421–430 of 606 posts
There are a lot of downvoted posts in this thread that make reasonable arguments and that are promoting discussion. I disagree with a lot of them, but it’s awkward for this to be a story where people are heavily downvoting people they disagree with
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> War is a stress test for societies. By destroying less efficient social structures it promotes long term progress and reduces inefficient practices like slavery. War destroys progress and is incredibly inefficient. The mere threat of war creates an endless arms race resulting in half of discretionary spending going to defense. The reason for submitting to government authority is for protection of life and liberty.…
> War destroys progress and is incredibly inefficient. Please explain the monumental advancements of technology witnessed during both world wars. Even if they were not a direct result of the war effort, they still succeeded in spite of all technically and scientifically advanced nations being on a war footing during those time periods. > The mere threat of war creates an endless arms race resulting in half of discret…
The problem is that you can't counter this by showing the monumental advancements that may have happened without the destructive nature of those wars on lives, economies, etc. because, well, we have no idea.
> Please explain why we have not seen a significant drop in defense spending during the periods when the threat of war has lessened.
Because "the mere threat of war" still exists - except instead of Russia, it's now terrorists, Middle Eastern countries, North Korea, etc. Also because the military industrial complex has an ungodly hold over governments.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This ignores that the web has birthed a global culture of people where participation in online discussion is the majority of their lives. And they sit around looking to be offended to raise their own social value amonst their online peers. Being offended is about obtaining value and for mobs to obtain power. The two way street of both trying to not offend AND the listener trying to honestly interpret what is being sa…
> This ignores that the web has birthed a global culture of people where participation in online discussion is the majority of their lives. I'm not ignoring that, I'm describing what I see is an underlying cause. If online discussion tools respected the principle of setting proper expectations for each communication channel, the problem would be much milder, as the problems you describe would be limited to smaller gr…
But all the rules in the world can't solve for bad actors - both speakers and listeners.
There's a fluidity to human interaction that rigidity of rule sets will never totally compensate for.
And too many rules can be counterproductive and be empowering to bad actors who thrive in increasing beaucracies, at the least by making it difficult for everyone else so they look good by comparison. Then the whole focus gets lost. More time is spent navigating, adhering to, debating rules than the primary focus...
And trolls love thst shit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again, I empathize with the feelings of people who may feel emotionally threatened by a derogatory comment, but some speech deals with people whose lives are in imminent mortal danger (e.g. those about to be sold on Black Market) and if we can't quickly discuss their cases and potential responses to rescue them, then they will be doomed to a life of untold misery. In such situations, there is no time to filter every…
Is there a term for when someone says something, followed by 'but', then something that completely invalidates the first sentence?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Communism” != “Soviet style totalitarianism”. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a communist. You don’t have to agree with it as a political philosophy (I don’t), but it’s no worse than being a capitalist.
Let's not go down the "those aren't real communists" route. The communists in the West were by and large always very cozy with the SU. Hell, they loved Stalin so much and wanted to hear so little that Orwell sat down to write a fable to explain the issues to them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are focusing on clear examples, and not the grey areas that can easily be abused. Should a CoC have a "no politics" rule? No profanity (in an 18+ group)?
It depends on the purpose of the group. There are lots of 18+ groups that discourage politics, and lots more where no profanity is expected. As long as there are other different groups where those are allowed, everything is OK.
Until a topic (think BLM kind) came along that people thought should be an exception; The usual arguments: this wasn't politics, this was basic human rights / existence; It was offensive not to allow, is was oppression to not discuss.
Basically, enough people cared more about than their continued membership, or even the continued existence/stability of the group, that may become fractured by , that they where willing to leave and make a big stink about doing so, enough to potentially give the group a bad reputation, and leveraged this threat against the policy.
Free speech != hate speech. There's a big difference between stating a reasoned point of view that some might find offensive and stating something that's intended only to offend. The first is essential to a free society and deserves our enthusiastic protection. The second is only destructive and should be shunned. Behaving offensively is not strictly in the eye of the beholder. If you hate something/someone, do not s…
Hitchens - Free Speech (2006): https://youtu.be/olefVguutfo
I understand that there are a lot of people who are hurting right now, and I empathize with their pain, but how can we share out most wonderful and beautiful ideas with each other or convey important information to the public if we believe there might be serious reprisals against us if we "say the wrong thing". For example, I personally helped work against slavery on the Black Market in the Middle East, and I wanted…
> how can we share out most wonderful and beautiful ideas with each other The trick is to create channels with limited audiences, where you can set an expectation of which ideas are acceptable and which are not.* It always has been, but the the arrival of new communication methods has disrupted the traditional channels, and now every idea is propagated to a much larger and looser audience, which aren't aware or don't…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you seen anyone personally take offense, or just high-profile cases? I've definitely seen a few of the latter (e.g. Jordan Peterson) but the common denominator there seems to be antagonistically refusing to use pronouns or doing so to make the point that you reject them, which is different from an honest mistake.
Yes, i left Open Source projects because referring to co-contributors is such a minefield. I don't wish to work with self-identified transgender people due to this anymore. They take everything so personal even if its not about them. And just for saying this, same people will accuse me of hating trans people and rejecting their right to exist. But you know what - people with successful HRT who also pass don't exhibit…
A lot of them do.
> They take everything so personal even if its not about them.
Is this an actual experience? I've worked with/interacted with quite a few queer people. And I've misgendered people on more than one occasion. Nothing a "shit sorry" hasn't been able to fix.
This forces me to wonder why our experiences are so different. Do the queer people I work with have different norms than yours? Do I have some level of legitimacy among them that you don't? Or is there something else at play?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends on the purpose of the group. There are lots of 18+ groups that discourage politics, and lots more where no profanity is expected. As long as there are other different groups where those are allowed, everything is OK.
I was part of a group that had a policy of apolitical(ity) Until a topic (think BLM kind) came along that people thought should be an exception; The usual arguments: this wasn't politics, this was basic human rights / existence; It was offensive not to allow, is was oppression to not discuss. Basically, enough people cared more about than their continued membership, or even the continued existence/stability of the gr…
If social norms change and you want your group to have continued legitimacy, you may need to change with them. Not having a code of conduct doesn't make things any different.