Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 227 posts

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

#151

Post by goldideas »

thriftwy wrote: post #42
grzm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

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…

Zoning laws? Perhaps something similar to a system used in South Africa? Didn't seem to decrease friction if you ask me or anyone who has heard of apartheid...

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

#152

Post by andybak »

racer-v wrote: post #136
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…

The problem is in 2018, everyone intolerant person claims the only thing they're intolerant of is intolerance. Conservatives complain about liberal intolerance and vice-versa. We've moved from plain level-0 intolerance to meta-intolerance.

This is fairly insightful. Some of it can we written off as bad-faith knowing abuses of rhetorical tactics.

But the situations that don't fall into this group are more troubling as they can involve sincere and passionate advocates of civil society acting in ways that undermine that very thing.

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

#153

Post by andybak »

aje403 wrote: post #130
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-...

Sorry?

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

#154

Post by icebraining »

gambiting wrote: post #46
dionian wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Absolutely. It's purely about the involvement of religion that puts me off. If there was a "Catholic church approved cheese" I'd refuse to buy that too.

Your loss. Monasteries and convents make some awesome foodstuffs, including great beer.

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

#155

Post by makomk »

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…

Ammonia and other nasty chemicals remained in use well after then. For example, apparently GE sold their Monitor Top-style fridges with sulphur dioxide or methyl formate as the refrigerant until at least 1936 and they stayed in use for decades after they were discontinued.

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

#156

Post by dane-pgp »

pjc50 wrote: post #110
mamon wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know of a ban against "_any_ criticism of abortion" or why the "Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union" is supposedly to blame, but they may be thinking of cases like this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-41577129

Also, there apparently was a school head who banned students from putting up Christmas trees, but he was banned from teaching after that:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/school-head-who-banned...

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

#157

Post by goldideas »

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

I'm going to assume by that link you're saying this is a common rationalization of the Holocaust? Do you have a source for this?

I learned in history classes growing up that conditions in Germany were bleak so the Jewish minority was used as a scapegoat. I've never heard an explanation for the Holocaust that differs greatly from this so I'm curious as to the historical and factual legitimacy behind your seemingly ridiculous claim. Care to back it up?

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

#158

Post by shard972 »

goldideas wrote: post #151
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…

Zoning laws? Perhaps something similar to a system used in South Africa? Didn't seem to decrease friction if you ask me or anyone who has heard of apartheid...

I have talked to a few people recently who migrated from SA to perth Australia.

Considered one of them was telling me stories about white farmers being killed over the last few years and him not feeling safe anymore in the country (hence why he moved to Australia).

I'm not saying apartheid was perfect, just or a morale state. What I would say though is I think it's far too early to say post apartheid was a complete success and didn't end up going down a similar route as zimbabwe.

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

#159

Post by matt4077 »

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…

Too see someone flagging this comment, simply for confronting the gratuitous gay-bashing above is sad.

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

#160

Post by adjkant »

stale2002 wrote: post #57
adjkant wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Again, improper use of an idea for justification of other ideas does not invalidate the original idea. I'm not siding with those cases, which, pending details, all seem like improper ways of dealing with intolerance.
Post reply on HN