Edward

If you write a law requiring anyone anyone to conduct normal business with whoever walks in the door,

Pfff. You talk about nuance and not overgeneralising unseen and yet I never claimed such a sweeping rule about anybody who walks through the door of any shop and asks for services for any reason. I made three provisos on top of that. But then to…[Read more]

Yes encoginator you did a fishing expedition and found one vaguely questionable example (lacking enough details to make any conclusion) in a developing country with a fragile democracy. When you put that on the scales next to European democracies which have had hate speech laws for years….I think your cherry picking attempts don’t make much of a…[Read more]

Yes unseen and hundreds of philosophers take God’s existence seriously and pontificate about absurd questions on it. Hundreds of post-modern philosophers babble about incomprehensible rubbish. It is one thing to consider a solipsistic reality as a thought experiment or a bizarre and absurd possibility. We all have. I am not in the slightest angry.…[Read more]

I clearly said we cannot know about solipsism. I admit it. However the fantastical idea that suddenly “poof” your mind is the only thing that exists and some how you’ve ended up in a fantastical universe (likely created or at least imagined up by yourself) where you are the only person with agency and yet have forgotten how to (or some how…[Read more]

d

Wow Unseen, so you claim to know that there is nothing more to the universe and everything than your own mind? How on Earth do you know that?

Unseen I said more should be done to protect the elderly and gave some examples of what should be done what more do you want? However they do not need the same kinds of protections from hate speech because they aren’t dehumanised in the way minorities and LGTBQ+ people are. In any case you seem to be against hate speech laws so why would it…[Read more]

Your level of confidence in all things about the mind (that you admit you know virtually nothing about) is staggering. Much be great to have such intellectual faith in your own ignorance.

Brain in a vat, elaborate simulation, solipsism. They are impossible to refute. However people who claim to know that we actually are a brain in a vat or in a simulation or that our mind (well one of us I guess) is all there is in the universe are actually impossible to discuss anything with. I don’t know unseen if you’ve ever debated with, for…[Read more]

We know virtually nothing about consciousness (the tiniest tip of the iceberg) but apparently we already know everything there is to know about free will. Amazing isn’t it?

Indeed Jake. I was saying “if” it were the case there was a systematic egregious hate campaign against the elderly in the same way minorities and LGTBQ+ faced it then I would say, by all means make them a protected class. I am unaware of any movement to oppress the elderly as there are against minorities and other protected classes. Unseen if you…[Read more]

If a person or group of people insulted the elderly in their faces for being old, tried to create laws that gave them fewer rights and told them they aren’t human beings, were verbally threatening, graffitied their houses with slander about the elderly and smeared them repeatedly then I would say yes, why on Earth would you not take special…[Read more]

Jake has pretty much touched on it. The free market of ideas only did so much to end violence and discrimination against LGTBQ+ people (not to mention minorities etc). It was necessary but completely insufficient. Violence, graffiti and hate speech are at the lowest level ever seen and yet it still happens but, you know, we don’t have to worry…[Read more]

the government infantilizes people by “protecting” them from feeling bad

If you think that the consequences of hate speech are “simply feeling bad” then you are more ignorant than I ever thought you could be.

That’s kind of a backdoor argumenum ad populum, though, isn’t it?

No. It shows that an enlightened culture that takes protecting marginalised people seriously can face a difficult issue and solve it without resorting to fear of slippery slopes or the hassle and tiny inconvenience of slightly adjusting their way of doing things…without kic…[Read more]

Whether the spray-painted item is a heart or a message of hate makes no difference.

Well it actually does make a difference to the person who is now afraid to leave their house and is humiliated by hatred in their community. How about instead of very badly citing Occam’s razor (do visit the wikipedia page on the topic to familiarise yourself with…[Read more]

If gays simply kept a list of gay-unfriendly businesses, available to gays and gay-sympathizers alike, they could simply boycott them.

Easy to say when you’ve never faced discrimination once in your life…nor faced the indignity of public hatred for a quality you were born with and cannot change. I like how the marginalised groups always have to…[Read more]

Criticising a religion is not a hate crime. Dehumanising a group of people because they believe in one is. So it’s really one thing to vehemently show your distain for a religion, it is another to attack someone because they believe so egregiously that they fear for their safety or are made to be second class citizens.

Consider the difference b…[Read more]

You cannot refuse to sell something you generically offer to the public to anyone in Spain unless they have been disruptive in your establishment or you have good reason that they are committing a crime in the process of requesting or using the product. You can refuse optional projects or “custom” work but you cannot refuse to sell a product…[Read more]