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SYSTEM_ERROR_FREE_SPEECH

                                             December 16, 2022

About "System Error" (2021)
                                          SYSTEM_ERROR


The authors insist we're facing a
tradeoff between free speech and
democracy, and they want to turn          The argument that free speech is
the dial toward democracy, away           now irrelevant Because Internet
from that other thing.                    has always seemed weak to me, and
                                          the arguments here aren't any
  How this is supposed to work in a       stronger than usual.
  country with a First Amendment
  isn't so clear, and certainly not          Yes, we've got hired shills
  with a Supreme Court packed with           spewing propaganda, foreign
  conservative flacks intent on              powers interfering in our
  weaponizing the law for their own          politics, filter bubbles that
  purposes.                                  seem impenetrable to reality...

  Unless I'm reading them wrong,             These are all differences in
  these are some other members of            degree rather than in kind.
  that faction aiming toward a               There really are reasons that
  government run Ministry of Truth           "free speech" has been a key
  in all but name, because it's              principle of enlightened
  necessary to find some way of              society for centuries.
  carving out a free speech
  exception for Big Tech Social              If you've soured on free speech
  Media, preferably in a way that            solely because it's been a rallying
  doesn't set off any alarm bells.           cry on the right in recent decades,
                                             isn't that another example of
     I've got a theory that former           tribalism?  Maybe you're living in
     Obama administration people             a filter bubble of your own...
     (like Jeremey M. Weinstein) are
     prone toward this kind of                   The classic position
     thinking.  Absolute power                   that a free exchange
     doesn't corrupt quite so much               of views is necessary
     if you put reasonable moderates             for a democracy t
     like us in charge of it.                    function isn't so
                                                 much rejected as not
                                                 examined at all...

            SYSTEM_ERROR_KING_TAKES_KING



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