> This is not an example of a limit to free speech. Rather, this is an example of consequences of free speech.

You can't alter the consequences of said 'free' speech, i.e. you can't ensure that the speech is free, unless you exercise that very right.

This is what Charlie Hebdo did.

Even if the consequences had been predictable, it would have been necessary and effective to exercise the freedom of speech if the concern was that Islam and other religions (to wildly varying degrees, of course) limit said freedom of speech.

Knowingly and unknowingly, you probably violate values and beliefs held by billions of people on the Earth, of various religions and other value systems.

Protesting against an avalanche is silly.

Protesting against jihad is a commendable cause.

Both are risky but one is pointless and the other serves self-preservation of a value system (liberalism, secularity etc.). Je suis Charlie.

> 2) If we limit freedom of expression, we can as well limit freedom of religion because freedom of religion is a subset of freedom of expression.

I think this will be the eventual effect. A lot of Islamic teachings, interpretations and calls to act will eventually become outlawed, simply as a reaction. However, countries like the UK, France, Germany and Benelux states, where these problems are the worst, will remain defenseless for a long time, letting jihadist pest self-organize and teach themselves before acting (i.e. these countries are partly to blame for not being proactive with this along the lines of your suggestion). It's weird that the perps of the terrorist act have been knowingly associated with terrorist organizations, yet they had free pass to go around as they please, not even proper surveillance. That it is normal that France is networked by jihadist organizations were news to me, because there is remarkably little between this state of affairs and the pervasive control of Mexico by a drug cartel or two. Violence is a very effective way of biasing the system, as the mafia and jihadists correctly recognize.

> That's like saying there's no real difference between an alcoholic and a person who occasionally goes out drinking on a Friday night.

This. There is a not so fine line between expecting a punch in the face in the spur of the moment, and going in heavily armed with automatic weapons, committing mass murder. So maybe a letter to the editor, with expletives, or running a counter-caricature would have been more balanced responses.

All in all, Charlie Hebdo is a stronger part of the immune system of the Western civilization than Francis Pope.

Therein lies the problem. What you say is correct - for those subscribing to Western values already (let's call it the Church of Humanism). But there are other religions that teach things that contradict these. E.g. Islam. If you haven't got the memo, Islam isn't only about peaceful coexistence, integration and whatever values the Church of Humanism has. Because it's some other religion. If you look up the definition of jihad, there's no way you can reconcile or integrate that with Western values. Other than maybe eventually making Westerners be as militant and vigorous about their values as jihadists are about their own values.

So your response has two kinds of audience:
- those who already agree with you will continue to agree with you
- those who don't already agree with you will continue to not respect your argument

The Western society can't defend itself if it pretends that its nemesis plays by the same rulebook. Had it played by the same rulebook, there would have been no such separating issues to begin with, and there would only be the _regular_ issues like skin color, lack of immigrant assimilation, socioeconomic status etc. which is also experienced by Far Easterns, blacks etc. But it's not the case.

> it may be good for his P.R. with the muslem community

Speaking of the extremist end (mind you - the extremist end probably regard themselves as the 'true' muslims) if you appease them, will they become tame? No - social tensions like this, left on their own accord in a demokracy, will be dealt with by pure demographics and the continuing expansion of Islam influence. In other words, Paris and London becoming predominantly Muslim cities, and in theory, nothing prevents an eventual Islamic revolution and Sharla law introduced in the UK, France or the whole of Western Europe. Which actually fits quite nicely into the flow of history despite temporary victories like expelling the Moors from Spain and the Turks from the Balkans.

So tactically he may score a point before his muslim 'talking partners', but strategically and morally he may still have done the suboptimal and wrong thing.

> what impression would Francis give by saying "oh well, no problem for me because I am far more forgiving than the Muslems"

He would set an example.

> Look, the guy's hardly going to say it's OK to blaspheme, is he? It's just not in his job description. Whatever his personal opinion may be, he's is not at liberty to promote the same viewpoints as Charlie Hebdo.

You're claiming that if he speaks about this subject, his job description may severely constrain him in what he can say. Let's forget about the fact that probably his job description isn't that detailed. He may have simply elected not to share his opinion, or not say as many things as he said. He could have stopped well before the 'punch in the face' argument if he had wanted to, still rejecting violence and promoting tolerance and even sensibility and respect.

Pretty good argument for stopping the pretense and political correctness and say out loud that some religions like Islam represent danger to mankind, which can only be mitigated by active tools such as mass surveillance and criminalization of certain aspects, rather than pretending that it's simply a poverty problem or ghetto problem or that they will grow out of it under their accord before one of them somehow manage to trigger WW3 (tho the Russians and North Koreans are candidates, too).

I'm NOT claiming that Islam is worse, or more militant than all other religions throughout the entire history (I'm not claiming the opposite either, as I'm no expert in this). But it is a coincidental fact that by the present time, when technology became advanced enough to render the World unstable, it happens to be Islam which demonstrates the most consistent pattern of self-destructing behavior, in the name of their respective god. So the Crusaders in medieval time had no chance to destroy civilization or kill all humans, but rouge states and even terrorist organizations may have the means to bring about a nuclear war. But believe me, simply infecting Paris' water system with some pest and causing the death of thousands will be enough to cause barricades, unbelievable separation and splitting France to two separate countries.

While MAD (mutually assured destruction) can lead to a status quo or equilibrium of sorts on a human's timescale, it assumes rational agents, however fundamentalist believers would be happy to blow up a city or the Earth for the promise of some number of virgins in the afterlife. And Westerners seem tame and patient until they feel threatened, in which case they flock to vote for the most fascist (against Islam, not Jews) party as we can already witness it in Europe.

It is less of a coincidence, that by the time the technology is advanced enough for one mad person to cause massive damage, technology is also cheap and prevalent enough to be deployed for mass surveillance purposes.

So pick your poison:
1. Acknowledge that mass surveillance is kind of OK in the hand of mildly democratic Western governments of today
2. Wait some more, and learn that mass surveillance is even more inevitable in the hands of next wave, xenophobic, fascist governments

I think the argument is that
1. Pope Francis said something stupid, wrong or despicable
2. ... however, high priests of the Catholic church can't be trusted, as they repeatedly support and cover up sick, abnormal behavior
3. ... therefore the fact that this is the Pope's opinion (or communication) can be dismissed without even evaluating the statement

This of course does not imply whether his expressed opinion is right or wrong, but who cares about what he says, if the GP (and me) consider his institution discredited and bankrupt.

Well of course, society cares about it, because what he says can have an impact on society despite the above reasoning, even if it is only to give the justification for Jihadists. I.e. he's doubly an irresponsible asshole unable to foresee the negative consequences of what he says, in effect helping Islam take over and end Western civilisation, as we know it.

The problem is that molesting children by priest rapists is a systemic problem in the Catholic Church. It's not some outliers, or it's not just some crime that is somewhat prevalent in society and is also prevalent in the Church. There is a pattern, and a very strong case of causation. If a problem is systemic, then it has to be addressed by systemic means, be it the legalisation of priest marriage, female priests and mass surveillance of Catholic priests. For it is horrible that those who in theory serve most selflessly and ask for people's trust and support toward their values, and let their children close, stick to a social arrangement is known to result in child rapes by straight, gay and bi priests.

> If you poke a bear cub with a stick long enough, its mom might come and maul the shit out of you.

And what if you draw a crude picture, illustrating that someone is poking the bear's imaginary cub, and you _don't_ even distribute your drawing among those who aren't interested in it, will it still kill you?

Are you implyng that a Jihadist is worse than animals, because he has way less tolerance for way more abstract things than a dangerous animal? We may have found common ground. Here's my projection: one of them will eventually blow up the Earth and end civilisation.

What should the human civilisation do, if it has to eventually choose between risking the planet and curing or criminalizing a religion?

It's a slippery slope to Sharia law, coming to your neighborhood.

Except that, for example,
- video skype and desktop sharing is not available on Linux with more than two participants
- the Linux GUI is a confused mess

... and neither can reality... it would be as if you wore sunglasses inside

Transparent LCD does that. Another question is, with what resolution? LCDs can be of fine resolution, but you'd need the equivalent of the viewfinder of a high quality SLR camera to ensure it's in the proper focal plane. I think such an optical pathway would be, by necessity, heavy and of limited FOV and light intensity. So inventing a full VR and projecting the external view seems more appropriate, and the quality (resolution, color scale, lag etc.) of the environmental view and the augmentation would make it blend better, with all the positives and negatives.

Technically you can eventually solve all the technical problems and have human-matching color fidelity, FOV, resolution... but the limitation would be that people wouldn't see one another's eyes.

But of course you can project virtual real eyes to conceal the real virtual eyes. With high enough fidelity, you'll even see the reflection of your own virtual real eyes in the other person's virtual real eyes :-) But kissing will be weird...