> anyone we label violent extremists should be completely and utterly deplatformed
They've labeled themselves, though, by espousing violent extremist views.
They've labeled themselves, though, by espousing violent extremist views.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Totally unrelated: if you want us to rename your account we can do that for you. It's easiest if you email hn@ycombinator.com. I'm just adding this here because I noticed you mentioned it in your profile.)
Edit: here, I'll do it for you:
"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."
Put more succinctly: one ought to reserve the right to not tolerate the intolerant without limit, but we should always err to engage with them on the level of rational argument. Once they claim that rational argument is no longer the field on which they want to argue, and violence is, the right we reserve is to counter with our own intolerance of that, through violence if necessary, even though that is contrary to our principles of never being intolerant (hence the paradox.)
So no, it doesn't mean you shouldn't tolerate intolerance. On the contrary, it means you should tolerate it as much as humanly possible, but not limitlessly. It's basically the inverse of what you and others claim it says. The paradox is the fact that unlimited tolerance of the intolerant is paradoxical, not that any tolerance of the intolerant is. People who use this paradox to try to suppress speech that isn't directly connected to violence, specifically, are actually sitting on the "intolerant" side of this argument, funny enough.
In your quote from Popper, he doesn't tie the suppression specifically to violence, does he?
"they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument" isn't a violence related criteria; merely "they insist on arguing in bad faith". Or "they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive" which is basically predicting the "FAKE NEWS" crowd; again, not specifically violence related.
("and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols" is, I think, an extra clause rather than a conjunction to the rational argument clause.)
that said, I don't agree with your assessment that people saying the news is fake meets the test. from my vantage point the mainstream news is fake, for the most part, at this time, at least when it comes to politics. "the news" is not the forum for rational argumentation, not in my country at least. it seems to be close to pure propaganda, at least on the issues that are the most divisive. the forum for rational argument are the online public squares and in-person gatherings. and this is where Popper's argument in my opinion holds increasing relevance.
people retreating into filter bubbles and presuming their ideological opponents are evil, immoral to even engage with, etc, seems more in line with Popper's argument and is as prevalent as the news media propaganda. it doesn't take more than a few minutes to find examples of people on the right saying those on the left are secret communist pedophiles, and people on the left saying those on the right are white supremacists. (not the fringes, but that the mainstream views are in alignment with those labels.) this is the kind of intolerance the tolerant ought to push back against.