[cauch]

No, I disagree: in Europe, you can talk about more subjects and have civilised debates around more topics that would get you in trouble in US.

Unrelated to that, I like that in Europe, people who are mean, disruptive or trolling get punished for their childish behaviors. It does not affect freedom of speech, these people have chosen to act like idiots, they did not needed to act like that to express their speech.

Then, if you are saying that on some opinions, the majority of the people who hold these opinions are unable to use proper arguments and civilised debates and resort to being pricks, then I guess it indicates the level of sophistication of these opinions. It is not a freedom of speech problem, the problem is that that opinions is mainly shared by terrible people unable to behave.

[Gareth321]

> in Europe, you can talk about more subjects and have civilised debates around more topics that would get you in trouble in US.

Be specific please. It looks like you're trying to blur the lines now by using words like "in trouble" when the discussion is around free speech and the legal boundaries. But I won't accuse you of that unless you actually do it, so please explain which free speech us Europeans may practise which would get an US citizen into legal trouble.

> Unrelated to that, I like that in Europe, people who are mean, disruptive or trolling get punished for their childish behaviors. It does not affect freedom of speech, these people have chosen to act like idiots, they did not needed to act like that to express their speech.

Freedom of speech requires the right to offend. You don't know what you say might offend someone until you've already said it. If you're required to not offend someone, you must exercise enormous self-censorship. The right to not offend is antithetical to the principle of free speech.

[cauch]

The original comment talks about

> it is a taboo subject that ends careers and family connections.

To be specific, in US, subjects like criticising Trump can have a big impact. In Europe, criticizing any politician is very very common. In US, it is very polarised, you cannot talk politics with people you don't know.

As for work, in US, research grant were removed for using some "woke" keywords for political/ideological reasons. In Europe, grants are decided by the peers, and when a controversial subject is not attributed a grant, it is not for political/ideological reason, it is because the scientific value is considered as poor.

> Freedom of speech requires the right to offend. You don't know what you say might offend someone until you've already said it.

That's not a good argument. I'm not talking about "someone expressing their opinion that happen to offend". I'm talking about people doing actions that are offending without regard of their opinion. In the examples you have given, the exact same person would have the exact same problem if they had the same behavior but hold totally different ideological opinion.

That's my point: you are politicizing the debate. These people got in trouble not at all because of their opinion, but because they acted like prick. For each "right-wing" opinion that got into trouble, you can easily find example of "left-wing" opinion that also got into trouble the same way in similar circumstances. And people doing exactly the same acts as these people would be prosecuted the same way: there is no "cooling effect", people are not afraid of talking about certain topics, because whatever topics you are talking about, the probability of getting into trouble is identical.

If your argument is "there is no freedom of speech unless people can act like prick", then this is obviously incorrect. Killing my neighbour is "acting like a prick". Where does it stop? Does me not being able to kill my neighbour means I don't have freedom of speech? Is "libel" or "harassment" something we should accept for "freedom of speech" while in practice, tolerating these practices reduce diversity of opinion?

[naasking]

> In Europe, criticizing any politician is very very common.

Criticizing politicians has gotten people arrested in Europe. This doesn't happen in the US.

> As for work, in US, research grant were removed for using some "woke" keywords for political/ideological reasons. In Europe, grants are decided by the peers, and when a controversial subject is not attributed a grant, it is not for political/ideological reason, it is because the scientific value is considered as poor.

This is naive. You think European scientists are immune to political influence, ideological conformity and fads?

[cauch]

> Criticizing politicians has gotten people arrested in Europe. This doesn't happen in the US.

Can you provide some examples? All I've seen are examples where people did not just criticize politicians, but went way further. When, at the same time, "normal" people have absolutely no problem criticizing politicians in a "normal" way. So they were not arrested for criticizing politicians, they were arrested for acting like idiots.

> This is naive. You think European scientists are immune to political influence, ideological conformity and fads?

Well, first, it cuts both way: left-leaning scientists have a left-leaning bias, and right-leaning scientists have a right-leaning bias. So it cancels out.

But second, there is a difference between "experts making a rational decision but being unconsciously biased" and "politicians who have no idea of the subject who ruin a scientist career because they saw the term "Enola Gay" or "financial equity"". One is a bad second order side-effect, the other is frontal political thought control.

[naasking]

> When, at the same time, "normal" people have absolutely no problem criticizing politicians in a "normal" way.

So you agree that the US has more free speech because people can deviate from your completely arbitrarily defined "normal" form of critique.

As for examples, the German criminal code has literally criminalized insulting people (section 185), and insulting politicians has even harsher penalties (section 188). There are hundreds of articles covering cases, just ask any AI for a summary.

> So they were not arrested for criticizing politicians, they were arrested for acting like idiots.

In your opinion, acting like an idiot is a criminal offense, even if it does not harm anyone, in the tort sense?

> Well, first, it cuts both way: left-leaning scientists have a left-leaning bias, and right-leaning scientists have a right-leaning bias. So it cancels out.

And what are the political demographics of academia right now? This is a big reason for the replication crisis in the social sciences.

> politicians who have no idea of the subject who ruin a scientist career because they saw the term "Enola Gay" or "financial equity"".

That isn't really happening. No one's career is being ruined by having to rewrite grant proposals to remove DEI language, because previous policy required DEI language. The restructuring of academic funding and incentives is frankly long overdue. Everyone, including scientists, has been complaining about grant funding and the skewed incentives in academia, like publish or perish. You often have to break a system before it can be fixed.

[cauch]

> So you agree that the US has more free speech because people can deviate from your completely arbitrarily defined "normal" form of critique.

What? No, in the US, people will also be in trouble, not only from deviating from my "normal" form of critique, but also when they don't deviate from it.

Trump called for investigation and arrest on Comey, Cheney, Powell, ... despite the fact that they never crossed the line in expressing their criticism to Trump's decisions. This has never happened in Europe.

> the German criminal code has literally criminalized insulting people

How is that a bad thing? If your opinions are not stupid, you don't need to insult people to express them.

> In your opinion, acting like an idiot is a criminal offense

What? Is that really what you understand? I'm just saying that they acted like an idiot by doing something they should have known was unnecessary and will led to trouble, including judicial one.

Me: "Mr Smith was not arrested because he wears a red t-shirt, he was arrested because he acted like an idiot by deciding to expose himself to children in the street". You: "So you are saying that acting like an idiot is a criminal offence".

> And what are the political demographics of academia right now? This is a big reason for the replication crisis in the social sciences.

Oh, there it goes. Academia are highly international and therefore meritocracy based: if you think that Harvard is too "left wing", go to Paris, or Tel Aviv, or Quebec, or Japan, or Melbourne, or Rome, or London, or any other "anti-woke" university in USA or somewhere else, and publish your piece and become famous for having demonstrated objectively something that the intelligencia wanted to hide. This idea that the whole word is so much into the conspiracy that every universities on Earth are covering the left-wing academia conspiracy is so stupid. Maybe another reason is that a lot of right-wing political ideas don't make sense when confronted to a rigorous analysis, and therefore the right-wing positions are falling from natural selection.

> That isn't really happening

Yeah, sure, and your fantasy about academic left-wing conspiracy and anti-freedom-of-speech-dictatorship in Europe, these are really happening. Sure.