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The inverse of this seems to be taking hold now: that it’s socially acceptable to say things which are unreasonable, outlandish or downright factually incorrect

The inverse of this seems to be taking hold now: that it’s socially acceptable to say things which are unreasonable, outlandish or downright factually incorrect, if they’re considered to be in service of a cause that ‘our side’ believes in. But yes, this has also been discussed a lot here before.

mikelyons 7y ago
Selfishness is devilry, and devils make Truth out as falsehood and spin falsehood as true.
- chimi 7y ago
  This is pervasive in society right now. It's rampant in politics, advertising, dating... and it seems to be getting worse not better. It's almost like we don't have time to evaluate honesty. Politicians win, not because they will answer a question honestly, but because they will repeatedly deflect and they get away with it. Why do we allow it?
  - mikelyons 7y ago
    The people who are working to raise their level of consciousness, and who are willing to let go of ideology and dogma are few and far between, because it's painful and difficult. Just look at the votes that happen to anyone speaking this truth, people hate getting called on their devilry because it makes them look bad so they down vote when really this is the conversation that we need to have to eventually disallow it!
- Sniffnoy 7y ago
  This isn't a matter of selfishness, but groupishness.
  - mikelyons 7y ago
    Collective ego is also prone to selfishness, an individual can take on a group identity and make being the member of a group part of the identity they selfishly defend. Unless I misunderstand what you're pointing to?
    - Sniffnoy 7y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean by the word "selfishness", but you don't seem to be using it in the usual way. "Selfishness" usually refers to self-interested action that is or attempts to be rational, not irrational action motivated by identity. Perhaps you mean something like "egotism"?
deleted 7y ago
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gruez 7y ago
> The inverse of this seems to be taking hold now: that it’s socially acceptable to say things which are unreasonable, outlandish or downright factually incorrect, if they’re considered to be in service of a cause that ‘our side’ believes in. examples?
- johnr2 7y ago
  > examples? Person A is accused of criminal act X. Person B: "It isn't proven yet. Allow due process to take place." Person C: "X-apologist!"
  - matheusmoreira 7y ago
    Stallman's resignation in a nutshell.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    Are with hunts/trials really a new thing though? "She's a witch!" "It isn't proven yet. Allow due process to take place." "He defends the witch, he is with the devil!" (an old-timey "witch-apologist!")
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      I don't know about others, but at least myself I felt there was a kind of "zeitgeist" of the 1990s/2000s-era Internet, that we're supposed to be above witch hunts and other similar stupidity. It feels as if new levels of idiocy were inserted into the Internet over the last decade.
      - luckylion 7y ago
        My guess is that that's just normality setting in. Back then, the internet wasn't for everybody, you didn't do "normal stuff" on it, it was a very separate domain. Today, the internet is about as special as a side walk, everybody is on it, you can do anything on it and all the normal people and all the normal problems have come along with the change. In society, witch hunts have been a thing for quite a while, I think the web mostly just didn't have the opportunities to show its witch hunting abilities in the early, pre-mainstream years.
buboard 7y ago
It's not the inverse , but a corrolary: With heretical ideas being purged from each Church, the churches have doubled down on absurdness
- rayalez 7y ago
  Another somewhat related thing is "Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs": https://www.lesswrong.com/s/M3TJ2fTCzoQq66NBJ/p/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p https://www.lesswrong.com/s/M3TJ2fTCzoQq66NBJ/p/ZQG9cwKbct2L... When more moderate, reasonable, or relatively skeptical people leave the group, people who remain are, on average, more fanatical and extreme. Which leads to even more extreme viewpoints, which pushes out more and more people who previously might have been acting as a voice of moderation. > After the [moderate members] escape, the remaining discussions will be between the extreme fanatics on one end and the slightly less extreme fanatics on the other end, with the group consensus somewhere in the “middle.” So > This is one reason why it’s important to be prejudiced in favor of tolerating dissent. Wait until substantially after it seems to you justified in ejecting a member from the group, before actually ejecting. If you get rid of the old outliers, the group position will shift, and someone else will become the oddball.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    Purity spiraling has always seemed to me to be a good differentiator to tell apart the pragmatic and the purely ideological. The pragmatic will happily tolerate some dissent from their position as long as it gets them closer to their goal (even if they fundamentally disagree with it). The purely ideological will vehemently reject anything that isn't purely their flavor and will happily sacrifice making any advance in their direction if it isn't on their exact terms.
- AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
  Right. The revolution devours its children.
siruncledrew 7y ago
Good quality debates are becoming much rarer among websites and social media with larger pools of users. Here’s a very old debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Oxford_evolution_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Oxford_evolution_debate There’s a good quote inside: ”Let us ever apply ourselves to the task, feeling assured that the more we thus exercise, and by exercising improve our intellectual faculties, the more worthy shall we be, the better shall we be fitted to come nearer to our God.” The gist I get from it (not saying it’s 100% right) is that we enrich ourselves by exercising our mental state, which means challenging ourselves, exploring new intellectual points, and having the fortitude to go through with it (and hopefully find meaning). Instead, the easy way is to forgo such “intellectual exercise” and simply regurgitate the same sentiments back to ‘the group’ and drown out the ‘other side’ with self-serving, dribbling retorts. With respect to “What can’t be said”, this reinforces conditioned thinking that is black or white with no gray area in between to formally discuss. Instead, the ethos is “You’re either with us or against us”, and challenging that classification is violating Rule #1.
CM30 7y ago
Not just say things, it seems there's a disturbing trend where any and all behaviour is 'justified' as long as it's someone on 'our side' who's doing it. Especially if the target of said behaviour is the 'other tribe'. For instance, violence/threats against those with different political viewpoints. Or attempts at justifying actual abusive/manipulative behaviour. It makes me worry that the goal of civility has been lost, that a depressing number of people actively seem to think they're at war with their opponents and that their goal is not to come to any sort of compromise or get along, but to destroy the other team by any means necessary.

mikelyons 7y ago

Selfishness is devilry, and devils make Truth out as falsehood and spin falsehood as true.

chimi 7y ago
This is pervasive in society right now. It's rampant in politics, advertising, dating... and it seems to be getting worse not better. It's almost like we don't have time to evaluate honesty. Politicians win, not because they will answer a question honestly, but because they will repeatedly deflect and they get away with it. Why do we allow it?
- mikelyons 7y ago
  The people who are working to raise their level of consciousness, and who are willing to let go of ideology and dogma are few and far between, because it's painful and difficult. Just look at the votes that happen to anyone speaking this truth, people hate getting called on their devilry because it makes them look bad so they down vote when really this is the conversation that we need to have to eventually disallow it!
Sniffnoy 7y ago
This isn't a matter of selfishness, but groupishness.
- mikelyons 7y ago
  Collective ego is also prone to selfishness, an individual can take on a group identity and make being the member of a group part of the identity they selfishly defend. Unless I misunderstand what you're pointing to?
  - Sniffnoy 7y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by the word "selfishness", but you don't seem to be using it in the usual way. "Selfishness" usually refers to self-interested action that is or attempts to be rational, not irrational action motivated by identity. Perhaps you mean something like "egotism"?

deleted 7y ago

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deleted 7y ago

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gruez 7y ago

> The inverse of this seems to be taking hold now: that it’s socially acceptable to say things which are unreasonable, outlandish or downright factually incorrect, if they’re considered to be in service of a cause that ‘our side’ believes in. examples?

johnr2 7y ago
> examples? Person A is accused of criminal act X. Person B: "It isn't proven yet. Allow due process to take place." Person C: "X-apologist!"
- matheusmoreira 7y ago
  Stallman's resignation in a nutshell.
- luckylion 7y ago
  Are with hunts/trials really a new thing though? "She's a witch!" "It isn't proven yet. Allow due process to take place." "He defends the witch, he is with the devil!" (an old-timey "witch-apologist!")
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    I don't know about others, but at least myself I felt there was a kind of "zeitgeist" of the 1990s/2000s-era Internet, that we're supposed to be above witch hunts and other similar stupidity. It feels as if new levels of idiocy were inserted into the Internet over the last decade.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      My guess is that that's just normality setting in. Back then, the internet wasn't for everybody, you didn't do "normal stuff" on it, it was a very separate domain. Today, the internet is about as special as a side walk, everybody is on it, you can do anything on it and all the normal people and all the normal problems have come along with the change. In society, witch hunts have been a thing for quite a while, I think the web mostly just didn't have the opportunities to show its witch hunting abilities in the early, pre-mainstream years.

buboard 7y ago

It's not the inverse , but a corrolary: With heretical ideas being purged from each Church, the churches have doubled down on absurdness

rayalez 7y ago
Another somewhat related thing is "Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs": https://www.lesswrong.com/s/M3TJ2fTCzoQq66NBJ/p/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p https://www.lesswrong.com/s/M3TJ2fTCzoQq66NBJ/p/ZQG9cwKbct2L... When more moderate, reasonable, or relatively skeptical people leave the group, people who remain are, on average, more fanatical and extreme. Which leads to even more extreme viewpoints, which pushes out more and more people who previously might have been acting as a voice of moderation. > After the [moderate members] escape, the remaining discussions will be between the extreme fanatics on one end and the slightly less extreme fanatics on the other end, with the group consensus somewhere in the “middle.” So > This is one reason why it’s important to be prejudiced in favor of tolerating dissent. Wait until substantially after it seems to you justified in ejecting a member from the group, before actually ejecting. If you get rid of the old outliers, the group position will shift, and someone else will become the oddball.
- luckylion 7y ago
  Purity spiraling has always seemed to me to be a good differentiator to tell apart the pragmatic and the purely ideological. The pragmatic will happily tolerate some dissent from their position as long as it gets them closer to their goal (even if they fundamentally disagree with it). The purely ideological will vehemently reject anything that isn't purely their flavor and will happily sacrifice making any advance in their direction if it isn't on their exact terms.
AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
Right. The revolution devours its children.

siruncledrew 7y ago

Good quality debates are becoming much rarer among websites and social media with larger pools of users. Here’s a very old debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Oxford_evolution_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Oxford_evolution_debate There’s a good quote inside: ”Let us ever apply ourselves to the task, feeling assured that the more we thus exercise, and by exercising improve our intellectual faculties, the more worthy shall we be, the better shall we be fitted to come nearer to our God.” The gist I get from it (not saying it’s 100% right) is that we enrich ourselves by exercising our mental state, which means challenging ourselves, exploring new intellectual points, and having the fortitude to go through with it (and hopefully find meaning). Instead, the easy way is to forgo such “intellectual exercise” and simply regurgitate the same sentiments back to ‘the group’ and drown out the ‘other side’ with self-serving, dribbling retorts. With respect to “What can’t be said”, this reinforces conditioned thinking that is black or white with no gray area in between to formally discuss. Instead, the ethos is “You’re either with us or against us”, and challenging that classification is violating Rule #1.

CM30 7y ago

Not just say things, it seems there's a disturbing trend where any and all behaviour is 'justified' as long as it's someone on 'our side' who's doing it. Especially if the target of said behaviour is the 'other tribe'. For instance, violence/threats against those with different political viewpoints. Or attempts at justifying actual abusive/manipulative behaviour. It makes me worry that the goal of civility has been lost, that a depressing number of people actively seem to think they're at war with their opponents and that their goal is not to come to any sort of compromise or get along, but to destroy the other team by any means necessary.