asbak wrote: ↑Wed Feb 16, 2022 6:50 am
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as the saying goes.
Cliche.
Who has the monopoly on what is harmful vs not harmful, or truth vs falsehoods, or accuracy vs faults, right vs wrong.
Maybe you think you landed something with this rhetorical question, but again it's an emotional argument. Think about this rhetorical question for more than five seconds and we can come up with some answers. In a democracy it's the people who decide what's harmful and not harmful through their elected representatives.
The world isn't a giant safe space and when one mob take it upon themselves to make up the rules and place themselves in charge it's only going to lead to one outcome, namely to employ this as a weapon against others who have different views.
Could you please just say what you mean without appeals to emotion? Using images of mobs and weapons doesn't advance your argument. Trying to interpret this doggerel I can only conclude you are not a fan of democracy.
People out there in the wild aren't as kind or sane as a reasonable person who is used to a protected existence may believe they are. Many people are predators and once they get power (and these types usually gravitate toward politics and similar fields) they will abuse it. Once they get to decide what may or may not be allowed, they will abuse that power.
Therefore imo a society containing at least some chaos, a few hurt feelings & offending the thin-skinned is a small price to pay compared to the police state alternative. Why? Because at least one still has some kind of a choice & freedom in a more chaotic society.
Here we have the false dichotomy. You're proposing a binary choice between chaos and a police state. This is obviously not true.
In the Neil Young utopia Big Brother does the deciding. This would be a paradise on earth for Statists and Stockholm syndromed people, as for myself I'd rather not live that dream.
You're equating any sort of state with Big Brother. If there is no state, how does democracy work?
A world where you still have a choice on what you are allowed to see, read and hear on Spotify or elsewhere is preferable to a world where Big Brother makes these decisions for you.
You've jumped a few steps here, speaking logically. Again you're sneaking in an argument to get rid of the state, equating it with Big Brother.
That's my take on it. Many will disagree but as far as I'm concerned their views and ideologies are not "more equal" (reference to Orwell's Animal Farm) than mine. Once such groups appoint themselves in charge and declare themselves more equal (for the children, for humanity, for decency! they will claim), that they are "right", that they own the monopoly on the truth and all these things, then it becomes a very slippery slope.
Slippery slope to what? A slippery slope is a logical fallacy, unless you're claiming to have a crystal ball, or evidence that action A leads to outcome B.
Think about it. If there was no state what would be in its place? Good old boys in army fatigues driving around in SUVs, shooting their guns in the air, and shouting about freedom? The corporations want rid of the state so they can do what they want and in a shocking flip I'm going to propose you are an unwitting stooge of corporate interests.
You are free to be illogical, irrational and emotional but if that's the case your energies would be better directed towards fiction, which is what your argument is.