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>so control over dangerous ideas makes sense to them This is another concept that confuses me 'dangerous ideas'. How is that different than what the church did

>so control over dangerous ideas makes sense to them This is another concept that confuses me 'dangerous ideas'. How is that different than what the church did with things like witchcraft and paganism, those were 'dangerous ideas'. What makes an idea dangerous? If there's dangerous ideas are there safe ideas? What makes an idea safe? Can you give me and example of a safe idea vs a dangerous idea? Who decides which ideas are safe and which ones are dangerous? Is this a static thing? Like once an idea is declared either safe or dangerous, do they stay that way or can a safe idea become a dangerous idea or vice versa? That's not even beginning to get into the definition of 'dangerous'. It seems like a pretty vague and arbitrary term to me. Say for example, if I decided to go free climbing, I'd be in a lot of danger. I have no experience, for me that would be a dangerous thing to do. But, for my Buddy who's been climbing most of their life, it's not so dangerous. So can one build up skills that let them deal with these dangerous ideas effectively, such as with other dangerous things or is the danger of ideas just beyond anyone to deal with? Is there some kind of elite group of people who can handle these dangerous ideas that us normal folks can't? I hope you see where i'm going with all this.

scsilver 6y ago
I don't have the time to get into the nuts and bolts of an argument, but just from a personal emotional opinion, fascism is a dangerous idea because it led to the genocide of my people, anti-semitism in general has led to even more genocide of my people over millenia and continues to be a significant lingering threat to myself and family. Id consider these dangerous ideas, but I'm not sure id they should be outright banned, but maybe not treated equally to less dangerous ideas like excersize and drinking water. I do think that can be handled at the social level without laws, and I think that a company has the right to decide amongst itself, how it wants to place itself in society. Certain ideas that its morally right to eliminate some people who happened to be born a certain way seems to me to fall into that category of dangerous ideas, primary because it offers no appeal, no rectification, you cant convert/repent your way out of death.
majormajor 6y ago
You start out "what is with people these days" and then you end up "oh hey people have been doing this forever, with heresy and religion and so on" so... no, I don't see where you're going with this. Are you surprised that arguments about which messages get amplified and which do not happen? That they happened historically and that they happen now? That Facebook (and other pieces of modern technology) have reinvigorated this discussion because they change the economics and effort and reach of people's actions? One difference today is that we're having much more of this with just words in the private space and fewer legal or governmental ramifications... you could've gotten in a lot of official, thrown-in-jail-or-killed trouble for having the wrong ideas in the past! Could you stop speaking in "what even is a dangerous idea" questions and put forth your own arguments? What do you picture your ideal world looking like, in terms of person A thinking one thing, person B thinking another, and person A's actions after person B starts trying to convince persons C, D, E... to take up certain positions... Let's use one of the "obvious" historical examples of a dangerous idea: "people like this are evil and we must kill them."
- grawprog 6y ago
  I'm gonna respond to this comment, but this is also to bleach drinking commenter and Nazi commenter. What all of you describe are actions. Each of these arguments are the same argument, someone did something bad because ideas, therefore the ideas that led to those actions are dangerous. Each of these arguments presumes that if somehow, you'd managed to control the ideas of these people, then just maybe those terrible things wouldn't have happened. The kinds of people that let ideas sway them into terrible actions aren't going to suddenly not find an excuse to do terrible things, they'll just look for another idea that justifies it. You can't police ideas based on the worries of bad things happening because ideas exist. People do shitty things and justify it with whatever excuses they want, trying to remove an idea is a pointless gesture and in the end impedes on the freedom of all because, something bad might happen if the wrong person hears the wrong idea. And again comes down to: 'There's a moral authority that knows best and the rest of humanity is too irrational to be left to their own devices, therefore the moral authority must control the beliefs and ideas of the rest'
cpeterso 6y ago
> What makes an idea dangerous? People are drinking bleach because they read on Facebook it will cure COVID-19 or their child's autism. Should Facebook delete those posts? Add an official warning disclaimer (counter-information)? Depend on other users to reply with counter-information in comments?

scsilver 6y ago

I don't have the time to get into the nuts and bolts of an argument, but just from a personal emotional opinion, fascism is a dangerous idea because it led to the genocide of my people, anti-semitism in general has led to even more genocide of my people over millenia and continues to be a significant lingering threat to myself and family. Id consider these dangerous ideas, but I'm not sure id they should be outright banned, but maybe not treated equally to less dangerous ideas like excersize and drinking water. I do think that can be handled at the social level without laws, and I think that a company has the right to decide amongst itself, how it wants to place itself in society. Certain ideas that its morally right to eliminate some people who happened to be born a certain way seems to me to fall into that category of dangerous ideas, primary because it offers no appeal, no rectification, you cant convert/repent your way out of death.

majormajor 6y ago

You start out "what is with people these days" and then you end up "oh hey people have been doing this forever, with heresy and religion and so on" so... no, I don't see where you're going with this. Are you surprised that arguments about which messages get amplified and which do not happen? That they happened historically and that they happen now? That Facebook (and other pieces of modern technology) have reinvigorated this discussion because they change the economics and effort and reach of people's actions? One difference today is that we're having much more of this with just words in the private space and fewer legal or governmental ramifications... you could've gotten in a lot of official, thrown-in-jail-or-killed trouble for having the wrong ideas in the past! Could you stop speaking in "what even is a dangerous idea" questions and put forth your own arguments? What do you picture your ideal world looking like, in terms of person A thinking one thing, person B thinking another, and person A's actions after person B starts trying to convince persons C, D, E... to take up certain positions... Let's use one of the "obvious" historical examples of a dangerous idea: "people like this are evil and we must kill them."

grawprog 6y ago
I'm gonna respond to this comment, but this is also to bleach drinking commenter and Nazi commenter. What all of you describe are actions. Each of these arguments are the same argument, someone did something bad because ideas, therefore the ideas that led to those actions are dangerous. Each of these arguments presumes that if somehow, you'd managed to control the ideas of these people, then just maybe those terrible things wouldn't have happened. The kinds of people that let ideas sway them into terrible actions aren't going to suddenly not find an excuse to do terrible things, they'll just look for another idea that justifies it. You can't police ideas based on the worries of bad things happening because ideas exist. People do shitty things and justify it with whatever excuses they want, trying to remove an idea is a pointless gesture and in the end impedes on the freedom of all because, something bad might happen if the wrong person hears the wrong idea. And again comes down to: 'There's a moral authority that knows best and the rest of humanity is too irrational to be left to their own devices, therefore the moral authority must control the beliefs and ideas of the rest'

cpeterso 6y ago

> What makes an idea dangerous? People are drinking bleach because they read on Facebook it will cure COVID-19 or their child's autism. Should Facebook delete those posts? Add an official warning disclaimer (counter-information)? Depend on other users to reply with counter-information in comments?