Harvard Polymath Noah Feldman on Free Speech Rights

I rarely cover current events on this podcast, but this is a new experiment.

To avoid overwhelm, I do not track the news 24/7 with doom scrolling. Rather, I depend on conversations with my smartest friends to find the signal in the noise. The following conversation with Noah Feldman is an example of such a conversation, very similar to what we would have offline, and I wanted to share it with you. I learned a ton and changed my thinking a lot, which I always do.

Noah is the founder of Ethical Compass, which helps clients like Facebook and eBay improve ethical decision-making by creating and implementing new governance solutions. Noah conceived and designed the Facebook Oversight Board and continues to advise Facebook on ethics and governance issues.

Feldman is host of the Deep Background podcast, a policy and public affairs columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and a former contributing writer for The New York Times. He served as senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and subsequently advised members of the Iraqi Governing Council on the drafting of Iraq’s interim constitution.

He earned his A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard, finishing first in his class. Selected as a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a DPhil from Oxford University, writing his dissertation on Aristotle’s Ethics. He received his JD from Yale Law School and clerked for Justice David Souter of the US Supreme Court.

Please let me know what you think of this experimental format by sending me feedback on Twitter @tferriss. Do you love it? Do you hate it? Have suggestions for improvement? The usual long-form interviews with evergreen questions will still be the default and bread and butter of this podcast, but if you like this, I could see doing more of them, perhaps once a month or once every two months. It's just an easy way to get caught up without drowning in news.

Please enjoy!

NOTE: This episode was recorded on June 22nd.

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[HeavyK.]

I am less impressed with Harvard graduates when I learn more and more.

[surrealistidealist]

We need to codify our Right to Meme into a constitutional amendment!

[HeavyK.]

The government can protect citizens from each other as far as they infringe on the rights of other citizens.

[MattAngiono]

What about when private entities control the government?
Maybe if there were no money in politics, this would make sense, but when there's lobbying and very obvious public private partnerships, the lines become blurred.

What really should be protected is the right to use speech to question those in power, whether they are actual governments OR the people influencing them.

This is what has been suppressed and needs to be discussed.
If we can't solve this issue, humanity is looking at quite a dark future.

[RandyKirk]

Noah starts off completely wrong. Musk has both said he would be able to make a much more successful platform, and he starts all his companies with mission as core, not money making.

[sebholding]

What would you think Tim if somebody tried to "regulate" your speech, hence punish you if you say something some other people disliked ? That's just not civilized, free speech should be uphold

[patricklemire]

If it’s regulated it’s not free. This pod should be 10 seconds.

[cryxbaby]

The reason we feel like we are losing free speech is because we use social media. Social media doesnt have to abide by free speech. If people would quit using so much online shit and touch some grass youd realize we have free speech.

[JMVB]

Regulate freedom as a concept as a walled garden yes but within the garden everything should be allowed .. truly the only real remedy to stupid speech is more free speech

[flvflv]

to summarise... free speech means something else when libs don't like your ideas

[alecubudulecu]

Well wait. Hotels. They CAN SAY they have terms to use their facilities. No they can’t say “we don’t like people of x color” or “you”. It can’t be something that one cannot control … but absolutely hotels can make a rule that anyone can REASONABLY follow … in order to use facilities. A hotel CAN say “no guests are allowed that wear color green on their outfit”. Or “must wear shoes in lobby” or even” must NOT wear shoes in lobby”

[garyh]

How about a round 2 on this topic of Free Speech Rights with a guest from an institution that understands the issues from a more balanced and comprehensive perspective? Perhaps from Hillsdale College?

[HeavyK.]

Elon needs free speech to prevail, or we will never make it to Mars.