it's more reasonable to put it in the "intent to transmit information" box.
I really don't see that. Take a plain-vanilla election poster consisting of an ugly mug and "Vote for X!" This is a pretty direct attempt at causation and I don't really see much of information being transmitted.
Looking at my thought process, I think I'm using this differentiating test:
Look at the probability of the outcome, given the speech - if it's high enough that you can ignore the receiver of the message as an independent agent whose response generates uncertainty, the causation looks pretty direct. But if the outcome is dependent on people freely considering the information and acting on their own conclusions (as they would if the information was known by other means), then it looks indirect enough that I consider "transmiting information" as the function of the speech.
A great deal, might even be most, of speech has intent "to cause a concrete effect besides transmission of information". The freedom of speech laws do not aim to protect transmission of information -- they aim to protect precisely the right to speak in order to produce tangible consequences.
Consider e.g. whisteblowing. Or pretty much any political speech -- are you saying engaging in political speech specifically in order to influence the elections "isn't really protected"?
Consider e.g. whisteblowing. Or pretty much any political speech -- are you saying engaging in political speech specifically in order to influence the elections "isn't really protected"?
No, I'm saying that causation is sufficiently less direct in this case (than in cases like shouting "fire" and ordering a murder) that it's more reasonable to put it in the "intent to transmit information" box.
I reiterate that I don't understand how do you distinguish the two.
By the presence of this additional element, the intent for the speech to cause a concrete effect besides transmission of information, and its ability to cause it.
ETA: For some reason I only now noticed the "other hand" on your first response. Yes, all speech transmits information (even if just the information that I think A or desire B), and most speech intends some goal (even if just the goal that people think like me). When I think of the problem of putting a speech act in the first or second boxes my mind follows paths similar those used in determining causation in Law, with similar difficulties. There won't always be a bright line, but most instances will be closer to one end than the other.
Speech as an act causally linked to a desired consequence unrelated to communication, ... Speech as transmission of information
I don't understand how you distinguish the two. Shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater looks like "transmission of information" to me. On the other hand, publishing some compromising material during an election campaign seems to be "an act causally linked to a desired consequence".
Sorry, that was supposed to be "falsely shouting fire". I'll be surprised if someone is punished for shouting "fire" if there really was a fire and they were only transmiting this information. For that reason, I also expect that "I thought there was a fire!" would be an effective defense.
I've read the comments, and nobody seems to have mentioned the different functions of speech, and the different goals of limitations. Yvain's examples of Holocaust denial and "shouting fire" are not the same sort of thing.
Speech as an act causally linked to a desired consequence unrelated to communication, like falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, or commanding a subordinate to shoot someone, or etc., isn't really protected (I'm not very familiar with US Law, but I can't think of counterexamples). These limitations don't usually register as "censorship".
Speech as transmission of information is protected, but with many [mostly] uncontroversial exceptions, like privacy, intellectual property, and state secrets.
Most controversies seem to be about speech as expression of thought, be it opinions, theories, or art. Yvain's thoughts are about this (as are his and Vladimir's points about identifying the Right-Thinking People and legislating the truth), so the "shouting fire" example doesn't help much.
I'm not sure it's useful to speak of all three as "speech" and have a single set of general rules for them, unless this is also acting as a Schelling point (although some current debates - hate speech, blasphemy - seem to be essentially about the framing of the issue as the first or the third kind of speech, with speaker intention often acting as a [Schelling?] divide).
[edited after Lumifer's response]
"Algorithms" feels more related to the Sequences, but may not be the strategic choice. I don't expect non-math/CS types to go "yay, a book about algorithms!".
The first link doesn't work...
Don argues for God and Christianity on Bayesian reasons.
That is significantly more burdensome. And it seems that the argument presented here doesn't stretch enough to reach a God compatible with Christianity.
What do you link someone to if you want to persuade them to start taking cryonics seriously instead of immediately dismissing it as ridiculous nonsense? There's no one single LW post that you can send someone to that I know of.
Yay! Now I'm sending this to all of my friends!
My first reaction as well.
But that is easy. What I haven't figured out yet is how to get them to read it.
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In the US you can't directly command someone to shoot someone but you can advocate that someone deserves to be shoot (see Brandenburg v. Ohio)
Thanks, this is what I thought. That would be the difference between my first and third types of speech, and an example of a controversy about how to draw the line.