[ExI] yelling fire

Dave Sill sparge at gmail.com
Fri Apr 9 16:07:09 UTC 2021


On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 11:09 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> I heard an expression this week that reminds me of my cheerfully misspent
> childhood: You can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre.  I always assumed it
> true.  But… is it?  I understand it is a reference to the limits of free
> speech.  It makes reference to something the old timers all understood but
> moderns do not.
>
>
>
> In the old days, theatres were made of wood and were full of flammables.
> They had no sprinkler systems, no smoke detectors, no fire alarms, no
> extinguishers, grossly insufficient emergency exits.  Proles would trample
> each other in panic trying to get out if anyone screamed fire.
>
>
>
> What would happen if someone did that now?  Answer: probably nothing.  I
> wouldn’t get out of my seat.  Any building that meets modern fire code
> doesn’t really burn worth a worry.  The carpet is fire suppressed, drywall
> doesn’t burn at all, there are smoke detectors everywhere.  If someone
> started screaming fire, the bouncer would likely throw the bum out, but I
> doubt there would be legal consequences.
>
>
>
> Conclusion: you can yell fire in a crowded theatre.
>

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater

Doing that did cause a significant number of deaths a hundred or more years
ago. As a justification for not allowing anti-draft pamphlets to be
distributed, it's not such a great argument.

-Dave

>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20210409/31183092/attachment.htm>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list