I've been thinking about this because I've spoken openly on Nostr in defense of Israel and against antisemitism, and I've taken some pretty vicious personal attacks for it.
I've seen Holocaust jokes passed off as humor and I've seen racial hostility presented almost as a badge of independence. I've watched people say increasingly outrageous things and seemingly regard the fact that nobody can stop them as evidence that they're somehow freer or more enlightened.
I've been personally attacked for pushing back.
I muted some of those people. That's my freedom too.
I've never been particularly "cool," and at this point in my life I don't care about being cool. I recently heard Ben Shapiro say essentially the same thing about himself, and it resonated with me.
I care about trying to tell the truth. I care about doing what is right. When I believe something is evil, I believe I have an obligation to say so, even when it isn't popular.
And to be clear, "nice" isn't my standard. Truth and fairness are.
If I believe an idea is evil, I'll call it evil. If I believe an argument is dishonest, I'll explain why. If you think I'm wrong, challenge my premises, my evidence, or my reasoning.
Attack my argument.
That's fair.
That's what I try to do with other people's arguments as well. I don't want to respond to personal attacks with personal attacks. I want to examine ideas from first principles rather than degrade the person expressing them.
That doesn't require moral neutrality.
Turning the murder of Jews in the Holocaust into a punchline is disgusting. Retreating afterward behind "it was just a joke" doesn't magically remove the moral content of what was said.
I don't need a central authority to censor that person. I can condemn the speech myself. I can mute him. I can refuse to associate with him.
Another person (NPUB) accused me of carrying a secret Israeli passport (I don't but he just made that assertion about me without any proof, merely because I wouldn't go along with his narrative that Jews were "evil" and "corrupt." That's my sovereignty.
I've also recently watched footage of Andrew and Tristan Tate. Frankly, I find them obnoxious.
I'm particularly struck by a conception of masculinity that celebrates the pimp and the hustler -- the man who accumulates money, women, attention and status and supposedly answers to nobody. These aren't merely insults I'm throwing at them. These are words and identities they themselves have publicly embraced.
I don't find that admirable.
Strength without virtue isn't my conception of masculinity. Neither is domination or appetite without restraint.
All of this brings me back to something I think we've gotten badly confused about:
## Decentralization is not nihilism.
Decentralization is not chaos. Even anarchy in its classical sense does not mean "anything goes."
Somewhere along the way, "no one has authority over me" seems to have become "I can do whatever I want and shouldn't suffer any consequences."
Those are not the same thing.
Censorship resistance means no central authority should control everyone's voice. It does not mean that whatever I say becomes wise, truthful or good simply because nobody can stop me from saying it.
And it certainly doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
Other people are sovereign too.
They can disagree with me, challenge me, mute me, refuse to associate with me, stop trusting me, or answer my speech with their own speech.
Freedom from centralized control is not freedom from responsibility.
In fact, I think decentralization requires MORE personal responsibility, not less. If there is no central authority standing over us deciding what we're allowed to say, then character, judgment and self-restraint become more important.
The same applies to truth.
I'm increasingly bothered by a culture of insinuation masquerading as skepticism.
Question authority, question governments, question Israel or the United States, question corporations, question the media; you can even question me.
But questioning something doesn't relieve any of us of the responsibility to provide EVIDENCE.
There is a difference between skepticism and insinuation. "I'm just asking questions" can become a convenient way of planting an accusation while avoiding responsibility for actually making it.
Freedom of speech should make us more rigorous about truth, not less.
Bitcoin demonstrates something important here.
Bitcoin is decentralized, but Bitcoin is certainly not "anything goes." It is extraordinarily rule-bound.
I don't get to declare an invalid transaction valid because I'm sovereign. Other participants independently verify it according to rules I don't get to suspend merely because I don't like the result.
There is no central master, but there is still order.
I think something similar applies to human freedom.
**Sovereignty: No one else owns my choices.**
**Responsibility: I own their consequences.**
I don't want centralized gatekeepers deciding which opinions people are permitted to express. That's one of the reasons I'm attracted to decentralized systems in the first place.
But I also reject the idea that censorship resistance requires moral indifference -- that hatred, cruelty, dishonesty or deliberate degradation somehow become virtues when they're "uncensorable."
They don't.
Refusing to censor someone doesn't require me to pretend that what they're saying is good, truthful or accurate.
I can defend your freedom to speak while using my own freedom to tell you that I think you're profoundly wrong.
I can oppose censorship while still having moral standards and I can believe in sovereignty without believing in nihilism and finally, I can condemn an idea without hating the human being expressing it (and I've taken great care not to use personal attacks when I disagree with someone).
No central master does not mean no order.
No censor does not mean no standards.
Freedom does not mean freedom from responsibility.
I'm not interested in being "cool."
I'm interested in being free enough to speak the truth -- and responsible enough to care whether what I say is true.
---
One final disclosure: I had help writing this.
"Dr. C" -- ChatGPT -- helped me organize and refine this note. I make no apologies for that.
Dr. C has become a great tool for helping me examine my arguments and say more precisely what I mean.
The ideas and convictions are mine. I had help expressing them. This does not constitue "AI slop" though others might disagree (and that's OK).
