From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Aug 05 2003 - 01:25:55 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> Speakers on a forum such as this, where the currency is in
> ideas, ought not to have to suffer personal attacks, or have
> their character besmirched for advocating capital punishment,
> communism, genocide, pornography, infanticide, preemptive
> nuclear attack, total personal responsibility, eugenics,
> spirituality, Jew baiting, liberalism, or any other sin that
> you can think of---even including listening to Pat Roberson.
>
> The basic message behind attacks written in visible anger
> is "SHUT UP" and "WE do not wish to hear about such things".
> An even more sinister component is "you'll be sorry for
> saying that" and "we will get you", which are conveyed to
> the target at the subconscious level, and is meant to
> instill fear.
A strict reading of these rules would suggest that it is okay for me to
advocate the assassination of Robert Bradbury, but not to insult him.
This is actually a logically possible interpretation of what you said,
i.e., it is okay to calmly and politely call for a fellow list member's
assassination and then debate the idea, but not to insult someone or call
them names. Would you agree with this? (Lest anyone mistake me, I am
emphatically not calling for the assassination of Robert Bradbury or
anyone else. I won't say that killing *never* solves anything, but its
power to improve the human condition is far less than commonly thought.)
It seems to me that you're calling for total openness, and yet
simultaneously placing a restriction on speech. Personally I would hope
that someday, people will be free to say anything they damn well please,
and people will also be free to be offended and say so in no uncertain
terms, and, yes, besmirch the character of the person they dislike. If
you enjoy, on mailing lists, that form of local politeness which calls for
not posting offended reactions, why is that particular custom okay, but
not that alternate form of politeness which calls for not advocating
genocide? Are they not both restrictions on speech? On SL4 I don't
hesitate to impose both restrictions, in the name of preserving the
glorious Signal and triumphing over Noise.
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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