An Appeal to Set Expectations Accurately: SaidIt values Fact-based Discussion more than Free Speech

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[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think freedom of affect is an important part of freedom of speech. I've been exposed to a huge amount of affect-propaganda just through movies, ads, political messages, religion, etc, and I think it's been important for me to be able to see stuff with different affect. You yourself even seem to recognize its value.

I think there's an implication in here that only bad people who want to hurt others are interested in a freer speech environment than what SaidIt is offering. (Which is, to some, a maligning and insulting implication.) I haven't been here long, but if you look at my brief post history I think you'll see that I've probably valued treating others well more than the average user here, including the poster above who gave an extra-strong written-upvote to someone who was objectively choosing to be rude.

[–]FormosaOolong 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Oh hey, sorry, I meant "you" in the sense of "one." I didn't at all mean you were being rude or a jerk. Now that I reread my post and your reply, I can see how that wasn't as obvious as I thought. Apologies for any misunderstandings.

I hear what you're saying about affect, and agree that it is important. Which is why I prefer to communicate with genuine--not contrived--respect for others even when I totally disagree with them. Passion and wrathfulness have their place, but when the foundation for communication degrades into name-calling and such, in my opinion the value has been lost.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Oh hey, sorry, I meant "you" in the sense of "one."

Hey, thanks, it's nice to know you didn't mean the reply as a kind of attack against me personally. And I didn't think you did, it seemed like the kind of reply someone gives when they come by and feel like commenting on the general ideas without thinking too deeply about what's written there. Not to knock that or whatever, I've done it a lot myself. I know what it's like to value having goodwill and wanting to know you weren't offending someone across the internet, and I appreciate people wanting to treat me well, so I wanted to try to reply in the same vein.

I didn't think you meant "you" in the personal sense though, it was the content of the message I wanted to respond to. Whether or not directed at any one person, the thrust of the argument seemed to be that freer speech is only desirable for bad people ("jerks"). I don't think that's true, and it's not just that I don't like the implication about me, it's a message I think is part of the current ecosystem and I don't like the implication about all people who want freer speech than what's offered here. I also wanted to point out that someone who was arguing against saying negative things about others was someone who was participating in that themselves; it's a pattern I see somewhat often and I think it's worth pointing out for people who haven't noticed it yet.

Anyway, thank you for the conversation, I don't know if you'll want to reply again but I feel I've probably made my case now, whether or not anyone agrees with it.