A very reasonable approach and, dare I say, one that has very strong traditions. It has only recently been the case that people actually want to shut speech down (e.g. universities). Traditionally, students have gathered where they want to hear a speaker and don't gather where they don't. If only more people adopted this reasonable approach.
Using government to shut down unwelcome thoughts goes back to the very first tribes, I imagine. The slavocracy in the US used the post office to censor abolitionist magazines and newspapers. The slave Congress Critters tried to ban even accepting abolitionist petitions but couldn't get past the First Amendment (Congress shall make no law ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances), so they banned reading them out loud. John Quincy Adams got around that by asking for judgment on whether a petition could be read aloud, and of course had to read it aloud to ask.
You write: Recently, Robin Hanson was asking me about norms against discussing sensitive topics, such as “How many grown men are attracted to 17-year-old girls?” My response: We should just generalize “Ask me again after dinner.”
I think I completely misunderstand. I take this to mean: People SHOULDN’T post about men’s attraction to young women on Substack. I agree, it’s unseemly, I don’t need to read about that. “They’re probably creepy and I don’t want to see it.” I don’t need to ban it, but I don’t have to think it belongs on a particular social media platform. Do we agree?
(I asked Grok to answer as Caplan*) Groklan: In every non-captive setting (your own blog, a podcast, an X thread you started, a private DM, a side room at a conference, etc.), you are allowed to bring it up without violating any deep moral norm. People who don’t want to engage can and should just scroll past, mute, block, or close the tab. That is their “after dinner.”
MY “after dinner” is: “not where I’m reading.” I scroll past the tweet, and I say "I wish that guy would take it elsewhere." There are SOME norms of expected communication on social media. If you want to be like that... Just by being in public there are things you shouldn't do. It's not a deep moral norm to say, "not here, dude, please."
(A thread ensued with me imagining things that Caplan could post that I would legitimately feel do not belong on various Social Media platforms.) Groklan: To him, saying “take it elsewhere” in a space where “elsewhere” is literally one click away is like telling someone on the street “please take your ugly lime-green suit elsewhere.” You’re allowed to think it’s ugly, you’re allowed to say it out loud, but you do not get to demand they change or leave the sidewalk just because you find it unseemly. The only remaining legitimate etiquette is individual, silent, frictionless avoidance. So no, on the specific reaction “I wish that guy would take it elsewhere” / “Not here, dude” — you and Caplan do not agree.
For Groklan talking about young girls, talking poopy, and wearing a lime green suit are all akin? I don’t know whether Caplan holds these views. But, Groklan can post whatever it wants on social media, fine. Still if certain contents appears on Substack, I'm going to feel like Groklan should take it to OnlyFans.
*My first request that Grok explain the post resulted in: "Caplan's core argument is that physical hunger demonstrably warps judgment, so we should routinely delay important decisions until after eating to improve outcomes in personal, familial, and societal contexts."
Is there an additional public-space/private space distinction to be made? For many speakers (and listeners, both direct and indirect), there might be an expectation that self-selected conversations in public may have different content than self-selected conversations in private. EDIT: You partly address this with the "get out of earshot" line, but getting out of earshot is different in a house or office than it is on a sidewalk or a social media platform post.
Dr Caplan, I've been meaning to respond to a bunch of your posts for a hwhile now, but I've been procrastinating. Now, I'm finally getting around to it. I slightly disagree with this one. I kinda like offending people with non-self-selected conversations. For example, talking with a friend about open-immigration on a train. Other passengers are bound to overhear our conversation and may be pushed to insert their opinion. I kinda want them to. So that we can have that conversation!
Plus, I think an important element of free speech is "bursting people's bubbles". That is why I am very concerned about private censorship and the privatization of the "town square". I seem to recall, from one of your answers to my questions in one of your AMAs that you weren't so concerned aboot this, because you figure that profit-seeking venue owners would still wanna rent out their space to people who wanna hold talks, even about unpopular views. For example, I could see how a "pro-choice" owner of an event space would put profit above principles and allow a pro-life group to rent its space for a talk. But, this is only good for self-selected groups to hear ideas they already agree with. And if we limit free speech to that, people are gonna be staying in their little bubbles and things will never change. The hwhole point of free speech is to reach out to people who don't already agree with you, to try to change their minds, in order to bring about change. And most people who don't already agree with you, probably don't wanna even hear you! Sometimes, you kinda gotta force 'em to listen!
For example, one of my hobbies is pro-life activism. That includes, among other things, holding big signs showing graphic pictures of abortion victims to passerbys. They definitely didn't self-select. But if we didn't force them to see this and wait for them to opt in to seeing these pictures, they might NEVER see them. And they need to see 'em! Fortunately, for now, we can still show the posters on city-owned sidewalks. Except within 50 metres of abortion clinics which is an outrage, but I digress... If the streets were privately owned, I don't think any for-profit street owner would allow us to do this? I seriously doubt it! Canadian for-profit billboard companies, like Pattison, routinely reject even non-graphic pro-life ads!Or, if they did, given that our posters attract a lot more anger (and sometimes violence!) than, say, just raising awareness about cancer or something, on average, we require more security. So, we might have to pay more. I don't think we should. I think we deserve equal protection from violence as anybody else, at the same price. Even if our speech attracts more violence than other speech. Isn't this kinda a "subsidy" for unpopular speech? You bet it is! But it's a subsidy that this "libertarian~ish" person can get behind!
This is a solid rule, but the particularly insidious dynamic of social media algorithms is that they basically operate like a nightmare funhouse—you can think you’re walking into a room to talk about kettlebell routines, but suddenly it’s just misogynist groypers. It’s astonishing how quickly and often this happens, and I think puts social media sites more in a gray zone for me between opt in and opt out.
I think that is mostly correct but I also think there is another role which offense plays is a bit more complicated. I mean that's great with respect to the norm about being solicitous of other people's unanalyzed emotional reactions -- but I’m not sure that is what most offense is really about.
For instance, lots of people are offended when someone questions the Holocaust or when they used redskins as a name of a football team. These are pretty clearly not like being hurt because someone suggested something that felt slighting to you. They are a pretty explicit attempt to regulate the Overton window -- in these examples they are mostly about reinforcing the norm that a certain group deserves the same level of respect as other groups do. And as far as that goes I don't know how much the opt-in nature of the discussion matters insofar as the point of the norm is exactly to discourage expressing a certain kind of attitude.
I struggle with such norms because they invariably have downsides -- it's impossible to apply these norms without raising hard line drawing questions (inevitably someone else will be upset because their concerns don't seem to be treated similarly and it truly is impossible to do this in a truly objective way).
So I think they should be applied with care but I also think the approach of "ask me again later" may actually achieve some of that anyway as it does convey that you are treating the topic with a certain degree of special solicitude. So I like the approach but feel it's relevant that it is also playing this additional role.
A very reasonable approach and, dare I say, one that has very strong traditions. It has only recently been the case that people actually want to shut speech down (e.g. universities). Traditionally, students have gathered where they want to hear a speaker and don't gather where they don't. If only more people adopted this reasonable approach.
Using government to shut down unwelcome thoughts goes back to the very first tribes, I imagine. The slavocracy in the US used the post office to censor abolitionist magazines and newspapers. The slave Congress Critters tried to ban even accepting abolitionist petitions but couldn't get past the First Amendment (Congress shall make no law ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances), so they banned reading them out loud. John Quincy Adams got around that by asking for judgment on whether a petition could be read aloud, and of course had to read it aloud to ask.
IMO you are both correct.
In the America where people aged 30 - 90 grew up, Michael is surely generally correct.
In many / most other places and times, you are.
You write: Recently, Robin Hanson was asking me about norms against discussing sensitive topics, such as “How many grown men are attracted to 17-year-old girls?” My response: We should just generalize “Ask me again after dinner.”
I think I completely misunderstand. I take this to mean: People SHOULDN’T post about men’s attraction to young women on Substack. I agree, it’s unseemly, I don’t need to read about that. “They’re probably creepy and I don’t want to see it.” I don’t need to ban it, but I don’t have to think it belongs on a particular social media platform. Do we agree?
(I asked Grok to answer as Caplan*) Groklan: In every non-captive setting (your own blog, a podcast, an X thread you started, a private DM, a side room at a conference, etc.), you are allowed to bring it up without violating any deep moral norm. People who don’t want to engage can and should just scroll past, mute, block, or close the tab. That is their “after dinner.”
MY “after dinner” is: “not where I’m reading.” I scroll past the tweet, and I say "I wish that guy would take it elsewhere." There are SOME norms of expected communication on social media. If you want to be like that... Just by being in public there are things you shouldn't do. It's not a deep moral norm to say, "not here, dude, please."
(A thread ensued with me imagining things that Caplan could post that I would legitimately feel do not belong on various Social Media platforms.) Groklan: To him, saying “take it elsewhere” in a space where “elsewhere” is literally one click away is like telling someone on the street “please take your ugly lime-green suit elsewhere.” You’re allowed to think it’s ugly, you’re allowed to say it out loud, but you do not get to demand they change or leave the sidewalk just because you find it unseemly. The only remaining legitimate etiquette is individual, silent, frictionless avoidance. So no, on the specific reaction “I wish that guy would take it elsewhere” / “Not here, dude” — you and Caplan do not agree.
For Groklan talking about young girls, talking poopy, and wearing a lime green suit are all akin? I don’t know whether Caplan holds these views. But, Groklan can post whatever it wants on social media, fine. Still if certain contents appears on Substack, I'm going to feel like Groklan should take it to OnlyFans.
*My first request that Grok explain the post resulted in: "Caplan's core argument is that physical hunger demonstrably warps judgment, so we should routinely delay important decisions until after eating to improve outcomes in personal, familial, and societal contexts."
Is there an additional public-space/private space distinction to be made? For many speakers (and listeners, both direct and indirect), there might be an expectation that self-selected conversations in public may have different content than self-selected conversations in private. EDIT: You partly address this with the "get out of earshot" line, but getting out of earshot is different in a house or office than it is on a sidewalk or a social media platform post.
Dr Caplan, I've been meaning to respond to a bunch of your posts for a hwhile now, but I've been procrastinating. Now, I'm finally getting around to it. I slightly disagree with this one. I kinda like offending people with non-self-selected conversations. For example, talking with a friend about open-immigration on a train. Other passengers are bound to overhear our conversation and may be pushed to insert their opinion. I kinda want them to. So that we can have that conversation!
Plus, I think an important element of free speech is "bursting people's bubbles". That is why I am very concerned about private censorship and the privatization of the "town square". I seem to recall, from one of your answers to my questions in one of your AMAs that you weren't so concerned aboot this, because you figure that profit-seeking venue owners would still wanna rent out their space to people who wanna hold talks, even about unpopular views. For example, I could see how a "pro-choice" owner of an event space would put profit above principles and allow a pro-life group to rent its space for a talk. But, this is only good for self-selected groups to hear ideas they already agree with. And if we limit free speech to that, people are gonna be staying in their little bubbles and things will never change. The hwhole point of free speech is to reach out to people who don't already agree with you, to try to change their minds, in order to bring about change. And most people who don't already agree with you, probably don't wanna even hear you! Sometimes, you kinda gotta force 'em to listen!
For example, one of my hobbies is pro-life activism. That includes, among other things, holding big signs showing graphic pictures of abortion victims to passerbys. They definitely didn't self-select. But if we didn't force them to see this and wait for them to opt in to seeing these pictures, they might NEVER see them. And they need to see 'em! Fortunately, for now, we can still show the posters on city-owned sidewalks. Except within 50 metres of abortion clinics which is an outrage, but I digress... If the streets were privately owned, I don't think any for-profit street owner would allow us to do this? I seriously doubt it! Canadian for-profit billboard companies, like Pattison, routinely reject even non-graphic pro-life ads!Or, if they did, given that our posters attract a lot more anger (and sometimes violence!) than, say, just raising awareness about cancer or something, on average, we require more security. So, we might have to pay more. I don't think we should. I think we deserve equal protection from violence as anybody else, at the same price. Even if our speech attracts more violence than other speech. Isn't this kinda a "subsidy" for unpopular speech? You bet it is! But it's a subsidy that this "libertarian~ish" person can get behind!
Really good rule of thumb. I dig this.
This is a solid rule, but the particularly insidious dynamic of social media algorithms is that they basically operate like a nightmare funhouse—you can think you’re walking into a room to talk about kettlebell routines, but suddenly it’s just misogynist groypers. It’s astonishing how quickly and often this happens, and I think puts social media sites more in a gray zone for me between opt in and opt out.
I think that is mostly correct but I also think there is another role which offense plays is a bit more complicated. I mean that's great with respect to the norm about being solicitous of other people's unanalyzed emotional reactions -- but I’m not sure that is what most offense is really about.
For instance, lots of people are offended when someone questions the Holocaust or when they used redskins as a name of a football team. These are pretty clearly not like being hurt because someone suggested something that felt slighting to you. They are a pretty explicit attempt to regulate the Overton window -- in these examples they are mostly about reinforcing the norm that a certain group deserves the same level of respect as other groups do. And as far as that goes I don't know how much the opt-in nature of the discussion matters insofar as the point of the norm is exactly to discourage expressing a certain kind of attitude.
I struggle with such norms because they invariably have downsides -- it's impossible to apply these norms without raising hard line drawing questions (inevitably someone else will be upset because their concerns don't seem to be treated similarly and it truly is impossible to do this in a truly objective way).
So I think they should be applied with care but I also think the approach of "ask me again later" may actually achieve some of that anyway as it does convey that you are treating the topic with a certain degree of special solicitude. So I like the approach but feel it's relevant that it is also playing this additional role.
In the context of this conversation what does “self-selected” mean?
"Almost" certainly? Couldn't quite face it!
How would you render a commercial or service interaction?
DMV visit, Starbucks, grocery?
A lot of negative stuff is expressed and suppressed there on both sides.
Wonderful advice. Impeccably argued.