What You Can't Say (2004) • Hacker News Board

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#171

Post by watwut » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 8:19 AM UTC

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.

That is because people around you see tolerance as good. I know people who see themselves of guardians of rightful effectively and see intolerance as order.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#172

Post by dunkelheit » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 8:56 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #162

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 1. That line would still be hard to draw Perhaps I'm unusually gifted, but I find the line between violence and non violence quite easy to raw. One of the easiest of all lines, really.

Perhaps you haven't given much thought to the edge cases then. For example what if someone is posting racist articles on the web, are they violent or not? Well that's pretty easy - even if they are not directly violent they may incite violence in others so they partly share the blame. But what if they explicitly say that they are categorically against violence and it will just abstractly be better if certain inferior races would not exist and back it up with a rational-sounding argument? Another example. Is peaceful protest violent or non-violent? Well it is peaceful, nobody touches anyone - it is right in the name. But the protesters will probably bring inconvenience to someone, otherwise they won't be noticed - e.g. a sit-in will obstruct the workings of the target establishment. Is it violence or not? Is public shaming violence or not? It is just words after all, but words that can ruin someone's life. Etc.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#173

Post by trashtester » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:31 AM UTC

Mathnerd314 wrote: post #149

rubinelli wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the use of violence isn't enough; you have to ban the incitement to violence. Authoritarian causes never lacked martyrs.

It depends on how good the enforcement is. If orbital space lasers were set up to incinerate anyone committing an act of violence within a few seconds, it's hard to see how incitement to violence would work. Comparable examples might be getting blocked for posting too fast and triggering the automated spam filter, or trying to harass someone by mailing them $100 bills. At the moment police response time is still 15 m…

Not sure if you realize the irony of such extreme violence as a tool to counter violence.

Perhaps you don't consider it violence if it is within the law?

If so, is it violence to execute people for homosexual acts? What about ideologues that seek to introduce the the death penalty for gay sex?

Or is such legal actions only non-violence if it is used to enforce the values that you happen to hold yourself?

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#174

Post by scarejunba » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 10:01 AM UTC

eebynight wrote: post #73

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…

Every time this topic comes up someone posts this Popper argument. The problem, in my opinion, with this argument is that it is spoken from a position of moral superiority. When deciding whether to surpress an idea by force, who is making that decision? Why is that person or group correct about the matter? My major issue is that the people using this argument are usually so adamant about an idea they can’t see any fl…

It isn't mechanically executable but it does present a strong heuristic: resist all attempts to dismantle the discussion. You want the structure to remain even if you lose an individual argument.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#175

Post by goatinaboat » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 10:07 AM UTC

dlivingston wrote: post #154

kaens wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You’ve made an assertion that it is not true - in fact, a very strong assertion. Do you have any argument to back that up?

The essence of any organised belief system, religious or otherwise, is that some behaviours are virtuous and some are not to be tolerated, the nature of this intolerance may range from scolding to ostracism to execution. Is is this latter thing that is the only variable.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#176

Post by goatinaboat » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 10:13 AM UTC

username90 wrote: post #163

Tronno wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Now progressives are trying to reinstitute segregation and promoting the idea that people should be judged on skin color and not content of character while conservatives fight them on these changes." That's quite a statement. Could you go into more detail?

Progressives used to be pro blind hiring and objective criteria like tests. But after it turned out that blind hiring and objective criteria gets even less diversity than our current methods it flipped, and now conservatives wants blind hiring and objective criteria while progressives wants to pick people by gender and race.

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted, this is an actual observable thing e.g. https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-...

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#177

Post by goatinaboat » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 10:28 AM UTC

lazyasciiart wrote: post #51

BigJono wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What moral taboos are enforced by straight white males?

Ideas suggesting that being a straight white male might give a person advantages.

The majority of homeless in the streets are straight white males. The majority of people doing dirty, dangerous, low paid jobs are straight white males. The majority of deaths at work are straight white males.

It’s not taboo, it’s factually wrong to claim that straight white maleness is a guaranteed ticket to an easy life. The truth is that everything else is a rounding error compared to class.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#178

Post by dTal » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 10:28 AM UTC

Udik wrote: post #164

ixtli wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly hope you haven't. But yes I know what you're talking about: that is certainly a behavior of a certain type of racist I've encountered. I find quite often that people with reactionary beliefs feel that they are personally under attack, or at least its important that they nurture a certain type of victimhood. I must insist, though, that there is another type that comes from a belief that your perceived "gen…

> there is another type that comes from a belief that your perceived "genetic" [...] inheritance make you in some way implicitly superior... On the other hand, I am pretty convinced that my genetic inheritance makes me "superior" (in some vague, but obvious way) to a cat- and yet I've never harmed or desired harm for cats- I actually like them. Or, to make a different example, while we consider it unacceptable to thi…

You don't compete with cats for resources, and you interact with them entirely on your terms. Once an animal enters your life without asking, and reduces the resources available to you, they become 'vermin', and people will do extraordinarily cruel things to them without feeling the slightest pang of guilt on the basis of that same 'superiority' which you feel towards cats.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#179

Post by pointerpointer » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 10:36 AM UTC

This definitely applies to HN. HN should not grey out down voted comments. It is like there is no freedom of thought and speech on HN. If many people don't like what you're saying your idea gets censored while it might be very true. That is inherently wrong IMHO.

edit: HN, why not just showing how many up and down votes a comment gets? I am really curious why someones comment should be invisible. Sometimes I'm reading replies on a comment I cannot read because it's down voted, what's the point of it?

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#180

Post by lmm » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 10:42 AM UTC

Reelin wrote: post #152

rjblackman wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then the axioms themselves can be argued until a conclusion is reached, otherwise debate can be suspended. the underlying axiom here is that debate can be had, and that people can be convinced through reason.

> the underlying axiom here is that debate can be had, and that people can be convinced through reason I take it you haven't seen Twitter (or Facebook, or Reddit, or even SE lately)? Or perhaps you're referring only to in person interactions here, but I've still never witnessed this outside of a STEM setting (and even then, not always).

A platform that deliberately limits the length of what can be posted to only the most trivial thoughts turns out to be a poor place for debate? Shocking, that.