Not in the subject at hand. I think pretty much everyone reasonable agrees that "kill the {jews,muslims,hispanics}" (once more, folks, this was the THIRD ethnic massacre advertised on 8chan!) is intolerant, no? Can't we start there?
I don´t know why but every time I read a sentence that starts with "I think pretty much everyone reasonable agrees that ..." I get the feeling that the person saying it haven´t really thought things through and does not see how vastly more complex the world is than they assume.
Think about it this way: what if in the mind of the person making that claim, it is one of self-defense and self-preservation? is it still intolerant?
Here is an example: As someone who grew up in the middle east, I heard people out in the open say things like: "Jews ought to be killed off" or "the imperialist American fucks deserve whatever happens to them" and if you ask them why they believe and say such evil shit, the answer in some way, shape or form always comes back to: they invaded our land, killed our ancestors and are threatening to do the same to us now, and hence we are not being intolerant but rather, we are just trying to defend ourselves (tribalism in other words).
You and I can agree that it is despicable and disgusting that people think that way. But in their minds, you are the unreasonable one. What you call intolerance to them is not that at all.
Take away: Perspectives matter in the world; and if you make a hard/deterministic rule based on a subjective understanding of an issue followed by projecting it as "what reasonable people should think", you will always get into some shady edge cases that cannot be resolved by the deterministic rule that you initially set because the world is not made up of a bunch of you:s.
You and I probably agree on what is intolerant/tolerant in most cases. However, other people who do not have the same cultural and moral upbringing might disagree with us. Hence the parent´s comment: "I can easily see people disagreeing on what is and is not intolerant"
I'm gathering from your example that you're trying to preserve the rights of a bunch of middle easterners to say things like "kill the jews", and not understanding why you think that's permissible.
I mean, the El Paso shooter genuinely believes that the US is under invasion by mexicans too. Everyone has opinions. The point is that some opinions are just wrong. This is like morality 101. You aren't entitled to kill folks, no matter how much you want to. And you aren't entitled to egg other folks on to kill folks either.
You seem to have extracted the wrong conclusion from the post made because you are thinking in identitarian terms.
> The point is that some opinions are just wrong. This is like morality 101. You aren't entitled to kill folks, no matter how much you want to. And you aren't entitled to egg other folks on to kill folks either.
You are 100% right, some opinions are wrong. But the point is: who´s to judge which ones are right and which one are wrong? I assume that you, in your infinite wisdom, find yourself to be of such a high caliber that all of humanity should use what is obvious to you as the "gold standard"? You took your inherited moral values from your culture, and projected them as the natural and obvious conclusion we should all reach. Now if that isn´t arrogance, I don´t know what is. And I am not trying to be offensive here, this is what your comment indicates. And that is what you should have gathered from the previous comment.
The funny thing is, I agree with you completely here. Again, you and I would probably agree on 99% in terms of what we deem "moral" because both you and I have inherited the those values from our cultures. However, you are in a sense dictating that the moral values you inherited are infinitely more superior than all the others. I mean you are making deterministic statements about subjective issues while calling those who dare not agree "unreasonable" without considering for a second that other people that live in other parts of the world might have different views.
Let me put it in a different way: I am not defending group X´s right to say or do Y. No matter the group. I hate identity politics beyond belief. I am merely rejecting the notion that YOU are reasonable enough to make claim as to what people should or shouldn´t be able to say. Because just as you think yourself to be the wise and saintly moral crusader that you are, others think the same about themselves. Soon enough HN user "bjross" will be writing the exact opposite of what you are writing while claiming that he/she is the moral authority on the subject.
It isn´t that I am defending the evil doers; it´s that I am opposing your (proposed) evil which I think is far worse as it leads down a slippery slope like which the world have seen many times before.
Who's to judge that anything is wrong? Murder, theft etc.? In the end, we must organize a society. If you don't like thinking of society's judgment -- made through whatever institutions it creates -- as universal moral rulings, think of them as organizational rules. If you kill someone under certain conditions, society puts you in jail, and the word "wrong" is used for those things society deems jail-worthy (and probably beyond that, too). In this case, society does decide what opinions are right or wrong in the correctness sense, only what ideas can be detrimental to its own survival to a degree that justifies enforcement. Who decides where is that line? The same institutions that decide the penalty for reckless driving.
Any freedom is some compromise. If a society has two people or more, then either one person is allowed to, say, enslave the other, in which case the society isn't totally free, or not, in which case the society also isn't totally free. So there is no such thing as absolute freedom, and whenever we say freedom we actually mean some point on a spectrum. We could argue over what that reasonable point is, but absolute freedom is something that can't exist. So instead of speaking in absolutes, let's acknowledge that we're arguing over a favorite compromise.
It's not a moral principle. It's an explanation of where we find ourselves. This doesn't mean we shouldn't keep striving for a just society, but we don't live in a just society.
Or maybe we can develop really advance VR so that make possible for everyone to live in their own ideal socity.
If everybody simply stuck to treating others how they would want to be treated, we'd live in a much better world already, even if it wasn't "perfect", and even if there were disagreements, and it all still always subject to constant learning and reflection.
Our main problems don't stem from out confusion about what we think is right (and by "we" I mean each of us as the individuals that actually exist, not as a collective abstraction), but from wanting what we think is right for ourselves, while having double standards for others, and rationalizations for those.
[0] I know there are such policemen, I extrapolate to expect there are likeminded judges too.
How many people would think that it was okay for the government to steal private property in the border states under the concept of “imminent domain” if it meant that the wall could be built?
Yes imminent domain is theft. The government rarely pays the fair market value.
Sure. Slavery was moral, or if I disagree with it, I'll accept it as an organisational rule instead. Ditto apartheid, ditto the way many mid-eastern countries treat women.
Anyway...
> So when a particular society legislates a law, you don't necessarily have to take it as if that particular society has settled a universal moral question
Point taken, but laws can be plain immoral, even evil. Laws should be as moral as possible. Laws without a moral backing would seem to be meaningless.
But lets put that aside, let's take your intended point that laws are an attempt to formalise morality, and lets also assume morality is what we'd call moral (not oppressing women/minorities/certain religions/etc). You say
> but you cannot equivocate on a law
but you damn well can! In the UK the definition of theft involves intent. From wiki "[...] if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it"
It's all about intent. It's the crux of it IIRC (and I did a short course in law). A lot of law is about intent. I hit a person in the face. Deliberate? I get spanked. Genuine unavoidable accident? I get let off. Intent is central. It is very equivocable.
In our case, which of 8chan's members are in it for pure lulz, and which because they really want to start a race war. Hard to tell intent.
Still sounds like the world is a cleaner place without them lot.
That's not equivocation, it's what I called nuance, and mentioned the judiciary's role in managing it. With ethics you can say, "this is a hard question," and leave it at that; with the law, you must decide. The judge or jury must ultimately decide whether to punish the possible thief or not, and if so, how -- say, by making a decision on intent, perhaps taking degrees into account. Either society decides to shut 8chan down or not; "it's complicated" isn't an option (I mean, it may well be, but a decision must be reached). So whatever ethics is at play, and however complicated it is, a decision on action must be and is made.
And BTW, not every offense must have criminal intent. Traffic violations, for example, do not (in the jurisdictions I know). Murder, as it is defined in many jurisdictions, requires intent, but even without it killing is often a very serious offense (e.g. you can kill through an intent to endanger, and you can kill through negligence, and you'll end up in prison for both).
I think you mean that slavery was legal. Most people would hold that it was never moral. Some people hold these same beliefs now about some of our current behaviors toward other animals: they're legal but not moral.
This statement is not as self-evident as you seem to believe. Philosophers and ethicists have been debating it for millennia.
>Philosophers and ethicists have been debating it for millennia
Thats even more strengthen my position that morality is subjective.
So OK, I'll do the same: I disagree that morality is subjective.
Edit: so if I disagree that the world is round, that shows that it's flat?
>so if I disagree that the world is round, that shows that it's flat?
No, it just show that you disagree that the world is round
But just because people disagree about something doesn't mean it's purely subjective. Some things have an objective truth value but people will still disagree on it, because people get things wrong sometimes. Objectively wrong. All the time, in fact.
You're right that neither "ajross" nor "bjross" should be the moral authority who dictates the moral values. That's because they're almost certainly wrong about some things. You're almost certainly wrong about some things. I'm definitely wrong about some things, and I really hope I find out as much as I can about what I'm wrong about as soon as I can.
Therefore it would be a bad system to set up any one person as the moral authority. Instead, we want a system such that over time, the objectively better views dominate and the objectively worse views shrink in influence.
A total free-for-all where anyone can say anything and any kind of engagement will help promote those views, like 8chan or Gab, is clearly not such a system. You don't think a careful implementation of "tolerating anything but intolerance" could possibly be such a system, and is in fact a "far worse evil"? What rules do you think there should be, or do you think a free-for-all with no rules is the only way to not lead down the "slippery slope"?
Of course the world is not black and white, there are shades of grey. That is completely orthogonal to subjectivity vs objectivity. Just because a situation is grey and no one can agree on which shade of grey it is, doesn't mean the situation doesn't objectively have a shade. It can just mean humans are fallible and can't see perfectly, so we're all wrong to some degree about the correct shade. But there could still be a correct shade.
Separately, every single example you brought up is black-and-white. If a "knife-wielding maniac" were in the process of killing random innocents and police don't have a way of nonlethally restraining them, then of course the police are justified in killing them. If a cop in the USA or anywhere was in mortal danger and had no way of nonlethally restraining their attacker, then killing their attacker is justified regardless of the mental health of their attacker. If an innocent isn't following contradictory commands and isn't threatening anyone's life, of course it isn't justified to kill them, what are you talking about?! There is nothing grey about the fact that failing to follow contradictory commands by police should clearly not be punishable by death?!?!!
I'm sure there are tons of Han Chinese on the street who think concentration camps for Muslims in China is acceptable, just like there are tons of Americans on the street who think concentration camps for Muslims in America is acceptable, just like there were tons of Americans on the street who thought that internment camps for Japanese-Americans were acceptable, tons of Palestinians who think all Jews are invaders who should be wiped out, tons of Jews who think all Palestinians are suicide-bombers who should be wiped out.
Those people are wrong. Those examples are not shades of grey and not subjective, lots of people disagree because lots of people are wrong.
I'm also wrong about lots of things, I should not be dictator of the world, and neither should anyone else. That's why we need a system with rules set up so that the more wrong ideas shrink in influence and the less wrong ideas spread in influence.
Sure, we can say 1 + 1 = 2, and that's objectively correct. But in terms of morality what is "objectively right" and "objectively wrong"? Moral objectively usually comes from some base assumption that has to be made. Whether its the existence of a higher being, happiness meter, or utilitarianism.
"Instead, we want a system such that over time, the objectively better views dominate and the objectively worse views shrink in influence." According to history, I wouldn't really say this is guaranteed either, but that's my opinion.
I agree that we do need a system, that not tolerating intolerance is a good basic principle, and that such a system can be functional. I don’t think it can ever be perfect, because people aren’t perfect, but it can be a lot better than nothing.
I address this. In fact, I explicitly say I agree. No one can be trusted to make that judgment. Hence, the need for a system that doesn't place absolute trust in anyone.
> "we want a system such that [...]" [...] I wouldn't really say this is guaranteed either
What? You wouldn't say what is guaranteed? You wouldn't say it's guaranteed that we want such a system?
If you think they are wrong then you have to gain power to be more powerful than them to override it (by gaining mass support, government support or any other means).
I don't think it's possible to have any other system.
My comment was an explanation of why advocating such a culture, as part of this system, is not an "evil [...] far worse [than "kill the jews"]".
even that can't be objectively correct because it based on agreed upon the definition of 1, definition of 2, definition of + and the axiom.
We have the power to decide. This is what the companies dropping 8chan are doing: using their power to stand up to something they view as morally wrong. Most people are happy to take your money regardless of your politics, but endorsement of domestic terrorism isn't worth the abstract philosophical consideration. If you take a moment to empathize with your fellow humans and consider the horrific suffering wrought by ideologies endorsed by 8chan, it's very easy to come to the conclusion that 8chan deserves to be destroyed.
If you want to use your platform for good, you do good no matter the time. You do your patriotic duty and we´ll all clap and cheer you on. However ISIS and right wing extremest sites have been protected by CF for years and nothing has been done so far. It´s not like CF went on a cleaning spree and dropped hundreds of shady clients that are faaaaaar worse and much much nastier than 8chan. This wasn´t a "do good / patriotic moment". This was a timely and coordinated decision (together with patreon) which leads me to speculate that it could be one of two things: either it´s mere PR move and I despise that type of behavior as it could easily be hijacked by echo chambers among other things, or it could be something far more malicious which others have speculated enough on so I won´t bother mentioning.
That said, if you are of the opinion that "A service provider has the right to deny service to a client that it subjectively deems to have a bad effect on society", then I´d like to know in case you´d make that same argument for the Bakery/gay wedding case. If not, then what is the difference really as the same argument could be easily made in both cases?
Why? It's a business not a "platform for good"
> It´s not like CF went on a cleaning spree and dropped hundreds of shady clients that are faaaaaar worse and much much nastier than 8chan
So what? Maybe recent events struck a personal chord with the owners and they said "fuck it, we don't need their businesses, it's one small thing we can do to offer our support to the victims". If they're hosting "much nastier" customers than 8chan then it's fair to ask them to do better or call out their hypocrisy and ask them to rectify the situation.
> this wasn´t a "do good / patriotic moment".
I never said it was.
> I´d like to know in case you´d make that same argument for the Bakery/gay wedding case
I followed this case closely and my views on it are complex. It's not as simple as most people like to suggest. In short, I think the SCOTUS made the right ruling specifically because of the reasoning put forth by Kennedy in the majority opinion; in particular, that the colorado commissions board demonstrated a hostility towards religion in their application of the state anti-discrimination laws. The opinion even goes as far as to say that the ruling could have went the other way if the commission had more evenly applied the anti-discrimination laws in past cases. Further, I agree with the reasoning that suggests forcing the baker to create a bespoke cake-to-order is a form of artistic expression and should be protected by the first amendment and that his speech should not be compelled. However, the baker in this case specifically argued that homosexuals should be prohibited even from purchasing pre-made off-the-shelf cakes that were not made-to-order. This clearly crosses the line into discrimination of a protected class, so in my view he ultimately got away on a technicality, but the SCOTUS had no choice.
> either it´s mere PR move and I despise that type of behavior
If it's "a mere PR move" then who cares? CF is a private businesses and it's their prerogative to operate their business in a fashion that is beneficial to their PR image.
If political ideology was a protected class, would you be opposed to Cloudfare dropping 8chan?
It wasn't enacted by the 8chan community, it was enacted by the shooter only. And endorsed, well, I have seen many people on Reddit and Twitter who say that all Republicans are evil and should be killed, yet when Steve Scalise was shot, they weren't banned for their support of terrorism and assassination. The same principles you apply to your side should be applied to the other side.
It was enacted by a member of the community and other members of the community voiced support for the acts before, during, and after the attacks.
> I have seen many people on Reddit and Twitter who say that all Republicans are evil and should be killed
You can find anyone saying anything anywhere on the internet, but it's very obvious to anyone who has actually used 8chan that it's a particularly toxic community that is generally friendly to violent ideologies.
Why? Because given the technical sophistication of NSA,GHCQ etc vs the average extremist manic in the wild, it is the easiest honeypot there could be to catch all the extremist flies. Click a Like button on FB ISIS page.. Gotcha; watch a ISIS video served through the CDN.. Gotcha; Have any sort of ingress,egress data flow from any of the ISIS content... Gotcha
Whereas foreign terrorists are always worth monitoring.
I don't know man, even if the NSA, FBI etc couldn't give a shit about the legal implications, Cloudflare as a public company and it's officers would have legal liability if they violated the law.
Wild conjecture I know :)
"All mean are created equal, etc etc".
Now, we've often failed to live up to those words in the past, but it's an (ideally) constantly-improving process. Regardless, it's much, much more desirable than some anarchical cultural relativism where everyone does what they damn well please.
There is virtually no moral judgment that every person will agree on. So what? Just because morality is ultimately subjective, society should completely avoid making any kind of judgments regarding it? Frankly I don't care that every person, including those committing terrible acts, view themselves as morally correct. I have my own values that I obviously believe are superior, and I will make an effort to impose them on society. I assume that everyone else is doing the same thing. I hope that the "best" views will become the most common.
That said however, you are missing a lot of nuances imo if you think that this form of "every man for himself" is how the west currently operates.
Judges. That's literally what judges do.
So no death penalty? No military intervention in countries which have not attacked yours? And shutdown any site/radio/TV that try to talk about it?
I don't want to know your thoughts about those particular subject, just want to show what sort of situation you can get into when arguing for criteria to limit freedom of speech.
What about monitoring these forums possibly with keyword recognition, and enforce laws such as the ones against invitation to violence?
Because it's pointless? People that have feelings and drives that make them do heinous things won't stop having them, and won't stop seeking others having them and discussing them. They'd just publish their manifests on other places. There are tons of public places. Let's say next psycho creates a Github account and publishes the next psychotic rant as Github repo. Now we have to burn Github to the ground? Or only if there are three such psychos that know how to set up a Github account?
> The point is that some opinions are just wrong.
True enough. The problem here is that somehow you think you can always tell which ones, and that you will wield the power to do it. The experience shows neither are true - you probably hold lots of wrong opinions without knowing it, and the power to exclude wrong opinions from polite society probably will be not in your hands. The best way to check every law would be "what if my worst enemy was in charge of implementing it?". If you're still OK with it - then it's a good law. Otherwise you're assuming Powers That Be would always agree with you - and that's a dangerous thing to assume.
Try telling that to the US military. Or cops.
And it if you step back a bit you'll see that it is _obvious_(!) that the person you are replying to is exactly NOT saying that it is permissible to massacre Jews. S/he is pointing out that "obviousness" is an ill-defined criterion which can let any old genocidal predjudice slip through.
Cops in the US do not have impunity. They may sometimes get away with too much, but they can and do go to jail for murder. There have been a few cases I could name off the top of my head in the last few years, but I’m sure many more are findable with little effort.
I totally don't mean that in a condescending way, just sharing my thoughts from my own experiences!
When you say that the El Paso shooter believed that the US is under invasion, that was his incorrect belief, not a "wrong opinion". The opinion would be that he thinks he's justified to try to kill those people.
Don’t you think it’s despicable that we don’t think this way?
We’re there, killing their wives, children and friends. We’re destroying the infrastructure. But we don’t even have any particularly strong feelings about it. It’s just what’s economically and politically expedient...
Disagreement has been corner stone of any community. It is healthy in some sense, and might even be required for progress of humankind altoghter. That said...
> What you call intolerance to them is not that at all.
If ignorance, short sightedness, revenge, hatered, jealousy, wickedness is behind a thought or an action, we can universally agree to it being inferior and defective.
Like the OP said, moral and philosophical education along with ability to independently think sets reasonable people apart from others, and I agree.
That's a fairly good description of Machiavelli.
More philosophically, however, one important way to take on the problem of subjectivism is to use something like Rawl's veil of ignorance, or Sherner's fairness principle:
“The Fairness Principle: When contemplating a moral action, imagine that you do not know if you will be the moral doer or receiver, and when in doubt err on the side of the other person.”
> ... And yet, we have largely workable, if _imperfect_, ways to resolve such disagreements, _so that everyone can get on with life_
I agree with you on the first part but disagree on the reasoning behind it.
I have a framework that I personally use when I think about topics such as this one. It has helped me understand a fair bit about social organizations in general as I see it applied everywhere I look. I´ll write the gist of it down here and you tell me what you think:
1. There are two types of solutions to problems: deterministic solutions (100% perfect solutions that can be algorithmically spelled out) and heuristics (good enough shortcuts that have x% error margin and y% efficiency - What you called imperfect solutions).
2. We desperately want to find as many deterministic solutions we possibly can to any and all problems that we face. And where we fail to do so, heuristics are brought in to help us, as best as possible, approximate that "deterministic/perfect/ideal".
3. Heuristics are things like religion, moral frameworks, political systems, language, etc. - Notice that none of them is deterministic in any way, shape or form. They are all imperfect. However, they are rule-sets that are more or less ambiguous that helps us navigate most of the problem space with relatively low effort. But the trade-off here is that heuristics break at the edges - free speech vs. hate speech is a clear example of a failure in the heuristic.
4. It is important to note that all heuristics have some error rate. If they did not, they´d be deterministic solutions. So whatever heuristic you want to use to solve a given problem, Popper´s, Rawl´s or otherwise, you have to always make sure to take the errors that might emerge into account. The error rate is far more important than most people realize as it is the determining factor for how successful/effective the heuristic is going to be in society.
5. When suggesting alternatives to an existing heuristic because of some apparent flaws - such as replacing our current understanding and notion of intolerance by Popper´s take on the matter - the new heuristic that you propose that should overwrite the old one must have a smaller margin of error. Otherwise, why even bother? in fact, if this isn´t the case, you risk making things worse rather than better.
6. Iterate on the process until you come up with better and better heuristics that increasingly approximates the deterministic solution (lower error rate over time until you reach the holy grail of 99.999999...%).
7. Every once in a while, as humanity is traversing its path, some heuristics will be replaced by deterministic answers. Ex: science replaces religion when it comes to describing the natural world -> moving from heuristic religious interpretation of the natural world to a more deterministic approach.
This is how society betters itself over time. It is an iterative process that replaces old systems with newer ones that are less prone to errors. My beef with Rawl´s, Pooper (as I call him) and most of the other thinkers that people read in 1st year college class is that the heuristics they paint are already far inferior than the ones that we currently have. But unfortunately, the academic class (read teachers) cannot see that because they lack a good framework for assessing the effectiveness/error rates of a given heuristic.
I would agree that it's a measurement problem in the sense that we don't even know what or how to measure it. But your analysis is silent on what an error is so I'm not really sure what you think you have gained by it.
> It's not clear to me how you can say that a new heuristic is "far inferior", nor how you can say that the academics lack a good framework but you presumably don't. How do you know what a good framework would look like?
It isn´t that I have something that they don´t have. It´s far more sinister than that. And here is my argument:
The best tool we have at the moment is: you play it (any given set of ideas) out in the real world and look at the consequences in terms of elevating/reducing the amount of suffering that is at the basis of the human condition - after all, that is the end goal of political heuristics. Popper´s and Rawl´s ideas are not "new" in the sense that they have been extensively tried in the past. They were murderous beyond belief but somehow that is always forgotten and never accounted for as linguistics is used to disguise the actual end-result of the experiment by saying that "they have not been tested at all" or that "these are new cutting edge ideas".
As an example, we can take a look at communism. The total body count that was produced under communistic regimes would probably make for a giant mountain that would take months to climb. Yet somehow you always hear the slogan "that wasn´t real communism" as a rebuttal to the inherit evil of said set of ideas. If you pay close attention, parse the ideas given and see if they have previously tried or not, you can most often tell that the vast majorities of proposed changes are new reformulations of old and debunked shit.
Example: Marxism views the world as a battle between two groups, the rich and the poor. 3rd wave feminism views the world as a battle group between men and women. This is an over-simplification obviously but what I am hoping to demonstrate here is that it is the same old wolf in sheep´s clothing. We don´t need to replay that experiment to know where it will end up. This is the best we can do at the moment. Am I happy with this methodology of evaluating ideas? hell no. But we have no mechanism that performs any better. And as for the academic class, heck, it is they that purposefully spread these reformulations to the younger generations by actively reworking old debunked ideas as their own "new" takes on how the world ought to be - which is why I tend to believe that academia (especially the social "sciences") is far more sinister than first meets the eye.
Note: I used marxism/communism here as an example just for convenience. I could have just as easily used the Veil of Ignorance or the argument of intolerance to demonstrate that same principle. They have been tried many times before and they were incredibly counter-productive. In spite of what most people think, the modern form of western societies can be seen as a function of the set of most effective ideas that have been tested to date (effective = generate the most amount of reduction in overall human suffering). It isn´t perfect (it´s a heuristic after all) but in comparison to all other tried and tested set of ideas, it is the best we can do atm. Besides, even in the west, small variations of these ideas are currently being tried within each nation state. It is a process that takes time but as these experiments unfold, we will learn something new and converge on a better solution once one is found.
To go way back up to your original post I kind of agree with you on subjectivity but I really don't see how you're then arguing that your framework demonstrates that Rawls etc have been 'debunked'.
For example, there maybe those who dislike Israel and even want war. But to then say "all Jews are evil" is incorrect. Most don't even live there to control policy. Of those that do, many object to policy. It's like saying some terrorists are Muslim so all Muslims are evil. Or that North Korea is dangerous therefore all Koreans are dangerous. Or America does some bad things therefore all Americans should die. It's all obviously incorrect.
You can have a reason to want to fight a _country_ but there can never be a reason to annihilate a complex, nuanced group because of their skin color or religion etc. There can be reasons for war (which is bad enough) but there can never be reasons for genocide. Americans might have reason to hate Japan after Pearl Harbor but to lock up all Japanese inside the country is obviously wrong.
More generally, there can be very good reason to stop a group organized around an action (eg Neo-Nazis). But to say "all whites must die" (because all Neo-Nazis are white) is obviously an incorrect expansion.
Unfortunately, it's a common blurring that exploitative leaders take advantage of. Today some Western leaders foment hate against all Muslims and some Islamic leaders foment hate against all Jews. In the past it was other groups. It is these leaders that are the danger.
Where is the thresh hold the judgment is made at and will we consistently apply it to all groups? I can think of examples of groups that are reviled by most, yet who have members who don't desire directly evil policies. Some desire forms of what may qualify as oppression that are even seen by the majority as acceptable when you swap out certain groups.
To someone like me, who believes quite intuitively that humans are generally the same everywhere, it's hard to grasp, but I don't see how I can prove it's objectively wrong.
Yes.
It may be understandable, I get it, I have the same angry impulses as most human beings and it's very easy to feel antagonists should be simply disposed with. But that doesn't distinguish it from being intolerant.
Even if there's a genuine existential threat, indulging an intolerant response means you (1) you cut off the possibility for negotiation, and the remaining choices are victory or your own tribe's annihilation (2) it's not like the one source of antagonism/conflict is really just the other tribe, and once you build into individual minds and your tribe the idea and support for this kind of total solution, it's likely to get used again even if/after you "win."
I don't expect everyone, especially among populations that have been part of generational conflicts where they already feel they're facing an existential threat, to just sing kumbaya. Maybe it's an important descriptive point to say "not everyone can agree genocide should't be tolerated in valued discourse," but it's not a good normative point. We should be trying to get to the point where genocide is beyond the pale, where people can more finely articulate that many aspects of middle eastern policy at the state or tribal level are unacceptable for a humane civilization without kneecapping any chance for improvement, and in general where we can shape discourse it should be steered away from tribalism.
Or I guess we could always try to kill everybody who believes in genocide.
It will answer your question and make you laugh at the same time. 2 birds 1 stone!
My response is clearly whatboutism, and I understand that jewish, muslims, and hispanics are greatly different than naming the belligerents of armed conflicts, but this very slippery slope is why historically the US Supreme Court has resoundingly only made the most narrow rulings regarding limiting speech.
The original statement was building consensus that "reasonable people" agree killing {some group} is intolerant.
The clash of civilizations rhetoric makes this assertion dubious to most people that are not in the USA. That coupled with the large-scale widespread bombing of much of the world since WW2 and the support of despots engaged in torture and repression makes your fine distinction a cold comfort for hundreds of thousands (we think the price was worth it) of children.
The tendencies revealed in 8chan are a reflection of core values of US civilization.
To pretend otherwise, and agonize over the origins and supposed abnormality of racist genocide in the USA is copper-bottomed duplicity.
I suppose it makes it easier to sleep at night -- _this_ particular genocide is abnormal for us nice folks.
To some extent, yes. But then, US civilization is sadly not all that unique.
The major issue is that the US is collapsing. Gradually, over the past few decades, but steadily. And that always creates lots of angry, nihilistic young men. Eventually they'll become cannon fodder.
If someone were to talk about personal killing of gooks or japs or krauts or secesh for ethnic and not military reasons, even in a war, that would be different. But that's not what you seem to be talking about.
The distinction is precisely why we have the Geneva conventions, and this is well established law.
But because the US didn't attack Iraq based on a protected class like race, and because the Geneva conventions exist, everything is magically okay. No reason to deplatform these heroes of bipartisan politics.
I worry about the end of radical free speech on the internet precisely because I feel deeply disconnected from "mainstream morality". As internet censorship progresses, I'm sure I'll be kicked out before any of the high-status war criminals.
(I'm referring to the 2003 Iraq war because I still remember who supported it, but I assume the handling of Vietnam was similar in its time.)
Same :(
There is big difference between military action against Germany, ISIS, what have you and "kill Germans" in general.
I am glad you stressed "today", because back then, I bet, they weren't talked about the same way.
It is much easier to look back at distant actions and condemn them. At the time when they actually happen, however, things aren't always as clear-cut. I am certain that a lot of "totally ok" today things will be "totally not ok" once we are removed far enough from them.
These were debated as issues from the first moment. You had those who push for these kill all policies and those who oppose them. Sometimes one side win, other times the other and result is controversial from start for years.
There is this idea that "judging by the time" means judging by the perspective of worst person available, but that is not how history happened.
Was it the case back in the day, though? I am not so sure about that. Of course there were plenty of people who thought this was a great injustice, but I don't think the general public back then would even raise a brow of condemnation towards a person claiming that this was ok and totally justified.
P.S. this is a total speculation about this specific scenario, but I had similar conversations about atrocities committed on the eastern front by soviet soldiers with my older family members who were young adults in 50s-60s in USSR. What I got was that their whole generation was pretty much on board with it, because, in their words, "Nazis deserved it" (with the implication being that every German person was a nazi, of course, even civilians). Not so much of a popular opinion these days.
Would the statement "kill germans" be intolerant?
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When I was in grade school, a holocaust survivor was invited to speak at my school. At the time we had a german foreign exchange student. As a joke, one of his friends baited the speaker into going on a vitriolic rant about how much he hated Germans. The speaker than paused, and gathered himself and said he did not blame today's generation for the previous ones horror, but that the terror inflicted upon him and his family would be with him forever.
I was chosen to ask a question, and asked him what it must feel like when he sees young people today wearing Nazi paraphernalia and glorifying the Nazi regime.
I'm not sure that I'd have a problem with starting there. The problem is, we wouldn't stop there.
Does "everyone reasonable" also agree that "kill the {nazis,racists,transphobes}" is intolerant?
I mean, saying something like "Kill the Terrorists" would be something many people agree with or find to be tolerant. This shows that there is some group of "terrorists" that people are happy to have killed.
And what about cases where intolerance of intolerance is viewed as unacceptable because it can be confused with general intolerance. For example, take someone who wants to reduce/end immigration of groups that might support the execution of certain minority groups being confused with people who want to reduce/end immigration of those same groups for less agreeable reasons?
Even something as simple as "The Future is Female" has roots in a ideology of killing (most) men.