"Yes, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but what right does a person have to share that opinion if it causes harm to another person?"
It's rare that someone says so plainly what they mean: If I don't like what you say, you shouldn't be allowed to say it.
Words -- labels -- are thrown around very carelessly. If someone cracks
a joke and someone else feels offended, it is "harassment" or
"bullying" or "harm". In reality, it's neither, but by attaching those
specific words, "I felt insulted" is put alongside sexual harassment and
stalking and assault.
That quote came about in reference to a
Facebook page which posted images of obese persons in costumes. The
page was likely mean-spirited. It was insulting. Did it rise to the
level at which we say, "You aren't allowed to say that?"
In the
meat world, there are lots of public spaces. In the public spaces, the
1st Amendment to the US Constitution permits one to say nearly anything
they want. And someone is allowed to respond in kind -- in speech. Those
public spaces are bordered by private spaces where you can continue to
speak your mind, without needing to share the space. You're allowed to
express hate for anyone. Blacks. Jews. Gays. Women. Immigrants. You can
say some pretty vile stuff. Your right to say it is codified in our
primary legal document.
On the internet, there are NO public
spaces. Everything is private space owned or provided by someone else
and you have no rights. If they don't like what you say, they can find
someone in the chain -- the forum, the hosting provider, the ISP, even
the DNS registrar -- who will pull the plug on you rather than deal with
whatever harassment or bullying they get from the people who don't like
what you say.
Yes, some of it rises to actual harassment and
bullying. Filing a complaint is one thing -- going onto forums to
badmouth the company, contacting business partners, trying to cause them
enough harm that they'll do what you want, that IS bullying. It IS
harassment.
And yet, because of the internet, you don't pass
anything you don't choose to. There's no issue of sitting in the park
with your kids and seeing hateful signs across the street. Those kinds
of borders are entire walls on the internet. You cannot see through
them. If you don't like a Facebook page, you don't have to click on it.
That's it!
Or, at least, it should be. However, rather than
making the personal choice to avoid something, rather than fighting
speech with more speech, someone tries to make enough noise, disrupt
operations enough that someone in the chain says, "Enough!" and yanks
the page down.
Because if what you say harms someone, what
right do you have to say it? In the real world, you have every right. On
the internet, you have none
Labels: bullying, constitution, convention, cosplay, facebook, first amendment, free speech, geek, harassment, internet, nerd, science, speech
"The plural of 'anecdote' is 'data'."
Steven Pearlstein wrote in The Washington Post, "
Sebelius's cave-in on mammograms is a setback for health-care reform"
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius did a marvelous job this week of undermining the move toward evidence-based medicine with her hasty and cowardly disavowal of a recommendation from her department's own task force that women under 50 are probably better off not getting routine annual mammograms.
. . . "How many mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, daughters and friends are we willing to lose to breast cancer while the debate goes on about the limitations of mammography?" Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, asked in an op-ed article in Thursday's Washington Post. Dr. Brawley cleverly didn't answer his own question, but the clear implication of his question was that the only acceptable number should be zero. And it is that very attitude, applied across the board to every patient and every disease, which goes a long way in explaining why ours is the most expensive, and one of the least effective, health-care systems in the industrialized world.
We're still cowering from facts, hiding in a Wonderland where if we just spend enough money, nobody has to die and nobody has to suffer. Until we own the tough choices and accept that both are inevitable, we're going cause death and suffering while trying to turn fantasy into reality.
Labels: cancer, dr. otis brawley, health care, medicine, politics, science, steven pearlstein, washington post
What's Worthwhile: Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Life
Here's what's worthwhile that I've been reading or viewing:
I've watched the first eleven episodes of
Life (all they've made so far), about a cop who spent twelve years falsely imprisoned before winning his freedom and a lawsuit from the city which gave him his job back and millions of dollars. He studied Zen Buddhism while incarcerated and that combines with his experiences as an inmate to make for a very unique character, especially a police detective. It's nudging me in the right direction, to try and clear my mind and focus on what's in front of me now rather than what's behind or far ahead. I've got some books on Buddhism, I should finally pick them (or something) up and see what the philosophy can teach me.
NOVA Science Now is a spin-off of
NOVA and has three shorter stories in each episode. Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson hosts it, which is the reason I'm watching.
I've re-read two of Dr. Tyson's essays,
The Perimeter of Ignorance and
Holy Wars. Both are wonderful and push me to ask deeper, richer questions and to not put forward unnecessary boundaries upon myself.
Labels: dr. neil degrasse tyson, life (tv series), nova (tv series), science, what's worthwhile
