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Comment by lone_haxx0r | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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?

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