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You might not need to talk to that guy to know beating his wife was wrong. But talking to him may make you realize he’s in a lot of pain, and that he’s been hur

You might not need to talk to that guy to know beating his wife was wrong. But talking to him may make you realize he’s in a lot of pain, and that he’s been hurt by a system larger than both of you. That doesn’t absolve him of guilt but I think pragmatically it gives us a better shot at preventing such things in the far future. You don’t have to browse Nazi forums to know that gassing Jews is wrong. But you may start to discover the reasons why these (mostly) young men are so angry, which I posit allows one to do more to prevent the spread of such ideologies.

IgorPartola 6y ago
What you say has a kernel of truth to it, but I think you are thinking of the wrong tool for the job. There was a well studied psychological phenomenon (sorry I can’t recall the name of the researchers at the moment) where if you put people of similar ideology in a room together and let them converse for a period of time, they will come out of that room holding more extreme views than they went in with, down to holding views that are more extreme than the view of their most extreme member going in. This happen every day on Reddit. Take /r/conservative. Theoretically, a great place to get a conservative point of view and discuss how it might clash with something opposite it. In practice, it has become a safe bubble. If you express a strong liberal viewpoint or identify as a liberal, you will get banned. Ask how I know. And at that point why would anyone outside that bubble go visit it, and why would anyone who is there leave? It creates the exact opposite effect of what you are describing. Also, again, I am happy to fund research on why men beat women (or any person of any gender beats any other gender, though let’s face it, most times domestic violence is by men against women), but I don’t need 1000 angry men trying to justify to me and each other why it’s ok. And that’s my point: the web allows us to give voice to those who haven’t been heard before. If a former Nazi wants to explain why he did what he did and why he walked away from it, we should give them voice and listen. If a current incel wants to detail his struggles and ask for help, we should lend an ear. But what help can be given to a man who beats his wife by 1000 men who do the same and think it’s totally justified? What possible good comes of helping them reinforce their beliefs while providing tools to exclude all external points of view? Lastly, yes it is true that some points of view are just wrong. There are in fact bad ideas. Eugenics is a bad idea. Racism is a bad idea. Misogyny is a bad idea. We can let the academics study it and the therapists try to fix it, but we absolutely do not need to entertain it, pretend like there is some valid point of view there, or give it a platform just so someone can turn around, point out that the existence of the platform means there are two sides to the argument and demand more equal representation. If you really want to help, try going on those fringe subreddits and offer to pay for therapy for those young men. If they take you up on that offer, yes you’ve done a good thing. But in my experience you get a nicely worded message from a mod saying that you and your ideas aren’t welcome here. Edit: also, I don’t give a fuck if you are in pain because crushing system, etc. If you beat your wife, you deserve a beating. If you think it’s sometimes justified you deserve two. Don’t make your problems someone else’s pain. It doesn’t make you justified. It just objectively makes you an asshole. Edit 2: Daryl Davis is a black man who has been befriending members of the KKK and successfully convinced over 200 of them to leave. That does not justify the existence of the KKK, just shows how difficult it is to do this kind of work: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinc...
- airtonix 6y ago
  if you think you can be the arbitar of moral discussion without corruption, you are sorely mistaken. or you take us all for fools.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    I’ll just leave this here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Again, as with other comments above: I am not advocating for a slippery slope type of thing. I am however saying that specific groups mentioned above are widely (though not universally) considered undesirables. The specific groups: men who beat women, racists, and Nazis. Do you have a better ruler by which to measure those people and whether we should create software tools to help them communicate better/easier with each other? Do you condone any of those group and do you want to publicly defend their ideas as moral or valid? Because if not, feel free to get off the high horse and shut the fuck up.
- concordDance 6y ago
  > Lastly, yes it is true that some points of view are just wrong. There are in fact bad ideas. Eugenics is a bad idea. Racism is a bad idea. Misogyny is a bad idea. As someone who has been looking for good anti-racialist arguments for a long time (along with explanations for why eugenics is wrong and why we think there aren't substantial sex differences that make the sexes on average more suited to different things) the fact these kinds or things are censured and censored everywhere is immensely frustrating. The only things I can find are sites talking about why racism is true or sites talking about why it's wrong, but I can't find resources talking about why it's false! If you happen to have links about eugenics/racism/sexism that talk about their falseness (I mean, I presume you have actually seen arguments against them that makes you so sure they are bad/false?) then please let me know.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    I am not sure what you mean by racism/sexism/eugenics being false. If you mean why they are bad ideas, I can only do so much in terms of links, since I learned that these ideas are bad before the web was popular. I guess here are some things you might want to consider: * Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Make sure to get the NC17 unabridged book for the non-sugarcoated version. * All humans are virtually genetically identical. Can’t find a good primary source at 6am, but start with this: https://www.quora.com/Do-all-humans-have-the-same-genome-sequence?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Do-all-humans-have-the-same-genome-seq.... Black people are no different than white people, and you won’t find anything inherently different about either group other than some external appearance. It logically follows that discriminating by skin color is arbitrary, like discriminating say by height or eye color. * Racism is bad for society. https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Negative-Effects-Of-Racism-FJSJRUP39P6 https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Negative-Effects-Of-Racism-FJ... * Racism is bad for the economy: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/racism-riots-economics-baltimore-recovery https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/racism-riots-economics-.... * A much better explanation than I can write at the moment on why it’s wrong: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-racism-wrong?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Why-is-racism-wrong?share=1 I am not going to spend more time Googling for you on this, but feel free to continue the research yourself. Try searching “effects of X on Y” and “morality of Z” and “why is W wrong” if you want to see those points of view. Form your own opinion, but keep one thing in mind: the often cited argument for a lot of this stuff is that “we’ve never implemented it correctly”. I hear this a lot about communism nowadays. There are a lot of setups where the idea inevitably leads to an outcome. For example, the US political and elections system inevitably leads to a two party system. It can be mathematically proven that this is the case. Similarly, ideas like racism inevitably lead to human and economic suffering, and those who try to separate the idea and it’s effect as implemented should be suspect of making arguments in bad faith. Examine their theories more closely. Lastly, there is only so much you can learn from short form articles on the web. Read Sapiens. Read a couple or history books on WWII. Talk to a concentration camp survivor if you can find one. Talk to a Nazi solder. Talk to almost any woman in your life. I guarantee you that your mother experienced sexism, sexual harassment, and chances are outright sexual assault, since a very large percentage of women have in their lives statistically speaking.
notahacker 6y ago
> But you may start to discover the reasons why these (mostly) young men are so angry, which I posit allows one to do more to prevent the spread of such ideologies. The hypothesis that forums dedicated to the spread of neo-Nazism can be effectively used in such a way actually help the world do more to prevent the spread of such ideologies is largely unproven. Unlike the fact that the dissemination and social reinforcement of Nazi propaganda is an efficient way to help people in a lot of pain 'realize' that the 'real' cause of their problem is Jews.
HappyDreamer 6y ago
> talking to him may make you realize he’s in a lot of pain, and that he’s been hurt by a system larger than ... I'd look at fat-people-hate and beat-women subreddits more like bank robberers planning their next attack on a bank, discussing weapons, and having a good time looking at viedos of robberies from the past. Then you can visit them and tell them "But it's wrong to rob banks, it's not your money and think of the poor people working in the bank, they'll get PTSD". Or you say "Let's discuss the big underlying systematic problem that is larger than all of us, and makes you rob banks, and how to solve it" Then you get banned from that subreddit, and the bank robberers continue enjoying robbing banks.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Then you get banned from that subreddit, and the bank robberers continue enjoying robbing banks. Bank robbers don't rob banks because they enjoy robbing banks. Bullys don't bully because "omg wow have you tried bullying it so great". I'm all with you that bullying sucks, but if you want bullying to stop, you better damn well understand the motivation. If you reach for "they are just evil people", you're not thinking hard enough.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    There is a difference in talking to someone to understand a problem and providing a communications platform for them to connect to other bullies in order to form a community that validates the practice. How in the world is that so difficult to see? Say you build walkie talkies, and a member of the KKK shows up and says he needs 100 of them because they are rioting in a black neighborhood tonight and need a way to coordinate their plans. Do you say “sure in fact take some for free!” just so you can listen in to understand exactly how they are terrorizing their black neighbors, or do you tell them to fuck off because you don’t want to provide tools to a hate group?

IgorPartola 6y ago

What you say has a kernel of truth to it, but I think you are thinking of the wrong tool for the job. There was a well studied psychological phenomenon (sorry I can’t recall the name of the researchers at the moment) where if you put people of similar ideology in a room together and let them converse for a period of time, they will come out of that room holding more extreme views than they went in with, down to holding views that are more extreme than the view of their most extreme member going in. This happen every day on Reddit. Take /r/conservative. Theoretically, a great place to get a conservative point of view and discuss how it might clash with something opposite it. In practice, it has become a safe bubble. If you express a strong liberal viewpoint or identify as a liberal, you will get banned. Ask how I know. And at that point why would anyone outside that bubble go visit it, and why would anyone who is there leave? It creates the exact opposite effect of what you are describing. Also, again, I am happy to fund research on why men beat women (or any person of any gender beats any other gender, though let’s face it, most times domestic violence is by men against women), but I don’t need 1000 angry men trying to justify to me and each other why it’s ok. And that’s my point: the web allows us to give voice to those who haven’t been heard before. If a former Nazi wants to explain why he did what he did and why he walked away from it, we should give them voice and listen. If a current incel wants to detail his struggles and ask for help, we should lend an ear. But what help can be given to a man who beats his wife by 1000 men who do the same and think it’s totally justified? What possible good comes of helping them reinforce their beliefs while providing tools to exclude all external points of view? Lastly, yes it is true that some points of view are just wrong. There are in fact bad ideas. Eugenics is a bad idea. Racism is a bad idea. Misogyny is a bad idea. We can let the academics study it and the therapists try to fix it, but we absolutely do not need to entertain it, pretend like there is some valid point of view there, or give it a platform just so someone can turn around, point out that the existence of the platform means there are two sides to the argument and demand more equal representation. If you really want to help, try going on those fringe subreddits and offer to pay for therapy for those young men. If they take you up on that offer, yes you’ve done a good thing. But in my experience you get a nicely worded message from a mod saying that you and your ideas aren’t welcome here. Edit: also, I don’t give a fuck if you are in pain because crushing system, etc. If you beat your wife, you deserve a beating. If you think it’s sometimes justified you deserve two. Don’t make your problems someone else’s pain. It doesn’t make you justified. It just objectively makes you an asshole. Edit 2: Daryl Davis is a black man who has been befriending members of the KKK and successfully convinced over 200 of them to leave. That does not justify the existence of the KKK, just shows how difficult it is to do this kind of work: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinc...

airtonix 6y ago
if you think you can be the arbitar of moral discussion without corruption, you are sorely mistaken. or you take us all for fools.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  I’ll just leave this here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Again, as with other comments above: I am not advocating for a slippery slope type of thing. I am however saying that specific groups mentioned above are widely (though not universally) considered undesirables. The specific groups: men who beat women, racists, and Nazis. Do you have a better ruler by which to measure those people and whether we should create software tools to help them communicate better/easier with each other? Do you condone any of those group and do you want to publicly defend their ideas as moral or valid? Because if not, feel free to get off the high horse and shut the fuck up.
concordDance 6y ago
> Lastly, yes it is true that some points of view are just wrong. There are in fact bad ideas. Eugenics is a bad idea. Racism is a bad idea. Misogyny is a bad idea. As someone who has been looking for good anti-racialist arguments for a long time (along with explanations for why eugenics is wrong and why we think there aren't substantial sex differences that make the sexes on average more suited to different things) the fact these kinds or things are censured and censored everywhere is immensely frustrating. The only things I can find are sites talking about why racism is true or sites talking about why it's wrong, but I can't find resources talking about why it's false! If you happen to have links about eugenics/racism/sexism that talk about their falseness (I mean, I presume you have actually seen arguments against them that makes you so sure they are bad/false?) then please let me know.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  I am not sure what you mean by racism/sexism/eugenics being false. If you mean why they are bad ideas, I can only do so much in terms of links, since I learned that these ideas are bad before the web was popular. I guess here are some things you might want to consider: * Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Make sure to get the NC17 unabridged book for the non-sugarcoated version. * All humans are virtually genetically identical. Can’t find a good primary source at 6am, but start with this: https://www.quora.com/Do-all-humans-have-the-same-genome-sequence?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Do-all-humans-have-the-same-genome-seq.... Black people are no different than white people, and you won’t find anything inherently different about either group other than some external appearance. It logically follows that discriminating by skin color is arbitrary, like discriminating say by height or eye color. * Racism is bad for society. https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Negative-Effects-Of-Racism-FJSJRUP39P6 https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Negative-Effects-Of-Racism-FJ... * Racism is bad for the economy: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/racism-riots-economics-baltimore-recovery https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/racism-riots-economics-.... * A much better explanation than I can write at the moment on why it’s wrong: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-racism-wrong?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Why-is-racism-wrong?share=1 I am not going to spend more time Googling for you on this, but feel free to continue the research yourself. Try searching “effects of X on Y” and “morality of Z” and “why is W wrong” if you want to see those points of view. Form your own opinion, but keep one thing in mind: the often cited argument for a lot of this stuff is that “we’ve never implemented it correctly”. I hear this a lot about communism nowadays. There are a lot of setups where the idea inevitably leads to an outcome. For example, the US political and elections system inevitably leads to a two party system. It can be mathematically proven that this is the case. Similarly, ideas like racism inevitably lead to human and economic suffering, and those who try to separate the idea and it’s effect as implemented should be suspect of making arguments in bad faith. Examine their theories more closely. Lastly, there is only so much you can learn from short form articles on the web. Read Sapiens. Read a couple or history books on WWII. Talk to a concentration camp survivor if you can find one. Talk to a Nazi solder. Talk to almost any woman in your life. I guarantee you that your mother experienced sexism, sexual harassment, and chances are outright sexual assault, since a very large percentage of women have in their lives statistically speaking.

notahacker 6y ago

> But you may start to discover the reasons why these (mostly) young men are so angry, which I posit allows one to do more to prevent the spread of such ideologies. The hypothesis that forums dedicated to the spread of neo-Nazism can be effectively used in such a way actually help the world do more to prevent the spread of such ideologies is largely unproven. Unlike the fact that the dissemination and social reinforcement of Nazi propaganda is an efficient way to help people in a lot of pain 'realize' that the 'real' cause of their problem is Jews.

HappyDreamer 6y ago

> talking to him may make you realize he’s in a lot of pain, and that he’s been hurt by a system larger than ... I'd look at fat-people-hate and beat-women subreddits more like bank robberers planning their next attack on a bank, discussing weapons, and having a good time looking at viedos of robberies from the past. Then you can visit them and tell them "But it's wrong to rob banks, it's not your money and think of the poor people working in the bank, they'll get PTSD". Or you say "Let's discuss the big underlying systematic problem that is larger than all of us, and makes you rob banks, and how to solve it" Then you get banned from that subreddit, and the bank robberers continue enjoying robbing banks.

luckylion 6y ago
> Then you get banned from that subreddit, and the bank robberers continue enjoying robbing banks. Bank robbers don't rob banks because they enjoy robbing banks. Bullys don't bully because "omg wow have you tried bullying it so great". I'm all with you that bullying sucks, but if you want bullying to stop, you better damn well understand the motivation. If you reach for "they are just evil people", you're not thinking hard enough.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  There is a difference in talking to someone to understand a problem and providing a communications platform for them to connect to other bullies in order to form a community that validates the practice. How in the world is that so difficult to see? Say you build walkie talkies, and a member of the KKK shows up and says he needs 100 of them because they are rioting in a black neighborhood tonight and need a way to coordinate their plans. Do you say “sure in fact take some for free!” just so you can listen in to understand exactly how they are terrorizing their black neighbors, or do you tell them to fuck off because you don’t want to provide tools to a hate group?