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I see your point, but I’d reply that even if you are dealing with an extreme case of “Kill all the Jewish people!” there still can be some discussion around tha

I see your point, but I’d reply that even if you are dealing with an extreme case of “Kill all the Jewish people!” there still can be some discussion around that. I’ve never met someone (that I know of) who actually thinks that. But even in that extreme case, there’s a fair amount that could be discussed. Though if I were Jewish and ran into a large crowd of people shouting this, I probably wouldn’t not choose that moment to have a conversation. I think that’s at least part of the trust mentioned a few comments above about having a conversation needing trust as a prerequisite. But in a situation where you are talking honestly with someone who believes all Jews should be killed, I think there is room for investigation and possibly persuasion. For example, there’s the idea that a large group of people yelling for all of category x to be killed could one day be turned against them. There could be people saying that they, in fact, are subhuman scum and should be exterminated. So maybe not such a great social policy on those grounds. Many people with these extreme views hold them because they were convinced at some point that all members of category x are guilty of a particularly heinous crime and should be punished for that. This is a good time to talk about the rule of law, the presumption of innocence and just how bad it could be for all of us if these things are suspended in this one case. It’s also an opportunity to talk about problems with the death penalty in general. So, in reality, no. I don’t really think that the appropriate response to all Jews should be exterminated is, “You’re a terrible person, and I won’t talk to you.” I think that falling into the trap that something’s simply can’t be debated because they are so obviously repugnant is part of the problem we have right now in a deeply and badly polarized U.S., not to mention the same divisions we are seeing elsewhere around the world. The idea that some ideas are so awful that we simply cannot engage with them and, in fact, have a moral obligation not to is just as broken as blindly asserting that all x are bad and should be killed. These things shift over time, and if we create a culture where we refuse to engage in certain debates because of some moral high ground, we will eventually find ourselves on the other side of that. Unless we just decide to exterminate everyone who disagrees with us because they are such awful peoples. Probably criminals, actually. It’s not hard to find people on either side of the political fence right now who view the opposing side as scum who should at least be locked up. Perhaps even given the death penalty. It’s less easy to find left-wing people who think this way, but it’s not that hard. There are plenty of people there who think that all Trump supporters are vile, ignorant, criminal scum who at the very least shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Hell I have both sides in my own immediate family. People who think Trump is basically Satan and that he and people who voted for him should be charged with treason. And just as many who think Hillary is a crazy child rapist and a socialist and shout be prosecuted for treason. We are mostly well-educated and thoughtful people. And that’s just in one family where we all really love each other at the end of the day, even when we disagree, there’s a lot of trust, and some of us flip flop often to play devil’s advocate. That’s a lot of words to say this: shutting down logical debate because some idea is repugnant to you is not a good thing to do in general. I’m reminded of the Leisure Suit Larry Thread here about how much society has changed since the 80s. Including a lot of comments from people my age who remember how sexist and anti-gay a lot of comedy and people were then. We’ve made a significant amount of progress since then, and we did it because a lot of people were willing to have some difficult conversations about ideas they found repugnant. We’ve achieved a lot of things in the last 40 years. Hell even the last 60. We didn’t do it by telling people to shut the fuck up about their ideas that we thought were gross. We did it by taking them apart and having those difficult conversations. I fully agree with shutting down violent behavior. It’s unacceptable. But drawing a connection between a though we disagree with and an actual crime is a terrible idea. And besides that, the stupid, angry, idiots that shout hate at rallies are the ones least likely to be able to enact policy. It’s the ones who are willing to sit down and have a rational conversation who are the ones yo need to worry about in the long run. A mob can hate, hurt, and even kill a few people at a time. You can find those people and put them in jail. A person who can make a convincing argument for exterminating a large group of people for no reason is extremely dangerous. Those people need to be debated by everyone, so that the flaws are exposed to the whole world for how bad they are. Fighting a bad ide with the same bad idea is a really precarious position for all of us. And I don’t mean just the U.S., I mean for all humans.

CocaKoala 9y ago
So, here's the other downside to debating the merits of the position "hey, maybe we shouldn't exterminate people because of their race or their religion" - it makes it impossible to progress. What do you mean, black people deserve the same job opportunities as white people? We haven't even established that we shouldn't be killing them yet! What do you mean, black people shouldn't be subject to extrajudicial killings in the streets by police officers? My friend here says that we should be rounding them up and shooting them by the dozens. There are always going to be people who think that some disadvantaged group should be mistreated. If society constantly has to sit down and explain to them why being racist or sexist or anti-semitic or whatever is wrong, then there's no opportunity to try and make actual progress in terms of helping those disadvantaged groups. Every new person who comes in with a terrible opinion sets the discourse back to square one of "killing people is wrong", and when progress is an incremental thing, getting set back to square one repeatedly means that progress doesn't get made. At some point, you need to be able to say "No. That viewpoint is vile, and it doesn't get a place at the table. When you're willing to treat people like people, we'll entertain what you have to say, but you need to behave with a certain amount of decorum before you get to participate in actual discussion." It's like if you had to explain to your child why smearing feces on the table and plateware isn't acceptable, and you had to do it before every meal. You don't have any time to actually sit down and eat, because every single time you do, you need to explain that no, smearing shit on the plates is wrong. Don't do that.
- indubitable 9y ago
  The problem is that saying "No, I refuse to discuss that" isn't changing any minds. If anything I think it tends to strengthen the resolve of the individuals holding said views. When you just tell people to stop saying things, in the minds of many it's going to indirectly give weight to those views. I think if people took the time to actually talk to other people they would find that though you may disagree with their views, they tend to actually have rationale for those views. And that rationale can expose logical flaws. To take a slightly less controversial example, I've managed to successfully discuss climate change with a good number of people that felt it was 'fake.' People that do things like effectively scream '97%, idiots!' and move on do a great disservice. This sort of dismissal or appeal to authority is a big part of why there are so many of these people. It absolutely strengthens their resolve since they feel their views cannot be countered logically. And indeed there is more to their views than the satire we created in our heads of them thinking little more than 'dur, it's a Chinese conspiracy.' Instead when you talk about the interplay between long wavelength energy, short wavelength energy and how they both react to CO2 explaining how precisely it traps energy (and how you can even create experiments at home to show the effect), you can start to explain things in a way that very few people seem willing to do. And willing is probably the wrong word. I think it's more accurate to say that many people who do acknowledge climate change don't actually understand it on any more sophisticated level than those that deny it - and so arguments resort to vitriol instead of logic. And I think that lack of knowledge is far more transparent than most people realize. So you end up with two sides, equally uninformed, slinging mud at one another and both taking their own self assigned moral high-ground. The point here is that refusing to discuss things or scolding adults for holding such views, does not make them go away - and I think there is a very strong argument to be made that it does quite the opposite. For the most extreme example, one needs only look to who is currently the head of our country. And in this desire to refuse to even discuss things with people, 'we' even did things such as managing to pressure Elon Musk into drawing a line and ultimately leaving the president's advisory council. And was that a good idea? He's still just as legitimate a president with just as much control. The only difference is now there's one fewer voice of logic and reason trying to encourage him to do the right thing. And while those voices may ultimately have failed to achieve anything, their absence makes such a possibility a foregone conclusion.

CocaKoala 9y ago

So, here's the other downside to debating the merits of the position "hey, maybe we shouldn't exterminate people because of their race or their religion" - it makes it impossible to progress. What do you mean, black people deserve the same job opportunities as white people? We haven't even established that we shouldn't be killing them yet! What do you mean, black people shouldn't be subject to extrajudicial killings in the streets by police officers? My friend here says that we should be rounding them up and shooting them by the dozens. There are always going to be people who think that some disadvantaged group should be mistreated. If society constantly has to sit down and explain to them why being racist or sexist or anti-semitic or whatever is wrong, then there's no opportunity to try and make actual progress in terms of helping those disadvantaged groups. Every new person who comes in with a terrible opinion sets the discourse back to square one of "killing people is wrong", and when progress is an incremental thing, getting set back to square one repeatedly means that progress doesn't get made. At some point, you need to be able to say "No. That viewpoint is vile, and it doesn't get a place at the table. When you're willing to treat people like people, we'll entertain what you have to say, but you need to behave with a certain amount of decorum before you get to participate in actual discussion." It's like if you had to explain to your child why smearing feces on the table and plateware isn't acceptable, and you had to do it before every meal. You don't have any time to actually sit down and eat, because every single time you do, you need to explain that no, smearing shit on the plates is wrong. Don't do that.

indubitable 9y ago
The problem is that saying "No, I refuse to discuss that" isn't changing any minds. If anything I think it tends to strengthen the resolve of the individuals holding said views. When you just tell people to stop saying things, in the minds of many it's going to indirectly give weight to those views. I think if people took the time to actually talk to other people they would find that though you may disagree with their views, they tend to actually have rationale for those views. And that rationale can expose logical flaws. To take a slightly less controversial example, I've managed to successfully discuss climate change with a good number of people that felt it was 'fake.' People that do things like effectively scream '97%, idiots!' and move on do a great disservice. This sort of dismissal or appeal to authority is a big part of why there are so many of these people. It absolutely strengthens their resolve since they feel their views cannot be countered logically. And indeed there is more to their views than the satire we created in our heads of them thinking little more than 'dur, it's a Chinese conspiracy.' Instead when you talk about the interplay between long wavelength energy, short wavelength energy and how they both react to CO2 explaining how precisely it traps energy (and how you can even create experiments at home to show the effect), you can start to explain things in a way that very few people seem willing to do. And willing is probably the wrong word. I think it's more accurate to say that many people who do acknowledge climate change don't actually understand it on any more sophisticated level than those that deny it - and so arguments resort to vitriol instead of logic. And I think that lack of knowledge is far more transparent than most people realize. So you end up with two sides, equally uninformed, slinging mud at one another and both taking their own self assigned moral high-ground. The point here is that refusing to discuss things or scolding adults for holding such views, does not make them go away - and I think there is a very strong argument to be made that it does quite the opposite. For the most extreme example, one needs only look to who is currently the head of our country. And in this desire to refuse to even discuss things with people, 'we' even did things such as managing to pressure Elon Musk into drawing a line and ultimately leaving the president's advisory council. And was that a good idea? He's still just as legitimate a president with just as much control. The only difference is now there's one fewer voice of logic and reason trying to encourage him to do the right thing. And while those voices may ultimately have failed to achieve anything, their absence makes such a possibility a foregone conclusion.