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Comment on Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Death of the Internet (2021)parent

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Agreed, and to put it more simply - Shutting down a website that aims to kill people is not at all on the same level of sin as trying to kill people. To argue otherwise is asinine and, frankly, offensively pretentious.

Besides that, I've lost patience with the high-road wait-and-see attitide. Being "good" is not simply to condemn and look down upon the "bad". Being good requires intentional, decisive action to eliminate the world's evils. Anything less is indifference and virtue signaling. All that is required for evil to prevail is for "good" people to do nothing.

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When the Nazis came for the communists,

I remained silent;

I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,

I remained silent;

I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,

I did not speak out;

I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,

I did not speak out;

I was not a Jew.

When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

------

People like you are too easily manipulated. And for what? If it's "just a website" then allowing it to exist isn't a big deal. But it's more than just a website in the same way that the vehicle used to run someone over is more than "just a car".

And while I agree with your overall sentiment, shutting down a website is exact what you're arguing against. If you want to be "good" maybe you should step up and start getting these people thrown in jail for their harassment. But doing so removes the anonymity of the internet, which is a far greater evil.

And that's what it boils down to. You take the good with the bad, just as you take the bad with the good.

Giving everyone the ability to exist online protects both FB and Kiwifarms. To protect FB means to protect kiwifarms. Failing to protect kiwifarms means failing to protect FB. And if you're still not understanding, replace FB with "you" in the previous sentences.

That Kiwifarms needs to be protected but FB doesn't is a circumstance of the current times, but you can't uncork that bottle once it's opened. Failing to protect Kiwifarms means when FB does need to be protected it will not be.

So we tolerate Kiwifarms, not because we think it should exist, but because if we act on the impulse to remove it, it enables others to do the same and the argument is that NO ONE should be able to do that.

If a person fears that their affiliation with a website threatens their well-being if their identity were to be exposed as a result of their interactions with it, then they need to disassociate themselves from the website and depending on the nature of the website’s community, take a long look in the mirror. If they aren’t up for those options, then pony up and take whatever consequences come along with sticking around, that is, if the internet itself and the nature of how it exists today is that dear to a person.

nl
When the Nazis came for the communists,

This is a misquote.

Niemöller was wise enough to know there were limits in what should be defended.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-nie...

The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

The paradox of tolerance has nothing to do with the idea that we should protect all or we'll find ourselves unable to protect any.

I can be intolerant of murder while also protecting a murderers right not to be murdered.

nl

The paradox of intolerance says we should not tolerate (or protect) intolerance.

That doesn't mean we should allow murderers to be murdered. But nor should we protect the speech of someone who is using it to harass, intimidate and victimize people.

Yes we should for all the reasons already outlined.

It isn't the popular speech that needs protecting.

nl

So you disagree with the principle of the paradox of intolerance?

To quote Karl Popper:

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

It seems to me that KiwiFarms is exactly the type of "movement preaching intolerance" and they themselves have "placed itself outside the law" (cite: Moon's response to the NZ request to take down the Christchurch shooter's live stream).

So why should a tolerant society accept this intolerance?

As Popper points out: [this does] "not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies". But clearly KiwiFarms has gone beyond rational argument - they claim the right to harass people in the name of free speech.

Please stop reiterating lies.

Kiwifarms is a gossip site, offensive and obscene at that, but there is no evidence of "harassment and murder" being orchestrated or organized by its members.

To the contrary, any threats posted there are removed faster than on commercial platforms such as Facebook, and the website, its owner and its users make a point of "do not contact the discussion targets" quite often.

Why a US site should obey NZ law is also beyond me.

This has nothing to do with the paradox of tolerance and everything to do with the principle of free speech.

When we as a society become ok with harassment and murder, come talk to me. Until then, you're abusing the idea because you think it agrees with you. It's a gateway to censorship.

If this ability had been put into place 20 years ago it would be gay-oriented websites that were shut down due to their indecency. After all, the paradox of tolerance, right!?!?

No, it's real easy. free speech is free speech. If someone is found to be harassing, use criminal law to prosecute. Does criminal law have a higher bar than kicking websites off the internet? Yep, and that's on purpose.

nl
No, it's real easy. free speech is free speech.

It's difficult to say how fundamentally I disagree with this premise.

Then I suggest you move to an authoritarian country where free speech rights aren't guaranteed. Because if you're in the US, it will never be false that free speech is free speech.

You will certainly be more likely to achieve your goals of limiting others speech.

Why would a murderer have any right to live? That's completely immortal & illogical. That's also against the oldest law in western civilization from Bible (in one place prohibiting killing for no reason but advicing murdering a murderer in other, in self-defence obviously).

If a person breaks other person right to live & takes away their life they by law of justice loose own right to living. If somebody steals my property he looses right to keep his property as it becomes means to balance the harm.

If a doctor gives a lethal diagnosis despite not being 100% sure of lethal outcome instead of informing of possibility in objective and balanced way unnecessarily inducing lethal stress in his patient and the patient dies soon after then I can expect him to pay back for his harmful action with equal lethal stress, as just compensation. If it causes death to child that had some chance of being born healthy but caused miscarriage it also can be assessed as consciously causing harm. Or if a doctor do not inform about drugs treating "a plague" that exist just are censored or can't be bought legally in this particular state also is intentionally doing harm. Such doctor should not stay doctor for one second longer.

Doing differently would be a double standard and suicidal acceptance to more injustice adding incentive to this unpunished injustice. And so being a sucker asking to be suckered more. That's the reason why suckers of Christendom got crushed by barbarians and western civilization shrunk by half. Until they regained self-survival instinct. This kind of retoric is used by hostile minorities to atomise hosting majority system & take advantage of it's instability (divide and conquer) Special privileges for these hostile minorities promoting them to top of society is the next step to disarm & highjack law, disturb sense of proportions in such state/nation what naturally seeds common distrust & hostility in majority or unites it in common sense of injustice in own country against the privileged.

When you have justice & clear minimal laws you have order without need for any artificial concepts to keep social relations stable & people behaving morally.

The only problem is when the ruling elite is not part of the ruled majority. Then any good law in theory becomes own caricature in practice.

But you can easily notice it when law becomes complex, volumous & you need a special caste of priests of the law to translate it to commoners...

And if you create a cultural division and you can't have one law fitting all then it's time to accept irriversible division & divorce into two or more stable units with clear moral identity & clean system or prepare for inevitable cultural rot & collapse or war.

BTW Are you believing in self-defence from "death" by wearing a facediaper & isolating healthy people with natural immunity without new popular genetic blood modification too? And do you see abortion as it is as a murder of a human being? Just curious. I often see many hypocrites with double standards in our civilization nowadays. More eager to save a murderer than give a child with 10% chance to get born healthy a chance or to sacrifice kids health & normal conditions of their early development for sake of old sick half-dead zombies..

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