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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   45549 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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Note that I didn't say "we need prisons". I said "we need a form of justice". No matter what the form is, it can be abused, and that is a shame. But it is not optional. Censorship on the other hand, is not only optional, it is actively bad. The two things are in very different leagues here.

I'm not convinced it's always bad. Eg there are countries were holocaust denial is a criminal offense. I'm not sure it's completely bad. Sure, it has downsides, but it avoids the propagation of those theories that are false and dangerous. I'd like to think that truth will always prevail but it seems obvious that truth does not always prevail on time.

I think we just have an irreconcilable difference of values. Because when you say "it's not that bad, some countries make it illegal to deny the Holocaust", my take is that it's a great example of why censorship is bad. Banning Holocaust denial accomplishes nothing, and is some legit tyrannical stuff imo. I don't suspect you agree of course, which is why I think we have an impasse where we simply do not agree on core values.

When you say it achieves nothing, it is not a subjective statement. It si objective: either it changes something, or it doesn't. As a matter of fact it makes it more difficult to propagate such thesis so it achieves something. You might think it isn't worth it but that is a subjective claim. Anyway defamation is forbidden in most countries and holocaust denial is a defamation against victims and witnesses.

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