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Comment by cromwellian | Hacker News Reader

Seems no one understands Popper's Paradox. Lots of talk about it being unfair that a workplace is intolerant of people who are intolerant. There are just some values that are not negotiable for a modern, civilized, homogeneous society. We're not talking about debates about the level of social welfare, or regulation, we're talking about common decency of treating people equally, regardless of gender, sexuality, or ethnic origin.

There's no reason anyone has to respect ethno-nationalist views against immigrants.

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Except there are plenty of rational reasons one might want to restrict immigration by country, as even Gwern has gone over before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13859767

> immigrant outcomes differ by orders of magnitude by country and that this has considerable implications for the immigration debate and that many of the arguments made by the left for illegal immigration & open borders range from ignorant to outright lying with statistics.

In 2014 Havard fellow Eugen Dimant did a study on immigration from corrupt countries, with the consistent finding that "Immigration from corruption-ridden countries boosts corruption in the destination country."

https://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/crook-crook-he-still-crook-a...

To put forth either of these as reasons to restrict immigration from one set of countries, and encourage immigration from another, almost always gets you labeled a racist, ethno-nationalist, etc. If you don't believe you will be called that, I invite you to try and discuss them pro/con style (pretending you are fairly convinced) with some of your more liberal coworkers, and see what they say.

Just being immigration-skeptic in general now often leads to such charges, which is absurd. The most basic rational reason of all is very simple: If the fundamental mechanic of democracy is that the people vote and these votes matter, then every citizen should have a strong interest in making sure that the criteria for being a citizen is in place to attract good citizens and repel bad ones. Instead, we can barely talk about it.

Of course there are legitimate reasons to control immigration - nobody is saying there isn't - but these are not reasons given by the current white house administration.

> To put forth either of these as reasons to restrict immigration from one set of countries, and encourage immigration from another, almost always gets you labeled a racist

That is the very definition of racism. You're ascribing negative traits to specific races/ethnicities/countries, and using that as justification for discriminating against all individuals from that demographic.

If you want to advocate for racist policies as being pragmatic and in the public interests, go ahead and make that argument. But at least have the honesty to call it what it is.

FWIW, I don't think racism and stereotypes make for good public policy, no matter how "true" they may seem. This was the same logic used to discriminate against Irish, Italian and Eastern-European immigrants, and I don't think it's worth going down that same road once again. We can build a sensible immigration policy based on individual merit, without debasing ourselves into racist ideologies.

When the right talk about toxic and destructive cultures and suggest policy to address it then that is racism and discrimination.

When the left talk about toxic and destructive masculinity and suggest policy to address it then that is using clear language and decisive action about a structural issue in society.

We could be making sensible policies based on each individuals own merit and it would be great. No more women vs men, immigrant vs nationalist, white vs black. It is the future I would like to have but what I am getting is the choice between two ideologies who each ascribing negative traits to their own set of races and gender, with policies to match.

I'd consider myself a liberal, and I'm opposed to any and all attempts to discriminate against an entire demographic group, based on negative traits that are (supposedly) statistically common. Regardless of whether the group in question is Mexicans/Whites/Females/Males/Muslims. I would consider anyone espousing such ideology to be racist/sexist by definition. There are certainly fringe bigots in the left, but I'm sure the majority of Clinton voters feel similarly as I do.

I am glad to hear someone with that view. I would like it to be fringe, and while the last weeks election here in Swedish is plainly showing how mainstream generalizations like "mens violence again women" are, I feel like looking at like it is fringe might just help push it to actually become fringe.

Equality of this kind is a topic that could create common ground between liberal left and libertarian right, with policies and laws that focus on the individual and human behavior rather than groups. It would mean giving up having a group that each side can point at and blame for all faults in society, and the cynical in me would say that this means its political impossible, but it would make for a better world and possible push people to towards each other rather than apart.

I agree with you. There's nothing more dehumanizing than being insulted or discriminated against, because of the demographic group you belong to. I think we should all speak up against it when we see it happening.

> I'd consider myself a liberal, and I'm opposed to any and all attempts to discriminate against an entire demographic group, based on negative traits that are (supposedly) statistically common

Good for you. Any ideas about how to get people talking about "toxic masculinity" and "evil whiteness" day and night on board? How about people that call for "white genocide"?

> I would consider anyone espousing such ideology to be racist/sexist by definition.

OK. But would the consequences of this definition for someone publicly talking about "toxic masculinity" as something common to most/all males be the same as being an open misogynist, for example? And if not, do you think it's wrong and how would you propose to change it?

> I'm sure the majority of Clinton voters feel similarly as I do.

Do they? How comes somebody like Farrakhan is still very much welcome to the polite society on the left?

So you must believe the 1985 Schengen Agreement to be a racist policy, then. Or any international treaty delineated by a set of countries. That's quite the odd position in my opinion, I don't share your beliefs.

> Instead, we can barely talk about it.

Is your contention that the main thing about the election of Trump that upset the people in this video that he took a cooly rational stance against some forms of immigration?

Banning all Muslims -- including citizens and visa holders -- from entering the country does not seem to be aligned with this position.

Saying that a judge was unqualified to do his job because of where his parents were born does not seem to be aligned with this position.

Blasting the family of a soldier who died saving others on the basis of their race and religion does not seem to be aligned with this position.

If your point is that you're frustrated that Trump has lowered the standards of intellectual dialog in the country, well, join the club, friend.

No, my contention is that people who want to talk about immigration often get a response sidetracked with talking about Trump & co and whatever their positions are, instead of talking about immigration.

(Or worse, lumping any positions into support for whatever they're doing.)

That's fine, but that clearly isn't what happened here. This is very specifically about Trump.

The parent-most comment I replied to is commenting specifically on workplace tolerance, which I take to mean among employees and their own views.

Trump does not work at Google, Trump supporters at Google may support his policies, or not, and for his reasons or for their own reasons. Conservatives more generally have claimed Google is intolerant of their views, which is the reason this video is making the rounds in the first place.

So I disagree, I do not think this is very specifically about Trump. I think this is about workplace discussion of political issues, and for that matter is an issue in SV that pre-dates Trump. For example from 2015: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/closete...

"There's no reason anyone has to respect ethno-nationalist views against immigrants."

There are plenty of reasons to be against the current immigration regime that don't involve ethno-nationalism but it's nearly impossible to forward any such arguments without being accused of being an ethno-nationalist.

It sure doesn't help when our President says Mexican immigrants are "drug dealers and rapists", and wants to cut off immigration from "shithole countries".

*hole countries was anecdotal and reported by someone who did disagree very much with Mr. Trump. Just pointing out it's unproven.

You'd have to be extremely biased in your sources, to not believe that Trump said some variant of the above.

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/12/16885312/trump-shithole-countr...

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) told the Post and Courier that his South Carolina colleague Sen. Lindsey Graham, who attended the meeting, told him Trump’s reported comments were “basically accurate.”

And Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who also didn’t attend the meeting, told the Washington Post he heard about Trump’s comments before they went public, and they matched the later reports.

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/16/16897016/trump-shithole-shitho...

Anonymous Republican sources have pushed the story that Trump in fact used the phrase “shithouse countries.” According to the Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey, Robert Costa, and Ashley Parker, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA) told the White House that’s what they remember Trump saying in the meeting.

Trump has apparently decided that the controversy is hurting him politically, so his allies are using this minor discrepancy to justify public denials that he said “shithole.”

Like what?

I find it hard to believe you couldn't think of a reason to not support mass migration other than 'racism', but Sweden let around a million people into a country of 10 million in an unmanaged fashion which is causing a lot of social issues? Germany where Angela Merkel let in 5 million people and the CDU lost a huge amount of support after similar things happened?

Quantify those issues. At the scale of millions of people (I'm going to assume your 50 million was a typo, not that you're innumerate or gullible), one must quantify.

If 100 people out of 100,000 who migrate cause problems, and they are all fleeing intolerable living conditions, then the only reasonable way you can say that all 100,000 should be shut out is if you value the welfare of the 99,900 so low that it is outweighed by the social harm caused by the 100 even after taking into account the benefits of migration.

Most European migrants are financial migrants rather than refugees. A journalist went to Calais during the supposed 'Syrian refugee crisis' there and found 0 Syrians.

50 million people? Germany has a total population of 80 million, so something is definitely off with your numbers. What kind of "social issues" have immigrants caused in Sweden?

5 million, typo edited. The second is easily Googlable and not under dispute by anyone.

I did Google it and I found 1.7 million refugee applications in Germany in the period 2008-2017. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_migrant_crisis#Asylum...)

Where did you get your 5 million from?

Obviously controversial, but this could be one of the reasons some may fear immigration:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year%27s_Eve_sexual_assaul...

Which is one of the worst examples ever. It was so highly politizised at the time. But you have point, it actually helped to form a certain narrative and a lot of people followed that narrative.

How is it a bad example? From Wikipedia itself...

> On 7 June, a Federal Criminal Police Office report confirmed that most of the perpetrators were of North African origin and had arrived in Germany during the European migrant crisis. Investigative results about the perpetrators were congruent with witnesses' statements.[48]

Because it was one particular case and the numbers have been looked at isolated. That and the fact that the first reports have been exagerated. Not to even speak about the way right wing groups used these reports...

I'll leave it to you to research crime numbers like rape, theft andn such for carneval in Cologne or the Oktoberfest in Munich. Because These are the numbers that provide the context.

Disclaimer: That does not in the slightest way imply that any of These cases are defendable, the least of all rape. Still, context helps to prevent knee-jerk reactions.

So because of one example, you are attributing criminal behavior to a whole group of people? Sounds like textbook racism to me.

People can have opposing views about how to treat people equally, regardless of gender, sexuality, or ethnic origin. A famous historical example is the equality feminism vs difference (diversity) feminism, which is directly opposite views with the exact same goal. One view is that women and men are equal and any difference is so minor as to not be significant, the other asserts the differences and promotes them as being important and of equality worth. The effort to achieve equality are for those two groups opposing efforts where every step forward for one is a step backward for the other.

Intolerance against different opinions oppose any dissenting views that shares the same goal but not the strategy to reach it. Equality feminism vs diversity feminism, open source vs free software, and so on.

Setting aside the validity of Popper's Paradox, you might actually consider that you're on the wrong end of it: meaning, you're the intolerant one. I'm serious. Because you slander people who hold views opposite to yours and look to silence them once you have taken hold of power.

A person can be for immigration enforcement and NOT be an ethno-smethmo whateveryourecallingit. If you don't control your border, you're not a nation.

If only it were so simple. What you are proposing seems to require universal acceptance of an authoritarian regime that sets the social rules which are, as you say, "not negotiable". Otherwise in a free society almost everything is negotiable and a precise definition of common decency is not so common, particularly across cultures. Similarly, trying to produce a complete and widely-accepted definition of intolerance is almost certain to elicit plenty of actual intolerance, but not enough to actually compile a complete and widely-accepted definition of intolerance.

As a conservative who worked at Google: There also is risk is that if a conservative shares a conservative view correlated with intolerant views (but not actually intolerant), they become likely to be lumped in with the intolerant. The hard part about Popper's paradox is defining what is intolerant (outside of the obvious cases cited in the comments here).

When accusations of intolerance become effective weapons for silencing one's opponents, everything befomes intolerant. There's no mystery principle here: censorship and intimidation are pure power plays.

Modern intersectionality dictates that people be treated very differently based on their gender, sexuality, and ethnic origin.

Modern intersectionality starts from the observation that people ARE treated differently based on their gender, sexuality, and ethnic origin.

I don't know who the pope of modern intersectionality is, so I don't know what It dictates. But your formulation, if applied to abolitionists, would read like "Abolitionists dictate that people should be treated very differently based on whether they are currently enslaved"

This is a bad faith interpretation of intersectionality.

It's an accurate one, but you're welcome to add any nuance you feel is necessary and let people respond to it.

Well, for one, intersectionality is about how one describes reality, it is by no means normative and a cursory glance at the wikipedia page indicates as much, with citations if one is so inclined to put any effort at all in thinking critically.

But are you?

> intersectionality is about how one describes reality

I am sorry, but this is one of the most useless definitions I've read lately. Almost any human activity and any point of view can be described as "about how one describes reality", from quantum gravity theory to buddhism. And, on top of that, it does not contradict the premise bitlax described above.

I am all for thinking critically but if you proclaim that the description above is wrong - and not only just wrong, but so obviously wrong as the wrongness to be obvious to the author, and thus "bad faith" - I think the minimum requirement for you would be to produce a better definition. And "read the wikipedia, it's all there" is not providing a better one.

You should disclose that you are a Google employee in your comment.

Why? There's no potential conflict of interest.

There is no such paradox.

Popper is talking about not permitting of force as a mechanism for dispute resolution. The "paradox of tolerance" isn't a paradox at all. It's just a bludgeon people use to suppress free speech. It's ridiculous to claim that a discussion of the proper level of immigration is a threat to discourse generally.

I'm assuming you're totally against Asia then? Asian countries have been far more staunch against refugees.

Japan for example accepted only 27 refugees in one year while rejecting 7,586 according to the Brookings Institute. South Korea accepted only 94 in one year. Refugees are pretty much shut off from Singapore and China and many other Asian countries.

I'm curious why these countries don't receive the same flak for their "ethno-nationalist" views against immigrants. There are no boycotts against buying goods from these countries as they are with Trump hotels.

EDIT: I see that you work for Google. Your company is censoring content on behalf of the communist government in China despite their "ethno-nationalist" views against immigrants (not to mention their abysmal human rights record). What's the explanation?

20, 30 years ago many of the same people clamoring for open borders now were speaking against globalization, corporate imperialism, cultural imperialism, but speaking for and on behalf of the cause of American workers who were being swapped out for offshoring, etc. But now the credo is open borders and strong companies which can stand against nation states and dictate values.... It’s as if the political magnetosphere swapped poles.

Who is clamoring for open borders? I don't know of any prominent examples of political figures who take that position, just examples where their opponents falsely characterise the position as "open borders".

The ptogressive base makes arguments for it. They make arguments against ICE, make arguments agaist enforcing immigration laws, make arguments for “sanctuary cities”. What other country, even poor countries who, for consistency’s sake, should espouse such policy had such policies? Most othet countries I’ve been to the police have the power to deport; depening on case, on the spot. I have known of people who worked abroad who were given hours to arrange for their stuff and get out after staying beyond their visas.

Neither "abolish ICE" nor "sanctuary cities" are equivalent positions to "open borders". That's my point. I just searched again, and find only one example of a politician coming anywhere close to advocating open borders (Keith Ellison, representative for MN, wore a shirt saying "yo no creo en fronteras." He has however repeatedly refused to openly say he supports "open borders".) The mainstream liberal/progressive position isn't to clamor for open borders. It is to clamor for every individual to be treated with dignity and respect and compassion for their circumstances. The push to abolish ICE and for sanctuary cities is a reaction to injustice committed in the name of the law by ICE specifically. (In the progressive view, what is "just" is a different question to what does the law say.) All the talk about "open borders" comes from conservatives purposely exaggerating and mis-characterizing their opponents' views.

"sanctuary city" is essentially equivalent to open borders. If you deny the ability to enforce immigration policy, then having immigration policy is just a waste of money and effort. It's like having a door but no walls around, so if you are not allowed in the door, you just go around it.

> He has however repeatedly refused to openly say he supports "open borders"

Come on. If the person does not say "open borders" for tactical reasons, it doesn't mean he doesn't support the concept, especially if he says "no creo en fronteras".

> The push to abolish ICE and for sanctuary cities is a reaction to injustice committed in the name of the law by ICE specifically.

So let's say police and courts do an injustice (that happens a lot) and you say you want now to abolish police and courts. Would it be unfair to say you object to law enforcement? If yes, then you'd have to explain how do you see law enforcement absent police and courts. Or recognize that - for whatever reasons you arrived to this position - you are now doing exactly that. Somebody who objects to enforcement of immigration laws - as a whole, not in specific cases - must either explain how it is not "open borders" - and the burden of proof is on them - or recognize that's what they are for. Even if it is tactically uncomfortable.

> All the talk about "open borders" comes from conservatives purposely exaggerating and mis-characterizing their opponents' views

Please explain how "open borders" is mischaracterizing "yo no creo en fronteras". Maybe my Spanish is worse than I thought it is - what exactly does it mean then?

Just in this topic there is several commenters that take exactly that position. There are many more. Of course, not every person who opposes immigration restrictions is for open borders, and not every politician that is ultimately for open borders would think it is a good tactics to proclaim it right now. But proponents of unlimited (and essentially unlimited - i.e. guarded by checks that anyone with two brain cells can pass or limited by mechanism that lacks enforcement in practice) immigration obviously and prominently exist. You can see people with slogans proclaiming that on any pro-immigration protest. Surely, not everybody thinks so. But denying that there are many people saying so is denying the obvious.

> I'm curious why these countries don't receive the same flak for their "ethno-nationalist" views against immigrants. There are no boycotts against buying goods from these countries as they are with Trump hotels.

This is text book whataboutism. Just because someone isn't publicly complaining about Y doesn't make their criticism of X any less relevant.

Y is more far oppressive but is coddled while X gets all the flak and is stifled. Conservative sites like Breitbart are essentially stifled on Google while the oppressive Chinese government can manipulate any Google search results it wants. What is Google's reasoning for this?

This isn’t a fair comparison. The Chinese government cannot manipulate search results outside of China, where companies must either comply with local law or be eliminated via the Great Firewall.

This policy, while controversial in itself, has nothing to do with what you perceive as “stifling” of Breitbart in, I presume, American search results. I’d argue that this is nearly blatantly untrue - try searching for a term that Breitbart has written about, and you’ll find results at the top [0] or for Breitbart itself, and you’ll get a full-featured overview of Breitbart content and articles [1].

What evidence is there that Breitbart is stifled by Google?

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+may+use+military+to+bu...

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=breitbart

And just because one Party is really "evil" I can be as "evil" as I want unless I become the most "evil"? Really?

And you really Need an Explanation why a company adopts to reuls in specific country (not saying it is good thing) and treats a (fringe) news outlet differently (not sure if they actually do, so)?

The problem with this line of thought is that it is used to strongarm people with conventional right wing political views into silence by accusing them of harboring the taboo opinions you listed.

You cannot utter even the most platonic of right wing sentiments without the shrieks of frantic lunatics accusing you of being Hitler himself.

This idea of taboo subjects is exploited by nefarious far left activists, not for the cause of 'decency' or the preservation of western liberalism, but as a bludgeon to silence all thoughtcrime of the right.

No, it's not about "intolerant of people who are intolerant". There are actually a lot of people who are actually intolerant which are tolerated much better than a conservative in a liberal environment. Surely, the disagreement may be deeper on fundamentals, but the everyday tolerance would be worse.

> There's no reason anyone has to respect ethno-nationalist views against immigrants.

There's something called "political Turing test". The essence is that if you can not convincingly describe a position of an opposing side - in a way that they'd agree it is close to what they believe in - then you are not fit to discuss this position intelligently. Unfortunately, from the video is pretty clear almost nobody of those who spoke there would pass this test on anything related to anybody who voted for Trump. Yet they feel fully entitled to deny basic respect to people they didn't even bother to understand. And yet they feel smugly morally superior about it.

Reason:

Narcissist finds it convienient to assume all who disagree with them are ethnonationalists.

treating people equally, regardless of gender, sexuality, or ethnic origin

This is a very vague statement, you can apply to your convenience. You could say Damore broke the principle and justify any penalty against him. I could say you don't follow this civility premise by choosing your partner based on your gender.

Every country in the world has "ethno-nationalist views against immigrants", and things work fine.

> Every country in the world has "ethno-nationalist views against immigrants", and things work fine.

For whom?

Pick any country in Asia.

The world would be $78 trillion richer if countries had open borders. So I'm not sure what definition you have for "fine".

https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2017/07/13/a-world-of...

This article is bunk. It makes unbased extrapolation from small-volume migration to a mass migration which has completely different set of problems. ObXKCD: https://www.xkcd.com/605/

It depends on what the meaning of the word "equally" is.

Only if definitions of "tolerance" and "equality" were that simple. Not all people on left are tolerant. As a Hindu I have found that the left is far more intolerant of Pagans that Christian conservatives in USA. Libertarians are easily one of the most tolerant of them all but the left does not like them either.

Painting people you don't like as "intolerant" and "deserving of persecution" was precisely how Hitler convinced Germans that it was okay to kill Jews.

This exactly. The common playbook now seems to be to hide racism and intolerance under the blanket of conservative and accusing anyone who opposes that to be against free speech and conservatives. These nonnegotiable values do not belong to the left or right, it belongs to the society as a whole.

No, the common playbook now seems to be to accuse anybody disagreeing with the hard left in racism and intolerance as an attempt to avoid any discussion with them and if possibly, demolish their personality and their life so nobody else would dare to speak up. While posing as "society as a whole" and taking on oneself to define what is nonnegotiable (which curiously seems to be exactly matching the views of whoever is declaring it) and unilaterally deciding that only the views the declarer holds or ones extremely similar to them are even worth discussing, and people not agreeing to them must be unpersoned.

Who decides these nonnegotiable values? Society as a whole? If half of the country voted for Trump and believes in his values, then half of the society that you are a part of has different nonnegotiable values. So these values are no longer nonnegotiable and are now very much just whatever values the majority holds.

Why do you assume the basic values differ between these two set of people. That is seeing people in black and white. Let us take a nonnegotiable value of not being racist. Are you implying that 50% of the people are racist. Nope - that is certainly not the case. People who voted for Trump might have voted for various other things - there might have been certain issues that they resonated with him, vote for Republican party etc. They might have voted for him despite his flaws.

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