"“not letting other people talk because their words offend you”
Except that, as has already been explained to you, this is not what’s happening"
Oh it is.
Your imagination is sure interesting.
Opinion read and discarded.
they wanted democracy. they got it.
this is what democracy comes down to, endless debating about who is good citizen and who sucks. Reality is that with "democracy" on this site, trials and votes like these are gonna happen a lot.
And given that this is most popular debate in history of this site, I could also add that this democracy is starting to look like site being turned into a mafia game.
Democracy is the best possible system in theory. It only fails in practice.
But maybe, just maybe this trial brings more free speech to the site, and if that happens, then sure, maybe this democracy thing is even good for something.
"I felt that I had very directly addressed the very specific arguments you made"
thats where we disagree, but given our current progress in this conversation, I would rather not continue.
I didnt really think I would ever have to explain this to anyone, but here we are.
Disagreeing on a definition of "free speech" does nothing. Its literally irrelevant to my argument. I could have made exactly same argument without ever mentioning words "free speech", because the argument isnt based on definition of free speech, but rather on language primitive such as "not letting other people talk because their words offend you".
So yeah, I am afraid whatever you thought you would achieve by challenging definition of "free speech" was more like homeless man yelling at cloud because he lost a penny.
"No genius. If you would have bothered to read the entire sentence then you’d have noted the second half of it: “ …in actual real life as it has been used for centuries now”. Crazy that I have to explain this, but teaching you the historical usage of a word =/= teaching you your own opinion."
Oh, so your argument is irrelevant to mine. My bad.
Also, most studies show that rage bait and offensive content actually drive up activity on social media.
So yeah, you can ban all rage bait, but then this site likely dies because it lacks something which all other social media rely on to increase activity.
"Consider if this site was a restaurant"
Well, it isn't.
Given that you are not responding to any of my arguments made, I really don't see point in your response.
"Now if you’d like for me to teach you what the real phrase means"
So you want to teach me what my opinion is?
That's amazing. I admire debaters such as you. Not only that you tell others what your opinion is, you also tell them what theirs is!
Great job! You truly showed me.
I mean, Remy literally produces more engagement on this site than 99% of other users. Even this debate had more comments and more votes than any other debate.
Whether the witch hunters want to admit or not, Remy is actually making site way more active than it would be.
Again, you don't really know what free speech is, and claiming it's irrelevant is just your opinion which I already discarded, or to be more precise, never accepted to begin with.
Maybe free speech is irrelevant to you. To me, its a basis of my moral framework, a basis which has served me good.
"Should the action taken by this Applebee's staff be to hand out ear plugs and tell everyone else not to be offended or to address my inappropriate behavior?"
There are three problems with this argument. One is that it's a slippery slope. Another is that, yes this site already has a button to hide offensive posts, so whoever sees Remy's posts is literally choosing to see them. Third problem is that Remy produces a lot more engagement on this site than most other people, so banning him is actually harmful to site's activity a lot more than banning someone who rarely posts.
Why I say it's a slippery slope?
Because once you enter a debate, you are already admitting free speech of your opponents. You don't get to pick and choose which of your opponents have right to talk and which not.
Today it's a ban on offensive content. Tomorrow it will be ban on controversial topics. Day after, it will be ban on anything masses choose bothers them.
The problem is, once you think reducing free speech is acceptable, there is no telling how much of free speech will be lost, or if all cases of reducing free speech will even be just, or just whim of popular opinion.
It's why I Bring examples in Europe, such as law on offending religious feelings, and laws which ban debating holocaust, or laws which ban debating on Islam.
Once you step over that line and start thinking that free speech should be reduced for whatever reasons you think at the moment, the line of thinking will guide you into banning a lot more than you want to ban right now. You would also have to ban misgendering, religious offensive parodies, even offensive jokes.
"Well consider the difference between murder and manslaughter"
Neither of those is choice of person being harmed by them.
Same way here. I don't get offended by Remy's posts. People who do are just those who choose to be. Despite that we all read same posts, the ones who are offended by them are just choosing to be.
In fact, I don't even see why should someone read Remy's posts if it bothers them so much.
On a debate site, some people are gonna be offended. There is no way around that.
Doesn't matter if it's being offended by losing a debate, or being offended by hearing argument they strongly disagree with, or way in which argument is presented.
Reality is, there are bunch of Remy-like people out there. If we ban Remy, it doesn't ban just Remy. It sets a principle to ban a lot more people.
Site which is as tiny as ours really can't afford to be picky.
As for free speech, free speech is necessary for debates, and any reduction in free speech also reduces debates which depend on that free speech.
When you step into a debate, you are already admitting your opponent has right of free speech. So when you step into debate Remy, you are already admitting the principle you are denying.
It is impossible to have debate if people can't exchange arguments, and reducing that exchange only reduces debating itself.
Further, my defense of free speech is that violating free speech for subjective reasons is always gonna be self-contradiction, because subjective reasons can justify anything.
"Freedom of speech =/= freedom to constantly and consistently spam the forums with rage bait."
I wouldn't say Remy is spamming anything consistently. I mean, he barely makes 2 posts per week.
Also, you are probably using an incorrect definition of free speech, hence the confusion on your part.
"Lucy only takes things seriously about 10% of the time"
I am not always trying very hard. Sometimes I just say first thing which comes to mind.
"Someone being offended by a post is not the same in moderation as someone posting with intent to offend someone."
Given that being offended is a choice, I don't see why intent matters here.
Also, if RemyBrown wants to offend people by challenging their views, sure that's how debating works.
Being offended is always a choice. For example, I could choose to be offended by your posts. I just don't.
As for your comments on "healthy community", what you consider "healthy" is entirely irrelevant.
What is relevant, however, is that you are advocating to reduce free speech because something offends you.
They have such laws in Poland, called "offending religious feelings".
So what's next, are Christians gonna say atheists offend them and then want atheists banned from this site?
I don't really see how your position makes any sense on a debating site. It would maybe make sense in some group therapy site, because people there usually come to get approval instead of being disagreed with.
However, if you want debating, then I don't really see why you at same time want to reduce debating by reducing number of debaters.
Debate requires free speech, because debate means exchange of words with people you disagree with, and exchange of words does require ability to exchange words (thus free speech).
Thus reducing ability of speech also reduces debating, and thus reduces ability to reach truth.
I really don't understand why someone who cares for truth would want their debating opponents silenced.
Socrates got executed because he was a debater who was apparently offending feelings.
Maybe banning people for offending feelings is just modern day Socrates stories.
I would rather not base site policy on preventing feelings from being offended, but you guys can do whatever I guess.
"People choose where to spend their time socializing and debating. Why should they choose a toxic environment?"
Maybe because debating is by it's nature a toxic environment, and what counts as toxic environment is entirely subjective. If you choose to get offended by something, then I don't see why other people should be blamed for your choice.
If you want to get rid of people you strongly disagree with, then that's not really a debate site and you are not really doing debating.
Debate by definition means talking to people you disagree with.
Banning people you disagree with isn't debating, but it does help prevent them from debating. So if your goal is to prevent people from debating, then yeah, banning them achieves that.
"I do not understand why people can not separate the concepts of having the right to say something and not suffering consequences because of it"
People in North Korea have right to say that Kim Jong Un sucks, and they also have right to suffer consequences for it.
We are trying not to be like North Korea, I guess.
"I just finished explaining *why* the concept of free speech has nothing to do with a website of any kind enforcing its own ToS"
Tell me again how do you have a debate without free speech? I am really interested to hear the explanation.
"The concept of free speech as a principal has no place in that conversation"
So you want to have a debate site without free speech.
That's not a debate site.
The moment you step in to debate, you are already acknowledging free speech of others.
If you don't, then you deny the very principle debate needs in order to happen.
True. I will do that more in future. I used to believe that after RM's tyranny on debate art, people would never accept anything less than maximum free speech, but now I see it takes consistent defending. All wins are temporary.
Debate is needed for truth. If voters are merely voting on issues and not including a lot of debate in it, it risks passing a lot of flawed rules.
I remember now. I read those, and as far as I can remember, it was only "1 round". this trial covered more of counters.
I think trials are better because there is opportunity for more argument. I know that Debby isnt in danger of being banned now, but in future it could change (it did before) and if it ever comes down to permanent ban, I would vote that there is first a fair trial. Just so we can see where arguments stand, because I assume a lot of people didnt consider counter arguments much when voting to ban Debby.
And how many people took survey?
Surveys have less people because not everyone uses discord. About 3 people I know who want debby on site dont have a discord account to do survey.
To be fair, Debby never got her own trial. A lot of atmosphere changed about Remy once he got a trial. Because arguments changed a lot on how people view the situation. Sometimes there are some things people normally don't remember, but trial changes that. I think if Debby is to ever be permanently banned, she should first have a trial, because a lot of people on this site don't take those surveys on discord. Some don't even have discord.
