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by lucideer 2543 days ago
Slightly more pragmatic reframing of the question:

> "Why do you host harmful content?"

To which your returned question would be similarly open-ended: Harmful to whom? Define harmless content. Etc.

... but probably a little more "down to earth" in terms of discussing the bounds of such definitions.

The root of being "offended" may often be grounded in an agenda to silence and control, but it's typically defended by referencing potential harm. So that's usually a good place to start overturning such arguments.

1 comments

I disagree. Both "offensive" and "harmful" are up to debate based on arbitrary views / moral codes.
This is exactly what I said in my comment.

I just think debating the former is meaningless (even if two parties agreed, their shared conclusion wouldn't be useful as offending someone isn't implicitly harmful).

Whereas debating what's harmful, while similarly arbitrary and subjective, at least has the implied goal of actual harm reduction.

> This is exactly what I said in my comment.

Ooops, I think I replied to the wrong comment

Is that useful though? The following requires a moral code to say it is bad:

Directly advocating for sexual violence against another group.

You don't need a moral code. The pragmatic argument is that throughout history and across cultures, the rise of large civilizations was enabled by basic rule of law. Protecting people against violence brings stability and maximizes productivity.