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> some of these views are so abhorrent that the outrage against people who express them is almost entirely justified- would you be able to tell? Yes, we can te

> some of these views are so abhorrent that the outrage against people who express them is almost entirely justified- would you be able to tell? Yes, we can tell most of the time, and yes even if it gets difficult sometimes and we fail to distinguish unfair and genuine persecution, we will try our best to discuss it, study it, and get better at it. That's how we should approach the problem. That, is the intellectual way. Your method of automatically shutting down discussion of controversial ideas just because a small percentage of them are truly evil, is in fact more anti-intellectual than anything Scott Adams has ever said/written.

tstactplsignore 9y ago
I certainly never said that was "my method". I disagree that we can tell most of the time. I think we can't tell most of the time. Most Americans couldn't tell in the 60s- about 33% of the country had a favorable view of MLK. Most Germans couldn't tell in the 30s. And so on and so on. If we were any good at tellint, then evil wouldn't be so scary! My point is that here you are again, in a similar situation to those, saying the exact same sorts of things the people who were wrong in those circumstances said. It's possible we're not in that kind of situation, but I hope that you realize that (a) some of the things that you're upset about (educated people pushing some ideas out of their institutions; radicals and communists protesting in the streets; highly charged and accusatory language) were the exact same sorts of things the people who ended up being wrong in those circumstances were upset about, and (b) historically, people sympathetic towards these bad ideas or unsympathetic to their opponents could not tell the difference in their own times.
- Cookingboy 9y ago
  So? That's my exact point. In all of your examples the righteous eventually prevailed due to their own merits, and history proved that they were on the right side. You don't get claim victory by shutting down the debate at the beginning. You don't get to moral high ground by "proclaiming" it, you get there by engaging the opposition in debates and by fighting to change people's mind with positive examples. MLK knew he was right, and he worked hard to convince the remaining 66% of the country by engaging with them, by changing one mind at a time. >My point is that here you are again, in a similar situation to those, saying the exact same sorts of things the people who were wrong in those circumstances said. That's some crazy logic fallacy. Just because you are pushing new agenda doesn't mean you are automatically correct and your opposition are literally the same as Nazis. You also automatically assume that your ideas are the "good ones" and anything that differs even slightly to your opinion is "bad ideas". How can you tell that you are not the one being sympathetic toward "bad ideas", it is after all, like you said, hard to tell right? You know who used the same kind of logic? Literally Nazis and Communists. They automatically proclaimed their ideology as the "righteous ones" and brutally shut down any debates. I'm of the opinion that if you have to forcefully shut down opposite views from even debating you, then your idea is not worth debating in the first place, and you are just some immature child putting himself on a moral pedestal. I don't know how old you are, but I wish one day you get to learn that the world is not black and white, but different shades of gray. And yes, even your own opinions will change throughout time, for different reasons.

tstactplsignore 9y ago

I certainly never said that was "my method". I disagree that we can tell most of the time. I think we can't tell most of the time. Most Americans couldn't tell in the 60s- about 33% of the country had a favorable view of MLK. Most Germans couldn't tell in the 30s. And so on and so on. If we were any good at tellint, then evil wouldn't be so scary! My point is that here you are again, in a similar situation to those, saying the exact same sorts of things the people who were wrong in those circumstances said. It's possible we're not in that kind of situation, but I hope that you realize that (a) some of the things that you're upset about (educated people pushing some ideas out of their institutions; radicals and communists protesting in the streets; highly charged and accusatory language) were the exact same sorts of things the people who ended up being wrong in those circumstances were upset about, and (b) historically, people sympathetic towards these bad ideas or unsympathetic to their opponents could not tell the difference in their own times.

Cookingboy 9y ago
So? That's my exact point. In all of your examples the righteous eventually prevailed due to their own merits, and history proved that they were on the right side. You don't get claim victory by shutting down the debate at the beginning. You don't get to moral high ground by "proclaiming" it, you get there by engaging the opposition in debates and by fighting to change people's mind with positive examples. MLK knew he was right, and he worked hard to convince the remaining 66% of the country by engaging with them, by changing one mind at a time. >My point is that here you are again, in a similar situation to those, saying the exact same sorts of things the people who were wrong in those circumstances said. That's some crazy logic fallacy. Just because you are pushing new agenda doesn't mean you are automatically correct and your opposition are literally the same as Nazis. You also automatically assume that your ideas are the "good ones" and anything that differs even slightly to your opinion is "bad ideas". How can you tell that you are not the one being sympathetic toward "bad ideas", it is after all, like you said, hard to tell right? You know who used the same kind of logic? Literally Nazis and Communists. They automatically proclaimed their ideology as the "righteous ones" and brutally shut down any debates. I'm of the opinion that if you have to forcefully shut down opposite views from even debating you, then your idea is not worth debating in the first place, and you are just some immature child putting himself on a moral pedestal. I don't know how old you are, but I wish one day you get to learn that the world is not black and white, but different shades of gray. And yes, even your own opinions will change throughout time, for different reasons.