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>> the developers are saying "we will treat you this way regardless of how you treat us" > in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the

>> the developers are saying "we will treat you this way regardless of how you treat us" > in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance I have a lot more respect for people whose ethics are not conditional on the behavior of others.

kibwen 4y ago
I find that somewhat short-sighted. Let's use a different example. Imagine you live in a society that allows personal gun ownership. Obviously, in such a society you still don't want people running around shooting each other willy-nilly, so you make a law: shoot someone, go to jail. Now imagine someone pulls out a gun and shoots you. Result: you're dead, they go to jail. However, you'd really prefer not to be dead. So imagine that someone pulls out their gun to shoot you, but then you pull out your gun and shoot them. Result: they're dead, you go to jail. It's what the law says, after all. This is undesirable to most people because it looks like you've been punished for defending yourself. So we'll change the law: if someone is pointing a gun at you, you can shoot them without going to jail. Now imagine that someone pulls a gun on you, then you pull a gun to defend yourself, but then they shoot you anyway. Result: you're dead, and they don't go to jail. It's what the law says, after all: you were pointing a gun at them. Oops, it's equivalent to having no law at all! This is the worst form of the law so far, and it's also the same thing as the paradox of tolerance. The way you solve this is the same way you solve the paradox of tolerance: you say that the initial aggressor does not receive any protections if their own weapons are used against them. This produces a result that matches people's intuitions. This also creates a lesser problem, where people try to toe the line of aggression and goad someone else into making the first move so that they can justly retaliate, but it's still a vast improvement on the situation that intuitively matches how people expect things to work, which just so happens to involve ethics that are conditional on the behavior of others. The condition in this example: violence is acceptable, if it's in self-defense. EDIT: I see this is being downvoted, would anyone care to explain their reasoning?
- ARandomerDude 4y ago
  There's a 99.9% chance [1] any comment this long is tinfoil hat level crazy. 1. I've been on the internet.
  - account42 4y ago
    I don't agree at all with the gp or the use of the "paradox of tolerance" to shut down those you agree with, but I agree even less with discounting commings based on their length. Long from responses should be encouraged as they require the commenter to at least put in some time and hopefully some thought as well and also because many things are complex enough that shortening them just to please the twitter-brained loses vital details.
- csdvrx 4y ago
  > EDIT: I see this is being downvoted FTFY > would anyone care to explain their reasoning? I think a lot of people on HN are just anti gun/very left wing, which may taint their judgement while your example was nice about the initiation of violence being the issue.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Why would I have an issue with people using guns as an example? It doesn’t work nearly as well with knives, which other people aren’t totally defenseless against (or cars, which are hard to pull out of your pocket in response to someone pointing theirs at you). Ok, so maybe I couldn’t resist being a little bit snarky, but really, it was a good example.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > anti gun/very left wing FYI: contrary to popular belief, these are mutually exclusive. "Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." -- Karl Marx Anyone who advocates disarming the working class and leaving it entirely defenseless against capitalism and the state apparatus it inevitably begets is not leftist, and I'm personally rather tired of pretending otherwise. Gun control advocates might be "left" of the far-right, but that's a stunningly low bar.

kibwen 4y ago

I find that somewhat short-sighted. Let's use a different example. Imagine you live in a society that allows personal gun ownership. Obviously, in such a society you still don't want people running around shooting each other willy-nilly, so you make a law: shoot someone, go to jail. Now imagine someone pulls out a gun and shoots you. Result: you're dead, they go to jail. However, you'd really prefer not to be dead. So imagine that someone pulls out their gun to shoot you, but then you pull out your gun and shoot them. Result: they're dead, you go to jail. It's what the law says, after all. This is undesirable to most people because it looks like you've been punished for defending yourself. So we'll change the law: if someone is pointing a gun at you, you can shoot them without going to jail. Now imagine that someone pulls a gun on you, then you pull a gun to defend yourself, but then they shoot you anyway. Result: you're dead, and they don't go to jail. It's what the law says, after all: you were pointing a gun at them. Oops, it's equivalent to having no law at all! This is the worst form of the law so far, and it's also the same thing as the paradox of tolerance. The way you solve this is the same way you solve the paradox of tolerance: you say that the initial aggressor does not receive any protections if their own weapons are used against them. This produces a result that matches people's intuitions. This also creates a lesser problem, where people try to toe the line of aggression and goad someone else into making the first move so that they can justly retaliate, but it's still a vast improvement on the situation that intuitively matches how people expect things to work, which just so happens to involve ethics that are conditional on the behavior of others. The condition in this example: violence is acceptable, if it's in self-defense. EDIT: I see this is being downvoted, would anyone care to explain their reasoning?

ARandomerDude 4y ago
There's a 99.9% chance [1] any comment this long is tinfoil hat level crazy. 1. I've been on the internet.
- account42 4y ago
  I don't agree at all with the gp or the use of the "paradox of tolerance" to shut down those you agree with, but I agree even less with discounting commings based on their length. Long from responses should be encouraged as they require the commenter to at least put in some time and hopefully some thought as well and also because many things are complex enough that shortening them just to please the twitter-brained loses vital details.
csdvrx 4y ago
> EDIT: I see this is being downvoted FTFY > would anyone care to explain their reasoning? I think a lot of people on HN are just anti gun/very left wing, which may taint their judgement while your example was nice about the initiation of violence being the issue.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Why would I have an issue with people using guns as an example? It doesn’t work nearly as well with knives, which other people aren’t totally defenseless against (or cars, which are hard to pull out of your pocket in response to someone pointing theirs at you). Ok, so maybe I couldn’t resist being a little bit snarky, but really, it was a good example.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > anti gun/very left wing FYI: contrary to popular belief, these are mutually exclusive. "Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." -- Karl Marx Anyone who advocates disarming the working class and leaving it entirely defenseless against capitalism and the state apparatus it inevitably begets is not leftist, and I'm personally rather tired of pretending otherwise. Gun control advocates might be "left" of the far-right, but that's a stunningly low bar.