From what I've learned here on HN someone who thinks that "free speech" is absolute - their right to free speech outshines the personal rights of others. So instead of discussing where my rights end and your rights start, they will argue that no line should be drawn.
In addition, from what I understand, they seem to think that democracy is a consequence of "free speech", not the other way around.
Not sure I understand your post, both spam and threats are speech (at least in the US), so maybe something was lost in translation?
Here are some of the limits of free speech in the US:
> Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, false statements of fact, and commercial speech such as advertising. Defamation that causes harm to reputation is a tort and also an exception to free speech.
And here some examples from Germany (translated via DeepL):
> the protection of personal honour against insult or defamation, the disclosure of information classified as secret, the limits of morality and the protection of minors, the limits of public safety, unfair competition by discrediting the goods or services of a competitor, the unauthorised disclosure of copyrighted information, racial discrimination
There is no end. Laws are just very very well performing models. But every 'law' breaks down if you violate the assumptions of the model: make things too big/small/hot/cold etc.
Yes there are some points where it is, e.g. elections, whistleblowing, witness protection etc., which goes to show that in general, in Western democratic societies, anonymity is not a requirement for free speech.
No, almost all parts of society require identification, you could say it's a fundamental principle (Western democratic) societies are built upon. Your freedom is based on me being held accountable to respect it.
Anonymity is protected in special situations such as elections, communications, whistleblowing etc.
> No, almost all parts of society require identification
Do you have a source on that? I can think of FAR more parts of society that don't require identification than parts that do. It feels impossible that "almost all parts of society require identification" in a world of infinite possibilities.
I put some pants on 10 minutes ago without identifying myself. Then I left my house without telling anyone. Then I walked down the street and never had to identify myself. The mall I visited didn't require ID. Finally, the McDonalds I went to accepted cash and I didn't have to prove who I am.
Presuming what you claim in the last paragraph is true, maybe it’s a fun thought experiment to ponder how much anonymity you’ve pierced. How many other people in the world today did as you have done? Now constrain by people who post on hn.
> To me (an European) that is a bonkers way of looking at the issue.
Came here to say exactly this. If you do not trust your democratically elected institutions you need to improve your democratic system.
> "Popular sovereignty is the principle that the authority of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, who are the source of all political power."
> I got direct experience of this when my wife got COVID and was sick for a couple of weeks, I was then quarantined by the government at home but never got sick. How this could happen was never officially explained.
It seems you have been doing in-depth research about Sars-Cov-2/Covid-19, how did you miss the secondary attack rate/household infection rate? It used to be one of the crucial measures of transmission in early 2020, and has been studied for every variant ever since.
What I don't understand is this jump between the complexity of the situation and the simplicity of your conclusions. You go into great length to point out the shortcomings of PCR tests or that 100% susceptibility is an unrealistic modelling assumption, but your interpretations/conclusions are often blanket statements like
> This reveals one of the core scientific problems
> This research wasn't merely unnoticed, it was actively suppressed.
I notice that in your conclusions you tend to lump together very heterogeneous groups, like "scientists", "the media", "government", "the people who run healthcare" - and "they" seem to be responsible for the shortcomings? I find it very puzzling. E.g. scientific consensus is rarely clear-cut, but you will find plenty of papers/opinions arguing for and against something. Same with governments, there are some 200 countries and "they" followed very different policies. Wouldn't it be more convincing to present both evidence for and against a certain hypothesis?
I referenced the SAR in the post you're replying to (not under that name). Measuring that it's quite low isn't an explanation of why that happens, or an incorporation of that fact into policy.
I get what you mean about consensus but scientific consensus is by definition clear cut, it's supposed to mean 100% agreement. Often something is presented as a scientific consensus when it's really not, rather, people who disagree are being ignored or blocked from publishing.
During COVID a lot of things were presented to the public as if it were 100% obvious and agreed with by every specialist, then policy was made on that basis. You couldn't just disagree with government mitigations and ignore them, they were enforced by law and this was justified by the idea that anyone who disagreed with their effectiveness was a misinformation-addled rube who had to be forced for the good of everyone else. People who pointed out data or papers that disagreed with this supposed consensus were fired or banned from social media to try and maintain this illusion of universal agreement.
> there are some 200 countries and "they" followed very different policies
Did they? I'm pretty sure virtually every (rich) country all imposed mass testing, quarantines, mask mandates, lockdowns and mass vaccinations. Other than Sweden famously rejecting lockdowns, which countries didn't do these things? Policy was globally homogenous because the public health community is global and their methods don't really vary. Tegnell was the exception that proved the rule.
> Often something is presented as a scientific consensus
> During COVID a lot of things were presented to the public as if it were 100% obvious and agreed with by every specialist
Who is it that presents things to the public? Who are "they"? Who is "the media"? At least in the country I live in different journalists/writers/bloggers had very different opinions and they changed significantly over time. You could even watch the scientific process in real-time: New evidence comes in, people update their beliefs.
> scientific consensus is by definition clear cut
> maintain this illusion of universal agreement.
> Policy was globally homogenous
We can agree or disagree whether there are these groups that all act in unison, what I want to point out is that you need these homogenous groups for your argument to work.
If different countries had come to similar conclusions independently, that would mean the conclusion are likely valid, no? If different journalists/experts/scientist from different countries/cultures/political backgrounds came to similar conclusions independently, that would mean the conclusion is likely valid, no?
I'm making a guess here: I hypothesise that your discontent stems from the fact that you don't want other people to tell you what to do or not to do. In particular you disagree with the concept that society is a mechanism to distribute both wealth but also burden. Does that ring a bell?
"They" means scientists. The CDC, SAGE in the UK and the equivalents in other countries. They were directly giving briefings and press conferences.
We got to watch the scientific process in real time, indeed. It consisted of new evidence coming in and nobody updating their beliefs.
> If different countries had come to similar conclusions independently, that would mean the conclusion are likely valid, no?
No. After all, that cuts both ways. Many hundreds of millions of people around the world who were fully independent of the scientific grant funding structure watched this process and came to very different conclusions. So that must be mean the conclusions are likely invalid, no?
You have conveniently left out the cost differential for the printed edition, and you are conveniently pricing the trust/risk/hassle that comes with it at 0. And even in this case I doubt the USD 5 pw is the market price, you are basically assuming there is a kid, who values extra pocket money.
The assumption about a kid for pocket money is relevant because a) lots of people doing the job of delivery papers are kids already and b) even if they're not, they're some doing the same job for minimum or less than minimum wage so presumably have similar desire or need for earning money for simple work.
And as mentioned, the person who suggested it being possible was talking about using an existing physical subscription not paying for that within the $2.5k
I live in India. My newspaper costs ₹230 a month. That's ₹2,760 a year and ₹27,600 for a decade (not factoring inflation). At today's conversion rates, that's $333.58 for entire decade.
If I pay the remaining amount of $2166.42 to the delivery person over 10 years, that's about ₹1493 per month, which is over 6 times the cost of newspaper subscription. For that amount, yeah, they'll be happy to hang the paper on a wall.
I've just done that in reply to your previous comment, but will add here: they said "pay the person who delivers my daily newspaper", so it's $2500 on top of an existing delivery, not $2500 including paying for a new subscription & deliveries.
$250 is a tad lower than the median monthly salary in India. I bet you can find hundreds of millions of people willing to earn a cool $0.7 a day doing something as easy as this. That’s a meal or two for a poor person.
With millions of people living in conditions where even safe drinkable water is not something you are guaranteed to get - 250$/year equivalent seems wild.
In addition, from what I understand, they seem to think that democracy is a consequence of "free speech", not the other way around.