Morons of the Internet: The New York Times

This is the segment where I scour my favourite forums around the internet and find some particularly interesting articles about current affairs told in the words of my favourite human beings.

Usually this segment is just me ranting about some whinging feminist, but now I'm actually going to be arguing against an esteemed professor on the ins and outs of free speech. Well not that esteemed; they're a professor of psychology, but still someone who should know how to make a coherent argument.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/opinion/sunday/when-is-speech-violence.html?ref=oembed
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I can tell you as a student at a notoriously left wing university that I absolutely agree with this idea that the conglomeration of speech and violence is hurting academic institutions, and I absolutely sympathise with the people that are critical of their anti-free speech methods. The point this writer is making is that speech which is deemed violent shouldn't be protected by the idea of free speech, which doesn't at all sound problematic. I'm sure some would argue that this article should be designated as violent, so what gives you the right to spurt this nonsense on the internet? All you've done is prove that speech can be really fucking stupid, and not in any way violent. If this was a serious discussion then the word 'when' should be cropped out that title completely. I have no issue with the science used to underpin this argument, however I do have an issue with how it's applied.

The central argument here is that so called hate speech can have harmful physiological effects on the body, ergo hateful speech must therefore be a form of violence. That's certainly an interesting generalisation considering that hate speech is going to be interpreted differently by different groups of people. You claim to have provided empirical guidance on what can be called hate speech, except you just haven't. At best you've just provided a list of studies that are weakly integrated into the central argument. Who gets to decide what's hate speech? God help us if it's you. It's all very well saying we can find objective figures from measuring these telomeres that you were so keen to cite, but this is an arduous task that would mean measuring every audience member's telomeres after every single word, and then thoroughly analysing this data. It's just not a pragmatic solution. Say my telomeres were shortening at an increased rate whilst reading this. Would that be grounds to brand this article as 'hate speech' and then subsequently getting it banned?

I understand that some hateful speech is bad for your health if you're routinely subjected to it FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME, however this does not in any way constitute your call to ban speakers you don't align with. Funnily enough these scientific principles go out the window when describing Milo Yiannopolous, who is somebody you have a clear disdain for. No telomere or cytokine measuring here, just a personal opinion that at no point is backed up by any scientific evidence. Students are not forced to listen to this man speak. If they don't want to hear what he has to say then they don't need to fucking show up. Getting offended by a man's words is a personal choice, and not something biologically innate, so this argument does not excuse wanting to ban the man from speaking, especially as the evidence you provide relates to prolonged stress rather than a talk that may last two hours if you're lucky.

Why is it suddenly such a crime to want to challenge students? Challenging long held ideologies is the whole point of studying at a university. Personal belief systems, and that of the speaker, should be challenged at every available opportunity, so banning this man from participating in this debate is incredibly counterproductive. To then say there is nothing to be gained from this debate is even more idiotic. If you have ever actually attended a Milo Yiannopolous event you would be aware his speeches are followed up with open questions from the audience. You might not think that's a purposeful debate, but to start didactically proclaiming debates you don't like as 'pointless' is an incredibly ignorant attitude. Maybe, and this might be a radical idea, it's the overreaction of students that choose to be offended that are to blame, and not the speakers. As I said earlier speech has different effects on different people as we all have different nervous systems, so why should the benefits gained by the masses be sabotaged by a minority of whinging idiots?

Let's play a game. Without looking at the title of this video can you deduce if this is clear hate speech from Milo Yiannopolous' campaign of abuse, or just merely offensive material by the prestigious Charles Murray? Oh dear, it seems these subjective parameters you defined are absolute bullshit. The reactions from students to both these individuals are to simply silence any form of debate despite your pleas that these are two drastically differing forms of speech. Maybe it's time to admit that this is an argument revolving around a personal narrative rather than objective facts. It turns out this article is not relative to telomere lengths, but actually relates to the 'Individual Psychology Professor Test'. Unfortunately this test only distinguishes whether some moronic psychology professor like a particular speaker, which unlike scientific methods can't be falsified. It's almost as if this measurement isn't valid.

Once again science has taken a backseat in the conclusion to make way for the real central premise of this article; restricting free speech. That's all this article is, a narrative based piece masquerading as a serious piece of scientific literature. Just because you don't like certain people doesn't mean you can shoehorn scientific arguments into morally ambiguous matters where they don't belong. If you don't like what I'm saying in this article that's absolutely fine by me. I don't care if you think this is hate speech, but how dare you think you can censor individuals for not aligning with your narrow minded views. Fuck off and stop being so self centered.