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Neither side in this conflict can claim a totally rational worldview. From where I'm standing: one side believes that our society is fraught with invisible powe

Neither side in this conflict can claim a totally rational worldview. From where I'm standing: one side believes that our society is fraught with invisible power structures which reinforce inequity, and our highest duty is to dismantle those structures through any means necessary. The other side is skeptical of the extent of these power structures, and believes that freedom of speech is the higher ideal. Each belief is to some extent unfalsifiable. There's no scientific or first-principles reasoning that tells us which value should take precedence in a given situation. The actual nonbelievers are the ones who have no interest in the war, and will go along with whichever position their social circles deem acceptable.

logicchains 6y ago
>Each belief is to some extent unfalsifiable. Core values can't be falsified, but a belief system built atop these values can be shown to be inconsistent, meaning it can essentially be used to argue for anything. Like in mathematics, an ideal system would pick core axioms/values that don't lead to inconsistency.
gfodor 6y ago
The argument isn't for freedom of speech per se, it's that if you remove the ability for people to persuade others through discourse, you remove the ability for progress to occur (other than through violence or death) on the same issues the former group is concerned about. And it is eminently falsifiable and has been proven to be the case - one does not have to look very far back in recent history to see free speech (and other liberal approaches to resolving differences) overturning prejudices and ending injustices that have lasted for centuries.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- citrin_ru 6y ago
  The group which doesn't mind to loose free speech probably think that it doesn't work. They see that western society had freedom of speech for a relatively long time and still far from perfect. But they tend to ignore that countries without free speech are generally worse off.
  - lagearrock 6y ago
    western society is bifurcated. we were never "well off" as a whole. black people suffered, and also conveniently never had freedom of speech by virtue of MSM non-coverage. yeah, i dont mind losing freedom of speech, i never had any. why should everyone else have freedom?
    - loopz 6y ago
      Because of higher principles and purpose.
- lagearrock 6y ago
  >> one does not have to look very far back in recent history to see free speech (and other liberal approaches to resolving differences) overturning prejudices and ending injustices that have lasted for centuries. except it didnt work. "freedom of speech" was narrowly defined and limited to only some groups which had real freedom. meanwhile, other topics were taboo either explicitly with laws, through threads, or by blacklisting in newsmedia. consider black rights. the BLM movement didnt start now because it just happened now, it started now because we finally got to a point where more people stood up to demand rights. in the 1980s and 1990s, if you had a black criminal on a tv show or movie, it was "artistic freedom" but if you had a jewish villain, it was "anti-semitism" for decades, those with power decided what freedom was allowed (criticizing arabs) and which would be legally disallowed (boycotting israel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws except now people got smart, basically now no one has freedom of speech because everyone can cancel everyone. is it productive? no, but it is more fair than only some groups getting freedom of speech and pretending the country was fair
  - gfodor 6y ago
    so what changed these situations? it wasn't violent revolution.
fsckboy 6y ago
> Each belief is to some extent unfalsifiable since the principle of falsibiability itself is unfalsifiable, I can't accept it on the basis of hypocrisy.
- titanomachy 6y ago
  Kurt Gödel, ruining every debate since 1931 :)
bawolff 6y ago
I think that's a bit of a simplification of the debate. For example, You can believe that structural inequality is real and very bad while still holding academic freedom and freedom of speech as more important (its not like they are even conflicting views. Entrenched power structures hinder the abilities of the descriminated to effectively exercise their freedoms). Or you can believe that there are power structures (invisble and visible) that reenforce inequity, but blindly tearing them down in a revolutionary fashion will just replace them with an even worse systems, just like how in politics most revolutions against oppression result in a new government that is even more oppressive. I'm sure there are even more views then that.
- titanomachy 6y ago
  Yes, I probably did oversimplify. Many people are not absolute about this. I think that the two sides come into conflict when each believes theirs is the supreme ideal. There are some who believe that destroying inequitable power structures justifies overriding freedom of speech[0]. Many feel strongly that no cause is worth sacrificing that freedom. Most of us may have a more nuanced view, but the war is mostly fought between the absolutists. > most revolutions against oppression result in a new government that is even more oppressive A lot of freedoms were also won through rebellious or revolutionary action. "Revolutions usually aren't worth it" could be a valid reading of history, but it's not the takeaway from my (admittedly limited) reading. [0]https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millennials-ok-with-limiting-speech-offensive-to-minorities/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-mille...
- dekhn 6y ago
  This is an eloquent stating of my own position. It's roughly compatible with the growing centrism political movement in the US: the desire to improve the current situation without destroying the very delicate things that allow for modern civilization.
tomp 6y ago
This is the typical “moat-and-bayley” characterisation. If the first side (pro-woke) were actually fighting for a better world (and not just in the name of bullying and vengeance), they’d have actual suggestions. “Defund the police” is a braindead 100% retarded and completely unrealistic idea. Reasonable alternatives are e.g. “stop the drug war”, “stop plea deals”, “reform the sentencing system”, “stop civil forfeiture”, etc. but clearly nobody is interested in actual solutions.
- zeckalpha 6y ago
  Those are pieces of the puzzle, but boring slogans that don’t get people’s attention. For example: https://www.mpd150.com/faq/ https://www.mpd150.com/faq/
  - tomp 6y ago
    > we’re talking about a process of strategically reallocating resources, funding, and responsibility away from police and toward community-based models of safety, support, and prevention. Not really, just more of the same. Sounds completely delusional. Defensive violence (or a credible ability to project it) is the best cure for offensive violence. It exists in every society, either officially (cops) or unofficially (gangs, mafia, warlords, private guards, ...). All these "no police" proposals fail when trying to answer the most basic question, "what do I do when someone steals my car with my kid in it". Mind you - they're fully aware that the only possible answer is "violence" - either cops or private guns - which is why they're desperately trying to avoid having to answer this question. But this also makes all these proposals completely unworkable in reality. It's basically the same as idealistic communes - yeah, you can "peacefully coexist" in a "free for all, cooperative, no ownership, no conflict" society - as long as you outsource enough of the essentials (military, police, social security, emergency medical & fire services, ...) to the rest of the society. But there's no examples (and plenty of counter-examples) of an actual society (large, post-industrialized one) existing in this way.
    - zeckalpha 6y ago
      That’s still short term though. The root cause of people wanting to steal cars is not a lack of police. In the long term, we need to address the underlying root causes.

logicchains 6y ago

>Each belief is to some extent unfalsifiable. Core values can't be falsified, but a belief system built atop these values can be shown to be inconsistent, meaning it can essentially be used to argue for anything. Like in mathematics, an ideal system would pick core axioms/values that don't lead to inconsistency.

gfodor 6y ago

The argument isn't for freedom of speech per se, it's that if you remove the ability for people to persuade others through discourse, you remove the ability for progress to occur (other than through violence or death) on the same issues the former group is concerned about. And it is eminently falsifiable and has been proven to be the case - one does not have to look very far back in recent history to see free speech (and other liberal approaches to resolving differences) overturning prejudices and ending injustices that have lasted for centuries.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
citrin_ru 6y ago
The group which doesn't mind to loose free speech probably think that it doesn't work. They see that western society had freedom of speech for a relatively long time and still far from perfect. But they tend to ignore that countries without free speech are generally worse off.
- lagearrock 6y ago
  western society is bifurcated. we were never "well off" as a whole. black people suffered, and also conveniently never had freedom of speech by virtue of MSM non-coverage. yeah, i dont mind losing freedom of speech, i never had any. why should everyone else have freedom?
  - loopz 6y ago
    Because of higher principles and purpose.
lagearrock 6y ago
>> one does not have to look very far back in recent history to see free speech (and other liberal approaches to resolving differences) overturning prejudices and ending injustices that have lasted for centuries. except it didnt work. "freedom of speech" was narrowly defined and limited to only some groups which had real freedom. meanwhile, other topics were taboo either explicitly with laws, through threads, or by blacklisting in newsmedia. consider black rights. the BLM movement didnt start now because it just happened now, it started now because we finally got to a point where more people stood up to demand rights. in the 1980s and 1990s, if you had a black criminal on a tv show or movie, it was "artistic freedom" but if you had a jewish villain, it was "anti-semitism" for decades, those with power decided what freedom was allowed (criticizing arabs) and which would be legally disallowed (boycotting israel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws except now people got smart, basically now no one has freedom of speech because everyone can cancel everyone. is it productive? no, but it is more fair than only some groups getting freedom of speech and pretending the country was fair
- gfodor 6y ago
  so what changed these situations? it wasn't violent revolution.

fsckboy 6y ago

> Each belief is to some extent unfalsifiable since the principle of falsibiability itself is unfalsifiable, I can't accept it on the basis of hypocrisy.

titanomachy 6y ago
Kurt Gödel, ruining every debate since 1931 :)

bawolff 6y ago

I think that's a bit of a simplification of the debate. For example, You can believe that structural inequality is real and very bad while still holding academic freedom and freedom of speech as more important (its not like they are even conflicting views. Entrenched power structures hinder the abilities of the descriminated to effectively exercise their freedoms). Or you can believe that there are power structures (invisble and visible) that reenforce inequity, but blindly tearing them down in a revolutionary fashion will just replace them with an even worse systems, just like how in politics most revolutions against oppression result in a new government that is even more oppressive. I'm sure there are even more views then that.

titanomachy 6y ago
Yes, I probably did oversimplify. Many people are not absolute about this. I think that the two sides come into conflict when each believes theirs is the supreme ideal. There are some who believe that destroying inequitable power structures justifies overriding freedom of speech[0]. Many feel strongly that no cause is worth sacrificing that freedom. Most of us may have a more nuanced view, but the war is mostly fought between the absolutists. > most revolutions against oppression result in a new government that is even more oppressive A lot of freedoms were also won through rebellious or revolutionary action. "Revolutions usually aren't worth it" could be a valid reading of history, but it's not the takeaway from my (admittedly limited) reading. [0]https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millennials-ok-with-limiting-speech-offensive-to-minorities/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-mille...
dekhn 6y ago
This is an eloquent stating of my own position. It's roughly compatible with the growing centrism political movement in the US: the desire to improve the current situation without destroying the very delicate things that allow for modern civilization.

tomp 6y ago

This is the typical “moat-and-bayley” characterisation. If the first side (pro-woke) were actually fighting for a better world (and not just in the name of bullying and vengeance), they’d have actual suggestions. “Defund the police” is a braindead 100% retarded and completely unrealistic idea. Reasonable alternatives are e.g. “stop the drug war”, “stop plea deals”, “reform the sentencing system”, “stop civil forfeiture”, etc. but clearly nobody is interested in actual solutions.

zeckalpha 6y ago
Those are pieces of the puzzle, but boring slogans that don’t get people’s attention. For example: https://www.mpd150.com/faq/ https://www.mpd150.com/faq/
- tomp 6y ago
  > we’re talking about a process of strategically reallocating resources, funding, and responsibility away from police and toward community-based models of safety, support, and prevention. Not really, just more of the same. Sounds completely delusional. Defensive violence (or a credible ability to project it) is the best cure for offensive violence. It exists in every society, either officially (cops) or unofficially (gangs, mafia, warlords, private guards, ...). All these "no police" proposals fail when trying to answer the most basic question, "what do I do when someone steals my car with my kid in it". Mind you - they're fully aware that the only possible answer is "violence" - either cops or private guns - which is why they're desperately trying to avoid having to answer this question. But this also makes all these proposals completely unworkable in reality. It's basically the same as idealistic communes - yeah, you can "peacefully coexist" in a "free for all, cooperative, no ownership, no conflict" society - as long as you outsource enough of the essentials (military, police, social security, emergency medical & fire services, ...) to the rest of the society. But there's no examples (and plenty of counter-examples) of an actual society (large, post-industrialized one) existing in this way.
  - zeckalpha 6y ago
    That’s still short term though. The root cause of people wanting to steal cars is not a lack of police. In the long term, we need to address the underlying root causes.