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Comment by james-mcelwain | Hacker News Reader

I mean, a teleological view of history and ethics is just so absurd that it disturbs me that professed "rational" scientifically minded people believe it. There's no basis for believing just because things "tend" to get better that is in itself a causative argument about some intrinsic nature of humanity.

I mean, even the example used ("the noble class") is preposterous on face because:

1. The Russian Revolution? Germany 1849? Even the American Revolution? None of these are about ideas, or "shining the light on ignorance" -- they're about putting the nobility up against the wall. If there's some kind of teleology at play here, it's not that we thought about it in the marketplace of ideas long enough and decided to do away with the concept.

2. Nobility still exists! At best, this just means we live in a secular society, where we no longer believe the Word of God justifies massive inequality.

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> Nobility still exists!

Only as formality in some countries. In America, there are some people who call the Kennedys "America's aristocracy", call JFK's white house "Camelot", and make references to members of the Kennedy family being "entitled" to office, but there's no legal basis for it.

Apartheid in South Africa is also gone.

All the events you list happened in the wake of the enlightenment, the period when ideas challenging the validity of the dominance of the monarchies, nobles and the church were disseminated and popularised in large part due to the invention of the printing press - i.e., an instrument of free speech.

This either trivially true, in the sense that the Western canon builds on itself, or patently absurd, in the sense that you attempt to frame the 1918 revolution as being a mere effect of the invention of the printing press 500 years earlier. Neither strikes me as being particularly rigorous historiography.

> particularly rigorous historiography

It was one-line discussion-board summation of what is widely accepted by historians (as you said, "trivially true"), but if you'd like to share an explanation of how the spread of ideas leading to the revolutions of Europe could have happened without an innovation that had the same effect as the printing press did, I'd be intrigued to to read it.

> patently absurd

So far, three of your replies in this thread alone have contained the word "absurd".

They probably all break the HN guidelines ("Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation", and "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says").

But more importantly, you're too busy sneering at other people's comments to make any positive assertion of your own.

So what is it you actually want to persuade us of, about the appropriate levels of constraints on speech in the modern world?

> If you'd like to share an explanation of how the spread of ideas leading to the revolutions of Europe could have happened without an innovation that had the same effect as the printing press ded, I'd be genuinely intrigued to to read it.

History is more complicated than a single invention! It's needlessly reductive.

I could also say: "how could have the revolutions of Europe happened without mercantile capitalism challenging the economic structures of feudalism?" But that's just imposing a post-hoc narrative on history that happens to fit my existing views.

> So what is it you actually want to persuade us of, about the appropriate levels of constraints on speech in the modern world.

My sole reason for participating in this thread is to firmly reject idealism and the teleological view of history. Ideas aren't magic. Technology isn't either.

(P.S. it's kind of hilarious that you're invoking HN rules regarding my speech in the same breath as you are defending the merits of free speech.)

> History is more complicated than a single invention

Yes, of course, I never claimed otherwise. But some concepts are more fundamental and influential than others, and the flow of information is more fundamental and influential than most.

> My sole reason for participating in this thread is to firmly reject idealism and the teleological view of history. Ideas aren't magic. Technology isn't either.

If that's all you're trying to say, then, OK, thanks for pointing that out.

> it's kind of hilarious that you're invoking HN rules regarding my speech in the same breath as you are defending the merits of free speech

Fine, have your free point :)

But dismissing everyone else's comments as "absurd", "preposterous", "hilarious" etc whilst not making any effort to construct a solid assertion about the main topic is just a waste of everyone's time.

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