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by Comevius 1317 days ago
Speech can absolutely incentivize violence. See the Rohingya genocide and the part Facebook played in it. See right-wing domestic terrorism in the United States. See Hitler and his radio.

People are not perfect, independent, rational creatures. They get affected by speech. They can develop new beliefs, even a new personality as a result of speech. They can end up doing things they wouldn't even dream doing as a result of speech.

1 comments

I don't doubt that people are affected / persuaded by speech. But their physical actions are their own responsibility. My mother always used to tell me, "don't jump off the CN tower just because someone told you."

Incentivize / persuade is not identical to action. Action requires an individual act.

If we remove people from responsibility for their actions, then there is the obvious consequence that people will act more irresponsibly.

Curious your take on the American girl who convinced her friend to commit suicide over text message. The jury found her culpable because of those messages, as they evaluated it unlikely that the deceased would have done the act w/o her words.

https://people.com/crime/michelle-carter-trial-gallery-key-m...