<story><title>Game Over</title><url>http://antirez.com/post/game-over.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blackhole</author><text>Some people are going to say that he was in the right, and some will argue this is a consequence of being wrong, but this doesn&apos;t matter. What this illustrates is the dangerous precipice that the world of blogging is hanging on to, where the violent hatred that spews forth when anyone writes a remotely controversial opinion threatens to silence any opinion that sways too far from mainstream consciousness.&lt;p&gt;The fact that the first comment that was posted here was just more critique about the original blog post and how supposedly &quot;wrong&quot; it was illustrates how much of a problem this has become. Whether or not his opinion is wrong &lt;i&gt;doesn&apos;t matter&lt;/i&gt;. What matters is that he expresses it as an alternative &lt;i&gt;perspective&lt;/i&gt; to mainstream conciousness.&lt;p&gt;Problems are solved and society is moved forward by a multitude of various opinions, all right and wrong in their own ways, interacting with each other. Each perspective provides a unique method of solving a problem which may not yet exist. The more perspectives we have, the more ideas we have to work from when we try to solve a problem.&lt;p&gt;By violently critiquing such controversial stances, we are indirectly silencing those voices, and ultimately destroying our own ability to find progressively better solutions to problems, because we get stuck inside a single point of view and refuse to move outside of it. It is not simply a matter of ignoring trolls either, because many of the most hurtful comments, at least in my experience, are otherwise highly intelligent people who completely missed the point of what you were trying to say, and have spent 10 minutes writing a scathing critique against a nonexistent problem.&lt;p&gt;If we continue to censor ourselves, it will destroy us.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.&quot; - Voltaire&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ahelwer</author><text>I see this from a different perspective. We are finally getting to the point where a critical mass of people are not going to tolerate sexist misinformed crap as they encounter it, and will instead speak out en masse.&lt;p&gt;The blog post on sexism wasn&apos;t a &quot;controversial opinion.&quot; The author wasn&apos;t bravely standing up to the mainstream. It was just his crappy opinion that tech needs to continue to try &lt;i&gt;very hard&lt;/i&gt; to move past.&lt;p&gt;Most importantly, his opinion was NOT silenced. Why do people in this arena of conversation seem to consistently misinterpret the meaning of free speech? He espoused his opinion, and then a whole bunch of other people espoused theirs. Nobody was silenced. Quite the opposite, actually.</text></comment>
<story><title>Game Over</title><url>http://antirez.com/post/game-over.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blackhole</author><text>Some people are going to say that he was in the right, and some will argue this is a consequence of being wrong, but this doesn&apos;t matter. What this illustrates is the dangerous precipice that the world of blogging is hanging on to, where the violent hatred that spews forth when anyone writes a remotely controversial opinion threatens to silence any opinion that sways too far from mainstream consciousness.&lt;p&gt;The fact that the first comment that was posted here was just more critique about the original blog post and how supposedly &quot;wrong&quot; it was illustrates how much of a problem this has become. Whether or not his opinion is wrong &lt;i&gt;doesn&apos;t matter&lt;/i&gt;. What matters is that he expresses it as an alternative &lt;i&gt;perspective&lt;/i&gt; to mainstream conciousness.&lt;p&gt;Problems are solved and society is moved forward by a multitude of various opinions, all right and wrong in their own ways, interacting with each other. Each perspective provides a unique method of solving a problem which may not yet exist. The more perspectives we have, the more ideas we have to work from when we try to solve a problem.&lt;p&gt;By violently critiquing such controversial stances, we are indirectly silencing those voices, and ultimately destroying our own ability to find progressively better solutions to problems, because we get stuck inside a single point of view and refuse to move outside of it. It is not simply a matter of ignoring trolls either, because many of the most hurtful comments, at least in my experience, are otherwise highly intelligent people who completely missed the point of what you were trying to say, and have spent 10 minutes writing a scathing critique against a nonexistent problem.&lt;p&gt;If we continue to censor ourselves, it will destroy us.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.&quot; - Voltaire&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>_delirium</author><text>&amp;#62; &quot;I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.&quot; - Voltaire&lt;p&gt;Wouldn&apos;t you then likewise defend the right of people to criticize the post, including to criticize it harshly, even if you disagree with he criticisms or the way they&apos;re phrased?&lt;p&gt;edit: That said, I can see a case for communities maintaining discourse norms, in order to promote discussion/etc. But to me that&apos;s precisely the &lt;i&gt;opposite&lt;/i&gt; of a free-speech absolutist view, because discourse norms are limits on what/how/when to say things.</text></comment>