# A serious question for Sam Stone on Factual Errors **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 11, 2021, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881 "2021-12-11T12:32:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 38
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2023, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/741 "2023-05-19T15:04:26Z")
Now, now. Let’s not conflate jackasses with assholes. I"m often a jackass, but more rarely an asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2023, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/742 "2023-05-19T15:33:38Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Let’s not conflate jackasses with assholes. Would that be a jackhole? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2023, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/743 "2023-05-19T15:45:51Z")
No, a jackhole is always both. The [talking Progressive box,](https://youtu.be/zhvEgokp9w8) for example. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2023, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/744 "2023-06-11T19:51:40Z")
(["Illegals" and "invaders" should be moderated as hate speech in the context of immigration debates - #243 by Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegals-and-invaders-should-be-moderated-as-hate-speech-in-the-context-of-immigration-debates/985244/243)): > [@"Illegals" and "invaders" should be moderated as hate speech in the context of immigration debates](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegals-and-invaders-should-be-moderated-as-hate-speech-in-the-context-of-immigration-debates/985244/243): > > People can say whatever they want. Adults can use what they say to decide what to think. > > Fighting ignorance is not achieved by trying to control what people say or think. We have far too much language policing here already. Speaking of ignorance: > **[Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/invader)** > > The world's leading online dictionary: English definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more. A trusted authority for 25+ years! Yes Sam, it is really stupid to defend others, who call the undocumented “invaders”. One big reason is that the ones defending that odd use of the word are ignoring that bigots are using it for dehumanizing reasons. And there is a risk to pay when coming to threads by just ignoring the context that TOWP was insulting me by trying to claim that he did not know that I told him before that I was undocumented before I got amnesty (I really wonder what I did took by force or who did I kill during my invasion /s). The risk here is to just have others realize where your sympathies are. The risk is for others to realize that your sympathies are with antiscience dopers that think that being a bigot too is a cool thing. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2023, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/745 "2023-06-11T20:12:05Z")
@GIGObuster, I agree with you that TOWP is a bigoted asshole. But I don’t see that **Sam** was defending him, I read **Sam** ’s post as defending (presumably within reason) the right to use terms that some might find offensive rather than excessively policing the language. In general I tend to agree, again with the caveat “within reason”. “Illegal immigrants” may be a term best avoided in many contexts; “illegals” is distasteful in any context; and “invaders” as applied to immigrants under any circumstances is aggressively belligerent, but I don’t think any of them should be banned. Instead, as I said in the other thread, we should judge the speaker accordingly and, as with TOWP, treat them as the bigoted asshole that they are. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2023, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/746 "2023-06-11T20:19:16Z")
Well, as the theme here is about factual errors, “Invader” is not what I was, and if one can find a dictionary where the main meaning applied to undocumented immigrants, well, that is to be seen. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2023, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/747 "2023-06-11T20:39:43Z")
It’s quite something that you went to a thread about MY factual errors to completely miscategorize something I said. I wasn’t referring to the specific case in the thread, but laying down a marker that language policing is a bad idea in general. I think that was pretty obvious. That is, if you were reading for content rather than to look for a ‘gotcha’ you could use to pit me again. > [@wolfpup](#): > > I don’t think any of them should be banned. Instead, as I said in the other thread, we should judge the speaker accordingly and, as with TOWP, treat them as the bigoted asshole that they are. Exactly. If someone is a bigoted asshole, I don’t want a bunch of rules and protections to keep him from showing his bigoted assholery to everyone. Language policing makes bigots and assholes look better. I’d rather get a little look into their minds by allowing them to speak freely. And words are not violence, no matter what the language police say, and trying to shelter people from bad ideas and bad words just infantilizes them and makes it harder for them to deal with reality when their minders aren’t available to ‘protect’ them. Finally, you can always tell the people who are not confident that their own beliefs can survive in the marketplace of ideas. They’re the ones trying to change the rules. And that is antithetical to ‘fighting ignorance’. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2023, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/748 "2023-06-11T21:18:01Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Exactly. If someone is a bigoted asshole, I don’t want a bunch of rules and protections to keep him from showing his bigoted assholery to everyone. How about, if someone is a bigoted asshole, I don’t want them **here**. That’s the disconnect. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2023, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/749 "2023-06-11T21:55:56Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > How about, if someone is a bigoted asshole, I don’t want them **here**. > > That’s the disconnect. Exactly, and Sam just reacted in an exaggerated and asinine way, I only said that he risked looking like a bigot in context, not that he was. Talk about “miscategorize”… ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2023, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/750 "2023-06-11T22:06:32Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Exactly. If someone is a bigoted asshole, I don’t want a bunch of rules and protections to keep him from showing his bigoted assholery to everyone. Language policing makes bigots and assholes look better. I’d rather get a little look into their minds by allowing them to speak freely. > > And words are not violence, no matter what the language police say, and trying to shelter people from bad ideas and bad words just infantilizes them and makes it harder for them to deal with reality when their minders aren’t available to ‘protect’ them. > > Finally, you can always tell the people who are not confident that their own beliefs can survive in the marketplace of ideas. They’re the ones trying to change the rules. And that is antithetical to ‘fighting ignorance’. I’m really curious. What actual bigotry has been directed at you in your life? It’s real easy to take this position if you’re not the target of bad ideas and bad words like ‘You people should be exterminated’. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2023, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/751 "2023-06-11T22:14:47Z")
He’s a old white guy, the most persecuted group on Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2023, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/752 "2023-06-12T00:26:54Z")
I reject that entire line of reasoning. I have read extensively from various philosophers like Hume, Rousseau, Locke, Smith, Marx, Hegel and others. You know what I’ve never done? I’ve never looked into their backgrounds to see if they had ‘lived experience’ that qualified them to have an opinion. Do you know why? **Because words stand alone.** That’s the whole point. It doesn’t matter who you are, what color your skin is, whether you were pampered or suffered hardship, whether you are part of the ruling elite or a peasant. People who come from marginalized communities should be the ones fighting for free speech the most, because popular speech doesn’t need defending and in a democracy speech is a powerful tool against oppression. Yet some of you are happy to piss it away for a small temporary political advantage. Disqualifying ideas because the wrong people uttered them or because you don’t like the content is a good way to keep yourself stupid and ignorant. If you’d prefer to fight ignorance rather than wallow in it, you might want to actually learn something about the debate over free speech and its classical origins and rationale, and why it is critically important to a free spciety, instead of this power-play, shut down the opposition bullshit. Because if you manage to normalize speech codes, you will be very sorry the day you no longer hold power as the other side will use your rules against you, and there are a lot more of them. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2023, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/753 "2023-06-12T00:54:25Z")
Sir, this is a message board. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2023, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/754 "2023-06-12T01:03:05Z")
Yeah, one supposedly dedicated to fighting ignorance. You aren’t helping. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2023, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/755 "2023-06-12T01:08:17Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > > Exactly. If someone is a bigoted asshole, I don’t want a bunch of rules and protections to keep him from showing his bigoted assholery to everyone. > > How about, if someone is a bigoted asshole, I don’t want them **here**. > > That’s the disconnect. He’s just not-fanboiing his not idol who’s the poster boy for free speech absolutism. Or isn’t, depending upon whether he’s already burned a big pile of money buying Twitter and/or the free speech might upset an authoritarian somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2023, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/756 "2023-06-12T01:25:29Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > He’s just not-fanboiing his not idol who’s the poster boy for free speech absolutism. Or isn’t, depending upon whether he’s already burned a big pile of money buying Twitter and/or the free speech might upset an authoritarian somewhere. Could someone translate that into English for me? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2023, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/757 "2023-06-12T01:28:30Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I have read extensively from various philosophers like Hume, Rousseau, Locke, Smith, Marx, Hegel and others. You know what I’ve never done? I’ve never looked into their backgrounds to see if they had ‘lived experience’ that qualified them to have an opinion. > > Do you know why? **Because words stand alone.** That’s the whole point. It doesn’t matter who you are, what color your skin is, whether you were pampered or suffered hardship, whether you are part of the ruling elite or a peasant. No, whether words stand alone or not depends very much on the subject and context. Sometimes lived experience matters very much indeed. To give a couple of examples, Bush the Younger famously could never comprehend the nature of poverty, because it was totally outside his experience, and Trump the Orange is a psychopathic narcissist because of _ **his** _ lived experience. Your reference to philosophers is utterly irrelevant because philosophy, by its very nature, seeks answers through abstract logical deduction and the nature of its knowledge can be described as fundamental, theoretical, and objective. The question at hand here is whether the labels that we sometimes assign to people can be dehumanizing and hurtful, which is an entirely different discussion. To the extent that philosophy has any bearing on this at all, philosophical propositions like Kant’s categorical imperative tell us that we should refrain from using hurtful labels. I agree, but I also agree with you that this often doesn’t rise to the level of hate speech, and therefore shouldn’t be prohibited in a venue whose ostensible purpose is robust debate – I just don’t agree with your stated rationale for it. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2023, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/758 "2023-06-12T01:31:44Z")
Meanwhile, far from the safety of Canada, in 'Merica; Crazies are shooting up pizza parlors and night clubs, advocating for genocide at CPAC, planning to murder half the Congress because they’re all pedos, ect, ect, ect. BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE ARE USING THEIR FREE SPEECH TO INCITE THEM TO THOSE ACTS. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2023, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/759 "2023-06-12T01:43:05Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > How about, if someone is a bigoted asshole, I don’t want them **here**. > > That’s the disconnect. I’m not just talking about the SDMB. I am talking about the principle of allowing people to speak freely, here and everywhere else. It’s not just about government censorship, it’s about inculcating an environment where people feel free to speak their mind. The reason there is a first amendment (and why it’s the first one) is because free speech is critical to the functioning of a free society. What about unpleasant speech, profanity, speech you think is wrong, or ‘hate’ speech? _That’s what speech protections are for._ No one gets censored while agreeing with the majority. It’s the unpopular ideas that need protecting. But there are always people who hate other people’s ideas and yet don’t know how to effectively refute them, and they will always resort to simply trying to shut the other side up. It’s a sign of weakness. As I said, the impulse to silence the speech of others is always borne of insecurity about one’s ability to defend their own ideas. No one ever tries to shut up the opposition when they are shooting themselves in the foot. If you want a quick reason why (among many) free speech is important, it’s that free societies are complex systems where individuals are given agency to make their own choices. For a rational person to make rational choices, they must be able to weigh all evidence. When others start manipulating information streams and forbidding certain ideas, the entire structure starts to fail. Good citizenship requires information, and freedom means others don’t get to decide what information you see. Now the SDMB can do whatever they want. And certainly everyone is allowed to have their own rules about what is and isn’t said in their house. And some censorship in the public square is necessary to stop trolls and people who try to shout down others. I’m just saying that extensive use of speech codes to make the more censorious users comfortable is not compatible with the mission of fighting ignorance - at least in the areas where censorship is being applied. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2023, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881/760 "2023-06-12T01:47:40Z")
You’re being compared to Elmo and mocked for your claim to not be his fanboi, but you already knew that. I’ll take even odds that you actually _did_ completely miss the “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” meme by @Chingon, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881.md?page=37) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-serious-question-for-sam-stone-on-factual-errors/955881.md?page=39)