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Brettbaker's avatar

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was telling doctors they should wash their hands before a certain overhyped European was.

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Stig's avatar

Another ecample of a jew getting credit for something another man discovered.

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Stig's avatar

Semmelweis was born on 1 July 1818 in Buda, Hungary, which in 1837 combined with Pest to form Budapest. He was the fifth child born to Teresia Müller and Josef Semmelweis, Jewish immigrants to Hungary from Germany

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Simon Skinner's avatar

Have you read Sean Last's criticism of free speech? Generally I'm pro free speech but I think he makes good arguments for why, at least some of time, it isn't and hence discussion of when we should freely speak should be an issue. One of the biggest issue of the historical argument, e.g., is that it's not compared to analogous situations. Sure, often elites in the past banned areas of speech and turned out to be wrong. But considering that people in the past tended to be wrong about everything, that's not saying much. What we need to compare is epistemic norms. Did elites by banning speech lead to better epistemic norms than that without out? Given the track record of free speech, viz, the free speech epistemic norms are nothing to write home about, it seems at plausible that there could be some elites with better epistemic norms.

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Emil O. W. Kirkegaard's avatar

I mean, in theory, someone could do a study to see whether free speech predicts future outcomes for countries. I imagine it might have some useful contribution there. There's a reason all the big media companies are based in USA, because it doesn't have -- can't have -- hate speech laws that require constant policing etc. American companies still kinda comply with some of these laws, but only because they want European market share. There is thus a good argument to make here that American free speech promotes American economic growth in tech sector.

You would have to post the link. I don't know which article you mean.

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Simon Skinner's avatar

Yeah, I think it's Last's position that free speech is largely a matter of empirics.

Either the text post's gone/never existed/I can't find it, but here's a youtube link:

https://youtu.be/biKzBNEKhJM?si=3qkEXVwsCvS1luQc

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Realist's avatar

Speech is either free or controlled.

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Gregory Connor's avatar

Thanks for recommending Human Accomplishments by Charles Murray in one of your blogpost appearances. The linear regression material in the book was a bit forgettable, but otherwise the book overall was very memorable and thought-provoking. It should be on Freshman reading lists at all top schools.

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air dog's avatar

I always liked Newton on the shoulders of giants, and I never knew he borrowed it from earlier writers. Thanks!

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Emil O. W. Kirkegaard's avatar

I got it from the documentary, Everything is a Remix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9RYuvPCQUA

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Mark's avatar

You made it to the SPIEGEL! Or they to you? Gratuliere! Quite an achievement: "Verdeckte Aufnahmen enthüllen internationales rassistisches Netzwerk - Heimlich aufgenommene Videos zeigen, wie eine internationale Gruppe von Fanatikern pseudowissenschaftliche Rassentheorien massentauglich machen will." "Covert recordings reveal international racist network Secretly recorded videos show how an international group of fanatics wants to make pseudo-scientific racial theories suitable for the masses." - Guardian: Kirkegaard responded by saying: “The HDF is not involved in politics. It’s not affiliated with any political party or group. If one must attribute some company values to the HDF, these are those of the Enlightenment: reason, science, open mindedness, and free speech.”

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