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I think you don't understand the phrase. Optimists believe that the future will be better, that people will be wiser. They believe that those future enlighten
by VikingCoder 6y ago
I think you don't understand the phrase.
Optimists believe that the future will be better, that people will be wiser.
They believe that those future enlightened people will look back at some people and actions, and believe that they were on the wrong side of history.
It's not a popularity contest. It's a belief that we get better over time by making moral actions.
"It is precisely when your values are on the 'wrong side of History' that you should be defending them the most strongly."
No one believes their own values are on the wrong side of History.
"Justify your actions because they are right, not because they will be popular."
Everyone thinks their own values are right.
And if you are an optimist, you believe the future will be better. And so therefore, you are advocating doing things that would make the future worse. It's a very odd way to think.
Unless, you're a pessimist? And you think the future will be worse, and so you're trying to prevent the backslide? And you're saying "screw you" to those idiots in the future?
- fennecfoxen 6y agoWe have gathered here, by and large, to discuss and cheerlead a campaign which calls for political censorship of a major political figure, one who earned the vote of just under half of the USA. We assembled beg for a world in which a megacorporation will enact content restrictions, deciding what types of view are acceptable to express. The politician in question, far from offering a meaningful alternative that advances freedom, attempts to use his office to restrict opposing speech as well. He may well win re-election and further implement policies which advance the ideas the Facebook employee objects to. Elsewhere in the world, the Chinese Communist Party builds its surveillance state, installing their secret police in Hong Kong to crush protests. Free speech may die within my lifetime, and the Chinese Communist Party in particular is fairly well positioned to make a claim that history will be on their side. Of course I'm a god damn pessimist.
- VikingCoder 6y agoHi, you're bending the words "right side of history" beyond how anyone else uses them. So, don't be surprised if people have a hard time understanding you. You have legitimate concerns, but your phrasing of them is not easy for anyone else to follow.
- fennecfoxen 6y agoIf I am bending words, it is specifically to demonstrate how hollow they are, how readily the cause of History can be co-opted by the utopian rhetoric of strongmen and oppressors.
- VikingCoder 6y agoIf people can't understand your meaning, because you bend your words so hard, that undermines your goal. Cheers.
- fennecfoxen 6y agoAs far as I can tell, you're the only one who has a material misunderstanding today.
- VikingCoder 6y agoCool, ignore feedback meant to help you communicate. Good luck with that.
- fennecfoxen 6y agoThank you for this latest feedback, just as condescending as the earlier feedback.
- VikingCoder 6y agoI meant it constructively. But I accept your criticism that it sounded condescending. I'll try to work on that.