this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Even ignoring the obvious issues with the child pornography stance, this blog post starts out on completely the wrong foot. The idea that data is just arbitrary bits is completely falacious and willfully ignorant. He's asking us to ignore the fact that those bits represent information, which is more than an arbitrary set of bits. Or else we wouldn't be sending them.
Not to mention his anthropomorphization of computers, which is also completely inaccurate. A computer "cares" more perhaps even more than us about the precise arrangement of the bits, because that is what allows them to convert those bits into specific actions. A single bit being off could in fact render the entire dataset illegible. Whereas a human who receives a typo-ridden call to arms, for example, may still be able to convert that particular set of bits into an actual act of violence.
I have problems even with the starting point for this ideology.
I totally agree with what you say. I think, though, that the starting points of this post are already an extreme interpretation of the freedom of speech. The whole post is just a twised and extreme viewpoint.
What I find interesting though is, that the argument he arrived at, pretty much contradicts the purpouse of freedom of speech.
He's like "Bits are just bits and the meaning of bits doesn't matter". But if it doesn't matter, why would you need to protect that? Freedom of speech only deserves protection because the speech (or the information) matters. If it wouldn't matter, it wouldn't be a big deal if random combinations of bit-values would be made illegal.
Yes, I think you were correct originally that this is ultimately a freedom of speech issue. I would have the same argument against free speech absolutism. It just ignores the cause and effect related to communicating information. That's why we have laws against speech that incites violence. Sometimes the effect of speech can be equal to or greater (by orders of magnitude) than physical action.
It's always seemed strange to me that free-speech absolutists seem to argue that what people say doesn't have much effect on the world.
If it's so insignificant an act... Why are they so invested in protecting their right to do so without any constraints?
It counters their own argument.