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Comment by kaens | Hacker News Reader

> Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

> In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.

- Karl Popper, Open Society and it's Enemies, 1945

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Embracing Popper's thesis implies the existence of a line separating "tolerant ideologies" from "intolerant ideologies". Who is going to define that line?

Knowing how the world works, I don't suspect, but I know it will be used to suppress things that the mob doesn't agree with, while that same mob preaches ideologies more violent and intolerant than the ones they suppress.

Popper's opinion only makes sense when the person in power (or the mob) is never wrong, and that never happens.

I think that if one were to draw the line between tolerant and intolerant ideologies, that line shouldn't be drawn based on the content of the ideology but rather how that ideology spreads. Specifically, based on this quote

> they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols

The only ideology, the only Belief, that should not be tolerated is the belief that ideology must spread through violent means.

That in and of itself is a belief, but it is a belief that can be discussed through rational argument, and only calls upon violence when all else fails.

1. That line would still be hard to draw

2. I know many ideologies that most people would consider "intolerant" but would fall under the "tolerant" umbrella because there's a rationalization for its intolerance. In fact, any ideology, as violent as it might be, can be rationalized.

While it is also technically possible to discover the underlying, hidden 'intolerance' of an ideology, society at large is not capable of doing that, simply because moral issues are some of the most complicated questions in the world.

We would never achieve a consensus about the underlying tolerance/intolerance of ideologies, because if we could do that, we would have already done it and we wouldn't have this problem in the first place.

Certain choices are made which aren't compatible with universal tolerance. E.g., the doctrine of private property, requires suppression of people who don't believe in it.

> 1. That line would still be hard to draw

Perhaps I'm unusually gifted, but I find the line between violence and non violence quite easy to raw. One of the easiest of all lines, really.

Perhaps you haven't given much thought to the edge cases then. For example what if someone is posting racist articles on the web, are they violent or not? Well that's pretty easy - even if they are not directly violent they may incite violence in others so they partly share the blame. But what if they explicitly say that they are categorically against violence and it will just abstractly be better if certain inferior races would not exist and back it up with a rational-sounding argument? Another example. Is peaceful protest violent or non-violent? Well it is peaceful, nobody touches anyone - it is right in the name. But the protesters will probably bring inconvenience to someone, otherwise they won't be noticed - e.g. a sit-in will obstruct the workings of the target establishment. Is it violence or not? Is public shaming violence or not? It is just words after all, but words that can ruin someone's life. Etc.

I have given it a lot of thought. As has many other thinkers in history. It's not that hard.

1. Posting racist articles is not violence. It's speech. If someone decides to be violent after reading it, it's their decision and their responsibility.

2. Peaceful protest is in general not violent. It might be trespassing and other property crimes. That would give the police or possibly the victims of those crimes the right to use violence against the protestors. But that doesn't make the protests violent.

I can't help thinking the reason the left is so keen on calling speech violence, is that they want an excuse to commit violence against the speakers. Subconsciously, of course. Motivated Reasoning and all that.

Karl Popper argued that we need to use violence to cull intolerant ideas even if they aren't violent. If you think that it is wrong to do that then you are on the pacifists side and not the "We shouldn't tolerate intolerance" side.

> Karl Popper argued that we need to use violence to cull intolerant ideas even if they aren't violent

Incorrect.

Stop spreading lies, exact quote: "as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument"

Important part: "But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force"

And there was no mention that the group were violent, just that they refused to listen. He mentioned that the group might get violent in the future not that they are, so we must strike them down preemptively.

If we take your argument to absurdity though and say that 'we should never suppress ideologies because we cannot know tolerance vs intolerance', then that leads to things such as allowing cults to operate unhindered, groups that plan murder in the open and so forth.

For example, the KKK. What would be the solution to solve that, if not for society to take an active stance against it? Should we let them continue on their merry way because it's impossible to determine intolerance and morality is complicated?

> The only ideology, the only Belief, that should not be tolerated is the belief that ideology must spread through violent means.

Interestingly, if you merely outlaw the use of violence, then you have already countered such an ideology. And, thus, there is no need to concern oneself with the beliefs of any ideology.

Only the use of violence isn't enough; you have to ban the incitement to violence. Authoritarian causes never lacked martyrs.

It depends on how good the enforcement is. If orbital space lasers were set up to incinerate anyone committing an act of violence within a few seconds, it's hard to see how incitement to violence would work. Comparable examples might be getting blocked for posting too fast and triggering the automated spam filter, or trying to harass someone by mailing them $100 bills.

At the moment police response time is still 15 minutes though, and inadequate for large crowds, so there is some room for incitement.

The bigger problem though is just having laws and having enforcement of those laws; there is too much room for corruption, abuse, etc.

Not sure if you realize the irony of such extreme violence as a tool to counter violence.

Perhaps you don't consider it violence if it is within the law?

If so, is it violence to execute people for homosexual acts? What about ideologues that seek to introduce the the death penalty for gay sex?

Or is such legal actions only non-violence if it is used to enforce the values that you happen to hold yourself?

Violence seems to be an innate animal tendency, of course a system to counteract it would be extreme. I suppose such a system would not necessarily be violent, e.g. drones equipped with tasers are mostly nonlethal. And since people react to alarm clocks in the morning perhaps all that's needed are drones with loudspeakers ordering people around. But since it's a thought experiment I went for the zapper.

I was thinking of an objective definition of violence like causing death or serious injury. The death penalty is rarely used in most countries and seems unlikely to significantly contribute to overall violence statistics, compared to police shootings or natural disputes. The Hiroshima bomb is debatable as it might have caused more radiation deaths than an invasion from Japan would have. But a total surveillance system would not obviously cause any more deaths and could be used to prevent them.

Even if you are toning down your proposal, you still seem to argue for something that resembles an extreme police state.

Strip away the sci fi terminology, replace the space lasers with police armed with sniper rifles, and replace the tasers with batons, and you have technologies that are available today (except for the surveillance needed to identify the offenders, but for that part, you could have the super-AI needed foor the task feed informatino to the police instead of to satelites/drones.)

While efficient law enforcement is important, "perfect" law enforcement is likely to cause more harm than it will prevent.

Fair enough. But we still don't need the law to concern itself with anybody's ideology.

I think it's the mobs that need to be fought under Popper's thesis.

It's simpler to see if you apply the Paradox recursively. There's a reason for an exception to tolerance. It's made only in case of people who directly want to get rid of other members of society. Society needs to get rid of them first. But if, in your quest of chasing out the intolerant, you extend the meaning of intolerance to anything beyond immediate threats to people, or if you start claiming collateral damage, then you are the intolerant that the society needs to get rid of ASAP.

The groups currently wielding the Paradox as justification for their actions? If they actually believed in it, they'd dissolve.

>I think it's the mobs that need to be fought under Popper's thesis.

So, Popper's idea is basically a way for a minority who "knows best" to impose their will by force upon the "intolerant" majority (which they term "masses" or "mobs").

In might prevent Nazi-style harm (where the masses were pro Hitler), but it's a recipe for USSR-style harm (where the party knew better and lorded over the masses, "for their good", and protesters were labelled "a mob")...

> Popper's opinion only makes sense when the person in power (or the mob) is never wrong, and that never happens.

I don't think this is true. The person in power can be wrong (e.g.) 10% of the time and you'd still have a mostly stable and tolerant system.

> Who is going to define that line?

It will be defined through rational argument.

While one would hope that, all evidence points to the line being decided by those who control or can put pressure on The Platforms.

How can fighting intolerance "suppress things the mob does not agree with", if that is in itself intolerance?

The whole point is to allow different ideas to exist.

Look at the history of censorship and look at the current state of affairs.

9 out of 10 times, censorship is just a tool used to suppress things that the one in charge (a person, institution, or 'mob') doesn't like, while that same censor holds ideas equally or more intolerant than the suppressed ones.

I don't want to go into specific examples, because otherwise this thread will devolve into a discussion about those specific issues. But look around and try to analyze things impartially.

“When I am Weaker Than You, I ask you for Freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am Stronger than you, I take away your Freedom Because that is according to my principles.”

― Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

Every time this topic comes up someone posts this Popper argument.

The problem, in my opinion, with this argument is that it is spoken from a position of moral superiority. When deciding whether to surpress an idea by force, who is making that decision? Why is that person or group correct about the matter?

My major issue is that the people using this argument are usually so adamant about an idea they can’t see any flaws in their reasoning and believe they are correct without a doubt.

Can no one think of a time in the past when the “right” move to surpress or perpetuate an idea ended up being something that was regretted in the future?

Can you be sure that the decision you are making now will be looked back on favorably?

On one side of this argument, I can imagine this being a solid strategy to prevent another Nazi Germany style idea from taking over.

However, on the other hand, I see this being used to conveniently sweep ideas under the rug that are not favorable, but may not be as dangerous as they are made out to be (think Fahrenheit 451 or 1984).

So to summarize, I don’t think people should just drop this argument and call it a day. I’d love to see more discussion rather than ad hominem attacks.

/rant

It isn't mechanically executable but it does present a strong heuristic: resist all attempts to dismantle the discussion. You want the structure to remain even if you lose an individual argument.

the decision will be made through rational argument. if you are not willing to debate or argue then your position is forfeit (I.E. you are the one with the intolerant philosophy).

I get frustrated at this line of reasoning; how long do you have to debate it? If the person you are debating keeps bringing up illogical arguments, or says non-sequiturs, or keeps making the same arguments over and over, do you have to keep arguing or 'your position is forfeit'?

Do you have to debate EVERYONE who disagrees with you? Do you have to have the exact same argument with different people, because the second person didn't hear your argument with the first?

I have a friend who trolls me by taking advantage of my need to be rational. He will argue with me, but continue to make more and more non-sensical arguments as we go along. By the end, he will say something like "hah! So you admit hamsters are nocturnal, therefore the sun can't rise in the east!"

At that point I realize he has just been trying to get me angry with irrational argument, so I know I just have to stop arguing.

Just because I refuse to debate him doesn't mean I give up my ability to have a position.

popper believed that we can convince people through reason. not sure how he would deal with trolls.

>the decision will be made through rational argument

and what do you do when both sides are at an impasse because they have different axioms?

then the axioms themselves can be argued until a conclusion is reached, otherwise debate can be suspended. the underlying axiom here is that debate can be had, and that people can be convinced through reason.

> the underlying axiom here is that debate can be had, and that people can be convinced through reason

I take it you haven't seen Twitter (or Facebook, or Reddit, or even SE lately)? Or perhaps you're referring only to in person interactions here, but I've still never witnessed this outside of a STEM setting (and even then, not always).

A platform that deliberately limits the length of what can be posted to only the most trivial thoughts turns out to be a poor place for debate? Shocking, that.

we are talking about karl popper's open society. not sure he knew about social media :)

The Paradox of Tolerance is just a rephrasing of the Paradox of Pacifism. I'm not convinced it brings anything ideologically new to the table.

I'm not a pacifist, and by extension, I don't believe we should tolerate everything. I agree with Karl. But I still get very suspicious of people who bring this quote up, because they're arguing about something very basic that pretty much everybody already knows, and they're not answering the more important question: which things should we violently oppose, and how should we oppose them?

Most people already don't believe that we should tolerate 100% of literally everything, and the people who do are not going to be convinced by an argument they've already heard 1,000 times. I promise that pacifists already know how sometimes violent people kill pacifists. Advocates for universal tolerance already know that their philosophy can be abused. This argument was around for thousands of years, even before Karl Popper was born.

So ignoring the pacifists that will all just roll their eyes when they hear this quote, and assuming that someone isn't a pacifist (ie, the vast majority of people) the more useful followup questions are:

- How do we define the intolerant? Is it literally people who fight against tolerance, or is it about causing harm, intentionally or incidentally?

- Is (in)tolerance fungible? If someone tolerates an intolerant person, should they be treated like a similar liability? How many degrees of fungibility should we go down?

- How long should we wait before we decide that suppression is necessary? Is it justifiable for us to preemptively suppress a community that is likely to become violent in the future?

- What means are acceptable during suppression of intolerant ideas? Are there lines we can't cross? Are we forbidden from using stuff like propaganda?

There are tons of smart people who have smart, interesting takes on those questions. And if you go through history or even current-day events and look at different communities, you'll find that they all kind of come up with their own answers.

So when people pull out this quote, it's like walking up to two people debating whether we should ever assassinate a dictator and saying, "sometimes wars are justified." Well, yeah, but we knew that. Is this particular war justified?

> because they're arguing about something very basic that pretty much everybody already knows

One would think...

Unfortunately, many people believe that all intolerance stems from bad treatment of some kind, and that the intolerant can be swayed, eventually, given enough tolerance.

Out of the vocal people on the Internet, it would seem more seem to believe that whoever disagrees with them is intolerant and subhuman and must be opposed with violence instead of an argument.

That's a facile response, because it works for everybody. Everybody intolerant thinks of themselves as a fundamentally tolerant person, whose hand has regrettably been forced by the unforgivable actions of the enemy tribe.

This strikes me as wishful thinking possibly born of not having had enough conversations with concerted racists. The ones who are not afraid to tell you what they really believe will do so without the sort of equivocation you get from crypto-reactionaries who talk about "free speech" and "tolerance."

I promise I've met worse racists than you have, and if you ask why they believe what they do, they talk in terms of self-defence. That they were minding their own business until group X took their jobs or killed their kin or stole their culture or broke their laws or left them destitute or insulted their people or took over their government. There is always a self-defence reason, and even more inconveniently, the ones with good memories can always cite lots of examples (which is inevitable, because it's a big world, so you can find genuine examples of anything).

Would they use the words "free speech" and "tolerance"? Probably not. But "standing up for yourself after being attacked unprovoked" and "justifiable intolerance of intolerance" are the same argument, with only superficially different wrapping.

I certainly hope you haven't.

But yes I know what you're talking about: that is certainly a behavior of a certain type of racist I've encountered. I find quite often that people with reactionary beliefs feel that they are personally under attack, or at least its important that they nurture a certain type of victimhood. I must insist, though, that there is another type that comes from a belief that your perceived "genetic" (here in quotes because these people tend to play very fast and loose with that word) inheritance make you in some way implicitly superior to people who lack your "genes". It's for this reason that I bring all of this up: no matter what they say, there is a difference between wanting to relegate people of color or gays to a second class in society and the intolerance of those beliefs. It's this relation that Popper was talking about.

I also want to be clear that I'm not trying to say what you've experienced isn't real. There are definitely people like this. My reply was only in the context of the top-level "tolerance of intolerance" quote.

> there is another type that comes from a belief that your perceived "genetic" [...] inheritance make you in some way implicitly superior...

On the other hand, I am pretty convinced that my genetic inheritance makes me "superior" (in some vague, but obvious way) to a cat- and yet I've never harmed or desired harm for cats- I actually like them. Or, to make a different example, while we consider it unacceptable to think of race X to be "superior" to race Y, we have no particular issues in admitting that the individual Albert Einstein was "superior" (again, in some vague way) to many other individuals (us included)- and yet from that doesn't follow we mean those individuals any harm or disrespect.

You don't compete with cats for resources, and you interact with them entirely on your terms. Once an animal enters your life without asking, and reduces the resources available to you, they become 'vermin', and people will do extraordinarily cruel things to them without feeling the slightest pang of guilt on the basis of that same 'superiority' which you feel towards cats.

Exactly- which means that the issue it's not the sense of (even genetic) superiority per se, but that of being threatened.

Btw, we have an entire genre of fiction (a subset of science fiction) in which humanity is threatened by technologically and cognitively superior races coming from other planets- this doesn't prevent us from trying to exterminate them to ensure our survival.

> Everybody intolerant thinks of themselves as a fundamentally tolerant person, whose hand has regrettably been forced by the unforgivable actions of the enemy tribe.

This is 100% not true.

You’ve made an assertion that it is not true - in fact, a very strong assertion. Do you have any argument to back that up?

I know people who do not view themselves as fundamentally tolerant people.

Further, I know people who consider intolerance as a core part of human nature, who would be prefixing their arguments with "everybody knows they are fundamentally intolerant". People who think tolerance is a fake position that people lie to themselves about purely to avoid violence or "ugly truths".

The existence of people like this isn't a position to be taken that needs backing by argument.

The essence of any organised belief system, religious or otherwise, is that some behaviours are virtuous and some are not to be tolerated, the nature of this intolerance may range from scolding to ostracism to execution. Is is this latter thing that is the only variable.

That is because people around you see tolerance as good. I know people who see themselves of guardians of rightful effectively and see intolerance as order.

Let's assume this is true...

What do you conclude from this (I'm asking honestly)? That Popper is wrong and unlimited tolerance is the answer?

This is quite amusing in the context of the article. 'Rationality' a word which is entirely without meaning, riding on the wave of supposed European 'enlightenment', is little more than first order logic with all it's fundamental assumptions being b based, either on European secularism or Christianity.

The suppression of thought comes about not because of the lack of 'rationality' but from the lack of agreement on fundamental dogmas. For instance how are going to argue with a Christian or Islamic fundamentalist for whom the very existence of others is a prickly aspect; this being served entirely from the scripture ?

Tolerance is acceptance or appreciation of difference or disagreement with the intent to make peace or extend understanding.

That word is often abused by ignorant, stupid, or self-serving narcissistic people to mean something more like conformity or agreement. In this context tolerance becomes an empty meaningless word used as a weapon to attack people with, which is the opposite of its intention. This best description of this internalizing self-serving behavior is hypocrisy. Whether its because such people are dishonest or are simply stupid I despise these people. I would respect these silly people much more if they simply used just words correctly in acceptance of a self-serving nature.

And who judges what is intolerant, and should therefore be suppressed ("by force", none the less), over simply what those who yield the power don't like, or the ideological fashions of the "good people" of the times don't like?

The problem with Popper’s proposal that intolerant ideologies must not be tolerated is that it fails Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance test. If you really think that intolerant ideologies must not be tolerated, then you should feel comfortable about your political enemies being the ones who determine what constitutes an intolerant ideology. If you feel that things would not go well, then perhaps the idea that we should be able to persecute ideologies which are “intolerant” is bad and we shouldn’t give that power to anyone.

intolerance guarantees stagnation. tolerance has more optionality

Popper's Paradox of Tolerance is not falsifiable.

Popper's Paradox of Tolerance is an investigation of moral axioms, or principles. It is not Science.

So it's okay that it can't be falsified.

Are you saying only falsifiable things are tenable? Axioms (which it is not) are also unfalsifyable. If you change axioms you're in a different system.

Or if you don't like axioms, principles.

Paradoxes are by design, not falsifying?

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