
Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom? - imartin2k
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/14/opinion/sunday/millennials-freedom-fear.html
======
white-flame
I'll throw a simple stereotype at this:

People are simply being raised into being part of a machine that supports
them, down to their self-identity and worth requiring unwavering reinforcement
to be "healthy", as opposed to a more independent view of the self that deals
with both the good & the bad that comes in life.

Freedom means that others may or may not engage in supporting you, and that
goes against fundamental social interaction being drilled in at public
schools. Independent thought is punished, and strongly individualized
personalities are medicated away and lumped in with the kids who have
legitimate medical issues. There is no dealing with good and bad, there's only
dealing with good and enforced elimination of anything that might be construed
as bad, and "bad" encompasses more and more every social cycle.

People are simply giving up on the notion of the independently maintained
"self" entirely, not just benefiting from support from society, but shifting
to _demanding_ that unwavering personal support from society. That's
incompatible with freedom.

I'm not even talking about money or power. I'm simply talking about social
interaction. Plenty of disadvantaged people across history held their
individual dignity in how they personally acted, took care of their family,
etc, regardless of how they're treated, or if they weren't going to be able to
rise the ranks.

------
hashmal
Random thoughts:

\- Freedom and democracy are different things, if some people think democracy
isn't that important, it does not mean they do not value freedom.

\- Maybe the millenials are "not open to diverse opinions", but maybe they're
just sick of bullshit. "Free Speech" can be interpreted in different ways (and
each country in the world does that).

~~~
ithilglin909
Being sick of bullshit is fine. Having the government regulate bull-shitting
is a huge step towards tyranny.

~~~
imustbeevil
What is one example of the government regulating free speech through law in
the last 10 years?

~~~
dafad
Here's another (UK though) [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/arrests-for-
offensive-f...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/arrests-for-offensive-
facebook-and-twitter-posts-soar-in-london-a7064246.html)

------
wfo
Because freedom has failed them. Or, at least, "freedom" as defined implicitly
by the author to mean "only a specifically enumerated list of negative
freedoms that primarily benefit the wealthy" and "the ability to cast a vote
which fundamentally does not matter" \-- remember the adage "if voting changed
anything, they'd make it illegal".

Millenials don't feel particularly free to speak when they live in permanent
debt, begging the wealthy to gift them with an unpaid internship and praying
they don't get sick. When they do speak, their voices are drowned out by
billions of dollars in propaganda campaigns. Yet they are told "this is
freedom" and you're surprised they value it less?

If you asked them whether they want "freedom" of course they would say yes.
But it's ridiculous to say a homeless person is "free" because the cops don't
arrest and harass him for speaking his mind. It's ridiculous to say a
millenial is "free" when those of them lucky enough to get jobs have to toe
the line and obey every command from their employer, watching what they say on
social media, accepting the most egregious reaches of corporate power into
their personal lives so that they have a prayer at one day paying back their
insurmountable debts.

Millenials, unlike the generation before them, recognize that material
conditions are of fundamental importance and that any notion of "freedom" that
ignores them is not worth much. The "freedom" to buy a news organization or
bribe a politician with infinite dark money is just enshrining corporate
power. The "freedom" to buy healthcare is meaningless without the means to
also afford it. Millenials see through the very shallow veneer of whines about
"freedom" that do nothing but obscure blatant attempts to preserve current
power structures.

Consider tech contracts: companies write contracts so that they own what you
think in your off time. They write contracts so that if you decide to quit,
you cannot legally work for years. That is not freedom, it is the opposite.
Yet the libertarian screed is "well, in the abstract, you have the freedom to
make that contract or not as you see fit"; what consolation to those who need
a job to pay rent or buy food.

This attitude shift is mostly definitional semantics and is just a natural
result of decades of libertarian/conservative weasel-wording around "freedom"
so that it is a meaningless platitude that expresses nothing more than "a
principle which benefits those with means".

~~~
Bromskloss
> But it's ridiculous to say a homeless person is "free" because the cops
> don't arrest and harass him for speaking his mind.

Shouldn't we rather say that he is free, but that there are _other_ things
lacking in his life?

Let's not load the word _freedom_ with everything that is good in this world.
Being free doesn't guarantee having happiness, food, clothes, friends, health,
a successful career, and so on. If we want to talk about all that, there is
probably a better word for it. Besides, what word would we use in its place?

~~~
didibus
Well, I think you're just reinforcing their point. If freedom doesn't give you
anything good, such as food, clothes, friends, health, career, etc. Then
what's the point?

Freedom used to mean these things, it was a way to see that you were in charge
of your destiny in a realistic way. That the opportunities would be there, if
you were only willing to take them, no one would stop you, you could be
anything you wanted if you just walked the part.

If that's not true anymore, if freedom no longer leads to happiness, comfort
and health, then maybe its time to go back to the drawing board.

------
mbillie1
In the US at any rate you need a fairly significant amount of disposable
income to meaningfully be free. Of course you are "free" to (attempt to)
acquire this income, and most people reading HN will have already done so. But
for a large swath of young people working low wage jobs, living at home
because they can't afford rent, the notion of "freedom" might not seem that
significant.

~~~
aaron-lebo
How much disposable income do you need to be free? Cheap car, cheap rent,
every form of media ever for about $50 a month. You can do that easily on 30k.
If you can't make 30k a year, you've got a limited skillset, it's not anyone
else's fault.

What's amazing for US millenials in particular is just how much we've got and
how little we appreciate it.

~~~
noobermin
You are extremely ignorant of the cost of living in the US if you think 30K is
enough to live on.

~~~
aaron-lebo
I've lived on that, so try again. Why do you believe that's crazy?

$500 apt

$150 car insurance

$100 utilities

$ 50 media (Netflix, Spotify, etc)

You're taking home about $1800 a month, so that still leaves another $1000 to
fill out the rest (food, gasoline, etc). That's plenty of money. You aren't
going to be making regular trips to Hawaii, but that's more than enough to do
whatever you'd like.

~~~
slezakattack
The apartment complex i lived in while in Rapid City, South Dakota was $650
(2011-2012)...How many places in the US do you think have $500 rent where you
need no roommates, completely functional (A/C, heat, working kitchen), in a
low-crime area?

~~~
aaron-lebo
My friend today lives in an apt with all that (not an efficiency) at $650 a
month. I had another friend who was in a less accessible (but still nice)
location for $500, I've lived in a $450 apt. They are available in some
locations.

------
Brendinooo
No one born in the mid-80s onward ever faced an outside existential threat
like Hitler or the Soviets. It's not hard to imagine that people who only know
relative freedom have a harder time appreciating that freedom. The grass is
always greener elsewhere.

Fear is a good answer here, though phrases like "helicopter parenting" and
"victimhood culture" might bely some existing biases by the author. Perhaps
the fear of the "other" tribe are driving these shifts; after all, I doubt
that anyone who says they'd be in favor of restricting speech feel like
_their_ speech will be restricted.

And it's also possible that a decade or so of gridlock is taking its toll. If
this is what freedom looks like, could you blame someone for wanting to try
something different? Not saying that's true of me, but I can see how it would
happen.

~~~
danhak
Very fascinating. You argue that millennials favor restrictions on hate speech
because they have not experienced anything like Hitler. Yet Germany censors
hate speech precisely because of that history.

~~~
ekanes
Hate speech is always a problem. "let's kill all the $value" isn't the type of
free speech that most people are trying to preserve.

~~~
white-flame
That's where the distinction between "hate" and "violence" comes in. (at least
in the USA)

"Let's kill all the $X" is a call for violence. "I hate $X" isn't. It's
hateful, but observably some values of $X are currently acceptable while
others aren't, depending on what direction the popular outrage trends are
heading. Should "I hate the
rich/politicians/corporations/nazis/capitalists/white males/etc" be illegal
speech? That's quite a can of worms.

These free speech arguments are sort of like the government wanting secure
encryption, except that the they should still be able to break it. Encryption
is either secure for both legal and illegal uses, or it isn't. In the same
way, it's semantically unresolvable to have legally-protected free speech for
acceptable speech only.

Any argument for free speech necessarily empowers unacceptable speech, and any
argument against free speech necessarily criminalizes acceptable speech.

~~~
didibus
Or you know, we could setup a powerful system of laws and judges, with
multiple recourse to overrule and get decisions reevaluated, where details of
a particular case could be thoroughly analysed, and debated, with a
professional representative on either side, and we could eventually rule what
seems to be the most reasonable given the concrete case.

Honestly, this isn't a computer algorithm. We have the capacity to judge
different speech in different contexts.

~~~
white-flame
In theory, yes, but we are also a system of due process. It's not reasonable
to expect that if the law says something is illegal, and a person is shown to
have done it, that the good judgment of the system will understand and not
prosecute. Things like self-defense and fair use are specifically encoded into
the law, not just unspoken common sense. And that's not even getting into
legal/political careers, lobbying, etc, that entrench the system to introduce
and over-enforce technicalities.

The judgment of most of the court activity is focused on whether or not
someone broke the law, not whether the law is "reasonable". That's a much
bigger battle that can't be reasonably expected to be fought in any individual
case, and ideally should be done before signing into law, not after. The law,
as written, should apply to all cases and all sides equally. Justice being
blind and all.

The history of free speech in the USA has had it pretty wide open, and these
issues are about whether and how much to constrain it. That means
criminalizing or penalizing in some way speech that used to be free, bringing
up all the issues above and in my last post.

~~~
didibus
Is that so of civil law? It was my understanding civil law is specifically
designed for this, that is, promoting civility amongst people. Courteous
debate and disagreement is possible, even if one argues the other is a monkey.
Such speech promotes arguments and content over appeals to hateful emotions,
ridicule, and fear. The latter type of speech, to me, are actually
psychological weapon of anti-free speech. They target someones else thoughts
and speech, by inciting fear and blocking out reason.

Insulting someone, calling them names, threatening their well being, shouting
at them, and inciting others to do the same, those are all tactics to shut out
the targeted individuals. Make their voices irrelevant, ignored, and their
will to speak smaller in fear of retribution.

Now I think we're smart enough to find regulation that are smart enough to
restrict only that kind of speech, and if it's non obvious, I'm okay sitting
on the side of allowing it. But some of today's speech is just blatantly the
latter, and thats true in all political spheres, and even in most apolitical
spheres.

~~~
white-flame
"Civil" law (person vs person) is for damages which aren't "Criminal"
(government vs person), usually disagreements that leave one party burdened
with countable damages and seeking restitution from the other. Sure, if
somebody uses manipulative speech to instigate damage that might go to civil
court, but that's because of the damage, not because of the speech.

I have no idea why you think those things you list should be legally
actionable in and of themselves. The fact that people are petty and appeal to
lesser things like this are really cultural failings, not legal failings. You
can't legislate people into being (subjectively) well-tempered and reasonable
in their beliefs and daily interactions.

We have restrictions on Commercial Speech such that commercial exchange and
competition is to be around truthfully presented products, which is pretty
objective. Stuff like libel also hinges on the truth of what's being said
which again can usually be tested.

The issues you list are far more nebulous and subjective. Anybody could claim
that they felt threatened by another's ideas, claiming a conspiracy to silence
them exists, etc. These exact tactics are currently in use to silence and
manipulate others in the same way. It's simply a war of propaganda on _both_
sides of these "tools".

I think the legal notion of none of this stuff mattering unless actual damage
is incurred, or actionable threats of real damage have been made, is
reasonable. Otherwise, you're falling into pre-crime fallacies. And besides,
let's not continue to expand the litigiousness of our society by making every
nitpick and disagreement a legal issue.

~~~
didibus
Failing of the culture for sure. But take the public indecency laws for
example. Or the road laws, like laws against jaywalking and other obedience
laws of that sort. The smoking and drinking laws are also good examples.
Gambling laws. Harassment laws. Those all impose conduct on people, work
reasonably well, and rarely are misused.

> You can't legislate people into being (subjectively) well-tempered and
> reasonable in their beliefs and daily interactions.

I'm not trying to do that. I think speech targetting a sizable audience, like
in media outlets, public quorum, internet forums, should not be allowed to
insult or threaten a group, and shouldn't be allowed to entice others to those
acts. I think this could be legislated, and I believe cases of abuse would be
rare, and in those cases, I think legal recourse can be used to have a proper
verdict.

You're still allowed to express all matters of unreasonable opinion. You're
just not allowed to verbally attack someone. Which I believe most American
would culturaly favor. I think it's in our values that we condemn verbal
abuse.

> These exact tactics are currently in use to silence and manipulate others in
> the same way.

I'm curious to learn more abiut this. Can you provide examples? It's very
possible I'm being naive here, and I'm just not aware of these instances and
their impact.

~~~
white-flame
> _Failing of the culture for sure. But take the public indecency laws for
> example. Or the road laws, like laws against jaywalking and other obedience
> laws of that sort. The smoking and drinking laws are also good examples.
> Gambling laws. Harassment laws. Those all impose conduct on people, work
> reasonably well, and rarely are misused._

These are also much more _objectively tested in a court of law_. That's the
main point, not the subject of culture or behavior. Somebody feeling
threatened, feeling that words that were spoken had a hidden implication that
attacks them, is subjective, easily faked, and does not require any intent or
malicious behavior of the accused.

> _I think speech targetting a sizable audience, like in media outlets, public
> quorum, internet forums, should not be allowed to insult or threaten a
> group, and shouldn 't be allowed to entice others to those acts._

Yeah, that's fine. It's how people should act decently, for whatever shared
notion of "decent" we can muster. Different forums have different levels of
_moderation_ depending on what sort of culture of interaction they want. Some
are very professionally-minded, some are loose and openly revel in offensive
banter and arguments between participants.

Also, actual threats are already illegal. If you want to add to the set of
things that are illegal, then you're talking about making non-threats illegal.
You can stop including "threaten" to try to legitimize the severity of the
other more minor infractions such as insults.

Don't get tyrannical with your own personal view of how people should be
"decent". Freedom means freedom for others to act in ways you don't consider
decent, in the understanding that others don't agree that your ways are
decent, but that same freedom is extended to you. Any legal restriction you
put on others can be turned around to punish you for things you think are
right but others don't, with those others now equally armed with the new laws.

> _I think this could be legislated, and I believe cases of abuse would be
> rare, and in those cases, I think legal recourse can be used to have a
> proper verdict._

But WHY? There's no reason in a free country why you should seek to over-
legislate minor behavioral misconduct, overreactions, strong opinions,
personality clashes, and the like, if no actual damage occurs. If you
legitimately want to drop the notion of "a free country" or "constitutional
government" as the US defines it and explicitly head down the road of
totalitarianism to pursue some homogeneous ideal of enforced acceptable
behavior, then cross that line; don't conflate it with freedom.

Consider public indecency laws again: Not everybody thinks that the incidental
situations of changing clothes or using bathroom facilities should be
prosecuted if somebody else happens to catch an accidental glimpse. Heck, some
people don't even believe that nudity should be hidden or shamed. Yet since
these are effectively zero-tolerance laws, people get life-ruiningly legally
branded as sexual offenders for minor and non-antagonizing accidental
situations. Because of course the broad intent of the law is agreeable and a
hot topic, nobody wants to actually challenge such law, no matter the
collateral damage. Online speech laws as you describe would overcriminalize in
the same way.

> _You 're just not allowed to verbally attack someone._

This is the core of your problem. Who defines what an "attack" is? Everybody's
jumping on the bandwagon today to be victims of verbal attacks, demanding a
mob outrage response for every little slight they perceive, defining
"violence" as things the "attacker" isn't even aware of, etc. Disagreements
are too easy to be branded as "verbal attacks" to put legal weight behind that
branding.

Physical attack is clear-cut. Financial attack is less so, but has countable
damages. Verbal attacks as a whole have no basis but some arbitrary internal
interpretation. We already have laws for harassment, which is continued
behavior, not a single perceived attack.

> _Which I believe most American would culturaly favor._

America still has a very strong culture & respect for free speech, but yeah
this entire article is about an age range which has a component of
disagreement to that. But there's also a millennial and post-millennial
backlash to this disagreement and the various outlandish victimization claims
(which damage the legitimacy of actually victimized people), and going even
more reactionarily right-wing.

> _I think it 's in our values that we condemn verbal abuse._

Here you're conflating words for a fabricated escalation, which is part of the
intellectual dishonesty I'm pointing out. You've switched multiple times from
"attack" to "abuse", which are different concepts. Again, harassment and abuse
are already illegal. If somebody says something angry online, that's not
"abuse". If somebody verbally attacked you or your beliefs, that's neither
objective nor legally damaging, with a link between those 2 adjectives.

> _I 'm curious to learn more abiut this. Can you provide examples? It's very
> possible I'm being naive here, and I'm just not aware of these instances and
> their impact._

Sorry, at this point, I think you're just trolling for something. We're on
hacker news, where things like the github behavior policies, google diversity
manifesto, harassment in startup workplaces, people getting banned from major
projects & technical conferences for outside issues, and other such things
have been major headlines, hashing through all the various arguments on all
sides.

~~~
didibus
By the way, thank you for actually engaging in a civil discussion that has
meats on its bones. Really, if anything, I'm trying to be convinced. Trust me,
none of it is trolling, I'm surprised you'd think that actually. I'm just a
hard sell on ideas.

If I understand, your hesitation to have any constraint on acceptable speech
in certain situation is that you suspect it would cause more unfair harm due
to it being used to falsely condemn people, where they did not intend to cause
social harm? And you believe that injustice be a greater bad to society then
the instances where speech was used with the intent to harm.

And I 100% follow that logic. In fact, if true, then yes, I'd be fully
onboard.

Now, I think a lot of people, young ones more so even, including me, have
noticed a trend of a kind of speech which seems to only harm society or
individuals. Providing no positive social value, other then power to those who
speak it. And the issue is not with the ideas being controversial, or
unpopular, but really with how it is spoken in demagoguery terms.

If I acknowledge this problem, I conclude that fully unconstrained speech has
its own set of downsides and issues to a healthy society.

I also acknowledge that fully restricted speech has issues, in fact, I agree,
much worse issues, and we have other countries and history as examples.

I also feel we have other countries and history as examples of the harm
demagoguery speech can have when it overtakes rational speech.

I think denying either of these problems is just ignoring reality. So what do
we do? Do we continue down the path of accelerating demagoguery speech until
it overtakes most outlets, and accentuate the problem? Do we ignore the people
who do suffer harm from such speech?

Maybe, but if so, ya, you're going to have to hard sell me. Like I'd need to
really be convinced there's no better solution. That this is the ideal trade
off and I have to just accept the problems it comes with, knowing that's the
best we can do, that alternatives are just worse.

So my first instinct is to explore hybrid solutions. Can we be smarter about
speech. Can you restrict the worse of it, while not damaging the best of it?

So you gave great pointers in that, such as: Is legislation really the right
approach? Or should, say, education be used instead? How would speech be
categorized? And how would we distinguish accidental misuse of it, with no
real intent, versus premeditated? You also strongly hinted that in doubt, the
default should be to allow it. You brought up if it should be about the harm
to the listener, or the intent of the speaker? Those are great considerations,
and clearly this is a complex problem.

Now, I just think if we don't acknowledge the problem though, and either
convince people the status quo is the ideal solution to it, or come up with
something better, then we might end up with a new generation who will come to
simply resent free speech, having only seen its downsides, and might choose to
outright repel it much more strongly then I'm suggesting.

~~~
white-flame
> _If I understand, your hesitation to have any constraint on acceptable
> speech in certain situation is that you suspect it would cause more unfair
> harm due to it being used to falsely condemn people, where they did not
> intend to cause social harm? And you believe that injustice be a greater bad
> to society then the instances where speech was used with the intent to
> harm._

No to the latter; the problem is that it would literally be bad law. It does
not target that which you wish to target, and would prosecute those who have
done no wrong, because the wrong is defined by what's in the prosecution's
head instead of something the defendant actually did.

You're saying that laws should be passed and then we can see as a society how
those laws work out, which is absolutely backwards. Bills should be
constructed and debated until they're acceptable for broad application in all
situations & directions, and only then be signed into law. (unfortunately,
it's all lobby and panic driven nowadays)

Again, if you want to fine others for speaking indecently in your eyes, then
others can fine you for speaking indecently in their eyes. That's nonsensical
for a legal structure.

I am under the impression that you've never been involved in any legal
proceedings. None of it is ever about what is right or reasonable; it's ALL
about finding out if the letter of the law (or contract, or whatever) has been
breached. If a law goes on the books, people will be prosecuted for it by its
letter, regardless of the law's intent. That's literally the job of the legal
industry. And this isn't because the government magically decides to clamp
down on things, it's because individuals with disagreements start bringing
lawsuits, empowered by new laws.

> _Now, I think a lot of people, young ones more so even, including me, have
> noticed a trend of a kind of speech which seems to only harm society or
> individuals._

The traditional media and social media websites make money off that
polarization and viral outrage. It attracts monetizable eyeballs and clicks.
This isn't a representative state of the day to day behavior of people, it's
an artificially concentrated charged environment that certain charged people
engage with, while everybody else steps back and calls them weirdo zealots.
Those who get sucked into the ridiculousness do so by yelling at constructed
stereotype targets, never by actually having conversations with actual people
in real life, and are often quite different IRL than online.

This simply isn't "real" enough to legislate. It's a bunch of hotheads yelling
at each other. Why should this be a legal matter?

> _Providing no positive social value, other then power to those who speak it.
> And the issue is not with the ideas being controversial, or unpopular, but
> really with how it is spoken in demagoguery terms._

Having no social value, and trying to muster social momentum to somebody's
claims has no basis to be illegal. That's my fundamental question of you.

The US government is constrained in its powers; what significant impetus is
there to expand this to something with such massive collateral damage and
slippery slopes?

You're the one calling for change, so it's your views that need the burden of
proof.

> _If I acknowledge this problem, I conclude that fully unconstrained speech
> has its own set of downsides and issues to a healthy society._

I think you're barking up a red herring, to mix metaphors. The fact that
people are screaming over each others' caricatured ideas is not caused by the
lack of laws punishing it.

> _I think denying either of these problems is just ignoring reality. So what
> do we do? Do we continue down the path of accelerating demagoguery speech
> until it overtakes most outlets, and accentuate the problem? Do we ignore
> the people who do suffer harm from such speech?_

I said this in the very beginning: "Any argument for free speech necessarily
empowers unacceptable speech, and any argument against free speech necessarily
criminalizes acceptable speech." I think it's better to have people
disagreeing with each other, than the government criminalizing the populace
for acting like humans with beliefs & opinions.

> _Do we continue down the path of accelerating demagoguery speech until it
> overtakes most outlets, and accentuate the problem? Do we ignore the people
> who do suffer harm from such speech?_

But those things aren't _real_.

Demagoguery doesn't work unless people buy into it. If people buy into it,
that indicates it's where people were heading anyway; it's just rallying.
Suffering "harm" from speech is in very few cases an actual thing, and where
it is it's already illegal. There are fundamental disagreements about where
the country should go, what's "right" for the country, how children should be
raised/corrected/taught, how drugs should be handled, what should be paid for
by taxes, etc etc. These disagreements must be able to be out there in the
court of public opinion for a _free_ society to develop answers to them. Some
will be reasoned, some will be emotional, and some will scream on social
media. Again, why is that a problem? Why must it be a legal issue?
WHY????!?!?!?!? :)

> _So my first instinct is to explore hybrid solutions. Can we be smarter
> about speech. Can you restrict the worse of it, while not damaging the best
> of it?_

You don't get to decide for everybody else what's the "worst" and "best" parts
of their free speech!

It would be a _social_ and _cultural_ movement which accomplishes change of
speech. The law won't change how people think & believe, and the law has no
mandate to be involved here. Plus, it would cause martyr complexes and
streisand effects which would have the exact opposite outcome to your intent.

I think you're literally talking about using the law to allow you to promote
your ideas, by criminalizing promotion of ideas that you're against. Now
imagine for a moment that somebody of the ideas you're against is taking the
same approach. You'd be quite militant against that situation, wouldn't you?
If they can't do it, then why should you have the right to? I don't care which
side is which, that's a _legal usurpation_ of freedom. Keep this stuff in non-
governmental speech among the population.

> _Now, I just think if we don 't acknowledge the problem though_

You're being incredibly nebulous about "the problem". What specific problem is
there with all the online argumentative babbling out there that you think
requires legal action, and is not already illegal? People yelling at each
other? People calling each other names? People posting propaganda to try to
increase the purchase of the ideas they want to peddle?

It's up to listeners to freely determine what they agree with or not, who's
worth listening to, and where they will give their social weight. If listeners
are empowering those peddling speech you dislike, well then I guess you're
democratically outnumbered and the people have spoken to what they actually
want. Or, it could simply be that you're listening to overblown media
caricature-laden hype and the "problems" that you see are smaller or more
nuanced in reality than what you might believe.

But really, look at what you're saying. Legislation, re-education,
categorizing other people's speech for legal consequences...

~~~
didibus
> You're being incredibly nebulous about "the problem"

You're right. The article is titled Why are Millennials wary of freedom.
That's the problem I'm talking about. There's data in that article, that
irrespective of where they find themselves on the political spectrum, newer
generations seem to devalue the merits of free speech and democracy. Now why
is that?

I think its just because of a subtle reason. Newer generations of listeners
don't have the amount of intrinsic valor you give to free speech. They don't
see all form of it as a requirement to a free society. I think they might even
see it as a threat to their freedoms.

If you take even Canada, or Germany, you'll see they actually have outlawed
forms of speech which is legal in the US. Hate speech is illegal for example.
In germany insult is also illegal. In Canada, all speech can be restricted if
it can be shown to be hurtful to a free and democratic society. For example,
fake news is illegal in Canada. Similarly, no speech can be restricted if it
can be shown to be beneficial to a free and democratic society.

Now, I think there's a certain amount of speech right now, which is hateful
and insulting, and some of it could be demonstrated to be hurtful to a free
and democratic society. You said "Any argument for free speech necessarily
empowers unacceptable speech, and any argument against free speech necessarily
criminalizes acceptable speech." Well, it seems that some other countries have
managed to find a better balance and contradict that statememt, yet remained
very free and democratic.

I agree with you on the 99%. Speech is hard to classify, what someone said,
wanted to say, thought they said, and what someone heard, wanted to hear and
thought they heard is very fuzzy. And almost all speech should definitly be
free.

But where I disagree is on the last mile. I feel all newer generations all
find that there's a large swat of hate speech right now, that isn't too hard
to misunderstand, and they'd be okay if we forcibly toned it down. Which a lot
of other free and democratic countries like Canada and Germany already do.

So I'm not saying to just restrict random vague things and make it law. I'm
saying I think a bill to restrict certain nefarious speeches should be put
forward, debated, refined and then signed into law. A good starting point for
that is hate speech, insult, and incitement to do the same. Offcourse I'll
leave it that these would come with more defined context and specifications as
to what qualifies as such.

And now, that to me, would help freedom and the safeguard of the free society.
By limiting speech such as hate speech, which targets freedom of others, you
protect freedom. By toning down noisy speech of no utility like insults, you
allow debates on freedom to be heard more clearly.

Ya, I'm okay with others preventing me from propagating my own hate and from
shouting insults. If many people interpret my speech as such, and I didn't
intend it to be, really, I'm okay being forced to reword myself, and express
myself in a way that they understand. This should be possible, if I'm truly
not trying to promote hate and express insult, then there's a better way I can
express my thoughts then, and if I can't figure it out, well too bad for me.
That's fine, really, it's not worth talking if no one understands what I want
to say. Even more so if they undersrand I'm just insulting and hating with no
good reason.

I think you just don't believe that this level of precision is possible. And I
believe it is, based from data in what Canada and Germany restrict and the way
their societies have turned out.

You can debate all matter of controversy without hating and insulting. None of
this stands because of my own ideas. And examples of recent corporations
taking actions against employees debating hot topics and getting fired over it
is irrelevant, as that's more of a debate about corporate power, and the
bounds of a contract. In fact, you can see that by the fact that while non of
the restrictions I suggest are in place currently, they were still fired.

But, I have to say, you're making me think twice. I don't believe in the
outrageous dangers of such restrictions, but you've made me think that maybe
there's also little gain, and so the whole exercise might be a bit of a waste
of time and effort. Yes, maybe being so close to the line is too much work,
for little good. Maybe I worry about hateful and insulting speech too much,
and its harmless, or maybe you're right, preventing that kind of speech is
just covering up the inevitable, if people chose to hate and insult, society
might be going that way no matter what restrictions are put in place.

I'll be thinking about that. Thank you for the discourse.

~~~
white-flame
> _The article is titled Why are Millennials wary of freedom. That 's the
> problem I'm talking about._

Ah, ok. Since you were always pointing to insults and demagoguing and such as
things that must be legally silenced, I thought you were placing the content
of the discourse as the problem.

> _newer generations seem to devalue the merits of free speech and democracy.
> Now why is that?_

The simplest reasonable answer is just that they're distanced further from the
solved problems of the past, and from the solutions deemed necessary to
counteract or prevent those problems. And thus, history begins to repeat
itself.

I hope you're not excluding yourself from the label of devaluing the merits of
free speech, because obviously you're promoting a reduction of free speech as
well, for reasons you still haven't made clear.

> _I 'm saying I think a bill to restrict certain nefarious speeches_

Again, who defines the "certain nefarious" categories?

We already have a term that acts a barrier that when crossed triggers the law:
Damages. Your rights end where my nose starts. But as long as you're not that
far, you're within your rights. I think that's the cleanest boundary to draw.

> _And now, that to me, would help freedom and the safeguard of the free
> society._

"Hate" and "insulting" _speech_ doesn't harm anything, except maybe blood
pressure temporarily. It's damaging _actions_ that do, and that's completely
irrespective of whether they're driven by this ill-defined usage of "hate" or
not. So leave the thoughtcrime alone, and police the actual crime. The only
"hate" you actually need to worry about is that which manifests into action,
which would be policed anyway.

> _Now, I think there 's a certain amount of speech right now, which is
> hateful and insulting, and some of it could be demonstrated to be hurtful to
> a free and democratic society._

I'll bite. Name one common case, where legal speech and not action is the
problem. "Hurtful" as in feelings is a nonstarter as a literally anti-American
concept: Diversity itself hurts feelings and offends beliefs, and we are an
intentionally diverse nation.

> _Well, it seems that some other countries have managed to find a better
> balance and contradict that statememt, yet remained very free and
> democratic._

I'd posit it has nothing to do with the laws, and more to do with having a
more unified cultural identity than the USA. There are also tons of other
factors which show you can't simply translate the effectiveness & outcome of a
law across borders, especially when they're at the core of particular social
unrest.

> _I think you just don 't believe that this level of precision is possible._

It's not the precision of censorship that's a problem, it's that you feel some
sort of (what I would personally call tyrannical) passion to punish these
targeted people in this way. Remember, you're talking about social media and
such, where people socialize and banter with their friends, where people get
into arguments over disagreements just like in real life, and where everybody
overpublishes flippant reactionary stuff that would previously have been
private. That's a lot of very new & very raw human interaction and personal
expression going on there. Let it settle.

> _And examples of recent corporations taking actions against employees
> debating hot topics and getting fired over it is irrelevant, as that 's more
> of a debate about corporate power, and the bounds of a contract._

I agree. That's angry mob stuff, not legal stuff, and has its own problems.

> _But, I have to say, you 're making me think twice. I don't believe in the
> outrageous dangers of such restrictions, but you've made me think that maybe
> there's also little gain, and so the whole exercise might be a bit of a
> waste of time and effort._

Thank you. Yes, that's a lot of what I was pointing at.

But in places like Germany, the speech legislation has galvanized underground
Nazi movements which keep popping up and growing. In the long view, it's
probably better for the speech itself to be free and deposed, than for it to
be illegal and foment in private as secret underdogs and martyrs. So it's not
just for little gain, it's easily damaging (because it will be applied
"legally" aka by the letter of the law) and counterproductive by galvanizing
counter elements.

> _I don 't believe in the outrageous dangers of such restrictions_

How different is this from the dangers of drug laws? Exposure laws as I
brought up before? Laws around suspicion of terror? These have already
destroyed tons of lives beyond their intended targets. There's a lot of danger
in vague ideas gaining a specific legal wording, and having a police & court
system bound to enforcing those words. It's best to only legislate the subset
that has can be more objectively tested in court.

If you search around, you'll also see plenty of cases of hate speech laws
being overapplied in the countries you venerate here as well. Laws are
dangerous things (and moreso in the USA than most smaller 1st world
countries), and we should not be passing permanent law to deal with temporary
flare-up problems.

BTW, go read some legal stories from this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15492907](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15492907)

> _Maybe I worry about hateful and insulting speech too much, and its
> harmless_

It's certainly not harmful enough to summon Justice to bring wrath down on
people's personal interactions (ie, social media interactions) through the
letter of the law.

> _or maybe you 're right, preventing that kind of speech is just covering up
> the inevitable, if people chose to hate and insult, society might be going
> that way no matter what restrictions are put in place._

You can't control what others believe & say, society-wide. This is especially
true if you're using a stick instead of a carrot. It's simply out of your
hands. Just focus on your actions, and your own sphere of influence. You will
be subjected to people who find you just as disagreeable as they are to you.
That's life, and it's a two-way street. You don't get to destroy them, just as
you wouldn't want them destroying you; you get to coexist with them in this
big ol' melting pot of diversity.

But I'm still left questioning why "hate" and "insult", when it's just
bloviating words in an impersonal setting such as broad internet discussions,
need to be punished.

Surely _your own words_ are formally "hating" and "insulting" what you
disagree with, in calling someone's earnest words "worse speech" than others,
labeling people as "demagogues", openly advocating to suppress & punish other
people's words & expressions via new laws. Even the notion of labeling "hate"
is basically prejudiced hate & insult if the only thing it's based on is a
shallow disagreement. It doesn't matter how rational it's dressed up.

The KKK has engineered very specific rationalizations and tempered sounding
non-prosecutable speech over the years, for instance. That doesn't make it any
less "hate", does it? So shouting/insulting/etc is orthogonal to all of this,
and shouldn't be a basis for your punishment proposals either.

------
mythrwy
I'm not a millennial but are they really wary of freedom?

I do see anti-free speech comments from time to time but always assumed that
was a hangover from the indoctrination of the public school system.

What maybe Millennials see clearer than anyone else (because of the Internet?)
is that the system appears rigged. Which is nothing new, it has been since we
came down out of the trees. A few people have always recognized and fought
against this. It's probably what your mom meant when she said "Life isn't
fair". But back to the topic, perhaps Millenials aren't against freedom so
much as they are aware that "freedom" is actually the illusion of freedom and
doesn't work in their best interest. IDK, just my guesses. The anti-free
speech thing is a bit disturbing to me though.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
I'm a 24 year old millennial, and my views are considerably different from my
parents.

I don't believe democracy is essential, because in my opinion, I live in an
example of what happens when democracy goes awry and gets hijacked by the
rich(USA). I personally don't feel that certain offensive speech should be
outlawed, but I've stayed away from facebook, which seems to be the site
creating this feel-good echo chamber for everyone.

I think a massive amount of our cultural problems stem less from public school
and more from two things: the internet and economics. Information overload
stresses everyone out because we didn't evolve to thrive in such an
environment, which triggers an us-vs-them mentality. Then social media sites
allow for everyone to form their own echo chamber, meaning the us-vs-them
mentality is amplified and their beliefs are never questioned. Combine this
with a two-party political system that amplifies identity politics and fails
to provide an increasing quality of life for young people, and you get an
entire generation stressed out of their mind, jaded, and not hopeful that
their futures will be better. Plus for most of us in the country, lower level
good jobs have all been automated, shipped overseas, or concentrated to a
handful of urban areas. I've nearly got a Bachelor's degree in IT, tons of
certifications, and years of experience, yet I still can't find a job because
I don't live in a tech hub of the country. And I'm lucky because I'm smart.
Imagine what it's like for the 50% of millennials who weren't genetically
blessed and have an IQ less than 100.

In such a democratic environment, why would democracy matter? Why would free
speech matter when they see no potential for growth in life?

------
maxk42
In our increasingly litigious and regulated society they've never experienced
it.

~~~
enord
I disagree, I think we've had nothing but. In the developed world, we can't
see the forest for the trees. Our gauges are centered elsewhere, and we can't
even imagine ever running out.

But we do see what people are saying, and communicating and in general being
unapologetic about. In fact it's all we ever see, is people lying through
their teeth, pandering, proselytizing. Denying climate change, dog-whistling,
cancelling firefly. We see it and hear it all day, year round. There's free
and protected expression flying over our heads from every direction
constantly, more than ever, and causing grief and harm that we see (well...
perceive) and feel (or indulge). Still there is a perceived democratic
deficit. It's a paradox, but we don't think of it as one, it's more like
dissonance. Freedom in general and freedom of speech in particular is just not
what it's trumped up to be.

------
watwut
The generation that was in power while incarceration rates skyrocketed (which
also means more people without voting rights) and that tends to have quite
unforgiving attitude towards failures/mistakes complains that young people are
not freedom loving enough.

------
noobermin
The author is a professor of psychology, but he then goes on to grossly
misinterpret the study on the "contagiousness" of "victimhood", as he calls
it. That sort of throws a bit of doubt on the rest of his article's use of
citations.

------
derefr
I wonder whether this is object-level or meta-level wariness.

Object-level: thinking that people today are mostly awful, and that someone
needs to police their behavior and choices (e.g. stop people from voting for
people like Trump.)

Meta-level: thinking that the subcultures trying to police everyone's
behaviour right now (e.g. Social Justice) are heavy on bullying, and it'd be
nice if this sort of bullying was regulated/stopped/silenced somehow.

I know both of these effects _exist_ to a certain extent in the US—but which
one is specifically "millennials", and which is older people?

------
kirillkh
It seems we are sinking ever deeper into the victimised state of mind where
any opinion you express may and will under certain circumstances be used
against you, even by people from your closest circle. So the best course of
action is usually to avoid exposing your opinions, especially on controversial
subjects. Just pretend to be a nice person, smile a lot and never say anything
explicit.

Criticism can get you in trouble, avoid it if you can. If forced to choose
sides, try to guess which is less likely to raise any kind of negativity
towards you. Counterintuitively, usually it will be the more radical side, as
radicals are often younger and more energetic in forcing their opinion on
others, so the last thing you want is to offend them.

In short, be a spineless, shapeless wuss with an appearance of calm confidence
and a lot of scenical sympathy.

------
randyrand
Here's another question. Why is the quality of journalism from the New York
Times getting worse and worse?

~~~
clavalle
It's an opinion piece by a psychologist.

------
generalizethis
Maybe they're wary of trolls and they reflect digital forums rather than
historical upbringings. Don't we all wish life had an ignore button? Anyway, I
wish the author had asked them; their answers would probably be more
interesting than the author's helicopter parenting.

------
clavalle
Hmm. Seems like Millennials are wary of the abuse of freedom.

------
jayd16
In this day and age money is speech and corporations are people. The question
is no longer an apples to apples comparison.

------
mdimec4
This is funny the fact that article is [flagged] on HN. Proves the point.

