241–250 of 388 posts
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...
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Personally I use it because it’s descriptive. Hard lines being drawn, people unwilling to even talk with others based on ideological labels, economic sanctions against ‘offenders’, propaganda clearly targeted at specific identifiable groups used to raise funds and attack the ‘other’ side, fear and loathing/us vs them. I have an aunt who for economic reasons moved to what she called ‘Trump country’, and she legitimate…
> Hard lines being drawn, people unwilling to even talk with others based on ideological labels, economic sanctions against ‘offenders’, propaganda clearly targeted at specific identifiable groups used to raise funds and attack the ‘other’ side, fear and loathing/us vs them. You're describing today's conservatives. Liberals seem to be always willing to entertain the discussion of basically anything . It's sort of a c…
I'm not sure that is true anymore. Liberals have extremist wings (like Antifa) just like conservatives do. People making liberal arguments now spew the same venom that only conservative groups did 10 years ago. At least in my experience.
I think part of the problem is the news likes to take extreme examples of anything and present it as the norm. I have discussions over policy with people all the time and they are quite enlightening.
(Context: The article uses abortion as its central -- and only -- example.) >Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with? It's not. Many people[1] spend a great deal of time studying the rhetoric and activities of people who oppose abortion. They have studied them far more than you. >For better or for worse, the vast majority of people I know favor Roe v. Wade. Still, I think I understand the view…
Thank you for summarising exactly what I was thinking - the justifications people will give publically are not the same as justifications people discuss in private.
This is most obvious in a debate about climate change, where no-one ever says 'I (errorneously) think it will not affect me personally, I don't want to pay for fixing the problem, and I don't care about poor farmers in bangladesh dying'.
Instead it will be some more socially acceptable line of argument, about science not being settled, technolgy not being there yet, or whatever.
Or in immigration - noone ever says: 'they are bringin in culture I am uncomfotable with', instead they will argue about economy or crime, which is more 'socially acceptable' line of argument.
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Here is Milton Friedman discussing a politically charged topic with Bernie Sanders in a very civil manner. (though Bernie doesn't speak much) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sElz_P6QsZo (ignore the inflammatory title and intro screen) Civility and decorum are what is missing today. And if it was taught in our schools today, and valued in society at large, maybe it we could still have debates like this.
> Civility and decorum are what is missing today. That's what got us Joe Biden, who mostly has the same policies as Donald Trump, is a democrat who has always been a lot like a pretty conservative republican, but says nice things and only sniffs girls' hair instead of grabbing by the _____. Downvote for that if you like but the lesser of two appalling characters is still appalling. What's missing is a deeper understa…
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Here is Milton Friedman discussing a politically charged topic with Bernie Sanders in a very civil manner. (though Bernie doesn't speak much) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sElz_P6QsZo (ignore the inflammatory title and intro screen) Civility and decorum are what is missing today. And if it was taught in our schools today, and valued in society at large, maybe it we could still have debates like this.
> Civility and decorum ... taught in our schools today "Education" means "leading", think "as if hand in hand, in time": it is a matter (in this case) of transmission through /example/ - not of passing information. Then, you can bring awareness to it: and awareness raising passes through showing that one way is higher and the other is low. You must live that example. The rarer the example, the greater the evidence of…
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The fundamental problem, which isn't going to get addressed short of the country falling apart, most likely, is that our particular system of government is a bit shit , and keeps getting worse the better everyone gets at gaming it. Its very shittiness is why we can't realistically fix it. We've been relying on courts really stretching reasoning on the constitution to its breaking point, just to be able to have a most…
> our particular system of government is a bit shit, and keeps getting worse the better everyone gets at gaming it. I agree that a "Union of States," being profoundly anti-federalist, is a pretty shit way of running a homogeneous world power with a shared language, shared culture, and (for the most part) shared ideals. The US fundamentally changed after the Civil War (which was probably the breaking point of anti-fed…
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It's also hard to understand why a fetus is to be protected but homeless children and people shouldn't be sheltered or fed, wars shouldn't be protested and education shouldn't be funded, but here we are. Political tools are used as wedge issues, not as logical thinking points. "Not in my back yard" is a wonderful summation of this. While many upper class liberals support more homeless shelters, they don't want one in…
> It's also hard to understand why a fetus is to be protected but homeless children and people shouldn't be sheltered or fed. I believe it's the distinction between active killing vs. the passive lack of support.
If it's the latter then it's probably just some missing social skills. At least that's my take speaking from personal experience.
Morality and law both work like mathematics. This means that my beliefs are constructed, and once I have a construction, the only in bounds way to convince me to change my mind about them is to show me that my beliefs are inconsistent. Moreover, understanding someone who has already demonstrated an inconsistent belief system is easy. They believe X because they believe something and its negation, and at least one of…
Generally agree and find the same. However, I would argue moral philosophy is inherently built on unprovable axioms. The criticism "used to justify whatever they want" is actually a necessary feature to morality, because the whole point of morals is that not everyone shares your morals. If they were shared by everyone, they would just be objective truths.
Nobody wrings their hands that a murderer doesn't share the unprovable moral axioms of those who oppose murder. If a somebody refuses to comply with the anti-murder laws, then force is is used to stop him. Problem solved, no need to consult the philosophers.
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> the extremism from the abortion-supporting side Can you post some examples? I know the anti-choice crowd has a history of assassination, arson, bombings, death threats, kidnappings , harassment/stalking, and vandalism... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence Note that Wikipedia doesn't seem to have a "pro-choice violence" page and searching around I couldn't find much beyond some vandalism.
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Secondly, it's just from an awful source: The Family Research Council (FRC) is designated as a hate group (for good reason!) by the Southern Poverty Law Center:
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/grou...
Even after all that it has yet another problem: It uses loaded terms like, "unborn children" to cover the entire gamut of zygote, embryo, fetus, etc. Is it really that impossible for the anti-choice movement to make a reasoned argument? To cite legitimate science? To present a clear (readable, haha) basis for this position that doesn't involve religion or tradition?