A Clash of Kings

What Hacker News says

1. wernercdOct 2023
   I actually saw that when finding the quote but was too lazy to go deep into it. Yeah, it's not Voltaire quoted but her paraphrase.

   I think free speech is like all our other rights - absolute but your rights end where the rights of others begin. Which is a wonderful paradox in which to live.

   You have the right to self defense but don't have the right to own a nuke. You have a right to speak freely but not to defame/slander/incite violence. The question isn't are those rights yours but where your right ends and the line between your rights and mine.

   It's still probably my favorite quote - especially as a veteran - even if, like a lot of things, its not exactly 100% accurate lol.

   I should put it as "Voltaire, misquoted by Hall"

   My other favorite quote is:

   “When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

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2. kj01aDec 2016
   I finished The Lord of the Rings! It took me three years of reading it on and off, but once I finished it the movies became significantly less epic.

   I also read:

   The Martian, Andy Weir --Loved it, but not for everyone

   Streams of Silver, R.A. Salavatore --A fun read, disappointing ending

   A Clash of Kings, George R.R. Martin --Wonderful

   Meditations, Marcus Aurelius --Also wonderful

   The Art of Peace, Morihei Ueshiba & John Stevens --Platitudinous bullshit and an affront to O'Sensei

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3. ifoundthetaoDec 2015
   The Hobbit - Liked, classic.

   How Ideas Spread - It was decent, I feel like it could be condensed into an infographic after the fact, and hold great value.

   The Lean Startup - Excellent. Changed the way I do business.

   A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1 - Great book, wonderful universe. Apparently Martin loves himself a good descriptions of clothes.

   A Clash of Kings: A song of Ice and Fire, Book 2 - Great book.

   Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Good book for a kid, pretty irritating kid though (the kid in the book, not mine).

   The Andromeda Strain - Excellent!

   Christ the Sum of All Spiritual Things - Great book! Very healthy view of a Christocentric theology.

   Dracula - Sleeper hit of the year. This book was awesome.

   Pippi Longstocking - Read this to my son, and we really enjoyed it.

   The Secrets of Power Negotiating - Helped me out during the process of buying a house by understanding various negotiation gambits. Would recommend.

   Scrum - Another book that changed the way I work. Would absolutely recommend it.

   The Wizard of Oz - Much better than the movie.

   The 4-Hour Workweek - .... It was "okay". I don't know. I'm still torn.

   The Swiss Family Robinson - Awesome book, full of fun things to talk about with your kids.

   The BFG - This was the start of the Roald Dahl stage for bedtime reading.. It's a great book, one of my favorite Dahl books.

   Matilda - Reading this as an adult, it was not nearly as fun as when I was a kid, however my son loved it.

   The Fantastic Mr. Fox - Fun and easy read for the kids.

   Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Pretty decent book.

   Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator - Terrible. Absolutely terrible.

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4. wernercdJul 2023
   "no one forced your speech" if you support forcing independent artists or businesses to make stuff with messages they dont' support then you support "forced speech".

   "this form of discourse" what form? defending simple statements? Attacking strawman attacks? Celebrating freedom of speech and the defense of freedom of religion? If the discorse isn't allowed here? why not?

   what are you afraid of hearing?

   “When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

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5. incomingpainMar 2022
   >Censorship isn’t futile. The regimes that use and used it aren’t stupid. It works. See how Milo and Gavin McInnes just disappeared from notice once Twitter/Google/Facebook decided that it was time to bring down the banhammer.

   Your 2 examples are people who are clearly not censored. Censorship have made them greater in celebrity because of the censorship. Both of them have nice long wikipedia pages and you can go read or listen to what both of them have to say.

   “When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”

   ― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

   By censoring these 2 people, and even naming them right now, you have made them a greater celebrity than they were ever going to be.

   >Censorship works.

   I honestly haven't cared to listen to either of these people, they aren't in my political sphere and they are not my political opponent. However absolutely not. These 2 examples are censorship backfiring to huge degree.

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6. pitayDec 2019
   I didn't mention anything specific, so I am not sure what you are replying to. Your example can be dealt with better in other ways, such as putting a prominent statement with a brief description of why something is untrue and a link to further information. For YouTube something like a popup that appears on the video which has to be manually closed, and also the information appearing under the video.

   Censorship in general is terrible, and abused very regularly. Even on the really small scale I see little mafias pop up all the time, such as on forums, where anyone a bit critical of the select group gets banned and their posts deleted. On a larger scale is Putin announcing that criticism of the state is to be censored, citing other European laws do just that and punish people for what they say. If someone is censoring someone it is just extremely suspicious, and I don't blame anyone for going 'it is censored, therefor it is likely true', because the censor has removed the information that could be used as evidence for whatever it is.

   "When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say." - George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

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