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For an extreme example, suppose stormfront camps outside your child's school passing out leaflets and having fun, racist singalongs. How can it be your responsi

by jrkatz 10y ago

For an extreme example, suppose stormfront camps outside your child's school passing out leaflets and having fun, racist singalongs. How can it be your responsibility when they're in an area that is effectively outside your control? Sure, once you find out about it you can pull them from school but this requires first that you find out about it, which you may not be able to do until they come home singing the 14 words to a Wagner melody. It is impossible to effectively police all the media your child might consume unless you plan to isolate them from the world at large. Hell, jontron was innocuous for a while. A parent could have reviewed his entire oeuvre up to a point, however many days of video it would have required, and decided it was alright. Until a week ago, when suddenly it was not alright! And by the time a parent is aware of it and is shielding their children from it, they have already been exposed, at least for a bit. Jontron built an audience when he was safe and failed the responsibility he adopted when he decided to influence children by exposing them to his abhorrent views, and there was very little a parent could do about it. Moreover, it's not just about _my_ kids being exposed to racist bullshit. I also want for _other_ kids to be shielded from it (this is beyond my power without going to the source of the bullshit and shutting it down directly). Otherwise, my kids may still be cursed to live in a world where they are threatened for their heritage.

jimmyk 10y ago
Why are you worried that your children will be threatened for their heritage in a world where children can be exposed to a diversity of opinion, including those you don't approve of? Do you think you'll lose the war of ideas to "bullshit"?
- jrkatz 10y ago
  I'm worried because my children will have the same Jewish heritage I have, and while it is not likely reason will lose the day, it is possible. Even a slim chance is worth taking very seriously. It's like giant, apocalyptic asteroids. Odds are one won't hit the Earth in our time, and if it's on track to odds are we won't be able to stop it. We're still looking out for them.
  - jimmyk 10y ago
    We're not exactly spending hundreds of billions each year on asteroid mitigation programs. From what I can tell, the total spending at least in the US is at most in the hundreds of millions annually. If the odds of an impact were vastly higher, we probably would spend hundreds of billions each year. If we knew an impact was coming, we'd spend nearly every cent we had trying to stop it. Given the sheer magnitude of outrage which predictably follows "racist bullshit" being publicly displayed, I can infer, if people are acting somewhat near rationally, that they rate the chance of "racist bullshit" winning the day somewhat higher than "slim". Do you agree with that? If so, why are you worried about reason losing the day? Is it the quality of your ideas that you find lacking, or the reasoning power of the people around you?
    - jrkatz 10y ago
      To be clear, you are laying out the premise that by reacting to racism at all, I am revealing I secretly believe it is more right than anti-racism. Does that sound about right? Why are you so eager to police anti-racism, then? By the same logic, if racism is right you'll be fine.
      - jimmyk 10y ago
        Does that sound about right? No, not quite. It's the way in which you react, which is to silence the opposition. If you believed your ideas would win reasonable minds on their merits, and you believed the minds in question were reasonable, and you yourself were a rational person, you wouldn't feel such a strong need to shut down the dissemination of other ideas. Have I gone wrong somewhere in my reasoning? Why are you so eager to police anti-racism, then? Sorry, where have I attempted to police anti-racism? Do you consider asking questions to be tantamount to policing thought? I've expressed no outrage over your ideas. I've never hinted at a desire to shut your ideas down at the source. I've simply asked you to defend them in a calm, reasonable conversation. If asking you reasonable questions counts as policing your opinion, that is a very serious condemnation of your opinions.
        10y ago
- watwut 10y ago
  If that exposed opinion is "race x should be attacked" then kids of race x can end up attacked as result. If you convince children that it is right to attack members of race x, then other kids of race x will end up attacked. That is how it always was. After all, nazi did won war of ideas and so did hutu and so did khmer rouge.
  - jimmyk 10y ago
    If you convince children that it is right to attack members of race x, then other kids of race x will end up attacked. OK, but we're not discussing a scenario in which stormfront members have total control over what the children are exposed to. We're discussing a scenario where they have at most a few minutes of the child's attention. For the other fifteen and three quarters waking hours of the child's day, their attention belongs to their teachers or their parents. If you believe the 'racist bullshit' coming from stormfront has any chance of winning the war of ideas against those odds, that tells me something about what you think of either the quality of the other ideas or the ability of teachers and parents to impart them into the minds of children, and, let me tell you, it's not flattering. After all, nazi did won war of ideas Now we're no longer talking about children. We're talking about "racist bullshit" winning the war of ideas in the minds of full grown adults. If you're concerned that "racist bullshit" is going to win the war of ideas in the minds of full grown adults, that tells me very clearly what you think about the quality of your preferred ideas or what you think about the quality of the minds of those full grown adults. And again, it's not flattering.
    - jrkatz 10y ago
      Given that racist adults exist it is quite clear that the scenario is possible, and I think it is reasonable to assume that is a process that begins in childhood, when their minds are malleable, until finally they are old enough they cannot be swayed but can fully rationalize it, and maybe even hide between the lines in almost palatable questions like, "Is it really bullshit if it wins the war of ideas?", which assumes some kind of fair marketplace of ideas where the right thing always wins, ergo if we kill a million people here and there for the group they belong to they must have deserved it.

by jrkatz 10y ago

jimmyk 10y ago

Why are you worried that your children will be threatened for their heritage in a world where children can be exposed to a diversity of opinion, including those you don't approve of? Do you think you'll lose the war of ideas to "bullshit"?

jrkatz 10y ago
I'm worried because my children will have the same Jewish heritage I have, and while it is not likely reason will lose the day, it is possible. Even a slim chance is worth taking very seriously. It's like giant, apocalyptic asteroids. Odds are one won't hit the Earth in our time, and if it's on track to odds are we won't be able to stop it. We're still looking out for them.
- jimmyk 10y ago
  We're not exactly spending hundreds of billions each year on asteroid mitigation programs. From what I can tell, the total spending at least in the US is at most in the hundreds of millions annually. If the odds of an impact were vastly higher, we probably would spend hundreds of billions each year. If we knew an impact was coming, we'd spend nearly every cent we had trying to stop it. Given the sheer magnitude of outrage which predictably follows "racist bullshit" being publicly displayed, I can infer, if people are acting somewhat near rationally, that they rate the chance of "racist bullshit" winning the day somewhat higher than "slim". Do you agree with that? If so, why are you worried about reason losing the day? Is it the quality of your ideas that you find lacking, or the reasoning power of the people around you?
  - jrkatz 10y ago
    To be clear, you are laying out the premise that by reacting to racism at all, I am revealing I secretly believe it is more right than anti-racism. Does that sound about right? Why are you so eager to police anti-racism, then? By the same logic, if racism is right you'll be fine.
    - jimmyk 10y ago
      Does that sound about right? No, not quite. It's the way in which you react, which is to silence the opposition. If you believed your ideas would win reasonable minds on their merits, and you believed the minds in question were reasonable, and you yourself were a rational person, you wouldn't feel such a strong need to shut down the dissemination of other ideas. Have I gone wrong somewhere in my reasoning? Why are you so eager to police anti-racism, then? Sorry, where have I attempted to police anti-racism? Do you consider asking questions to be tantamount to policing thought? I've expressed no outrage over your ideas. I've never hinted at a desire to shut your ideas down at the source. I've simply asked you to defend them in a calm, reasonable conversation. If asking you reasonable questions counts as policing your opinion, that is a very serious condemnation of your opinions.
      - 10y ago
watwut 10y ago
If that exposed opinion is "race x should be attacked" then kids of race x can end up attacked as result. If you convince children that it is right to attack members of race x, then other kids of race x will end up attacked. That is how it always was. After all, nazi did won war of ideas and so did hutu and so did khmer rouge.
- jimmyk 10y ago
  If you convince children that it is right to attack members of race x, then other kids of race x will end up attacked. OK, but we're not discussing a scenario in which stormfront members have total control over what the children are exposed to. We're discussing a scenario where they have at most a few minutes of the child's attention. For the other fifteen and three quarters waking hours of the child's day, their attention belongs to their teachers or their parents. If you believe the 'racist bullshit' coming from stormfront has any chance of winning the war of ideas against those odds, that tells me something about what you think of either the quality of the other ideas or the ability of teachers and parents to impart them into the minds of children, and, let me tell you, it's not flattering. After all, nazi did won war of ideas Now we're no longer talking about children. We're talking about "racist bullshit" winning the war of ideas in the minds of full grown adults. If you're concerned that "racist bullshit" is going to win the war of ideas in the minds of full grown adults, that tells me very clearly what you think about the quality of your preferred ideas or what you think about the quality of the minds of those full grown adults. And again, it's not flattering.
  - jrkatz 10y ago
    Given that racist adults exist it is quite clear that the scenario is possible, and I think it is reasonable to assume that is a process that begins in childhood, when their minds are malleable, until finally they are old enough they cannot be swayed but can fully rationalize it, and maybe even hide between the lines in almost palatable questions like, "Is it really bullshit if it wins the war of ideas?", which assumes some kind of fair marketplace of ideas where the right thing always wins, ergo if we kill a million people here and there for the group they belong to they must have deserved it.