Advocating for the freedom to kill someone, on the basis of a protected characteristic
Doublethink
Shipmate
in The Styx
That would seem to me to be a separate discussion.
On this thread we are facing the immediate need for establishing modal boundaries in Epiphanies. This is due to the newness of Epiphanies, and the modulation it may need for optimization for both Hosting and participation.
Generalized legal considerations for the entire board seem to me too big of an ask to annex to this discussion. Especially considering that they are not new, and remain contentious. Please create a new thread if you want to hash it out - in the Styx if official board response is desired, in Purgatory if you want to explore the philosophical extrapolations, or in Hell if someone's metaphorical goat has been gotten.
Thanks,
-RooK
Styx Host
Doublethink wrote: »I don’t see how advocating for the freedom to kill someone, on the basis of a protected characteristic (as defined by the 2010 Equality Act), is not hate speech. Also, if it is hate speech, is that not a legal risk to the ship as a publisher ?
Doublethink wrote: »In particular: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/file/7226/download?token=enEuxZxq
Page 17:
“Freedom of expression applies to online media in much the same way as it does to print media. In particular, website owners are free to decide for themselves which material they wish to publish and it is not a breach of freedom of expression for a website to moderate comments in order to remove material which might prove offensive. However, care should be taken not to do this in a discriminatory manner (for example, by removing racist language except when it relates to Gypsies and Travellers).”
Comments
I'm confused, quite possibly because hate speech is legally protected as free speech in the US, so I'm unfamiliar with what is mandated by laws against hate speech. The quote from page 17 to me says that website owners may wish to moderate comments, not that they must.
- I think parents should be given the choice to kill a six-month old baby because it's black.
- I think parents should be given the choice to kill a six-month old baby because it's hermaphroditic.
- I think parents should be given the choice to kill a six-month old baby because it's female.
- I think parents should be given the choice to kill a six-month old baby because it's disabled.
By the sounds of it, @Doublethink, you’re saying that, legally, moderation of these kinds of statements should be consistent across the Ship.
So I guess the question is this: if someone on the Ship was arguing, for example, that under China’s one child policy, parents should have the right to kill their child if it is born female, as a male child would be preferable to them, would their argument be given a similar air space and moderation treatment as those which @Colin Smith has put forward?
If yes, then by the sounds of it there is no issue.
Which of course creates a pretty messy situation for website moderating here.
Personally I draw distinctions between comments which offend and comments which incite. It is virtually impossible to express opinions on controversial issues which will not offend somebody. How can we know whether such offence is inadvertent and which is gratuitous provocation? Only by patterned behaviour enable Admin to discipline those judged to be trolls.
I want to avoid censorship and Fahrenheit 451. If the cost of that is allowing some level of offensive posts that seems a cost worth paying on a website designed to be unrestful. That’s my principle and notion of balance. They may I suppose cross UK law boundaries!
Because that is the equivalency we are talking about.
Is the best way to remove the power of fascist ideas to silence their utterence? Or expose them to the oxygen of free and fair criticism?
Censorship is a dangerous route. If your moral stance becomes objectionable to an intolerant majority the principle of hate speech may be applied to pronouncements of yours which others judge to be hateful.
There is a price to be paid for both freedom of expression and laudable attempts to limit it. And the law can be a very blunt instrument in applying limitations. There can be unintended consequences.
We've tried both ways and the answer is, in the case of fascism, pretty much yes.
I don’t mind being in a minority who believe in the power of good ideas and arguments to defeat bad ideas and arguments. That may be a sign of my age!
For me, although it’s an interesting debate, and whether the Ship steers to port or starboard on it, the main issue is that whatever approach the Admins settle on, that it’s consistent. Two main reasons: one, to ensure that people with disabilities are treated with the same dignity and protected by the same rules as everyone else, and two: given what @Doublethink has posted, also to protect the Ship.
Hence my earlier question. If the answer is yes, than at least we’re being consistent across the isms. If the answer is no, then we have a problem.
@Colin Smith is. Technically he's advocating that it should be legal to do it, not actually doing it, but that's distinction-without-a-difference territory as far as I'm concerned.
The longer answer is, we can debate fascism, fascist ideas, the rise of fascism etc. But when we have actual fascists in our midst, advocating for fascism - white supremacy, genocide, one party rule, militarism, race-based eugenics - well, those are already pretty much ruled out. Holocaust denial is by definition anti-Semitic and therefore racist.
I simply refer you back to Popper's treatment of the tolerance of intolerance. We've tried the other way. It didn't work.
Now, on a one-to-one basis, where I might sit down in a pub with a fascist where he (almost inevitably he, but admitted not necessarily) can't escape answering my questions, where there is a human connection, where he might be persuaded in person, that's a different matter. But question-dodging and word-twisting, gish-galloping and passive-aggressive politeness is all within the rules here. If we do have fascist shipmates, then debating their fascism seems somewhat redundant - we've already concluded that it's a grotesque ideology.
What you're doing is not lamenting the closing down of debate, but proposing that we reduce our existing (legal) safeguards. I wouldn't want that.
(in before "but what about communism" - I'm not advocating for Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot, though I've met plenty of tankies in my time who would.)
And that is the issue for the rules here. Suppression is a counsel of despair.
The 19th century missionary Anthony Norris Groves argued this way. “I would rather remain in fellowship with someone regardless of how depraved they appear to be, for the sake of the spark of decency which may remain within them. Than to separate from them and by so doing contribute to snuffing out that last spark of decency”.
Of course I am not denying that we need controls here. Nor that we should reduce them. Nor that we need to comply with the criminal law. Nor that we need very cautious approaches to libel. All that is a matter of reality, not least the fact that we have no money!
But I am counselling the value of sparing application and a last resort approach, rather than a first response approach. And I am counselling Shipmates to recognise the value of that approach for the sake of defending the ethos of unrest.
If so, then fine. If not, then why should we have different rules and values and standards when it comes to disability?
It's an absurd exaggeration of my view that the parents of newborns diagnosed with serious and permanent disability whether through an inherited condition or accident during birth should have the right to ask for the newborn to be euthanased. We already, rightly in my view, have legal abortion up to birth when the foetus is diagnosed with such conditions so I regard this as simply an extension of that to cater for occasions where such disabilities are not apparent until after birth.
The present UK law [I'm told - I'm not a lawyer or a doctor] permits babies to be aborted up to just before birth for reasons of disability (I believe Down Syndrome has been mentioned most). The UK law doesn't permit abortion up to just before birth for reasons of gender or colour or any other protected characteristic. So while in terms of shipmates those of us with disabilities need to be treated with exactly as much respect and protection as any other protected characteristic, in the case of late term abortion, in law some disability is different from other protected characteristics.
I believe that Colin Smith has been making points about how it seems illogical to say you can abort a baby a day before it's born because of disability, but to murder it the day after it's born is murder. I read his argument as hinging on the point that what is judged OK one day (the late abortion) is murder the next. That wouldn't be the case if you aborted a female fetus or one of a race you didn't want etc - it would be wrong (and illegal) as a late term abortion and wrong as murder.
So - I agree that there's a difficult issue here about how you handle one person's interesting philosophical mischief which is another person's personal tragedy and another's abhorrent amorality. And very best of luck to the hosts and admins with that. But I don't think the simple equivalence between all protected characteristics that's being set up here works. In this case. Related specifically to abortion.
However, by the time we're talking about the six or so months old, which was discussed in the Hell thread, from where I stand, that distinction is no longer relevant.
Thank you for stating my actual position and the rationale behind it. Those attempting to draw parallels between my position and the abhorrent practises, real and imagined, of aborting for gender or race or "murdering babies" were increasingly entering a fantasy world.
I in no way hold a brief for Colin Smith but apparently I've got his position right once so I'll have another go in case it helps.
I thought Colin Smith was developing the late abortion today/murder tomorrow paradox of birth and, for philosophical entertainment, proposing moving it six months after birth. I thought and I HOPE that what he was arguing was that no baby should count as fully "born" and therefore being susceptible of being murdered, until it was six months old. I think I've encountered a historical parallel where babies weren't named until they were six months because that was when they became people. So I HOPE that what Colin Smith has been arguing, possibly not clearly enough, is that he is proposing no child is fully human until it is six months old and until that point it remains a fetus. I could see how that could lead to an extrapolation that a late term abortion could happen up until the six months old moment of "birth" or "becoming human". The redeeming feature which I HOPE I've identified correctly in Colin Smith's argument is that I HOPE the "not human until six months" idea would apply to all babies and not just disabled ones.
To reiterate, I'm not advocating that position - I violently disagree with it - and I'm emphatically not in favour of murdering babies.
That is my position. It's based on the observation that what makes us human, as opposed to any other species, are attributes such as empathy, abstract thought, self-awareness, imagination, complex communication, deceitfulness, and so on which are either thought to be unique to Homo sapiens or uniquely well-developed. It follows that where those attributes are missing, as is the case with a newborn*, what you have is not yet human.
Many will disagree with my position. They could argue (perfectly rationally according to their beliefs) that I have missed out the component some call spirit or soul and that this is as present in the newborn** as it is in the child and adult and is, to them, the most important component of all. Others might argue that the newborn is a potential human and that this potential is as important as its actual state at birth.
*In rare cases the newborn through severe disability will never develop those attributes and brain damage or dementia may cause a person to lose them later in life.
**Some claim that the spirit or soul is present from conception.
The Ship is monolithic and silent enough. Cutting off areas of discourse in advance, before ever an idiot pops his head about the taffrail, suggests very strongly that this is NOT a place for unrest, not a place where it's safe to venture an oddball opinion (shush, you who is about to scream that genocide is not just an oddball opinion. I know that. My point is that the lesser weirdos will avoid us, and the greater ones will show up just the same, so what have we accomplished?).
I don't come to the Ship to feel safe and protected from the harsh opinions of others. I come for the debate, for the ideas, even for the stupidity when I'm in a mood to nom on something. Take that away by safety-fencing an increasingly-smaller space for discussion, and you'll throw me right back on paper books. Which are in the basement, and it hurts like hell to hobble down there on a dislocated knee. Would you do that to me?
Where the six months came from was that was how long the disabled baby of friends of mine lasted in this world. @Colin Smith’s statement that he would advocate for the right for parents of such a child to have it euthanised at any point came from his reasoning that such a human isn’t a person at all, because of its disability.
At that point, it’s nothing to do with abortion, or any thought experiment, but has two major ethical problems:
Firstly, that severe disability means that such a life does not ‘count’ as human (the charge of dehumanising).
Secondly, that since it does not count, it can be ended at any point without a moral issue (the charge of murder).
My issues with @Colin Smith’s posting began as mild, but have increased with each justification, and those two things are the main problem for me. At the start, I was concerned that his arguments could be taken further into more dangerous territory, but I didn’t think he personally would take them that far.
It began with causal ableist language during debate about Down’s screening. That was dealt with, no problems from me.
It then turned into the debate which you outlined in your previous post. In my view, unsuitable for Epiphanies, but would have been fine elsewhere on the Ship.
It gradually became more and more dehumanising of people with disabilities. Again, inappropriate for Epiphanies, borderline elsewhere (in my view).
Finally, it was confirmed that this was not just a debate about euthanising newborns, but any person with severe disabilities aged up to at least six months.
That final point, is the one that takes it past borderline, beyond what is debatable in Epiphanies, or elsewhere on the Ship. It is simply putting forward the notion that it’s ok to kill someone because they are disabled, since their disability makes them less / not human.
The comparison with other protected characteristics is simply there to ask the question, “if it’s not okay for X, why should it be okay for Y?”
So, I can see how your earlier post is relevant in answering that question with regard to a literally one day old newborn. But it’s not relevant in answering why it’s ok to kill an older infant, just because they’re disabled.
Human is a species level designation, not an individual one. By your definition, Einstein would either have been more than human or those of us lesser beings only a percentage of human.
Yours is an inherently ridiculous, and dangerous, way to look at people.
human
adjective
being, relating to, or belonging to a person or to people as opposed to animals:
The human body is composed of about 60 percent water.
They found some remains which were thought to be human.
Victory in the war was achieved at the cost of great human suffering.
The inspector declared the meat fit for human consumption (= in good enough condition for people to eat).
having the qualities, faults, and feelings that people have, as opposed to gods, animals, or machines:
Of course I make mistakes, I'm only human.
When he laughs it makes him seem more human.
It's very human to have regrets about the past.
I don’t disagree with you, and have been using the existing mechanisms as best as I can.
However, in the light of the OP, I do think it’s important to be sure that the Ship is applying its mechanisms consistently and legally. If that’s the case, then great.
Free speech is not unlimited. is not the freedom to shout fire in a crowded theatre.
As to existing ship mechanisms, in ship terms:
How is repeatedly arguing that significant cognitive impairment renders one nonhuman not ableism ? At no point has the poster received an admin warning, I do not believe that if someone repeatedly posted on this board that being Black made you nonhuman we would be treating the matter in the same way, do you ?
Describing people as “not human” is not somehow ok because it is not the phrase “fucking retard”.
Sorry, when I said I don’t disagree with @Lamb Chopped, it was the general sentiment of the Ship being relatively unpoliced and open discussion.
I’m pretty sure I’ve made it clear that, in my opinion, under the Ship’s current rules, commandment 1 was breached, for the same reasons you’ve given.
The only reason I have "repeatedly" argued it is that others have repeatedly and grossly misrepresented my views. I'd quite like to shut up about the whole issue because it's obvious my views are not supported here.
And thank you for doing so.
The boundaries are constantly shifting. Whether the boundaries* of what is acceptable are shifting in the right or wrong direction is up to the individual but where the boundary at any one time lies, is purely a result of the collective view. For a moral relativist like me there is no absolute boundary by which all other positions can be judged.
*Boundary implies some sort of coherent mass of opinion falling inside or outside. I suspect what the Overton Window actually looks like is a constantly shape-shifting amoeba.
The ship has discussed terms like "fucktard", "fuckstard" in the past. With my understanding that the ruling was that it was okay, if distasteful. Which gave me to understand that certain terminology is not connected by some people in some places to what it is in others. In my local area these words do mean "fucking retard" and is heard and seen as that. At the level of "nigger". So in view, the ship has tolerated aspects of what is now being called ableism.
Actually, this doesn't say that. It certainly says that, since the mid-90s when the "N-word" usage gained currency, there has grown a widespread understanding of how hurtful the word is. The fact that people, in general, do not say "the r-word" means that a similar understanding doesn't exist. This could be because the r-word isn't as hurtful as the n-word, or it could be because the word is just as hurtful, but there's no widespread understanding of that hurt amongst the wider populace. Or it could just be that the r-word applies to fewer people than the n-word, so screw them. The fact that we don't say "r-word" could mean that, in relation to those with mental disabilities, we're still in 1950.
I believe in banning jerks using the wide and discretionary provisions given to Admin under Commandment 1. Admin can determine the boundaries to be applied to regular racist or fascist posts as suits them.
As a Host I don’t have a problem in applying more restrictive controls in Epiphanies. That seems well in accordance with the special guidelines for the forum.
No.
The important thing, in the case of the n-word, is how its use by white people is perceived by black people. The fact that white people use "the n-word" to refer to it is a reflection of the fact that polite white society has understood this, but isn't directly related to how much hurt is felt by black people.
The important thing, in the case of the r-word, is how its use by people without a mental disability is perceived by those with a mental disability, and their loved ones. Again, "how it is considered" by the wider society is irrelevant to this.
Perhaps for a proper comparison, we'd have to sample a collection of Black people with mental disabilities, and ask which word they find most personally hurtful.
Up until now, I’d have wagered that advocating the death of an infant because of their disability was also clearly covered by Commandment 1.
I would urge you to consider the risks of infantilizing the groups you champion. I for one prefer to fight my own battles in a fair forum—not to expect all such nastiness to be carefully kept from me.
Here is a statement that I would personally nail under C1 if I were Admin.
"I assert that parents of children born with congenital defects should have the right to kill them."
But I don't think Colin Smith said that.
I was not and am not advocating that parents should have the right to kill them at any point after birth. I am advocating for an extension of the existing right to abort a child diagnosed with congenital defects at any point up to birth into the period immediately following birth simply because diagnosis while the child is in the womb is not 100% accurate.
Speech in general here is similarly free, but not if it incites violence. You're also free in general to say something defamatory, but if you do and someone suffers damage, then you're liable to pay damages.
Here is the exchange from the Hell thread.