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You can’t remove his actions from context though. They are only even possible because of a deliberate and calculated campaign to discredit science and knowledge

You can’t remove his actions from context though. They are only even possible because of a deliberate and calculated campaign to discredit science and knowledge and punish those who have it. They’re banking on people like you just looking to keep the peace at any cost. If you’re not actively working to dismantle the current Republican Party, we cannot be on the same side. I don’t mind alienating you; the masters tools will never dismantle the master’s house.

nitrogen 5y ago
I don’t mind alienating you; the masters tools will never dismantle the master’s house. I've never heard this phrase before, but it equally applies to the situation where one thinks only they can wield a weapon. We can't assume that because we are "right," we have nothing to fear from the people who are "wrong" using our worst tactics against us. This is wrong whether it's one side "lying for Jesus," or the other side "censoring for freedom." In the context of this thread, rising opposition on one side prompts a higher rise on the other side, in a vicious cycle. As parents are often heard to say, "I don't care who started it, I care who finishes it!" It's a bit cliche to refer to STTNG for life advice, but a minor plot point of this episode influenced me quite a bit when I was a kid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_Worship_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_Worship_(Star_Trek:_The_N... All the adults saw a problem, so they kept raising their shields higher and higher, but raising the shields was causing the problem in the first place. It took a kid to notice that the scale of the problem correlated with the scale of the adults' defensiveness. This was, obviously, a metaphor for any human interaction. It's simply not possible to continually raise your defenses and offenses and end with a win-win, and when it comes to a roughly evenly divided society, win-lose is lose-lose.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  > It's simply not possible to continually raise your defenses and offenses and end with a win-win, and when it comes to a roughly evenly divided society, win-lose is lose-lose. This only works when both sides engage in good faith. That is not the case currently. We are better off excluding them than letting them abuse the process in bad faith like they always do. The ones advancing this argument are always the ones with the least at stake.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    Some people on every side engage in bad faith, and some in good faith. Find the ones who are operating on good faith and engage with them, rather than painting an entire side with a broad brush. And be mindful of the spectators -- they're the ones who arguments are most likely to influence, not the participants. There are hundreds of millions of nominally reasonable people who fall into opposite tribes just by happenstance. If you attack their tribe as a whole they'll stick to their tribes because of tribalism, but if you act reasonably, even if the tribal figureheads are acting in bad faith, the members of each tribe can be persuaded reasonably. Every line in tribe B's media about how party A is destroying the world with its anti-X agenda is perfectly mirrored by a similar line in tribe A's media about how party B is destroying the world with its anti-Y agenda. "Excluding" doesn't cut off people you disagree with, it makes them stronger, by consolidating them further into their tribes and cementing their opinions ("fight makes right")! We can try to see things from the point of view of reasonable people on both sides, or we can fail as a pluralistic society.

nitrogen 5y ago

I don’t mind alienating you; the masters tools will never dismantle the master’s house. I've never heard this phrase before, but it equally applies to the situation where one thinks only they can wield a weapon. We can't assume that because we are "right," we have nothing to fear from the people who are "wrong" using our worst tactics against us. This is wrong whether it's one side "lying for Jesus," or the other side "censoring for freedom." In the context of this thread, rising opposition on one side prompts a higher rise on the other side, in a vicious cycle. As parents are often heard to say, "I don't care who started it, I care who finishes it!" It's a bit cliche to refer to STTNG for life advice, but a minor plot point of this episode influenced me quite a bit when I was a kid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_Worship_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_Worship_(Star_Trek:_The_N... All the adults saw a problem, so they kept raising their shields higher and higher, but raising the shields was causing the problem in the first place. It took a kid to notice that the scale of the problem correlated with the scale of the adults' defensiveness. This was, obviously, a metaphor for any human interaction. It's simply not possible to continually raise your defenses and offenses and end with a win-win, and when it comes to a roughly evenly divided society, win-lose is lose-lose.

wayoutthere 5y ago
> It's simply not possible to continually raise your defenses and offenses and end with a win-win, and when it comes to a roughly evenly divided society, win-lose is lose-lose. This only works when both sides engage in good faith. That is not the case currently. We are better off excluding them than letting them abuse the process in bad faith like they always do. The ones advancing this argument are always the ones with the least at stake.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  Some people on every side engage in bad faith, and some in good faith. Find the ones who are operating on good faith and engage with them, rather than painting an entire side with a broad brush. And be mindful of the spectators -- they're the ones who arguments are most likely to influence, not the participants. There are hundreds of millions of nominally reasonable people who fall into opposite tribes just by happenstance. If you attack their tribe as a whole they'll stick to their tribes because of tribalism, but if you act reasonably, even if the tribal figureheads are acting in bad faith, the members of each tribe can be persuaded reasonably. Every line in tribe B's media about how party A is destroying the world with its anti-X agenda is perfectly mirrored by a similar line in tribe A's media about how party B is destroying the world with its anti-Y agenda. "Excluding" doesn't cut off people you disagree with, it makes them stronger, by consolidating them further into their tribes and cementing their opinions ("fight makes right")! We can try to see things from the point of view of reasonable people on both sides, or we can fail as a pluralistic society.