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The problem is - who decides what should be fringe and ostracized? At different times in history, women's rights, abolition, etc were all heretical ideas that t

The problem is - who decides what should be fringe and ostracized? At different times in history, women's rights, abolition, etc were all heretical ideas that the majority would want to squish if they could.

jakelazaroff 6y ago
We all do, collectively. That’s how society works. If you try to take “who among us can say what is right?” to the logical extreme, you get into situations like “should we not teach in schools that democracy is preferable to fascism?”
- ptero 6y ago
  Democracy vs fascism is the discussion I hope you can win on merits. In fact I wouldn't mind honest debates on this topic at schools: it can serve to vaccinate people against intolerance and extremism. Communities that shut down such discussions are usually authoritarian sects built on faith in a leader's guidance, not enlightened democracies.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    Let’s actually switch examples to the Civil Rights Movement. That shows up on the curriculum in kindergarten. Would you have five year olds debating the merits of segregation? Consider that people were having debates about whether things like democracy and slavery and caste systems were good for centuries before people got on board. And plenty of people still aren’t! What should the teacher do if the kids on Debate Team Jim Crow actually win the debate? Step in and say “actually, equality is better, let me show you why”? Or do we now have a bunch of kids who go through life thinking that we actually should make Black people drinking from different water fountains? I also suspect that plenty of teachers themselves are not quite as bought in on racial equality as we’d hope. Because problem is that segregation, fascism, etc aren’t “bad” per se. We don’t reject them because there’s some inherent logical fallacy — we do it because they’re morally wrong. It took us hundreds of years to get here, and if we’re going to get further it will be because we drew a line in the sand and said “hey, treating people in this particular way is just better than doing it this other way”.
    - ptero 6y ago
      I did not follow your reasoning about 5 years old debating the merits of segregation, can you elaborate? Many topics are introduced at young age, and can take many years until they become a part of the person's worldview that they person can meaningfully defend. But it better reach that state for key topics before the person is out of school. > segregation, fascism, etc aren’t “bad” per se. We don’t reject them because there’s some inherent logical fallacy — we do it because they’re morally wrong. Ouch! Fascism and segregation are morally wrong, but just as important they produce systems and societies that exhibit horrible features and, time and again, crumble and fail. Morality is pliable -- many things considered good two generations ago can now seen as morally wrong and vice versa. When your grandkids ask "grandpa, why did you break/prohibit/deplatform/cancel X?" you may want something better to stand on than "because we had that power and we could". Because that is how your argument reads to me.
      - jakelazaroff 6y ago
        > I did not follow your reasoning about 5 years old debating the merits of segregation, can you elaborate? Sure. We teach five year olds about Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement because it’s an important part of our history. Children are going to have questions about why things happened, and what the “right” side of it was. What are we going to tell them? At that age, they’ll basically believe whatever we say. So we have to either decide that segregation will be the “fringe” view, or that kids will grow up thinking that it’s acceptable. > Fascism and segregation are morally wrong, but just as important they produce systems and societies that exhibit horrible features and, time and again, crumble and fail. Who’s to say what features in a system are horrible? If we’re truly neutral here, should we not implement those features too so as not to ostracize people who think they’re good? :) My point is that for literally every “horrible” feature, there are people who want it in earnest — and they often want it because it benefits them, not because they haven’t been won over by the merits of the alternative. Like, how are you gonna convince the dude wearing the Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt? It’s not like he’s never been exposed to the argument that genocide is wrong. At some point we just have to draw the line and say “this is bad” rather than wringing our hands about how we can really decide not to listen to people advocating segregation or fascism or genocide or whatever.
  - salawat 6y ago
    A democracy can be even more fanatically authoritarian than a fascist state assuming a relatively benevolent leadership for the fascist state, and a ramrod militaristic and homogenized culture amongst the population of the democracy. That is one of the absolutely insane things I just cannot wrap my mind around with people these days. No form of government is inherently "Good" or "bereft of evil". Saying as much is like saying a token ring network is inferior to a mesh network when the use case of said token ring network may not have anything to gain from the properties of a mesh network between all the nodes. It all depends on the people involved. Governments are much like computing systems in that Garbage In, Garbage Out applies. A constitutional republic was deemed at the time of the founding to strike the best balance of all systems of governance at the time. That's it. It scaled, it resisted demagoguery, and most importantly, it virtually guaranteed that the pace of legislation and change was slow at the time. No man can do much damage in 4 years. Fast forward to now, and you have D.C. pulling strings and reacting on weekly timescales. The status quo can change on the timescale of hours, not even days. Issues increasingly get pushed to be resolved at the National level instead of being delegated up only to the locality or States effected, which contributes to increased inter-state animosity. The key optimization that the Founders were going for is something that let everywhere "do as thou wilt" with a mechanism for collective action organized from the bottom up. It was certainly not the intent to drive the entire country at once from the top-down except in regards to matters of National Defence and International Diplomacy, and resolution of interstate matters. The role of the Federal Government has greatly expanded over the years, now including land management/conservation, operating regulatory edifi, law enforcement, etc... The Founders understood a government was only as inherently good as the people running it, and admitted from the start it would only be fit for a nation of well-educated citizens with a vested interest in maintaining their own liberties. No formal guarantee was given that somehow the system would work sevoid of everyone putting their best foot forward, which in part means not getting what you want all the time, and actually accepting that just because you could do something, it doesn't mean it should be done forever, or even permanantly.
- xyzelement 6y ago
  For society to decide it needs to hear the view. If early abolitionists were deplatformed, you think the idea of abolition would still magically arise in everyone's head at the same time? Nope,society would never heard the concept, never adopt it and we'd still have slavery. Let's be a society of adults. Allow voices to be heard and be rejected or accepted by people as makes sense to them. Otherwise you are moving the decision power from the people to the silencers. There's no precident in history for that working out well.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    Wait — do you think that abolitionists were not deplatformed?
    - xyzelement 6y ago
      They were able to publish their pamphlets etc. I am sure people tried to crush them down, my point is to not celebrate that.
      - jakelazaroff 6y ago
        Let me pose the question to you again: do you believe fascists/segregationists/etc should be able to insert their platform into school curricula? Because again, that is the logical extreme of what you’re proposing. Or is that an acceptable form of viewpoint discrimination?
w8tTh0 6y ago
As living creatures these people are not ostracized. They can still eat and get healthcare. They choose to go beyond that. They’re not owed the fealty of others above and beyond supporting common human needs.
- xyzelement 6y ago
  I'm talking about the value to society of free speech. I can't parse what you're talking about.
  - w8tTh0 6y ago
    Free speech is not forcing others to support ideas they do not agree with. Why should everyone have to distribute others ideas? The idea that we’re just routers for everyone is anti-free thought. Generalizes everyone to personal agents for all. That’s hardly allowing for dissent. Physical reality that obliges everyone to support everything equally is not a free reality.
    - xyzelement 6y ago
      Oh I see. Yes I agree nobody should be compelled to distribute the ideas of others. What bothers me is when people celebrate the suppression of others without seeing how that knife can cut the other way very quickly.
      - w8tTh0 6y ago
        They’re still out there plotting. Have they truly been suppressed? They can still engage in a fulfilling life for themselves or continue to demand of others. Let’s see what they choose.
        xyzelement 6y ago
        You understand you can make that statement about anyone right?

jakelazaroff 6y ago

We all do, collectively. That’s how society works. If you try to take “who among us can say what is right?” to the logical extreme, you get into situations like “should we not teach in schools that democracy is preferable to fascism?”

ptero 6y ago
Democracy vs fascism is the discussion I hope you can win on merits. In fact I wouldn't mind honest debates on this topic at schools: it can serve to vaccinate people against intolerance and extremism. Communities that shut down such discussions are usually authoritarian sects built on faith in a leader's guidance, not enlightened democracies.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  Let’s actually switch examples to the Civil Rights Movement. That shows up on the curriculum in kindergarten. Would you have five year olds debating the merits of segregation? Consider that people were having debates about whether things like democracy and slavery and caste systems were good for centuries before people got on board. And plenty of people still aren’t! What should the teacher do if the kids on Debate Team Jim Crow actually win the debate? Step in and say “actually, equality is better, let me show you why”? Or do we now have a bunch of kids who go through life thinking that we actually should make Black people drinking from different water fountains? I also suspect that plenty of teachers themselves are not quite as bought in on racial equality as we’d hope. Because problem is that segregation, fascism, etc aren’t “bad” per se. We don’t reject them because there’s some inherent logical fallacy — we do it because they’re morally wrong. It took us hundreds of years to get here, and if we’re going to get further it will be because we drew a line in the sand and said “hey, treating people in this particular way is just better than doing it this other way”.
  - ptero 6y ago
    I did not follow your reasoning about 5 years old debating the merits of segregation, can you elaborate? Many topics are introduced at young age, and can take many years until they become a part of the person's worldview that they person can meaningfully defend. But it better reach that state for key topics before the person is out of school. > segregation, fascism, etc aren’t “bad” per se. We don’t reject them because there’s some inherent logical fallacy — we do it because they’re morally wrong. Ouch! Fascism and segregation are morally wrong, but just as important they produce systems and societies that exhibit horrible features and, time and again, crumble and fail. Morality is pliable -- many things considered good two generations ago can now seen as morally wrong and vice versa. When your grandkids ask "grandpa, why did you break/prohibit/deplatform/cancel X?" you may want something better to stand on than "because we had that power and we could". Because that is how your argument reads to me.
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      > I did not follow your reasoning about 5 years old debating the merits of segregation, can you elaborate? Sure. We teach five year olds about Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement because it’s an important part of our history. Children are going to have questions about why things happened, and what the “right” side of it was. What are we going to tell them? At that age, they’ll basically believe whatever we say. So we have to either decide that segregation will be the “fringe” view, or that kids will grow up thinking that it’s acceptable. > Fascism and segregation are morally wrong, but just as important they produce systems and societies that exhibit horrible features and, time and again, crumble and fail. Who’s to say what features in a system are horrible? If we’re truly neutral here, should we not implement those features too so as not to ostracize people who think they’re good? :) My point is that for literally every “horrible” feature, there are people who want it in earnest — and they often want it because it benefits them, not because they haven’t been won over by the merits of the alternative. Like, how are you gonna convince the dude wearing the Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt? It’s not like he’s never been exposed to the argument that genocide is wrong. At some point we just have to draw the line and say “this is bad” rather than wringing our hands about how we can really decide not to listen to people advocating segregation or fascism or genocide or whatever.
- salawat 6y ago
  A democracy can be even more fanatically authoritarian than a fascist state assuming a relatively benevolent leadership for the fascist state, and a ramrod militaristic and homogenized culture amongst the population of the democracy. That is one of the absolutely insane things I just cannot wrap my mind around with people these days. No form of government is inherently "Good" or "bereft of evil". Saying as much is like saying a token ring network is inferior to a mesh network when the use case of said token ring network may not have anything to gain from the properties of a mesh network between all the nodes. It all depends on the people involved. Governments are much like computing systems in that Garbage In, Garbage Out applies. A constitutional republic was deemed at the time of the founding to strike the best balance of all systems of governance at the time. That's it. It scaled, it resisted demagoguery, and most importantly, it virtually guaranteed that the pace of legislation and change was slow at the time. No man can do much damage in 4 years. Fast forward to now, and you have D.C. pulling strings and reacting on weekly timescales. The status quo can change on the timescale of hours, not even days. Issues increasingly get pushed to be resolved at the National level instead of being delegated up only to the locality or States effected, which contributes to increased inter-state animosity. The key optimization that the Founders were going for is something that let everywhere "do as thou wilt" with a mechanism for collective action organized from the bottom up. It was certainly not the intent to drive the entire country at once from the top-down except in regards to matters of National Defence and International Diplomacy, and resolution of interstate matters. The role of the Federal Government has greatly expanded over the years, now including land management/conservation, operating regulatory edifi, law enforcement, etc... The Founders understood a government was only as inherently good as the people running it, and admitted from the start it would only be fit for a nation of well-educated citizens with a vested interest in maintaining their own liberties. No formal guarantee was given that somehow the system would work sevoid of everyone putting their best foot forward, which in part means not getting what you want all the time, and actually accepting that just because you could do something, it doesn't mean it should be done forever, or even permanantly.
xyzelement 6y ago
For society to decide it needs to hear the view. If early abolitionists were deplatformed, you think the idea of abolition would still magically arise in everyone's head at the same time? Nope,society would never heard the concept, never adopt it and we'd still have slavery. Let's be a society of adults. Allow voices to be heard and be rejected or accepted by people as makes sense to them. Otherwise you are moving the decision power from the people to the silencers. There's no precident in history for that working out well.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  Wait — do you think that abolitionists were not deplatformed?
  - xyzelement 6y ago
    They were able to publish their pamphlets etc. I am sure people tried to crush them down, my point is to not celebrate that.
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      Let me pose the question to you again: do you believe fascists/segregationists/etc should be able to insert their platform into school curricula? Because again, that is the logical extreme of what you’re proposing. Or is that an acceptable form of viewpoint discrimination?

w8tTh0 6y ago

As living creatures these people are not ostracized. They can still eat and get healthcare. They choose to go beyond that. They’re not owed the fealty of others above and beyond supporting common human needs.

xyzelement 6y ago
I'm talking about the value to society of free speech. I can't parse what you're talking about.
- w8tTh0 6y ago
  Free speech is not forcing others to support ideas they do not agree with. Why should everyone have to distribute others ideas? The idea that we’re just routers for everyone is anti-free thought. Generalizes everyone to personal agents for all. That’s hardly allowing for dissent. Physical reality that obliges everyone to support everything equally is not a free reality.
  - xyzelement 6y ago
    Oh I see. Yes I agree nobody should be compelled to distribute the ideas of others. What bothers me is when people celebrate the suppression of others without seeing how that knife can cut the other way very quickly.
    - w8tTh0 6y ago
      They’re still out there plotting. Have they truly been suppressed? They can still engage in a fulfilling life for themselves or continue to demand of others. Let’s see what they choose.
      - xyzelement 6y ago
        You understand you can make that statement about anyone right?