far as the Holocaust goes, antisemitism had been around for centuries
> before Hitler, and had been particularly strong in Germany in the decades
> leading up to the 30s.  For instance, Richard Wagner, the noted composer,
> was widely known for his hatred of the Jews, and he died six years before
> Hitler was born.  Yet even he didn't cause popular opinion, but rather
> expressed and echoed it.
>
> In other words, Germany as a societal whole had been moving towards the
> Holocaust for some time.

You can say the same thing for positive changes as well. Society as a whole
has been moving towards democracy, freedom, equality... etc. In other words,
no individual had a significant positive effect on society by not being
censored.

> So again, we have an outspoken individual, yes, but society accepted him
> because he mirrored popular opinion at the time.  Removing Hitler from the
> scene would have prevented neither the Holocaust nor WWII.

Neither would censoring any individual would have prevented the positive
changes, then.

> The answer, of course, is "no."  While you will trim the comments from
> YouTube, those same people will continue to use foul language in their
> daily lives and on other web sites they frequent.  In other words, the
> symptom of offensive YouTube comments will be gone, but the underlying
> problem of people using offensive language will remain (and will be
> unchanged).

I have to disagree. It's not a one way street. Yes, we express what we feel,
but we also get shaped by what we see. As far as monkey see monkey do goes,
we are not much removed from our ancestors. Internet is not just a medium
for expressing, it is, maybe more importantly, a medium for immitation and
learning.

> If you really want to affect people's actions and attitudes, then you
> can't legislate or proscribe your own mores on them.  All you'll do is
> inspire resentment, anger and bitterness (and a resentful, angry and
> bitter crowd of internet commenters deprived of their favorite outlet is
> not a group you want to have pissed off at you, *especially* if you don't
> like foul language).  The long-term solution, of course, is for parents to
> teach their children what is and isn't appropriate.  And if, over time,
> parents neglect to teach their children that certain language is
> inappropriate, doesn't that language become appropriate - and make
> censorship of it a moot point in the process?

Many of the advances in society were in fact legislated. Democracy, freedom,
equality have pretty much all been forced or legislated, and imposed on the
masses. Once you have enough supporters to force the issue, you act on these
things, you don't wait for everyone to volunarily change their opinions.
Bitterness and resentment is unavoidable when you force a change, but
opinions eventually will change as people will get used to the new way of
life.

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