You damage your own cause when

I was going to make a comment about racism and Emmit Till, but these people kept blocking me, creating a ton of ill will towards them in my heart. When you stifle someone’s right to express themselves you make them hate you, and make them all the more determined to say what you tried to repress. What the person was going to say was pretty innocuous anyway.

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Censorship is always wrong. Free speech means you will sometimes hear things you don’t like but it’s better than having your own speech censored. The best defence against a bad idea is a good idea, not censorship.

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Regarding censorship on a forum for people who lose touch with reality and can become combative, suicidal, homicidal etc censorship of triggers is pretty important.

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The problem with that is different people are triggered by so many different things, start censoring everything and there is no point in having a forum. A trigger warning, if you feel it is necessary is good enough. Some people put TW in their thread titles.

I can accept this websites policy of no religion or politics, there are other places to discuss that, but from a governmental, systemic and societal point of view censorship is bad.

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I mostly agree with you about this site, but what I am talking about concerned a different corner of the internet. There is little reason to have a site concerning politics if you’re going to censor it.

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Censorship is everywhere these days. Very few places are a completely uninhibited free marketplace of ideas.

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I get the nuance between the two situations feynman makes (real quote?) but if both situations are in the same light without nuance it would be fn terrible to have questions that couldn’t be answered. Like who the f are these people to tell me these questions cant be answered!?

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There are a gazillion questions that can’t be answered. We’ve always lived with them, as we should. But there should be no answers that cannot be questioned.

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Yeah that’s the nuance one is caused by sheer mysteriousness the other by tyranny, but I think if both are caused by tyranny both are equally bad.

I don’t know if it’s actually a legit quote but I give it 10/10 because if answers can be questioned you may never arrive at a final answer, a question that can’t be answered.

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I agree @crimby. I thought you were talking about this site, sorry.

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One thing I have learned in my years as a mod is that there are some debates that don’t deserve to be had. Because they are not actually debates, but attempts at bullying. Or attempts to make hate speech under the guise of “just asking questions.” If the question is “which people deserve human rights” the answer always has to be “all of them” and there can be no debate. Otherwise, you will make your site a hostile space towards any group who is mentioned in the debate.

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And im not saying you were trying to bully or speak hate. But there are some posts I see on here where I think “this person had good intentions, but within 5 replies it will devolve into Nazi rhetoric from other people unless i stop it now”

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You’re right. We don’t want that on this site. But one time in a college Lit. class I had the bad judgement to suggest that what we get in the press is some reasonable proximation of the “truth”, and everyone burst out laughing and acted SO superior to me. To me it seemed like they were the ones with the closed minds. They didn’t ask about context or sources. Their minds were made up.

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Yeah I can’t stand this attitude either. If you think someone is wrong about something, you should work with them to understand the subject better. Making fun of someone for trying their best and not getting it quite right is the opposite of what education should be. I don’t know too many people who learn best by being ridiculed.

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It is a real quote. He is being clever and nuanced. He is saying there may be a question that can’t be answered because they are unanswerable, not because someone is preventing you from getting an answer.

For example:

What goes on inside a black hole? That ‘may’ be a question that can’t be answered

Is there a God? That ‘may’ be a question that can’t be answered.

No one is preventing you from answering those questions, they may just be question that can’t be answered.

He is making a point and being clever and nuanced as you say, contrasting it over 'answer’s that can’t be questioned. meaning authority figures or the government forcing you to bellieve something that you know isn’t true and you can’t question it, like with a totalitarian government.

It’s a pro freedom quote.

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What an awesome quote by Richard Feynman! I like the skeptical philosophers. I pride myself on my objectivity.

Hmm. . .

If Someone Is Hating You There Is An Easy Solution To That Situation.

Wander On In Peace.

If Your Mouth Is Being Taped Shut Metaphorically By Those Exposing Willful Ignorance.

Why Bother?.

Their Self Imposed Misery Is Obvious To Those Who Matter.

If Your Being Of Self Is Nonexistent In Their Sight With The Order To Spew Hatred.

Their Empty Breath Is Being Spat At Nothingness.

There Is Nothing Coming From Them Anyways. It’s Meaningless To Respond With Anything.

Especially Hatred.

Because…, It Damages Your Own Cause For Hope, Love, And Peace.

If You Stand For Truth. In The End, The Truth Will Be All That Will Remain.

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