6 ms·

Ah, this again. People who are intolerant only to the intolerant are intolerant, period. And if they consider themselves tolerant, they are also a hypocrites.

rusk 5y ago
Ah good old bastardised Voltaire
dessant 5y ago
I think many people are perfectly content with being called intolerant, if that's what it takes for others to understand nuance. There is nothing wrong with not supporting hateful jerks and bigots.
- krona 5y ago
  Toleration doesn't imply support. That's the whole point of toleration.
  - dessant 5y ago
    Allowing these groups to use your software and platform literally supports their operation. And again, it's perfectly fine to call this intolerance.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Well yes. But if say Nazi Germany were annexing Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and finally France, should the USA do something about it? Because popular opinion in the 1940s (even after France's collapse into pro-German "Vichy France") was "Stay neutral and don't join the war". That is to say, we were "tolerating" the events and trying to keep our hands clean of it, and we ultimately only joined after Pearl Harbor forced our hand. ----------- Its not hypothetical. There were other groups who "tolerated" the Nazis. IIRC, its a common criticism of the Catholic church for not going more anti-Nazi than they did (they were more neutral as well). Hard to criticize them IMO when the US tried to be neutral for so long though! Eventually, there's a line that is crossed and we must become "intolerant" of other people's actions. Nazi Germany is perhaps the last example where the country truly unified itself against that threat, but... even as late as 1941 (well after the fall of France), USA was nominally neutral in the conflict. Was that the correct move? Should we have "Become intolerant" of the Nazis sooner? --------- Don't believe me? Look up Charles Lindberg (yes, "Spirit of St. Louis" pilot for the first Trans-Atlantic flight). Look up the speeches he gave for the "American First Committee", a popular antiwar group in 1940 and 1941. USA was 100% willing to give up on France and Britain back then, and it was incredibly popular despite the atrocities that continued in Europe. It all of course changed when Japan made a strategic blunder on December 7th, 1941. But remember: USA was largely reacting to Hitler's rise with a big "should we even care" ?? If it weren't for Japan, I don't think we would have joined the war in earnest. -------- "Tolerance", keeping neutral, etc. etc. is the wrong answer sometimes. I think we can all look back with shame upon the US's reluctance to kick Hitler's ass. Like, we Americans make fun of Chamberlain's appeasement, but its not like our country did much about the situation until a few years later.
    - usefulcat 5y ago
      Actually, the US declared war on Germany after Germany declared war on the US. 12/07/41: Pearl Harbor 12/08/41: US declares war on Japan 12/11/41: Germany declares war on US
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        Funny note: under the Tripartite Pact, because Japan was the aggressor in Pearl Harbor, Germany didn't have to declare war on the USA. Of course, politics overrides contracts. Hitler wanted close relations with Japan, and gave them his word that Germany had Japan's back on Dec. 4th. So Japan used that to attack the USA (knowing Germany would help). Germany, much like Japan, underestimated the strength of the USA and didn't expect them to be a big deal. But WW2 could have just had US vs Japan, but kept "neutrality" vs Germany ... if circumstances lined up just right. Apparently there were many German advisors who were trying to push for this scenario, and didn't think Germany had anything to gain for keeping its verbal agreement with Japan. We can imagine an interesting parallel-world where maybe some Advisor managed to convince Hitler of this plan and Germany going down this path instead. ---------- USA wouldn't get first-hand witness accounts / pictures of the Holocaust for years. The Holocaust was happening, but US citizens wouldn't know about it. (The first whispers of the Holocaust were given to the US State department in 1942, but were written off/ignored) New York Times had the Holocaust discussed on its 10th page in December 1942. (Not even front-page material). So once again, news of this genocide was largely met with a shrug. War-plans to bomb concentration camps were discussed, but pushed out as a low-priority. Some rescues happened, but it was clearly not a focus of the war effort. I think people greatly underestimate the USA's capability to be isolationist. Yeah, we play the world's policemen at times, but we also don't like doing it. In any case, by the time our soldiers found the concentration camps and gave first-hand accounts of them... the Holocaust was largely accepted as fact. But we weren't exactly proactive at stopping it.
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > Toleration doesn't imply support. That's the whole point of toleration. Except that in this case we're seeing people who feel entitled to everyone else's support demanding it under the guise of tolerance. Think about it. We're talking about a federated self-hosting social networking service, and how a group renowned for a political leaning that lies somewhere between authoritarian and full-blown fascist, not to mention the significant amount of racism, is not benefiting from being able to freely connect to each and any node made available by anyone in the world. It's not tolerance that's being expected, but benefiting from having free access to everyone else's services.
oblio 5y ago
Why would any sane person be tolerant to intolerant people? If you wish I were gone, why would I enable you in any way?
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  Because there is no principled way to draw the line. One side says not using someone's preferred pronouns is intolerant to their gender identity. The other side says being forced to use them is intolerant to their religious beliefs. Now what? Tie goes to the one with the most guns? If you don't allow censorship, nobody gets censored. If you do allow censorship, there will always be somebody who wants to censor you.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Well, I'd argue that the one imposing on others more loses. Proselytizing religions have no moral leg to stand on from an imposition point of view. Plus, let's be honest here, your example is just people being jerks with each other. The real debates are about physical harm, economic harm, etc., in which case it's far less fuzzy figuring out who's wrong.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      > Well, I'd argue that the one imposing on others more loses. In which case the party trying to impose censorship always loses. > The real debates are about physical harm, economic harm, etc., in which case it's far less fuzzy figuring out who's wrong. Nobody is talking about laws against violence or monopolization. Charging someone with a crime for beating you with a billy club is not censorship.
    - gruez 5y ago
      > Well, I'd argue that the one imposing on others more loses. For the preferred pronoun question, which one is more imposing? Getting other people to call you by your preferred pronoun, or refusing to call people by their preferred pronoun? You can make plausible arguments for either side.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Kafkish 5y ago
Best to be intolerant to, say, the Taliban, than to the Girls Scout.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Nobody argues with that. Just don't call yourself tolerant if you fight Taliban for their views. It's perfectly normal to NOT be tolerant, but simultaneously claiming to be tolerant is hypocrisy.

rusk 5y ago

Ah good old bastardised Voltaire

dessant 5y ago

I think many people are perfectly content with being called intolerant, if that's what it takes for others to understand nuance. There is nothing wrong with not supporting hateful jerks and bigots.

krona 5y ago
Toleration doesn't imply support. That's the whole point of toleration.
- dessant 5y ago
  Allowing these groups to use your software and platform literally supports their operation. And again, it's perfectly fine to call this intolerance.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Well yes. But if say Nazi Germany were annexing Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and finally France, should the USA do something about it? Because popular opinion in the 1940s (even after France's collapse into pro-German "Vichy France") was "Stay neutral and don't join the war". That is to say, we were "tolerating" the events and trying to keep our hands clean of it, and we ultimately only joined after Pearl Harbor forced our hand. ----------- Its not hypothetical. There were other groups who "tolerated" the Nazis. IIRC, its a common criticism of the Catholic church for not going more anti-Nazi than they did (they were more neutral as well). Hard to criticize them IMO when the US tried to be neutral for so long though! Eventually, there's a line that is crossed and we must become "intolerant" of other people's actions. Nazi Germany is perhaps the last example where the country truly unified itself against that threat, but... even as late as 1941 (well after the fall of France), USA was nominally neutral in the conflict. Was that the correct move? Should we have "Become intolerant" of the Nazis sooner? --------- Don't believe me? Look up Charles Lindberg (yes, "Spirit of St. Louis" pilot for the first Trans-Atlantic flight). Look up the speeches he gave for the "American First Committee", a popular antiwar group in 1940 and 1941. USA was 100% willing to give up on France and Britain back then, and it was incredibly popular despite the atrocities that continued in Europe. It all of course changed when Japan made a strategic blunder on December 7th, 1941. But remember: USA was largely reacting to Hitler's rise with a big "should we even care" ?? If it weren't for Japan, I don't think we would have joined the war in earnest. -------- "Tolerance", keeping neutral, etc. etc. is the wrong answer sometimes. I think we can all look back with shame upon the US's reluctance to kick Hitler's ass. Like, we Americans make fun of Chamberlain's appeasement, but its not like our country did much about the situation until a few years later.
  - usefulcat 5y ago
    Actually, the US declared war on Germany after Germany declared war on the US. 12/07/41: Pearl Harbor 12/08/41: US declares war on Japan 12/11/41: Germany declares war on US
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      Funny note: under the Tripartite Pact, because Japan was the aggressor in Pearl Harbor, Germany didn't have to declare war on the USA. Of course, politics overrides contracts. Hitler wanted close relations with Japan, and gave them his word that Germany had Japan's back on Dec. 4th. So Japan used that to attack the USA (knowing Germany would help). Germany, much like Japan, underestimated the strength of the USA and didn't expect them to be a big deal. But WW2 could have just had US vs Japan, but kept "neutrality" vs Germany ... if circumstances lined up just right. Apparently there were many German advisors who were trying to push for this scenario, and didn't think Germany had anything to gain for keeping its verbal agreement with Japan. We can imagine an interesting parallel-world where maybe some Advisor managed to convince Hitler of this plan and Germany going down this path instead. ---------- USA wouldn't get first-hand witness accounts / pictures of the Holocaust for years. The Holocaust was happening, but US citizens wouldn't know about it. (The first whispers of the Holocaust were given to the US State department in 1942, but were written off/ignored) New York Times had the Holocaust discussed on its 10th page in December 1942. (Not even front-page material). So once again, news of this genocide was largely met with a shrug. War-plans to bomb concentration camps were discussed, but pushed out as a low-priority. Some rescues happened, but it was clearly not a focus of the war effort. I think people greatly underestimate the USA's capability to be isolationist. Yeah, we play the world's policemen at times, but we also don't like doing it. In any case, by the time our soldiers found the concentration camps and gave first-hand accounts of them... the Holocaust was largely accepted as fact. But we weren't exactly proactive at stopping it.
- nuerow 5y ago
  > Toleration doesn't imply support. That's the whole point of toleration. Except that in this case we're seeing people who feel entitled to everyone else's support demanding it under the guise of tolerance. Think about it. We're talking about a federated self-hosting social networking service, and how a group renowned for a political leaning that lies somewhere between authoritarian and full-blown fascist, not to mention the significant amount of racism, is not benefiting from being able to freely connect to each and any node made available by anyone in the world. It's not tolerance that's being expected, but benefiting from having free access to everyone else's services.

oblio 5y ago

Why would any sane person be tolerant to intolerant people? If you wish I were gone, why would I enable you in any way?

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
Because there is no principled way to draw the line. One side says not using someone's preferred pronouns is intolerant to their gender identity. The other side says being forced to use them is intolerant to their religious beliefs. Now what? Tie goes to the one with the most guns? If you don't allow censorship, nobody gets censored. If you do allow censorship, there will always be somebody who wants to censor you.
- oblio 5y ago
  Well, I'd argue that the one imposing on others more loses. Proselytizing religions have no moral leg to stand on from an imposition point of view. Plus, let's be honest here, your example is just people being jerks with each other. The real debates are about physical harm, economic harm, etc., in which case it's far less fuzzy figuring out who's wrong.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    > Well, I'd argue that the one imposing on others more loses. In which case the party trying to impose censorship always loses. > The real debates are about physical harm, economic harm, etc., in which case it's far less fuzzy figuring out who's wrong. Nobody is talking about laws against violence or monopolization. Charging someone with a crime for beating you with a billy club is not censorship.
  - gruez 5y ago
    > Well, I'd argue that the one imposing on others more loses. For the preferred pronoun question, which one is more imposing? Getting other people to call you by your preferred pronoun, or refusing to call people by their preferred pronoun? You can make plausible arguments for either side.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Kafkish 5y ago

Best to be intolerant to, say, the Taliban, than to the Girls Scout.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
Nobody argues with that. Just don't call yourself tolerant if you fight Taliban for their views. It's perfectly normal to NOT be tolerant, but simultaneously claiming to be tolerant is hypocrisy.