Thread by @shrikanth_krish

Very well said

While a great deal of "free speech" that takes the form of abuse is largely untramelled, the freedom to make bold "unsubstantiated" hypothesis is what is missing in civil discourse.

Resistance to "hypothesizing" stems from both Left and Right in equal measure

https://twitter.com/clairlemon/status/1058449900499681280

And yes. Hypotheses should not necessarily be based purely on "facts". Facts often come much later.

Very often hypotheses stem from beliefs and prejudice.

But the freedom to voice those hunches is central to an intellectually healthy climate

There exists a lot of free speech in social media - of precisely the wrong kind. The freedom to engage in abuse and ad hominem attacks

We actually need less "free speech" on that front.

What we need is the freedom to hypothesize, guess, make bold and often ridiculous hunches

And these two freedoms counteract each other.

The greater the freedom to abuse and vent anger, the less the freedom to "hypothesize", because the person who wishes to voice a bold thought will always fear the possibility of abuse

A counter to this is -

The wisdom of the crowds is supreme, and the individual is subservient to it.

Being a conservative, I very much respect that point of view

But to me total suppression of hypothesizing doesn't seem like anything close to an optimal tradeoff