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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)

#121

Post by aidenn0 »

tptacek wrote: post #41
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.

This is so true that me and 'jacquesm actually agree on it. I think there's an Emperor's New Clothes thing happening with Taleb. Apparently, his technical writing is important and impactful. But his popular writing is prolix, repetitive, smug, and sometimes ill-reasoned.

So does that make 2 or 3 things that you and jacquesm agree on now?

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

#122

Post by jacquesm »

aidenn0 wrote: post #121
tptacek wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so true that me and 'jacquesm actually agree on it. I think there's an Emperor's New Clothes thing happening with Taleb. Apparently, his technical writing is important and impactful. But his popular writing is prolix, repetitive, smug, and sometimes ill-reasoned.

So does that make 2 or 3 things that you and jacquesm agree on now?

I'd hope that we agree on a lot more things than that we disagree.

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

#123

Post by aidenn0 »

MollyR wrote: post #2

Maybe in the western cultures, but I've been hearing variations of the "nail that sticks out gets hammered down" from my korean family for a long time.

I remember reading an article somewhere discussing the difference between the US saying of "The squeaky wheel gets the grease," and the East-Asian (I think specifically focused on Japan in that article) saying of "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."

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

#124

Post by aidenn0 »

pjc50 wrote: post #79
skybrian wrote: post #69

The basic argument is interesting but has important preconditions: the majority needs to be tolerant (the change doesn't cost them much). In the case of kosher drinks, it's almost completely invisible. When people actually have a preference (such as how a drink tastes) we find that the market provides a lot of variety despite the cost. Consider the shelves of your average convenience store. Applied to religion, chang…

> we find that the market provides a lot of variety despite the cost You can have anything you like so long as it's manufactured by Coke.

Most supermakets have Coke, Pepsi, and a white-label manufacturer with their brand on it.

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

#125

Post by Accacin »

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?

It's completely untrue that those 'religious rules' mean the animal is treated more humanely.

"UK Food Standards Agency figures from 2011 suggest 84% of cattle, 81% of sheep and 88% of chickens slaughtered for halal meat were stunned before they died."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-27324224

The fact that 16% of cattle aren't stunned is completely disgraceful.

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

#126

Post by KirinDave »

conanbatt wrote: post #97
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…

> But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. He is meaning that there should be intolera…

Pretty much every intolerance worth opposing harnesses very violent elements in it's base while maintaining a veneer of civility.

Look at religious motivated systemic violence against LGBT people in the US. Our current executive has waved a rainbow flag a time or two, but our vice president has personally funded things that look like camps and penned legislation that let's police ignore and LGBT person being beaten on the street. Neither of these things are particularly unfair characterizations.

So yeah, you're right. It's just that intolerance naturally leads to violence rather quickly in humans.

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

#127

Post by M_Bakhtiari »

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.

What's the LD50 of sunlight, and how exactly does Erdős enter into the equation?

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

#128

Post by M_Bakhtiari »

gameswithgo wrote: post #81
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 sho…

Check your reading. In the parent it says "gay rights movement", not "gay people".

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

#129

Post by tomcatfish »

gameswithgo wrote: post #81
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 sho…

Second on this. One of the ways that people tend to construct arguments against a group (from my experience in the midwestern US) is to show contradiction in the other side's argument. This would be a legitimate argument if done fairly, but it seems people always take an unfair route by synthesizing across a group using two opposing inner-sects. My father is often guilty of this, he will talk about "liberals" and I have to remind him that it's more than a little ridiculous to merge an entire political party (in the US, basically) into one viewpoint, treating a one-off statement by a high-schooler with the same value as the running candidate.

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

#130

Post by aje403 »

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…

Aristotle wrote that all matter is composed of 5 elements

Popper wrote that society must be intolerant of intolerance

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/purdue-online-writing-lab-...

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