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A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

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Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#11
post #2

This reeks of both-sides-ism and enablement. "Where does it stop?" is the same slippery slope garbage peddled by #HimToo and #BlueLivesMatter acolytes. But even engaging with the question at face value, the answer is very simple, and the author of this piece didn't try very hard if he couldn't find someone who is able to answer it. In fact, the best answer was given by Karl Popper in 1945. > In order to maintain a to…

Define intolerance. That's the whole problem. So being "intolerant of intolerance" is meaningless except as something that signals a different meaning - different lines, different behavior, different standards - to every listener.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#12
post #3

> We run the risk that the act of deplatforming can become as extreme as the hate speech it seeks to banish. Let us cross that bridge when we get to it.

Pretty sure we're already here. Ignorant or evil folks won't become enlightened or good if they can't use the internet.

Given that just shy of 30 years into this whole Web thing we're seeing it fuel probably the largest wave of white nationalism/authoritarianism/facism since WWII, it seems like that's the exact opposite of how it works.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#13
post #2

This reeks of both-sides-ism and enablement. "Where does it stop?" is the same slippery slope garbage peddled by #HimToo and #BlueLivesMatter acolytes. But even engaging with the question at face value, the answer is very simple, and the author of this piece didn't try very hard if he couldn't find someone who is able to answer it. In fact, the best answer was given by Karl Popper in 1945. > In order to maintain a to…

[deleted]

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#14
post #2

This reeks of both-sides-ism and enablement. "Where does it stop?" is the same slippery slope garbage peddled by #HimToo and #BlueLivesMatter acolytes. But even engaging with the question at face value, the answer is very simple, and the author of this piece didn't try very hard if he couldn't find someone who is able to answer it. In fact, the best answer was given by Karl Popper in 1945. > In order to maintain a to…

Define intolerance. That's the whole problem. So being "intolerant of intolerance" is meaningless except as something that signals a different meaning - different lines, different behavior, different standards - to every listener.

> Define intolerance

That thing everyone except the intolerant seem to understand remarkably well, and the intolerant spend a lot of time quibbling over the definition of in a desperate attempt to derail their inclusion in it.

Or, more seriously: treating other people as unwelcome or hated or less than human, for reasons other than being hateful and intolerant.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define intolerance. That's the whole problem. So being "intolerant of intolerance" is meaningless except as something that signals a different meaning - different lines, different behavior, different standards - to every listener.

> Define intolerance That thing everyone except the intolerant seem to understand remarkably well, and the intolerant spend a lot of time quibbling over the definition of in a desperate attempt to derail their inclusion in it. Or, more seriously: treating other people as unwelcome or hated or less than human, for reasons other than being hateful and intolerant.

Since I don't understand it remarkably well, I must be intolerant? Nice.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#16
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure we're already here. Ignorant or evil folks won't become enlightened or good if they can't use the internet.

No, but they will be isolated, and an isolated person is powerless person.

Seems like a recipe for creating a lot of people with very little or nothing to lose.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#17
post #9
post #2

This reeks of both-sides-ism and enablement. "Where does it stop?" is the same slippery slope garbage peddled by #HimToo and #BlueLivesMatter acolytes. But even engaging with the question at face value, the answer is very simple, and the author of this piece didn't try very hard if he couldn't find someone who is able to answer it. In fact, the best answer was given by Karl Popper in 1945. > In order to maintain a to…

For anyone wanting the full quote from Popper's The Open Society: "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation,…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define intolerance. That's the whole problem. So being "intolerant of intolerance" is meaningless except as something that signals a different meaning - different lines, different behavior, different standards - to every listener.

> Define intolerance That thing everyone except the intolerant seem to understand remarkably well, and the intolerant spend a lot of time quibbling over the definition of in a desperate attempt to derail their inclusion in it. Or, more seriously: treating other people as unwelcome or hated or less than human, for reasons other than being hateful and intolerant.

Yes. It is all very obvious. For example, suppose a marginalized group uses the hashtag #killallwhitemen to express the disempowerment they feel from the historical weight of white privilege. This, I think we can all agree, is an expression of righteous outrage through hyperbole, not intolerance. In fact, "white men" in this context does not refer to any person or group of people, rather a self-reenforcing system of oppression and privilege. In this way, we see "#killallwhitemen" is tool of enforcing tolerance in an intolerant society.

Now suppose someone were to make an argument like this:

"We observe sexual dimorphism to some degree in most animals. Thus our prior should be that it is unlikely that women and men are 100% psychologically identical even when controlling for environment. Because of this it would be epistemically incorrect to assume differences in representation in engineering firms can be explained entirely by discrimination."

This argument is clearly reactionary and must be censored, for we know 100% that any difference in preferences, abilities and outcomes between men and women must be explained by environmental effects. To think otherwise would be exclusionary and thus an example of intolerance we must be intolerant of, even in our own thoughts.

The person making this argument should be shunned. Even raising the argument should result in immediate deplatforming and perhaps loss of employability.

Even this notion of a prior in which you allow yourself to assign a probability to reactionary thoughts must fought, for even a very low prior can be overcome with enough sensory experience.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#19
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but they will be isolated, and an isolated person is powerless person.

Seems like a recipe for creating a lot of people with very little or nothing to lose.

Nah, I think the real danger is when they find others who re-affirm their convictions.

Re: A Heretic's Guide to Deplatforming

#20
post #2

This reeks of both-sides-ism and enablement. "Where does it stop?" is the same slippery slope garbage peddled by #HimToo and #BlueLivesMatter acolytes. But even engaging with the question at face value, the answer is very simple, and the author of this piece didn't try very hard if he couldn't find someone who is able to answer it. In fact, the best answer was given by Karl Popper in 1945. > In order to maintain a to…

How is a platform that let's you say anything uncensored intolerant? If your definition of "tolerance" is forced censorship, then I don't think you would do so well in Karl Popper's proposed society.
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