[perryizgr8]

I saw a video in which Richard Feynman was asked to explain why magnets repel. He went on a long tirade but finally the answer was "magnets repel, because they do". Asking for a deeper explanation does not make sense unless you want to study theoretical physics for the rest of your life.

I feel this question about human rights falls into a similar category. They are required. If you want to go deeper into the reasons, you need to spend a lifetime studying philosophy and ethics and whatnot.

[thephyber]

"Because they do" is really vague, but a more useful way of saying the same thing is "repulsion is an observed property of some physical objects due to the force of magnetism" is a better answer. Feynman was creative and coy with some of his answers. That doesn't mean we all have to be.

The "Human Rights" discussion is different from a law of physics. It is a human-curated list of rights and they all have restrictions and exclusions, which is core to the "censorship by private companies on their properties" discussion.

It's helpful to discussions of "Human Rights" or "Natural Rights" to point to a written document that disambigautes the terms and enumerates the specific rights, so we know we are discussing the same thing.

The UN Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 says

> Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.[1]

[1] https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

[SketchySeaBeast]

> They are required.

Why are they required and what are they required for? Countries exist that don't have the exact same human rights, so clearly those rights don't need to exist for a nation or an individual to successfully exist.

[tekknik]

Did you not read the post? The answer as to why is a very deep discussion. Sure North Korea exists, do you want to live there? Maybe start with personal feelings?

[thephyber]

"The Flying Spaghetti Monster exists and is the only true god. The evidence exists but you have to already be an expert to understand it and it would take too long to explain it to you." This a tactic to shut down the discussion, not advance it.

Any time someone invokes "human rights" or "natural rights", it's worth at least referencing a common basis of facts written somewhere. Without this, such discussion is likely to follow two diverging paths and the people discussing it likely aren't talking about the same concepts. The relevant Human Rights document is usually the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights[1] and Free Speech/Expression is Article 19.

Some people sat down and decided the list of things that are "human rights". Lots of other people object to some of the items on that list, so it's not exactly infallible.

North Korea is a good example of a place with the lack of 1A protected speech from government interference, but it also has lots of other "human rights" violations, so you aren't really clarifying the problem with free speech by using it as an example. North Korea frequently violates most of the 30 UN declared human rights articles, so the connotation of using that country as an example leads to conflation of other issues.

Everything that creates or improves "personal feelings" isn't a human right, so that doesn't help the discussion much either.

[1] https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

[tekknik]

You just said a whole lot of nothing trying to demand people subscribe to the ideas of human rights of a particular country. Human rights are universal, by definition.

[thephyber]

But they aren't universal in the sense that all people and governments agree on the list and definitions.

In particular to the Freedom of Speech discussion, the most important part is the list of exemptions. Even China would argue they give their people Freedom of Speech, but they have more restrictions/exemptions than other countries. Hence, they are not universal in a practical sense and the details must be discussed.