4 ms·

"But we all need worthy opponents to challenge us in our search for truth." That's the problem, where's the worthy opponent? I'm sure they exist, but I rarely

by didibus 10y ago

"But we all need worthy opponents to challenge us in our search for truth." That's the problem, where's the worthy opponent? I'm sure they exist, but I rarely see or hear of them. I see a lot of demagogues, and those are not worthy by definition and should not be brought into the conversation especially in a University. Bring us worthy opponents and I'm sure there won't be protests from students.

striking 10y ago
How would you establish a definition for "worthy"? I'm almost certain your definition would differ from someone else's. It's for that reason that I don't think we should prevent anyone from speaking. The only solution is more speech. Also: Universities are doing a pretty poor job of bringing in certain kinds of speakers. If you want change, make it.
- BatFastard 10y ago
  I would posit that Trump is not a worthy opponent. He does not use facts and reason for his arguments. He uses bullying and lies, that makes him "unworthy" in my eyes.
  - jokipoki 10y ago
    .
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      If you get flagged for deliberate trolling, that's not proving the point of the article. Trump refuses facts. It doesn't matter whether you think he got to the right or wrong viewpoint, he is objectively not a worthy debater. He does not explain why you should think something, back it up with true statements, and meaningfully respond to counterpoints and criticism. I don't care what you voted, but you have not named a 'worthy opponent' for didibus.
      - jokipoki 10y ago
        .
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - tomp 10y ago
    But in terms of political discourse, that's about as "worthy" as it gets. People have been trained by different (mainstream) politicians over the years that lies are the new normal, facts don't matter, promises are empty, etc. It's no wonder that eventually an extremist would succeed with a much more blatant version if those basic strategies.
- therpe1 10y ago
  "More speech" is stupid when you're speaking with people who have abandoned the Western rationalist tradition. The "debate" on evolution, climate change, whether it's really necessary to exterminate the impostor Jews and enslave the rest of the Untermenschen -- these are not debates in any meaningful sense of the word. The people who hold such positions aren't going to provide any kind of rational justification and they're certainly not going to back that up with valid scientific data. Most importantly any such "debate" is not going to produce new knowledge. > How would you establish a definition for "worthy"? I'm almost certain your definition would differ from someone else's. Fortunately we live in a democracy and universities tend to be very democratic solution. There's a strong argument for having this debate and resolving it... democratically. (I will also note that, to some extent, I always find these calls for "all speech" to be pretty funny on Hacker News, a site that is stridently moderated by both users and mods alike. Everybody wants more speech until they don't.)
- didibus 10y ago
  At the very least, you can't be a demagogue, that is someone who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power. This goes for all sides btw. Ideally too, especially if you're to speak at a well respected university, I'd like you to have some credentials, a book, research, a strong presence in existing circles related to the problems you'll address, etc. Something that indicates you've spent a good amount of time (like above the 90th percentile) thinking this through by yourself first, and by a few others.
jokipoki 10y ago
.
- norikki 10y ago
  Only a racist and an Islamaphobe would want limited immigration and a strong stance against Islamic terrorism. Did you know that more people die every year of heart attacks than terrorist attacks, so we should just not do anything to stop terrorism. Also, did you know that every single person in Mexico is actually an American! Yup, they are all 100% Americans who just haven't illegally crossed the boarder yet. As soon as they do, refusing to give them citizenship is betraying our American values as a Nation Of Immigrants (TM).
  - dang 10y ago
    Please stop posting inflammatory political rants to HN. It's very much not what this site is for. You've been using HN primarily for political arguments. That's an abuse of the site—it's destructive of the thoughtful, varied discussion we're hoping for. We ban accounts that do this, so please stop doing this.
msravi 10y ago
I watch in fascination two twitter lists I've created - labeled for better or worse, "left" and "right". I routinely see both braindead namecalling and extremely well constructed arguments on both lists. And yet, the most fascinating aspect is that the authors almost invariably choose to ignore a well constructed argument against their point of view and choose to respond vocally and loudly to namecalling. Perhaps it's not that there aren't worthy opponents, but that we deliberately choose to ignore them, because it's much easier to portray yourself as a paragon of virtue fighting against uncivilized, uncouth barbarians.
- hvs 10y ago
  That's pretty much what I see on both sides these days. The idea that someone could hold differing views is no longer seen as disagreement but being actively evil or, at best, stupid.
  - msravi 10y ago
    ...which is ok. I mean, you're perfectly entitled to see me as or call me evil or stupid. But when you ignore a 2-page rebuttal of your opinion, and only respond to someone who called you names as an "example" of the abuse being thrown about by the opposition, that's just hypocrisy.
DanBC 10y ago
> Bring us worthy opponents and I'm sure there won't be protests from students. Germaine Greer, famous feminist faced an attempted "no platform" in UK because of her trans-phobic views. This article mentions some other protests from students, although luckily most of them don't get anywhere. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/may/05/boris-tatchell-greer-were-they-actually-no-platformed https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/may/05/boris-tatc... This line from that article sounds bad: > NUS president Megan Dunn distanced herself and the union from the group, saying: “Hope Not Hate is not on NUS’s no-platform list. I would happily share a platform with anyone from Hope Not Hate tomorrow.” But the list includes jst 6 groups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Platform > Al-Muhajiroun; > British National Party; > English Defence League; > Hizb-ut-Tahrir; > Muslim Public Affairs Committee. > National Action Some of these organisations are proscribed terrorist organisations, so not allowing them a platform isn't unreasonable.
aero142 10y ago
I'll propose that there is a reason for this. The tactics of the Social Justice movement is to demonize people who disagree with you and attempt to get them fired or ostracized from society. The tactic is to find the most extreme version of that opinion and try to make that the model for the whole group, even though the center of it might be more moderate. For example, there are a lot of people that have been concerned about the amount of immigration to the US for years and any attempt to restrict immigration was called racists. It's easy to do since there will be extreme racists that also support restricting immigration. You just need to interview one of the clear racists and make them the poster child for the whole group. I saw tons of the meme with Pepe the frog from the alt-right and never saw a single one that was racists. When it went mainstream, someone found out that racists were using it too, so they attached the racist label to the whole thing and tried to get any discussion from the alt-right tied directly to racism and Nazism. There are racists in the group for sure, but I heard a lot of other parts of it as well. This is the same reason I was so opposed to the witch hunt of punishing everyone associated with Peter Thiel. Trying to get someone fired for their political beliefs sends the middle people underground. They are fearful, and their whole lives are not centered around their political identity, so they just stop talking about it. The result is that the only people willing to talk about these things are the extremes, or the weird or the people who really take "I don't care what you think of me" to the extreme. This is why Milo Yiannopoulos is the spokesman for these ideas to people. He is the only one willing to talk publicly. He is an extreme, and deeply flawed person, but he is willing to say things no one else is, so he has a following. Trump is also a version of this. Lots of his supporters are more reasonable than him, but they got shouted out of the public discourse and were call racists anyway, so that only left the extremes left to represent the center. I think there are lots "worthy opponents" out there, but if they said they support less immigration, they would be called racists and everything they ever said would be quote-mined until something unacceptable was found and they would be run out of the public space.
- therpe1 10y ago
  It seems you've concocted this fantasy where "SJWs" are hunting down anybody who dares to discuss immigration and driving them out of town with pitchforks. I'm sure you believe this but it has no basis in reality. In fact what you'll find if you step back and look at the bigger picture is that (1) the debate around immigration isn't new, it's been going on literally since the birth of the Republic (2) for most of the Republic's history both the State and the people have been violently anti-immigrant and (3) this has moderated and most respectable polls on America now show a population that largely welcomes diversity [1]. My own theory is that immigration is just a symbol that culture warriors like to throw around. It doesn't mean anything in itself. It's not like the situation in Europe where you've seen recent spikes in immigration, in fact by most accounts (largely due to the poor economy) immigration has lessened in America. The thing that changed really was the complete, unreserved embrace of immigration as "the greatest evil" by the right. The real point being that... it's certainly possible to have reasonable discussions about immigration. Up until -- I want to say the late 70s -- this happened all the time. But reasonable discussion is no longer possible about this topic. The people pushing for it have constructed a paradigm where immigration is going to destroy America and anybody who doesn't see this is a stupid... SJW. There's no facts, no evidence, just propaganda and fear. So that's where we are and it's unlikely to change any time soon. The challenge now will be having a democracy and constructing policy when a good chunk of the people have abandoned the rationalist tradition. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/06/diversity-welcomed-in-australia-u-s-despite-uncertainty-over-muslim-integration/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/06/diversity-we...
hvs 10y ago
Yeah, the other side has no worthy opponents, THAT'S the problem. /sarcasm
ci5er 10y ago
> Bring us worthy opponents and I'm sure there won't be protests from students. Seriously? I'm on your side (I guess) but they have speakers that are credible.

by didibus 10y ago

striking 10y ago

How would you establish a definition for "worthy"? I'm almost certain your definition would differ from someone else's. It's for that reason that I don't think we should prevent anyone from speaking. The only solution is more speech. Also: Universities are doing a pretty poor job of bringing in certain kinds of speakers. If you want change, make it.

BatFastard 10y ago
I would posit that Trump is not a worthy opponent. He does not use facts and reason for his arguments. He uses bullying and lies, that makes him "unworthy" in my eyes.
- jokipoki 10y ago
  .
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    If you get flagged for deliberate trolling, that's not proving the point of the article. Trump refuses facts. It doesn't matter whether you think he got to the right or wrong viewpoint, he is objectively not a worthy debater. He does not explain why you should think something, back it up with true statements, and meaningfully respond to counterpoints and criticism. I don't care what you voted, but you have not named a 'worthy opponent' for didibus.
    - jokipoki 10y ago
      .
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- tomp 10y ago
  But in terms of political discourse, that's about as "worthy" as it gets. People have been trained by different (mainstream) politicians over the years that lies are the new normal, facts don't matter, promises are empty, etc. It's no wonder that eventually an extremist would succeed with a much more blatant version if those basic strategies.
therpe1 10y ago
"More speech" is stupid when you're speaking with people who have abandoned the Western rationalist tradition. The "debate" on evolution, climate change, whether it's really necessary to exterminate the impostor Jews and enslave the rest of the Untermenschen -- these are not debates in any meaningful sense of the word. The people who hold such positions aren't going to provide any kind of rational justification and they're certainly not going to back that up with valid scientific data. Most importantly any such "debate" is not going to produce new knowledge. > How would you establish a definition for "worthy"? I'm almost certain your definition would differ from someone else's. Fortunately we live in a democracy and universities tend to be very democratic solution. There's a strong argument for having this debate and resolving it... democratically. (I will also note that, to some extent, I always find these calls for "all speech" to be pretty funny on Hacker News, a site that is stridently moderated by both users and mods alike. Everybody wants more speech until they don't.)
didibus 10y ago
At the very least, you can't be a demagogue, that is someone who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power. This goes for all sides btw. Ideally too, especially if you're to speak at a well respected university, I'd like you to have some credentials, a book, research, a strong presence in existing circles related to the problems you'll address, etc. Something that indicates you've spent a good amount of time (like above the 90th percentile) thinking this through by yourself first, and by a few others.

jokipoki 10y ago

norikki 10y ago
Only a racist and an Islamaphobe would want limited immigration and a strong stance against Islamic terrorism. Did you know that more people die every year of heart attacks than terrorist attacks, so we should just not do anything to stop terrorism. Also, did you know that every single person in Mexico is actually an American! Yup, they are all 100% Americans who just haven't illegally crossed the boarder yet. As soon as they do, refusing to give them citizenship is betraying our American values as a Nation Of Immigrants (TM).
- dang 10y ago
  Please stop posting inflammatory political rants to HN. It's very much not what this site is for. You've been using HN primarily for political arguments. That's an abuse of the site—it's destructive of the thoughtful, varied discussion we're hoping for. We ban accounts that do this, so please stop doing this.

msravi 10y ago

I watch in fascination two twitter lists I've created - labeled for better or worse, "left" and "right". I routinely see both braindead namecalling and extremely well constructed arguments on both lists. And yet, the most fascinating aspect is that the authors almost invariably choose to ignore a well constructed argument against their point of view and choose to respond vocally and loudly to namecalling. Perhaps it's not that there aren't worthy opponents, but that we deliberately choose to ignore them, because it's much easier to portray yourself as a paragon of virtue fighting against uncivilized, uncouth barbarians.

hvs 10y ago
That's pretty much what I see on both sides these days. The idea that someone could hold differing views is no longer seen as disagreement but being actively evil or, at best, stupid.
- msravi 10y ago
  ...which is ok. I mean, you're perfectly entitled to see me as or call me evil or stupid. But when you ignore a 2-page rebuttal of your opinion, and only respond to someone who called you names as an "example" of the abuse being thrown about by the opposition, that's just hypocrisy.

DanBC 10y ago

> Bring us worthy opponents and I'm sure there won't be protests from students. Germaine Greer, famous feminist faced an attempted "no platform" in UK because of her trans-phobic views. This article mentions some other protests from students, although luckily most of them don't get anywhere. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/may/05/boris-tatchell-greer-were-they-actually-no-platformed https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/may/05/boris-tatc... This line from that article sounds bad: > NUS president Megan Dunn distanced herself and the union from the group, saying: “Hope Not Hate is not on NUS’s no-platform list. I would happily share a platform with anyone from Hope Not Hate tomorrow.” But the list includes jst 6 groups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Platform > Al-Muhajiroun; > British National Party; > English Defence League; > Hizb-ut-Tahrir; > Muslim Public Affairs Committee. > National Action Some of these organisations are proscribed terrorist organisations, so not allowing them a platform isn't unreasonable.

aero142 10y ago

I'll propose that there is a reason for this. The tactics of the Social Justice movement is to demonize people who disagree with you and attempt to get them fired or ostracized from society. The tactic is to find the most extreme version of that opinion and try to make that the model for the whole group, even though the center of it might be more moderate. For example, there are a lot of people that have been concerned about the amount of immigration to the US for years and any attempt to restrict immigration was called racists. It's easy to do since there will be extreme racists that also support restricting immigration. You just need to interview one of the clear racists and make them the poster child for the whole group. I saw tons of the meme with Pepe the frog from the alt-right and never saw a single one that was racists. When it went mainstream, someone found out that racists were using it too, so they attached the racist label to the whole thing and tried to get any discussion from the alt-right tied directly to racism and Nazism. There are racists in the group for sure, but I heard a lot of other parts of it as well. This is the same reason I was so opposed to the witch hunt of punishing everyone associated with Peter Thiel. Trying to get someone fired for their political beliefs sends the middle people underground. They are fearful, and their whole lives are not centered around their political identity, so they just stop talking about it. The result is that the only people willing to talk about these things are the extremes, or the weird or the people who really take "I don't care what you think of me" to the extreme. This is why Milo Yiannopoulos is the spokesman for these ideas to people. He is the only one willing to talk publicly. He is an extreme, and deeply flawed person, but he is willing to say things no one else is, so he has a following. Trump is also a version of this. Lots of his supporters are more reasonable than him, but they got shouted out of the public discourse and were call racists anyway, so that only left the extremes left to represent the center. I think there are lots "worthy opponents" out there, but if they said they support less immigration, they would be called racists and everything they ever said would be quote-mined until something unacceptable was found and they would be run out of the public space.

therpe1 10y ago
It seems you've concocted this fantasy where "SJWs" are hunting down anybody who dares to discuss immigration and driving them out of town with pitchforks. I'm sure you believe this but it has no basis in reality. In fact what you'll find if you step back and look at the bigger picture is that (1) the debate around immigration isn't new, it's been going on literally since the birth of the Republic (2) for most of the Republic's history both the State and the people have been violently anti-immigrant and (3) this has moderated and most respectable polls on America now show a population that largely welcomes diversity [1]. My own theory is that immigration is just a symbol that culture warriors like to throw around. It doesn't mean anything in itself. It's not like the situation in Europe where you've seen recent spikes in immigration, in fact by most accounts (largely due to the poor economy) immigration has lessened in America. The thing that changed really was the complete, unreserved embrace of immigration as "the greatest evil" by the right. The real point being that... it's certainly possible to have reasonable discussions about immigration. Up until -- I want to say the late 70s -- this happened all the time. But reasonable discussion is no longer possible about this topic. The people pushing for it have constructed a paradigm where immigration is going to destroy America and anybody who doesn't see this is a stupid... SJW. There's no facts, no evidence, just propaganda and fear. So that's where we are and it's unlikely to change any time soon. The challenge now will be having a democracy and constructing policy when a good chunk of the people have abandoned the rationalist tradition. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/06/diversity-welcomed-in-australia-u-s-despite-uncertainty-over-muslim-integration/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/06/diversity-we...

hvs 10y ago

Yeah, the other side has no worthy opponents, THAT'S the problem. /sarcasm

ci5er 10y ago

> Bring us worthy opponents and I'm sure there won't be protests from students. Seriously? I'm on your side (I guess) but they have speakers that are credible.