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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)

#101

Post by Y_Y »

rothrock wrote: post #63
raverbashing wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Popper's description of it is popular, it seems Godel realized this as well (as per the article) - while this was after Popper's (1945) I'm not sure Gödel knew about it According to Wikipedia: "On December 5, 1947, Einstein and Morgenstern accompanied Gödel to his U.S. citizenship exam, where they acted as witnesses. Gödel had confided in them that he had discovered an inconsistency in the U.S. Constitution tha…

Gödel also believed his refrigerator was emitting poison gas.

That's a bit dismissive. Goedel was correct about making the US a dictatorship. The fact that the amending clause allows unlimited amendment (particularly of the amending clause itself) means a series of malicious amendments could irrevocably change the constitution to that of a dictatorship and forbid returning to a democracy. Now maybe people would just give up on the constitution at that point, but in terms of the overall legal system he's dead right.

[edit: for more information please see: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2010183 ]

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

#102

Post by pjc50 »

thriftwy wrote: post #92
pjc50 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> This is where human rights law and anti-hate speech law comes from. How many genocides did the latter ever prevent? If anything, they'll make genocides much more sudden. You can bully the majority into submission but it's going to backfire. Regarding human rights, I just don't see them working in the century of XXI.

> How many genocides did the latter ever prevent

Ah, an impossible-to-prove counterfactual. Better to ask what role hate speech has played in making genoicdes happen, such as in Rwanda (and arguably Myanmar)

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

#103

Post by psyc »

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…

It isn't necessary or desirable to prohibit the ban-speech party from speaking. This is my primary objection to political philosophies that favor minmaxing statistics with policy, over principles. I object in the extreme to the idea that if A->B->C->D->E->F->G->Hitler, then society has a duty to prohibit A at the expense of liberal principles. Start with banning G, if you absolutely must. Speech doesn't directly cause victory. It only seems that way if you're very afraid of something.

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

#104

Post by abecedarius »

swanson wrote: post #98
abecedarius wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I find these to be the best "single post summaries". His books are very challenging to read, but I've always found them rewarding once I've finished/absorbed the material. No pain, no gain I suppose! Antifragile: https://medium.com/thinking-is-hard/live-like-a-hydra-c02337... Fooled by Randomness: https://www.fs.blog/2015/02/fooled-by-randomness/ The Bed of Procrustes: https://twitter.com/nntaleb (I've not read Black…

Thank you. He does seem to have some good ideas, but boy is there a lot of self-indulgence to wade through; I tried getting into a couple of his books and gave up.

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

#105

Post by TomMarius »

tyingq wrote: post #94
TomMarius wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freon, from Wikipedia: > They are stable, nonflammable, moderately toxic gases or liquids which have typically been used as refrigerants and as aerosol propellants. Edit: why am I getting downvoted for this...?

“back then”

... yes? Freon was used widely as far back as 1935. Invented in late 20's.

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

#106

Post by labster »

dgacmu wrote: post #96
TomMarius wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freon, from Wikipedia: > They are stable, nonflammable, moderately toxic gases or liquids which have typically been used as refrigerants and as aerosol propellants. Edit: why am I getting downvoted for this...?

I'm not sure. I think you're right, from this timeline: http://www.greatachievements.org/?id=3854 Freon was invented in 1928, and started mass production a few years later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freon By 1935, 8 million refrigerators had been sold using Freon as their refrigerant: https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-freon-4072212 His refrigerator comment was some time before 1953: https://plus.maths.org/cont…

To be fair CFCs are toxic to humans, but only once they escape to the upper atmosphere to decrease the LD50 of sunlight. Of course in 1953, there was no way Erdos could have known that.

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

#107

Post by mamon »

pjc50 wrote: post #93
mamon wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 None of those has actually happened, nor is likely to actually make it through any functioning legal system. (If you're going hunting for examples of the Christmas tree ban, check your news sources very…

Both of those happened: first is a part of "Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union", soon to be required to be implemented by all member states. Second is already happening in the UK, although, I admit, it's not a law, it's case by case basis (by school principals).

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

#108

Post by TomMarius »

labster wrote: post #106
dgacmu wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure. I think you're right, from this timeline: http://www.greatachievements.org/?id=3854 Freon was invented in 1928, and started mass production a few years later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freon By 1935, 8 million refrigerators had been sold using Freon as their refrigerant: https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-freon-4072212 His refrigerator comment was some time before 1953: https://plus.maths.org/cont…

To be fair CFCs are toxic to humans, but only once they escape to the upper atmosphere to decrease the LD50 of sunlight. Of course in 1953, there was no way Erdos could have known that.

Still not a reason to downvote a comment that just clarified its parent.

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

#109

Post by mc32 »

tchalla wrote: post #39

Paradox of Tolerance : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance > The paradox of tolerance was described by Karl Popper in 1945. The paradox states that if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant o…

Somewhat related is the phenomenon where if fir example you know you'll have vegetarians and meatatarians, you can get away with serving vegetarian food and for the most part everyone will eat. If on the other hand you serve an omnivorous meal the vegetarians will not eat.

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

#110

Post by pjc50 »

mamon wrote: post #107
pjc50 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 None of those has actually happened, nor is likely to actually make it through any functioning legal system. (If you're going hunting for examples of the Christmas tree ban, check your news sources very…

Both of those happened: first is a part of "Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union", soon to be required to be implemented by all member states. Second is already happening in the UK, although, I admit, it's not a law, it's case by case basis (by school principals).

You're going to have to give a reliable citation for both of these, especially given the current position on abortion in the Republic of Ireland, and the second one sounds like Daily Mail / Express misleading story.
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