4 ms·

I mean, even a mass shooting like that doesn't trigger the paradox of tolerance. It's a terrible tragedy, and a law enforcement issue, but society as a whole i

I mean, even a mass shooting like that doesn't trigger the paradox of tolerance. It's a terrible tragedy, and a law enforcement issue, but society as a whole is not less tolerant for it -- we all agree, don't shoot up a synagogue or mosque, that is extremely bad form in our society. The paradox of tolerance would be if we decided to be tolerant of a pro-mosque-shooting political party and they took power and instituted mandatory mosque shootings every Friday. We would have messed up in that case. It's not, "I demand people who disagree with me on less clear-cut issues be silenced because they're bigots, according to me".

shadowgovt 6y ago
> we all agree Well, that's the issue, isn't it? Do we all agree? I think a lot of people do. There's a disturbingly large number who do not. And there are corners of the Internet perfectly willing to entertain their fantasies of establishing such a political party. I think whether one should cut that off at the knees by monitoring such sites and, when necessary, squelching the channel or one waits until someone has grabbed a gun to act on the ideation is an intensity slider on paradox of tolerance that reasonable people can disagree on. Given the sliding scale, it's probably a case-by-case issue. Hard to come up with a general principle that's going to universally apply; give an example of something people have been silenced on that they should have been allowed to continue, and there's debate to be had, but on the general principle, both sides can probably agree that there's times to silence and times to not.
- free_rms 6y ago
  Would you also support banning hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime? Or glam metal albums that glorify satanism? We've been through this before.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    I'm not sure how satanism factors into it; let's table that. > Would you also support banning hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime? If we're talking no-platforming, I don't think the question is whether society bans it; I think the question is "Would you compel Wal-Mart to sell hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime?" And I would not. But it's a sliding scale which is, as you've noted, tied to the likelihood of the group in question seizing enough power to concretize their ideas. In the US at least, hip-hop artists aren't an organized political structure intent on overthrowing the US government. White supremacists are another story entirely. It's pretty unambiguous what "blood and soil" or "Jews will not replace us" mean. And a lot of Americans are deeply concerned with the risk that that ideology has its tentacles extremely deeply embedded in one of the two primary parties at the federal level in the US.
    - free_rms 6y ago
      I was referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center The conclusion was that parental advisory stickers are cool and will help sell your album, and I'm glad we got there as a society. Incidentally, Wal-mart in particular was on the conservative side of that culture war episode, and they did in fact refuse to sell those albums while also selling entire racks of guns.
      - shadowgovt 6y ago
        > Incidentally, Wal-mart in particular was on the conservative side of that culture war episode, and they did in fact refuse to sell those albums Indeed they did. And the US government did not compel them to sell the albums, nor should they have. The albums found their audience in spite of some channels deciding it wasn't a kind of speech they would tolerate on their premises. Similarly, some of the speakers who have been no-platformed will find their audience without a university's help; that doesn't imply the universities should be compelled to help them. And some toxic moderators and editors will continue to be toxic on some other site; that doesn't imply that site must be Wikipedia.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        free_rms 6y ago
        There's an argument that certain information systems have become 'common carriers' in a way that wal-mart never was, and maybe we should regulate them differently. But I was mostly just nitpicking improper usage of the paradox of tolerance. Righteous censorship of 'bad' ideas might feel good but it's probably not a great instinct to have in the long term -- this cultural moment will pass, the meta-ideas about when it's ok to censor are longer-lasting.
        zozbot234 6y ago
        > in a way that wal-mart never was Wal-Mart carries plenty of stuff, though. If you're going to move towards that kind of regulation for free information services, there has to be some other basis for it.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  I think it's a fallacy to assume that spree killers are trying to seize any kind of political power. The Columbine killers could not care less about educational or school policy: they were simply extreme nihilists who hated everyone and everything, and they were ready to prove it in the most self-aggrandizing way. Mind you, I'm not saying that we should tolerate such folks, either; and once you get past their tiresome, narcissistic self-aggrandizement, it's not like they have anything worthwhile to say. But that's a different argument than Popper's; it assumes the existence of some minimally basic ethic of thriving, and says that no, you can't aim to destroy the world around you even if you would be quite OK with everyone else doing it back to you in return.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    It almost feels like one could, if one so chose, synthesize out a "Societies interpret self-destructive nihilism as damage and route around it" statement. Or something near to it.

shadowgovt 6y ago

> we all agree Well, that's the issue, isn't it? Do we all agree? I think a lot of people do. There's a disturbingly large number who do not. And there are corners of the Internet perfectly willing to entertain their fantasies of establishing such a political party. I think whether one should cut that off at the knees by monitoring such sites and, when necessary, squelching the channel or one waits until someone has grabbed a gun to act on the ideation is an intensity slider on paradox of tolerance that reasonable people can disagree on. Given the sliding scale, it's probably a case-by-case issue. Hard to come up with a general principle that's going to universally apply; give an example of something people have been silenced on that they should have been allowed to continue, and there's debate to be had, but on the general principle, both sides can probably agree that there's times to silence and times to not.

free_rms 6y ago
Would you also support banning hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime? Or glam metal albums that glorify satanism? We've been through this before.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  I'm not sure how satanism factors into it; let's table that. > Would you also support banning hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime? If we're talking no-platforming, I don't think the question is whether society bans it; I think the question is "Would you compel Wal-Mart to sell hip hop albums that talk about shooting cops or other violent crime?" And I would not. But it's a sliding scale which is, as you've noted, tied to the likelihood of the group in question seizing enough power to concretize their ideas. In the US at least, hip-hop artists aren't an organized political structure intent on overthrowing the US government. White supremacists are another story entirely. It's pretty unambiguous what "blood and soil" or "Jews will not replace us" mean. And a lot of Americans are deeply concerned with the risk that that ideology has its tentacles extremely deeply embedded in one of the two primary parties at the federal level in the US.
  - free_rms 6y ago
    I was referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center The conclusion was that parental advisory stickers are cool and will help sell your album, and I'm glad we got there as a society. Incidentally, Wal-mart in particular was on the conservative side of that culture war episode, and they did in fact refuse to sell those albums while also selling entire racks of guns.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      > Incidentally, Wal-mart in particular was on the conservative side of that culture war episode, and they did in fact refuse to sell those albums Indeed they did. And the US government did not compel them to sell the albums, nor should they have. The albums found their audience in spite of some channels deciding it wasn't a kind of speech they would tolerate on their premises. Similarly, some of the speakers who have been no-platformed will find their audience without a university's help; that doesn't imply the universities should be compelled to help them. And some toxic moderators and editors will continue to be toxic on some other site; that doesn't imply that site must be Wikipedia.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - free_rms 6y ago
        There's an argument that certain information systems have become 'common carriers' in a way that wal-mart never was, and maybe we should regulate them differently. But I was mostly just nitpicking improper usage of the paradox of tolerance. Righteous censorship of 'bad' ideas might feel good but it's probably not a great instinct to have in the long term -- this cultural moment will pass, the meta-ideas about when it's ok to censor are longer-lasting.
        zozbot234 6y ago
        > in a way that wal-mart never was Wal-Mart carries plenty of stuff, though. If you're going to move towards that kind of regulation for free information services, there has to be some other basis for it.
zozbot234 6y ago
I think it's a fallacy to assume that spree killers are trying to seize any kind of political power. The Columbine killers could not care less about educational or school policy: they were simply extreme nihilists who hated everyone and everything, and they were ready to prove it in the most self-aggrandizing way. Mind you, I'm not saying that we should tolerate such folks, either; and once you get past their tiresome, narcissistic self-aggrandizement, it's not like they have anything worthwhile to say. But that's a different argument than Popper's; it assumes the existence of some minimally basic ethic of thriving, and says that no, you can't aim to destroy the world around you even if you would be quite OK with everyone else doing it back to you in return.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  It almost feels like one could, if one so chose, synthesize out a "Societies interpret self-destructive nihilism as damage and route around it" statement. Or something near to it.