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

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

#81

Post by gameswithgo »

catdograbbit wrote: post #67

I believe it. The most extraordinary evidence of this is the gay rights movement. They've adopted "Love Wins" as their slogan, but then refuse to even interact with people who may not support them (i.e: Mike Pence). Clearly, they don't believe their own propaganda.

You have made up two stereotypes at once. First that all gay people adopt the slogan "love wins", then that no gay people will interact with Mike Pence. Neither is correct. Further it is so obviously insane that you would cry hypocrisy at people who are loathe to interact with someone who doesn't believe they have the same rights as other human beings, and who has the power to actually make that happen, that you should be ashamed of yourself, for not even being a horrible person in a subtle way.

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

#82

Post by thriftwy »

pessimizer wrote: post #61
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).

I assume the downvotes are because it describes genocides as cases when the victims were too pushy and the majority were forced to defend themselves, something which you seem to agree with. It was a very common rationalization in at least one major genocide: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pushy+jew&t=lm&ia=web

So it looks like people want to know less about genocides and how both sides feel during it.

The assumption here is that you are armed best with rigor and lack of knowledge.

Guess what, it's not helping. You don't have to blame the victim, but you have to understand the criminal's motivation. This way you can at least gauge it against your own.

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

#83

Post by bitL »

This is actually why social networks inevitably fail; all small splinter groups become the most vocal, dominating discussion, setting narratives. Even if you remove some of the most extremist groups (like Reddit -> Voat), other, more socially accepted, still stay and might be even more dangerous due to their lower profile/higher acceptance/long-term devastating effects that are hard to predict.

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

#85

Post by meow1032 »

jacquesm wrote: post #11

What an overlong and rambling article. Over the years I've found the big trick in writing is to know what to leave out. This is hard to get right but TFA could really do with some editing, it would probably be a stronger article at 1/4 the size that it is.

I can't help but feel that if Taleb put a little more effort into fleshing out his arguments I'd enjoy his writing a lot more.

In most of what I've read from him, it always feels like he's more concerned with trying to make the reader feel smug about understanding his writing than actually trying to communicate anything meaningful. In this article, he has an aside where he complains that Agricultural Companies are running a smear campaign against him and are "idiots" and "naive".

He seems to acknowledge that clearly there is some bound on this "minority rule" argument, but doesn't bother to further explore this, and instead goes on and writes as though no bound exists, or if it does, only exists when it benefits his argument.

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

#86

Post by fzeroracer »

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.

It's important to keep in mind that the author of this piece is anti-GMO, so the slant in this case is to paint non-GMO foods in a more positive light.

And I agree, in general the rejection of GMOs is born out of a fear of technology.

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

#87

Post by abecedarius »

jacquesm wrote: post #11

What an overlong and rambling article. Over the years I've found the big trick in writing is to know what to leave out. This is hard to get right but TFA could really do with some editing, it would probably be a stronger article at 1/4 the size that it is.

Does anyone have a favorite reader's-digest-condensed-version of Taleb's books?

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

#88

Post by idlewords »

jacquesm wrote: post #11

What an overlong and rambling article. Over the years I've found the big trick in writing is to know what to leave out. This is hard to get right but TFA could really do with some editing, it would probably be a stronger article at 1/4 the size that it is.

Taleb has been infatuated with his own writing for a long time, and unfortunately the success of the Black Swan (which was decently edited) seems to have disabused him of the idea that he should cut anything from his rambling essays.

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

#89

Post by mamon »

pjc50 wrote: post #62
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…

> Modern law doesn't have anything that would decrease friction between two groups This is where human rights law and anti-hate speech law comes from. Verbal exchanges can make a situation tense, but cutting down the opportunities for escalation allows a peace to be built. It's also necessary to keep weapons out of politics. Anyone forming a political militia is one incident away from being a terrorist group or death…

Anti-hate speech laws can lead to similar effect: first you ban most obvious things, like death threats or racism. Then someone comes up with the idea of banning any criticism of abortion, because it might hurt feelings of women who had it. Then you ban Christmas trees in public schools, because it might hurt feelings of Muslims - the anti-hate laws become more and more prohibitive. Basically, it's a variation of the same problem that I would call: "the most intolerant lawmaker wins".

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

#90

Post by pjc50 »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #70
thriftwy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it can, and then it is called 'genocide'.

Maybe. Maybe not. Everyone agrees the Rohingya genocide is “wrong” but no one is willing to lift a finger about it. Even the Pope himself felt he had to tread lightly regarding the matter on his recent visit to Burma/Myanmar.

Sadly this often happens with genocide :(

Myanmar is particularly embarrasing because the west spent decades trying to end the military dictatorship and transfer power to the elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but it's turned to genocide almost immediately.

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