The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016)

#51

Post by stale2002 » Sat, Feb 24, 2018, 7:57 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #33

khawkins wrote: post #20

Very enlightening, but I think the points about non-GMO/organic food are a bad example. The non-GMO/organic movement is a rejection of technologies which improve yields. Distribution costs might have lowered, but supply forces will almost always keep these foods substantially higher in price because yields are lower.

Are yields really low, or is that just an excuse huge conglomerates like Monsanto that wants to "DRM" seeds use, when they don't care about yields at all? And are they giving a subpar product + patents/copyrights + DRM, and selling it with the same high prices as to make yields irrelevant (when upselling 10x and 100x what you buy produce for, the original yield is an insignificant factor to the price).

I mean, if they weren't low then why would farms pay money for the more expensive seeds?

Farms aren't mom and pop shops anymore. Even the small ones are major, multi-million dollar businesses. This is big company VS big company.

And if those mult-million dollar businesses believe that they can get better crops by paying Monsanto, well I think I'll trust their expert opinion on it.

If these products are so sub-par, why would the competing, large corporations buy them?

Re: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016)

#52

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Feb 24, 2018, 8:00 PM UTC

dionian wrote: post #29

gambiting wrote: post #5

"A Kosher (or halal) eater will never eat nonkosher (or nonhalal) food , but a nonkosher eater isn’t banned from eating kosher." I absolutely never buy halal meat and whenever possible try to avoid kosher certified foods. I do try to vote with my wallet and keep religion out of my food as much as physically possible.

Even if those religious rules mean the animal has to be treated more humanely than the 'secular' systems of approval?

From what I've seen it is rather the opposite.

Re: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016)

#53

Post by pjc50 » Sat, Feb 24, 2018, 8:00 PM UTC

plainOldText wrote: post #22

An interesting bit: Clearly can democracy –by definition the majority — tolerate enemies? The question is as follows: “ Would you agree to deny the freedom of speech to every political party that has in its charter the banning the freedom of speech?” Let’s go one step further, “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?” To which he later concludes: We can answer these points us…

> The West is currently in the process of committing suicide.

This one of those lines that, when it appears in an article, you know there's an error somewhere in the preceding thousand lines of argument, as surely as if it were a proof that 1 == 0.

> an intolerant minority can control and destroy democracy

I'm more worried about intolerant minorities of privileged people who are currently in power destroying democracy, not least because they actually have the power.

Re: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016)

#54

Post by MR4D » Sat, Feb 24, 2018, 8:01 PM UTC

grzm wrote: post #36

MR4D wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you got downvotes, but this is exactly where such situations can lead (not always, but definitely happened in the past).

> "Not sure why you got downvotes" I suspect because they went straight to an extreme position: not all examples of such behavior are genocide, and leading with that strongly tends to derail conversation. Yes, genocide may be a result of that, but so can a lot of other undesirable behaviors that stop far short of it. If you have a substantive, supporting comment, as you do, please do add it, but leave off the "Not su…

But it’s not inflammatory. The response was “yes it can” which I think is totally valid.

In fact, I’d go one step further and say that maybe the problem is that we don’t spend enough time studying how situations lead to genocide, and therefore we kinda suck at preventing it.

Just my two cents, but that was my rationale for supporting the paren’t statement.

Re: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016)

#55

Post by DanAndersen » Sat, Feb 24, 2018, 8:01 PM UTC

adjkant wrote: post #26

plainOldText wrote: post #22

An interesting bit: Clearly can democracy –by definition the majority — tolerate enemies? The question is as follows: “ Would you agree to deny the freedom of speech to every political party that has in its charter the banning the freedom of speech?” Let’s go one step further, “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?” To which he later concludes: We can answer these points us…

> “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?” This is something philosophy has actually done well to detail. It's the paradox of tolerance, and I think the answer absolutely has to be yes. For those looking for easy surface level gotcha's, that seems like a problem. Dig deeper, and it's logically consistent with the belief of tolerance, for if one allows intolerance, their tole…

It definitely makes sense -- any worldview (such as one that elevates tolerance as a virtue) has to build in safeguards that protect it against existential threats, or else it won't be a worldview that persists into the future for very long.

The issue I'm grappling with that the solution to the "paradox of tolerance" (that it is OK to be intolerant of intolerance) is that it is good at defending against erosion of tolerance from external forces, but opens it up to erosion from internal forces.

If the societal rules are "we choose to be tolerant except in the case of existential threats, in which case we nuke it from orbit", then the incentive becomes to paint mild disagreements into existential threats. Allowing Muslims to immigrate becomes "threat of sharia-law caliphate in 25 years." Allowing a traditional Christian prayer in schools becomes "establishing a repressive theocracy." Advocating right-wing policies becomes "normalizing fascism" and advocating left-wing policies becomes "bringing us one step closer to gulags." Is there any escape from the polarization? Can a society with tolerance as a base-level goal remain stable against this sort of internal pressure to shred it?

Re: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016)

#56

Post by pessimizer » Sat, Feb 24, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #40

jacquesm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What goes for articles goes for book chapters. Unless of course you get paid by the word you write. Good writing packs punch.

Well, some of us like our non-fiction to be as long as it takes. We don't just go for the Cliff Notes. And there are other expectations from a short blog read than from a book.

> Well, some of us like our non-fiction to be as long as it takes.

As long as what takes?

Re: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016)

#57

Post by stale2002 » Sat, Feb 24, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

adjkant wrote: post #48

stale2002 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehh, I have found that people who argue in favor of this idea are generally the MOST intolerant of the bunch, and just want a righteous excuse to engage in their intolerance. People who are tolerant generally don't go looking around for excuses to be horrible to other people. An apt quote comes to mind: "The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment…

Not tolerating intolerance is not a license to be horrible to other people. I suspect this is a bad application of the philosophical idea, as with just about every other idea once it hits practical use. The challenge is synthesizing the idea into something consistent with the original idea yet simple enough to be effective in practice. My guess is that many people in favor aren't actually consistent themselves.

> Not tolerating intolerance is not a license to be horrible to other people.

And yet thats usually what people mean. People arguing in favor of this idea generally use it to justify whatever their anti-human rights opinion of the day is.

Whether that is sending people to jail for speech, or banning certain political parties, or vigilante style assaults of people at protests, it is just simplified down to "an excuse to not feel back about being horrible to the 'enemy'", whoever that 'enemy' is, while ignoring all previously agreed upon rules of engagement in society (otherwise known as human rights).

Whenever any of this stuff happens, and it is targeted against a sufficiently unpopular 'enemy', I always seem a mass of people linking to that paradox of tolerance wikipedia page.

Re: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016)

#58

Post by 77pt77 » Sat, Feb 24, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

MR4D wrote: post #30

77pt77 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Taleb. He has a compulsion to ramble in order to display his erudition.

Your presumption of the causality is unsubstantiated. It may be correct, but I don’t think you claim more than correlation (unless somewhere he has admitted as such, if which case I’m clearly wrong) You get style points for humor though. :)

> unless somewhere he has admitted as such

Even then, people make false confessions all the time.

Re: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016)

#59

Post by MR4D » Sat, Feb 24, 2018, 8:05 PM UTC

77pt77 wrote: post #58

MR4D wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your presumption of the causality is unsubstantiated. It may be correct, but I don’t think you claim more than correlation (unless somewhere he has admitted as such, if which case I’m clearly wrong) You get style points for humor though. :)

> unless somewhere he has admitted as such Even then, people make false confessions all the time.

True. I was trying to keep my comment short and to the point. But yes, you are correct.

Re: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016)

#60

Post by thriftwy » Sat, Feb 24, 2018, 8:05 PM UTC

grzm wrote: post #47

thriftwy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all examples are genocide, but situation tends to boil up to it quickly. When the minority doesn't like you and you don't like said minority, what would you do? Modern law doesn't have anything that would decrease friction between two groups. I would say that maybe zoning laws do more for that than any other laws. People tend to underestimate how close they are to genocide. "They are just very bad people", they t…

And one of the reasons they boil up quickly is that people stop engaging in nuanced debate and engaging each other, instead resorting to cheap rhetoric that triggers baser emotions. You've got good stuff here. I encourage you to lead with this rather than the other. Edit to add: FWIW, that's one of the reasons I take the time to respond to questions like "don't know why...", beyond just pointing out that it's against…

I'm not sure actually.

It boils up because people engage in debate instead of doing two things:

* Taking issues to a vote.

* Respecting boundaries of other people.

Debate implies you can change other person's opinion. However, it often tries to talk your way to measures that would never float in a fair voting, or that violate already existing personal or property boundaries.

After a few rounds of debate you're supposed to take it to poll booth. Instead it often turns into name-calling and shouting "nazi" at each other. That kind of discussion should be avoided.