If we are going to regulate guns, which give individuals the ability to articulate the gene swarm, we should probably start thinking about regulating text, which give people the ability to articulate consciousness.
-- JesusHChrist, Jan 05 2013

You are right there has to be some compromise between freedom of speech and the ultimate difficulty of thinking freely.
-- rcarty, Jan 05 2013


Doubleplus ungood.

Which particular examples of text were you thinking of?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 05 2013


Well, that document that starts "We the people ..." would be a damned good start ...

During Indira Gandhi's State of Emergency in India between 1975 and 1977, a man goes into a Delhi bookshop and asks, "Do you have a copy of the Indian Constitution, please ?" The bookseller replies, "I'm sorry sir, we don't stock periodicals ..."
-- 8th of 7, Jan 05 2013


That would be uite ridiculous.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 06 2013


//regulating text ... articulate consciousness // I see a resemblance with George Orwell's 1984 "newspeak". Not baked yet fortunately; although twitter goes in that direction .
-- piluso, Jan 06 2013


Text but not speech. Interesting. This forces the subversive into separating him or her self from the written word, and into an entirely oral arrangement, vulnerable less to automated surveillance. If inciting violence or dissidence is only a crime when written, oratorical skills should improve, though messages are more prone to corruption by deafness and poor diction. Dissidence is forced into a more highly entropic state, the State itself able to make use of the rigour and relative permanence of the written word. Freedom fighters shall be poets.
-- calum, Jan 06 2013


Eh ? Speak up a bit …
-- 8th of 7, Jan 06 2013


Plenty of ways in which text is already regulated. My non-researched guess would be that at least a plurality of human beings live in areas were text is more regulated than guns.
-- theircompetitor, Jan 06 2013


I say *regulate* the ammo. If there were no bullets, the guns wouldn't shoot anything.
-- xandram, Jan 07 2013


Most American conversations would shrink down to the odd word separated by long silent gaps if the word "like" was banned, or even better again, taxed!
-- xenzag, Jan 07 2013


I think we should ban new phrase, word and acronym formation in the public eye, at least until such time as we can round up and dispose of people who use the words "loose" and "brake" malappropriately.
-- FlyingToaster, Jan 07 2013



random, halfbakery