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What You Can't Say (2004)

paulgraham.com

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Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#101

Post by lone_haxx0r »

Jarwain wrote: post #94
lone_haxx0r wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Embracing Popper's thesis implies the existence of a line separating "tolerant ideologies" from "intolerant ideologies". Who is going to define that line? Knowing how the world works, I don't suspect, but I know it will be used to suppress things that the mob doesn't agree with, while that same mob preaches ideologies more violent and intolerant than the ones they suppress. Popper's opinion only makes sense when the…

I think that if one were to draw the line between tolerant and intolerant ideologies, that line shouldn't be drawn based on the content of the ideology but rather how that ideology spreads. Specifically, based on this quote > 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,…

1. That line would still be hard to draw

2. I know many ideologies that most people would consider "intolerant" but would fall under the "tolerant" umbrella because there's a rationalization for its intolerance. In fact, any ideology, as violent as it might be, can be rationalized.

While it is also technically possible to discover the underlying, hidden 'intolerance' of an ideology, society at large is not capable of doing that, simply because moral issues are some of the most complicated questions in the world.

We would never achieve a consensus about the underlying tolerance/intolerance of ideologies, because if we could do that, we would have already done it and we wouldn't have this problem in the first place.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#102

Post by kaens »

knzhou wrote: post #93
kaens wrote: post #64

> 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, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress th…

That's a facile response, because it works for everybody. Everybody intolerant thinks of themselves as a fundamentally tolerant person, whose hand has regrettably been forced by the unforgivable actions of the enemy tribe.

> Everybody intolerant thinks of themselves as a fundamentally tolerant person, whose hand has regrettably been forced by the unforgivable actions of the enemy tribe.

This is 100% not true.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#103

Post by danShumway »

kaens wrote: post #64

> 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, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress th…

The Paradox of Tolerance is just a rephrasing of the Paradox of Pacifism. I'm not convinced it brings anything ideologically new to the table.

I'm not a pacifist, and by extension, I don't believe we should tolerate everything. I agree with Karl. But I still get very suspicious of people who bring this quote up, because they're arguing about something very basic that pretty much everybody already knows, and they're not answering the more important question: which things should we violently oppose, and how should we oppose them?

Most people already don't believe that we should tolerate 100% of literally everything, and the people who do are not going to be convinced by an argument they've already heard 1,000 times. I promise that pacifists already know how sometimes violent people kill pacifists. Advocates for universal tolerance already know that their philosophy can be abused. This argument was around for thousands of years, even before Karl Popper was born.

So ignoring the pacifists that will all just roll their eyes when they hear this quote, and assuming that someone isn't a pacifist (ie, the vast majority of people) the more useful followup questions are:

- How do we define the intolerant? Is it literally people who fight against tolerance, or is it about causing harm, intentionally or incidentally?

- Is (in)tolerance fungible? If someone tolerates an intolerant person, should they be treated like a similar liability? How many degrees of fungibility should we go down?

- How long should we wait before we decide that suppression is necessary? Is it justifiable for us to preemptively suppress a community that is likely to become violent in the future?

- What means are acceptable during suppression of intolerant ideas? Are there lines we can't cross? Are we forbidden from using stuff like propaganda?

There are tons of smart people who have smart, interesting takes on those questions. And if you go through history or even current-day events and look at different communities, you'll find that they all kind of come up with their own answers.

So when people pull out this quote, it's like walking up to two people debating whether we should ever assassinate a dictator and saying, "sometimes wars are justified." Well, yeah, but we knew that. Is this particular war justified?

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#104

Post by [deleted] »

undefined1 wrote: post #40
jonahrd wrote: post #5

> It could be that the scientists are simply smarter; most physicists could, if necessary, make it through a PhD program in French literature, but few professors of French literature could make it through a PhD program in physics. Well having taken a lesson from the article, I think he's purely mistaken with this point. (As well as divisive, insensitive, etc..) Quite the hubris to make that assumption!

Paul's response to this: "Actually, for illustrative purposes I did include a few things you can't say, but I stuck to domain-specific ones. Within university faculties, this is the great unmentionable. And look at how much trouble I got in for bringing it up. (So far no one from the US car industry has complained though, perhaps because I mentioned explicitly that a heresy was coming, instead of just inlining it.) T…

[deleted]

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#105

Post by hinkley »

tempestn wrote: post #61
hinkley wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the concept of a polymath. There is overlap in that group with autodidacts (people who can teach themselves about anything if they only want it badly enough). I think Paul may be falling prey to a correlation issue here. If you are an autodidact and a polymath, are you more likely to end up as a scientist or engineer, or as a professor of French Literature? Very few people in the CS program understood why I…

If you're saying that more polymaths are likely to end up as physics professors than French professors, doesn't that actually support the point he's making?

Proving that it makes sense for anecdotes to exist doesn't suddenly turn them into data.

Polymaths are physicists does not even mean that physicists are polymaths.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#106

Post by austincheney »

kaens wrote: post #64

> 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, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress th…

Tolerance is acceptance or appreciation of difference or disagreement with the intent to make peace or extend understanding.

That word is often abused by ignorant, stupid, or self-serving narcissistic people to mean something more like conformity or agreement. In this context tolerance becomes an empty meaningless word used as a weapon to attack people with, which is the opposite of its intention. This best description of this internalizing self-serving behavior is hypocrisy. Whether its because such people are dishonest or are simply stupid I despise these people. I would respect these silly people much more if they simply used just words correctly in acceptance of a self-serving nature.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#107

Post by jonahx »

danShumway wrote: post #103
kaens wrote: post #64

> 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, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress th…

The Paradox of Tolerance is just a rephrasing of the Paradox of Pacifism. I'm not convinced it brings anything ideologically new to the table. I'm not a pacifist, and by extension, I don't believe we should tolerate everything. I agree with Karl. But I still get very suspicious of people who bring this quote up, because they're arguing about something very basic that pretty much everybody already knows, and they're n…

> because they're arguing about something very basic that pretty much everybody already knows

One would think...

Unfortunately, many people believe that all intolerance stems from bad treatment of some kind, and that the intolerant can be swayed, eventually, given enough tolerance.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#108

Post by Retric »

rland wrote: post #44
jonahrd wrote: post #5

> It could be that the scientists are simply smarter; most physicists could, if necessary, make it through a PhD program in French literature, but few professors of French literature could make it through a PhD program in physics. Well having taken a lesson from the article, I think he's purely mistaken with this point. (As well as divisive, insensitive, etc..) Quite the hubris to make that assumption!

Statements like these are STEM vs. Non-STEM version of "why does Twitter need 4000 software engineers? I could make that in two weeks!" Didn't Paul Graham write an article about that?

That’s a rather poor example as you can say all this stuff: https://github.com/twitter

Also, Twitter does not have 4,000 total employees let alone software engineers. It’s core software was initially built by a tiny team, with the company only growing to 130 people in total after two years.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#109

Post by jonahx »

knzhou wrote: post #93
kaens wrote: post #64

> 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, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress th…

That's a facile response, because it works for everybody. Everybody intolerant thinks of themselves as a fundamentally tolerant person, whose hand has regrettably been forced by the unforgivable actions of the enemy tribe.

Let's assume this is true...

What do you conclude from this (I'm asking honestly)? That Popper is wrong and unlimited tolerance is the answer?

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#110

Post by golemotron »

kaens wrote: post #64

> 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, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress th…

Popper's Paradox of Tolerance is not falsifiable.
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