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Comment by Comevius | Hacker News Reader

Why the hell would we tolerate barbaric, intolerant ideas? Diverse never includes intolerance, which must be intolerated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

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Other people can have different ideas about what is morally correct, and it isn't some barbaric idea that an unborn person should not be allowed to be killed. You may not agree with it with your moral calculus, but it shouldn't be unreasonable to see someone else's perspective. You really need to step out of your bubble and tune your hostility way down because it comes off as very childish

The argument is about making abortion illegal, I called it out as a barbaric idea, because it is. You are free to harbor such ideas, you are free to misrepresent the issue by calling a clump of cells an unborn person, and I'm free to call all of this out, especially because it is being forced on millions of women for no reason, ruining many lives.

It's reasonable to be angry under such circumstances. Adults are allowed to be angry too. I wish we would be angry about more things, instead of being complacent all the time.

Yes, continue shouting at everyone who has a different opinion than you that it is barbaric. I'm sure it will change hearts and minds and make everyone think you're a mature adult.

Different opinion, no, illegal abortion, yes, I'm shouting. The issue is bigger than me, or how I look.

Pregnancy is a risky business, evolution made it that way for humans, it's basically a biological war between the mother and the baby. There is no reason to let millions of women die for a religious doctrine if we can help it. Criminalizing abortion doesn't even save the unborn, it just causes unsafe abortions and much more women to die, along with the unborn.

https://aeon.co/essays/why-pregnancy-is-a-biological-war-bet....

https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/sexual-and-reproductiv...

Woosh

This is exactly what he is trying to say. The fact that you have such an extreme opinion is the intolerant problem.

"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" - Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies.

Sorry to say, but intolerance is to be defeated, with words, with votes, with lawyers, with guns if (only if) it comes to that. Ask the Ukrainian people.

If you are coming after women's rights, their autonomy, their health you (your idea) shall not be tolerated.

Not too worried about your little war in any form. We are ready for it. People like you and your ilk are nowhere close to the Ukrainian people.

You and Popper have very different notion of "intolerance". By intolerance here Popper means something which threatens open society and freedom of expressions, not "any opinions I don't like" (and if you read literally next few sentences you'll see Popper clarify that we should oppose ideologies which reject dialogue and propose violence instead, not any opinions you don't like). Your definition is in line with what Popper would see as fascist trait.

This is a really succinct point about the quote. You can oppose abortion whether it’s legal or not. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to live in a state like New York and oppose abortion whiles it legal just as you can live in other states where it is illegal and support it.

It's the same idea. Illegal abortion threatens society. I'm not a fascist for protesting it. The Democrats and their voters, and many Republicans are on the same opinion.

> Illegal abortion threatens society.

That's not what Popper says. Popper literally says, quote:

> 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 most 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.

Again, not any ideology you don't like may be suppressed, but only those who use sticks and pogroms instead of arguments. What you are proposing is pure fascism and something Popper was vigorously against of.

Literally my argument. The whole thread started with why don't my co-workers respect my intolerant ideas if they are all about a diverse set of ideas, and I said that diversity doesn't include any ideas. I didn't suggest suppression. People countering your arguments is not suppression. People not wanting to listen to your intolerant ideas isn't suppression either.

The guns are only coming out when the law can't help, for example because the country is being attacked, like in Ukraine. Until that moment law and order is all we have, unless it's an authoritarian government, or if the law is against basic human rights.

> Literally my argument.

Literally not. You've quoted Paradox of Intolerance applied to abortion debates. Now read the quote and try to understand why it's not applicable.

Literally is. It's my argument. I don't want to criminalize this particular intolerance, I don't want to suppress it. I want to reject it and call it out. I don't have to unequivocally tolerate it. My tolerance doesn't have to be boundless. I should be generous with my tolerance, but I'm not when millions and millions of lives depend on it. This is the line. This far and not farther.

No, Popper there goes beyond that: he requires that people argue rationally and not tell followers to ignore rational arguments. That's too high a bar, IMO. The problem is the followers' use of violence. Initiating "preventative violence" against a mere speaker (who himself did no violent act) is immoral, even if an expedient way of preventing seemingly likely violence by followers. It puts the power of judging legitimate speech in a privileged group, and it is likely to be applied unevenly and primarily on political enemies.

> Illegal abortion threatens society.

The inability to treat people who happen to hold some opinion you think despicable as equals is far more threatening to society than any one bad take on a particular subject.

Nobody suggested that though. People deserve equal chances.

> It's the same idea. Illegal abortion threatens society.

While i am for unlimited legal on-demand abortions, this statement is obviously counter-factual. Most european countries have significantly restricted abortions relative to Roe vs Wade standard (usually to 12-14 weeks for on-demand abortions), and their societies exist just fine.

Some people think ripping unborn children out of the womb is a barbaric idea.

They would be misrepresenting the issue. Nobody is ripping anything, abortion is strictly regulated. There are gestational limits, usually 12 weeks, or up to 24 weeks under special circumstances, and only more for fetal impairment and such.

The vast majority of the people that hold that opinion have no scientific basis for the opinion they hold, nor do they have a seemingly have a clue about how dangerous pregnancy can be in some situations and that abortion is a lifesaving procedure.

It saves human lives to discount the opinions of the ignorant.

I personally think abortion should be legal, but this is facile:

> have no scientific basis for the opinion they hold

There's no scientific basis for opposing theft or assault either. What we think is immoral has little to do with science.

In that ref., Popper fallaciously suggested that to allow tolerance is to allow violence, which is, I dare say to that great master, utter bull. Speech is not violence. The person who commits the first violent act, even if "incited" by mere speech, is the first who crosses the speech / violence divide, and the one on whom appropriate opprobrium should be applied. You needn't associate with intolerant speech if it bothers you; it's not intrinsically violent.

Speech can literally drive people to suicide. If you don't see this as violence just because no fist hit a person, then you are very naive.

See: how the entire world treats minorities every single day.

A world where we can guarantee no non-voluntary _physical_ violence is a better home for rational thought and human flourishing than today's or even a world in which we could somehow prevent speech that might lead to suicide. I can't see a way of enforcing those limits without some kind of judgement. The distinction between physical violence and speech is basically unambiguous. The distinction between acceptable and unacceptable speech is ambiguous, subjective, variable, and very likely to be abused. It leads to a police state, IMO. No state that is serious about freedom has hate speech laws, for example, even though there is much hateful speech, and it should be avoided. Just not with (physical) violence. Rather, freedom of association (including freedom of separation / non-association) and more speech.

That's the really neat thing about Stoicism - you can just choose to not let things affect you.

Spoken like someone who has never experienced physical violence. I have and have seen far worse done to others. There is no comparison, not even close. Calling speech violence offends and minimizes the experience of those who have experienced violence.

Speech can absolutely incentivize violence. See the Rohingya genocide and the part Facebook played in it. See right-wing domestic terrorism in the United States. See Hitler and his radio.

People are not perfect, independent, rational creatures. They get affected by speech. They can develop new beliefs, even a new personality as a result of speech. They can end up doing things they wouldn't even dream doing as a result of speech.

I don't doubt that people are affected / persuaded by speech. But their physical actions are their own responsibility. My mother always used to tell me, "don't jump off the CN tower just because someone told you."

Incentivize / persuade is not identical to action. Action requires an individual act.

If we remove people from responsibility for their actions, then there is the obvious consequence that people will act more irresponsibly.

Curious your take on the American girl who convinced her friend to commit suicide over text message. The jury found her culpable because of those messages, as they evaluated it unlikely that the deceased would have done the act w/o her words.

https://people.com/crime/michelle-carter-trial-gallery-key-m...

This is ignorant.

"Hitting children make them stronger, mothers should be hit if they disagree with that"

If an individual says this they can be discounted, but what if we let an idea take root and spread to the point that it has a significant impact in a democracy? Will they vote in the removal of human rights? Will enough of a platform exist that every jury ends up being a hung jury?

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