I'm not going to engage with someone who didn't read the original article, nor is familiar with the domain. Sorry.
351 karma · joined April 23, 2018
Ingredients: ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), WATER, COOKED BEEF PATTIE CRUMBLES (BEEF HAMBURGER, WATER, TEXTURED VEGETABLE PROTEIN [SOY FLOUR, CARAMEL COLOR], SOY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, LESS THAN 2% OF THE FOLLOWING: SALT, SPICE, NATURAL FLAVORS, DEXTROSE, YEAST EXTRACT, ONION POWDER, POTASSIUM CHLORIDE, SODIUM TRIPOLYPHOSPHATE), REDUCED FAT CHEDDAR CHEESE (PASTEURIZED PART SKIM MILK, SKIM MILK, MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, CULTURES, SALT, FLAVORS, POTASSIUM CHLORIDE, ANNATTO, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, ENZYMES, INGREDIENTS NOT IN REGULAR CHEDDAR CHEESE), KETCHUP (TOMATO PUREE [TOMATO PASTE, WATER], CORN SWEETENER [HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP], VINEGAR, SALT, SEASONING [SPICES, SALT, NATURAL FLAVORS, ONION POWDER, GARLIC POWDER], DEHYDRATED ONION), VEGETABLE OIL (SOYBEAN OIL AND/OR CORN OIL), ONIONS, 2% OR LESS OF DILL PICKLE RELISH (PICKLES, WATER, DISTILLED VINEGAR, SALT AND NATURAL FLAVORS), NON-FAT DRY MILK, BUTTERMILK POWDER, MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, SUGAR, VINEGAR, TOASTED SESAME SEEDS, FRACTIONATED PALM OIL, YEAST, DOUGH CONDITIONER BLEND (CALCIUM SULFATE, SALT, L-CYSTEINE HYDROCHLORIDE, GARLIC POWDER, TRICALCIUM PHOSPHATE, ENZYMES [WHEAT]), SALT, SOY LECITHIN, SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, METHYLCELLULOSE, WHEY, SOY FLOUR, DRIED EGG WHITES.
Ingredients: ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, VITAMIN B1 [THIAMIN MONONITRATE], VITAMIN B2 [RIBOFLAVIN], FOLIC ACID), CORN SYRUP, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, DEXTROSE, SOYBEAN AND PALM OIL (WITH TBHQ FOR FRESHNESS), CRACKER MEAL, CONTAINS TWO PERCENT OR LESS OF WHEAT STARCH, SALT, DRIED STRAWBERRIES, DRIED PEARS, DRIED APPLES, LEAVENING (BAKING SODA, SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE), CITRIC ACID, CARAMEL COLOR, SOY LECITHIN, XANTHAN GUM, MODIFIED WHEAT STARCH, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, RED 40, NIACINAMIDE, REDUCED IRON, VITAMIN B6 (PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE), YELLOW 6, VITAMIN B2 (RIBOFLAVIN), VITAMIN B1 (THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE).
Or a blueberry muffin:
INGREDIENTS: Blueberry Muffin (Bleached Enriched Flour [Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid], Sugar, Water, Soybean Oil, Whole Eggs, Blueberries, Modified Food Starch [Corn], Contains 2% or Less of Each of the Following: Salt, Emulsifier [Propylene Glycol Esters, Mono- and Diglycerides, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate], Nonfat Dry Milk, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate, Cellulose Gum, Natural and Artificial Flavor [Milk], Sodium Caseinate [Milk], Xanthan Gum, Egg Whites, Soy Flour), Confectioners Sugar (Sugar, Carnauba Wax). CONTAINS WHEAT, EGG, MILK AND SOY INGREDIENTS. Produced in a facility that uses tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, milk, and eggs.
For lunch, consider a frozen beef and bean burrito:
Ingredients: WATER, ENRICHED FLOUR (BLEACHED WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), BEEF, PINTO BEANS, VEGETABLE OIL (SOYBEAN, CANOLA AND/OR CORN OIL), CONTAINS 2% OR LESS, TEXTURED VEGETABLE PROTEIN, TOMATO PASTE, SPICES, JALAPENO PUREE (JALAPENO PEPPERS, WATER, CITRIC ACID), GARLIC POWDER, CHILI PEPPER, BAKING POWDER (SODIUM BICARBONATE, CORN STARCH, SODIUM ALUMINUM SULFATE, CALCIUM SULFATE, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE), SOY SAUCE (WATER, SOYBEANS, WHEAT, SALT), MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, ONION, DOUGH CONDITIONER (SODIUM METABISULFITE, CORN STARCH, MICROCRYSTALLINE CELLULOSE, DICALCIUM PHOSPHATE), SALT, GUAR GUM, PAPRIKA.
Or a bologna sandwich:
Bologna: Ingredients: Mechanically Separated Chicken, Pork, Water, Corn Syrup, Contains Less Than 2% Of Salt, Ground Mustard Seed, Sodium Phosphates, Potassium Chloride, Sodium Propionate, Sodium Diacetate, Beef, Sodium Benzoate, Flavor, Sodium Ascorbate, Sodium Nitrite, Hydrolyzed Beef Stock, Autolyzed Yeast, Dextrose, Extractives Of Paprika, Sodium Lactate, Potassium Lactate, Celery Seed Extract.
White bread: Ingredients: Unbleached Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Yeast, Contains 2% or Less of Each of the Following: Calcium Carbonate, Soybean Oil, Wheat Gluten, Salt, Dough Conditioners (Contains One or More of the Following: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Calcium Stearoyl Lactylate, Monoglycerides, Mono- and Diglycerides, Distilled Monoglycerides, Calcium Peroxide, Calcium Iodate, DATEM, Ethoxylated Mono- and Diglycerides, Enzymes, Ascorbic Acid), Vinegar, Monocalcium Phosphate, Yeast Extract, Modified Corn Starch, Sucrose, Sugar, Soy Lecithin, Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3), Soy Flour, Ammonium Sulfate, Calcium Sulfate, Calcium Propionate (to Retard Spoilage).
And follow it up with a Fried Chicken Dinner:
Boneless Fried White Meat Chicken Patties (Cooked White Meat Chicken, Water, Enriched Wheat Flour [Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid], Vegetable Oil (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil [TBHQ and Citric Acid to Preserve Freshness]), Mechanically Separated Chicken, Chicken Skins, Soy Protein Concentrate, Salt, Sodium Phosphates, Monosodium Glutamate, Dextrose, Spice Extract, Isolated Oat Product). Mashed Potatoes (Water, Dehydrated Potato Flakes (Potatoes, Mono and Diglycerides, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Citric Acid), Seasoning Sauce (Vegetable Oil (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil [TBHQ and Citric Acid to Preserve Freshness]), Water, Mono and Diglycerides with BHT and Citric Acid to Protect Flavor, Beta Carotene for Color (Corn Oil, Dl-Alpha-Tocopherol)), Contains 2% or Less of: Salt, Dried Dairy Blend (Whey, Calcium Caseinate)), Corn. Brownie (Sugar, Water, Enriched Wheat Flour [Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid], Vegetable Oil (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil [TBHQ and Citric Acid to Preserve Freshness]), Cocoa, Eggs. Seasoning Sauce (Vegetable Oil (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil [TBHQ and Citric Acid to Preserve Freshness]), Water, Mono and Diglycerides with BHT and Citric Acid to Protect Flavor, Beta Carotene for Color (Corn Oil, Dl-Alpha-Tocopherol)), Acacia and Xanthan Gums, Sodium Bicarbonate (Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil), Salt, Natural and Artificial Flavor [Water, Propylene Glycol, Ethanol, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Caramel Color, Vanilla Extractives]), Seasoning Sauce (Water, Sugar, Seasoning Sauce (Vegetable Oil (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil [TBHQ and Citric Acid to Preserve Freshness]), Water, Mono and Diglycerides with BHT and Citric Acid to Protect Flavor, Beta Carotene for Color (Corn Oil, Dl-Alpha-Tocopherol)), Salt, Vegetable Oil (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil [TBHQ and Citric Acid to Preserve Freshness])).
These weren't even picked for their egregiousness. This is the norm for the food culture of the working class in America. All of American processed food is like this. Add that it's packaged in frequently toxic plastics and contaminated with pesticides, and it's clear that this is the lead pipes of the American empire.
Now unlike in the Weimar Republic, youth in the United States don't really have public myths about frontline soldiers or the recent experience of the Bolshevik revolution to provide new forms of rootedness and resistance to the system that is perceptually ruining their lives. But they do have access to fundamentally off-limits cultural forms through the Internet that serve the same mythical function. They have access to historical information about systems that were ostensibly opposed to the current paradigm. In societal systems that are neither compassionate nor just, those suffering will look towards other systems to fulfill these ideals. While this is a major simplification, leftists have Communism and the rightists have Fascism. However, the United States state security apparatus was really, really effective at destroying the actual living cultural forms[^12] of these during the mid-60s and through the near present, and made their public social promulgation impossible (barring extremely insular communities like universities and prisons). The Internet has fundamentally changed this. Books that were previously impossible to find are publicly and immediately available digitally. Pamphlets, speeches, ideas, and memes that were publicly impossible to hold now have social venues. They have communities. They have reading groups. They have voluntary propaganda departments that are targeting people already ripe for indoctrination.
From Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes":
> Propaganda tries to surround man by all possible routes in the realm of feelings as well as ideas, by playing on his will or on his needs, through his conscious and his unconscious, assailing him in both his private and his public life. It furnishes him with a complete system for explaining the world, and provides immediate incentives to action. We are here in the presence of an organized myth that tries to take hold of the entire person. Through the myth it creates, propaganda imposes a complete range of intuitive knowledge, susceptible of only one interpretation, unique and one-sided, and precluding any divergence. This myth becomes so powerful that it invades every arena of consciousness, leaving no faculty or motivation intact. It stimulates in the individual a feeling of exclusiveness, and produces a biased attitude.
The main bulwark against the integration of these digital radicalized personae into people's normal daily existence has been that the "adult" political discourse simply didn't allow for it. In the last two decades the 24-hour news cycle, the rise of popular think pieces over neutral reporting, and Super-PAC-indoctrination have stripped every notion of good faith between political actors, their constituents, and their rivals. This was a powder-keg that the election of Barack Obama sparked for the right-wing and Donald Trump sparked off for the left. Now yellow journalism, astroturfing, and echo chambers are in total control of where the discourse travels in either direction. Neither side has any incentive to reduce the invective lest the other side win. Both sides have villanized their opponents so much by this point that the social penalty for not displaying tokens of loyalty is the same as actually being a member of the opposite group, effectively creating an extremely narrow opinion corridor[^13] on anything if you don't want to be considered a gulag-sending Stalinist or a jew-baiting Nazi merely by association.
The truth is that all signs point to some form of despotism coming to America[^14].
A final quote:
From "They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Mayer
> National Socialism was a revulsion by my friends against parliamentary politics, parliamentary debate, parliamentary government--against all the higgling and the haggling of the parties and the splinter parties, their coalitions, their confusions, and their conniving. It was the final fruit of the common man's repudiation of "the rascals." It's motif was, "Throw them all out." My friends, in the 1920's, were like spectators at wrestling match who suspect that beneath all the grunts and groans, the struggle and sweat, the match is "fixed," that the performers are only pretending to put on a fight. The scandals that rocked the country, as one party or cabal "exposed" another, dismayed and then disgusted my friends. (One sensed some of this reaction against the celebrated Army-McCarthy hearing in the United States in 1954--not against one side or another but against "the whole thing" as "disgusting" or "disgraceful.")
> While the ship of the German State was being shivered, the officers, who alone had life-preservers, disputed their prerogatives on the bridge. My friends observed that none of the non-Communist, non-Nazi leaders objected to the 35,000 Reichsmark salaries of the cabinet ministers; only the Communists and Nazi objected.
---
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_cascade
2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof
3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
4 - https://mannerofspeaking.org/2010/05/12/some-chilling-public...
5 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality
6 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2OtFprM3No
7 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting
8 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
9 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
10 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out
11 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_guilt
12 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
13 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_corridor#Overview
The Internet, like the advent of pulp publishing, the cinema, and radio before it in the Weimar Republic, has enabled a fantastic amount of stimulus and incoherent messaging that can be directly, without any kind of curation, accessed directly by younger people. This easily leads to a state of "hyperreality"[^5] if you're a leftist neo-Marxist or Bezmenov's "demoralization"[^6] if you're a rightist neo-Fascist. The particular emphasis differs between the two concepts, but the fundamental point of both is that an individual can no longer determine what is actually real and what isn't (i.e. societal gaslighting[^7], which creates a sense of alienation and impotence that creates learned helplessness[^8]). This trend has really been ascendant for the last twenty years or so in youth culture.
This entire package overall creates a sense of cultural rootlessness amongst youth segments across all demographics. Note the simultaneous rise of "normie" and "cishet privilege" as insults towards majority culture in the background Internet cultural milleux by fundamentally opposing groups. The mass capitalization of culture has destroyed any sense of historical or cultural context for young people and the overall cultural and economic downturn since 2008 has also prevented their own integration into society in meaningful ways as individuals. They are plagued by impostor syndrome[^9] if they're inside groups and are plagued by fear of missing out[^10] if they're not. This psychological inferiority applies in every realm of their lives. They are buffeted from everywhere with contradictory messages. They are told by every form of media that they are inferior to an ever-shifting ideal. They are told that to exist socially as functional adults, they need to meet now-impossible cultural expectations--they need to be attractive, have lots of money, own houses, have high paying jobs, have great experiences all the time, etc.
Fight Club was really prescient in nailing that emerging pathos:
> Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.
I'm really late to the party (and people probably won't see this), but I'm going to earnestly give you what I think is going on and why we desperately need to breathe new life into our idea of what civility is in this country or be ready to pull the plug and start anew. This is going to be meandering--just a warning.
The Weimar Republic was established in Germany after the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I. As most people know, this government fell within two decades into the hands of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. What fewer people know is the cultural context before and during the Weimar Republic that made that ascension (of one revolutionary or reactionary stripe or another) generally inevitable.
From "The Coming of the Third Reich" by Richard J. Evans
> These milieux, with their party newspapers, clubs and societies, were unusually rigid and homogeneous. Already before 1914 this had resulted in a politicization of whole areas of life that in other societies were much freer from ideological identifications. Thus, if an ordinary German wanted to join a male voice choir, for instance, he had to choose in some areas between a Catholic and a Protestant choir, in others between a socialist and a nationalist choir; the same went for gymnastics clubs, cycling clubs, football clubs and the rest. A member of the Social Democratic Party before the war could have virtually his entire life encompassed by the party and its organizations: he could read a Social Democratic newspaper, go to a Social Democratic pub or bar, belong to a Social Democratic trade union, borrow books from the Social Democratic library, go to Social Democratic festivals and plays, marry a woman who belonged to the Social Democratic women’s organization, enrol his children in the Social Democratic youth movement and be buried with the aid of a Social Democratic burial fund. Similar things could be said of the Centre Party (which could rely on the mass organization of supporters in the People’s Association for a Catholic Germany, the Catholic Trade Union movement, and Catholic leisure clubs and societies of all kinds) but also to a certain extent of other parties too. These sharply defined political-cultural milieux did not disappear with the advent of the Weimar Republic. But the emergence of commercialized mass leisure, the ‘boulevard press’, based on sensation and scandal, the cinema, cheap novels, dance-halls and leisure activities of all kinds began in the 1920s to provide alternative sources of identification for the young, who were thus less tightly bound to political parties than their elders were (emphasis mine). The older generation of political activists were too closely tied to their particular political ideology to find compromise and co-operation with other politicians and their parties very easy.
Now what Richard Evans doesn't consider salient enough to mention is that those same means and methods of creating mass leisure also allowed mass polarization. Those means actually rewarded the development of echo chambers amongst the elder political activists as well, furthering the break between activists. Why argue or listen to your opponents when you can just find people that think exactly like you already? Why spread your opponents message for them when you can just blanket them out with your propaganda?
Then you had the normalization of information cascade[^1] and social proof[^2] as behavioral strategies for survival. The rate and breadth for which these political groups demanded new tokens of loyalty became so rapid and outside your scope that it just made sense, that even if you felt, thought, or acted differently in private, to publicly go along with things with which you disagreed. With this kind of chilling effect[^3] on public dissent, eventually even silence becomes synonymous with complicity with the enemy. In the end, you can't be the last person to clap for Stalin[^4].
What assisted these elements in rising was the further degeneration of political discourse and a corresponding rise in political violence as a legitimate means of expression:
Ibid.
> The First World War legitimized violence to a degree that not even Bismarck’s wars of unification in 1864-70 had been able to do. Before the war, Germans even of widely differing and bitterly opposed political beliefs had been able to discuss their differences without resorting to violence. After 1918, however, things were entirely different. The changed climate could already be observed in parliamentary proceedings. These had remained relatively decorous under the Empire, but after 1918 they degenerated all too often into unseemly shouting matches, with each side showing open contempt for the other, and the chair unable to keep order. Far worse, however, was the situation on the streets, where all sides organized armed squads of thugs, fights and brawls became commonplace, and beatings-up and assassinations were widely used. Those who carried out these acts of violence were not only former soldiers, but also included men in their late teens and twenties who had been too young to fight in the war themselves and for whom civil violence became a way of legitimizing themselves in the face of the powerful myth of the older generation of front-soldiers (emphasis mine).
This is why we speak of proof in the first place. The fact that person A died at another's hands does not directly correspond to the belief held by an individual that person X was the killer. This is why we have "beyond reasonable doubt" as a legal evidentiary standard.
I agree that factual axiomatic truths exist in the physical world and are evident to individuals as factual axiomatic truth. The problem is communicating these as such without granting license to counterfeits.
The most successful form thus far has been to let the facts speak for themselves to individuals as factual axiomatic truths.
The least successful has been to establish unassailable dogma concerning what is and is not factual.
The certainty that you and others present concerning your set of beliefs-as-facts-themselves is of the same species as other true believers throughout history. Historically, this has led to the suppression of the scientific method and an open society in favor of a prelatical and clerical class that determines by edict what truth is, often solely at the behest of the hegemonic power and not factual axiomatic truth.
This is why it is preferable to have minimal rather than maximal control over the exchange of ideas concerning the nature of what constitutes a fact, let alone what those facts actually are.
His institutional anti-Catholicism and his suppression of the rebellion in Ireland were not aberrational by his context. That he was successful in achieving these objectives (e.g. defeating an insurrection and effectively criminalizing public Catholicism during the Protectorate) is the aberration. Cromwell was competent and that was his actual sin. He also happened to believe that self-directed (i.e. not dogmatic to a foreign power, e.g. Rome) conscience was a virtue to be established and maintained and for that should be seen as another facet of him as a human being.
That said, I don't disagree that the ethnically Irish have every reason to be livid that it happened, or that comparable events preceded and succeeded it through history, but to act as if Cromwell was categorically evil for what he did to the Irish is like saying America is categorically evil for firebombing Dresden in 1945. Yes, it was an atrocity given the perspective that distance and the luxury of time and peace provide, but it doesn't capture the whole provenance of the situation.
Within four years of this letter, Cromwell would essentially have to put these Presbyterian inquisitors down by force and assume guardianship of the country because these people never stop.
Coincidentally, Cromwell also held that the right to the liberty of conscience, a largely heretical view for another century, was a fundamental requirement of his Protectorate, which he had to personally safeguard against everyone.
"Is not liberty of conscience in religion a fundamental? … Liberty of conscience is a natural right; and he that would have it, ought to give it; having himself liberty to settle what he likes for the public. Every sect saith: “Oh, give me liberty!” But give him it, and to his power he will not yield it to anybody else. Where is our ingenuousness? Liberty of conscience – truly that’s a thing ought to be very reciprocal."
Dunnett is without peer, Mantel included. I cannot recommend her works enough.
Here is someone else's review that does her justice, unlike mine:
http://laurent.bachelier.name/2018/07/a-proposal-for-sanitiz...
Your perspective is pointless Calvinist software iconoclasm, literally hiding behind "think of the children" and (not seen yet, but just give it enough time) "think of the alienated contributors" to justify superficial changes that do nothing but incentivize further iconoclasm. My god! Children might discover that Individuals with Breasts and boobs exist and people can have fun while programming without sacrificing to the Protestant work ethic! The horror!
Regardless, free software doesn't owe you anything. Free software isn't obligated to provide anything to you, isn't obligated to fit into banal HOA agreements, isn't obligated to be corporate friendly, or otherwise something you can Feel Good about being seen to be using.
Software has infinitely more relevant and tractable issues than a decade old software project fond of juvenile puns.
EDIT: Took 30 minutes for "think of the contributors" to show up.
Let's all bike-shed about how bad the name is and how we'll never use it in our giant production data vacuums to mercilessly exploit the commons for money and prestige.
Here's a pointless mention of CockroachDB and an observation that GNU Recutils has a logo of two turtles engaging in sex.
Something something GIMP.
Here's twenty overly emotional pleas for why we should eradicate any memory that the Internet used to be used by and for amateurs, without consideration of what Fortune 500 companies and crisis PR firms might think about it. Really bad look. Period. It's 2020, etc.
Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart do you good in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and by the sight of your eyes, and know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Put away anger from your heart, and put away evil from your body, for youth and lack of understanding are vanity.
Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years arrive in which you will say, “I have no wish for them.” Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain; in the day when the guards of the house shake and the strong men are twisted, and the women who grind ceased working, because they are few, and those who look through the windows will be dimmed, and they will lock the doors in the market, because of the weakness of the sound of the woman who grinds, and one will rise up at the sound of the sparrow, and all the daughters of song will be brought low.
Indeed, they will see from heights, and terrors will be in the road; when the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper becomes fat, and the caper-berry is scattered, because mortals went to their eternal home, and the mourners circled in the market; before the cord of money is ruined and the blossom of gold is crushed and the pitcher is broken at the fountain and the wheel at the cistern races together and the dust returns to the earth as it was and the spirit returns to the God who gave it.
Vanity of vanities, said the Ecclesiast; all is vanity.
Beyond the fact that the Ecclesiast was wise, he also taught the people knowledge, and an ear will track out an arrangement of parables.
The Ecclesiast sought many ways to find the words he wanted, even something written of straight forwardness, words of truth.
The words of the wise are like ox-goads and like nails firmly planted; those from the collections were given from one shepherd and a surplus of them. My son, beware of making many books; there is no end, and much study is a wearying of the flesh.
The end of the message; all is heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is every person. For God will bring every work in judgment, in everything overlooked, whether good or whether evil.
If you think another attempt would be successful, that you, or another cadre of well-intentioned reformers, can successfully inoculate a society with an abstracted ethical code that mandates returning evil with good, embracing the martyring of oneself for truth, total pacifism, etc. on a purely logical basis, by all means go ahead and give it your best shot. Until then, I'm going to loudly proclaim that Chesterton's fence should be returned to its field.
The martyrs of early Christianity are recognized as saints because they were decent people who were killed for no reason but their witnessing of truths others refused to publicly acknowledge--truths that rejected the false authority of both tribal religion and the state.
You and your loved ones are going to suffer, regardless. If you will not take a stand for truth now, it will fall to your children or to the children of your loved ones.
The historiography of this period, if humans remain extant, will discover the causal link between the rise of New Atheism and the rise of intellectual cowardice that by necessity emerged shortly after the implicit social norms of Christianity were intentionally jettisoned.
Being willing to sacrifice, not to inflict violence but to actively suffer, for the truth that one witnesses is a fundamental predicate of Western civilization. Even the Christian heretics of the middle ages, willfully executed for their idiosyncratic beliefs, viewed this as a sacrosanct duty as a human being.
If a polity actively consents to the silencing of the individual's ability to testify to their truth for the sake of Mammon, state persecution, the possibility of being stoned by a crowd of True Believers, or any other exercise of temporal power, civilization, that is the ability of a group of diverse individuals to exist for a future commonweal, is impossible to maintain.
The honest and earnest among this and past generations have voluntarily silenced and removed themselves from the possibility of being spiritual and intellectual leaders. The only result that can come of this abdication of responsibility is not their own safety but the endangerment of everyone within that society.
If you will not lead, you will be led by those that aren't so fearful, so future-minded, or scrupulous. If you would pretend to be blind, you will be led by the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
Everyone is born with original sin from being born from Adam and Eve. Many or most never question this concupiscence.
In my experience, folks who have been actively working on heresy and inquisitions for years if not decades are the first to admit that they too carry rebellious, largely hereditary, inclinations towards sin.
A lot of people don't seem to grok original sin.
I want to be very clear that formal consideration of the UDHR by established authorities is not my contention. If you wanted solely an affirmative vision of an ideal society, then the UDHR is it.
> Your definition of "mob", "attack" both would need examples. In a real world analogy: If someone on my street waves a Nazi flag and says God hates Fags, and our entire community were to shun him, refuse to interact with him, or at times, warn others of his beliefs - do you believe that is a violation of his fundamental human rights? That no person can be shunned or disliked for their beliefs?
I'm going to elide some details from your hypothetical.
"If someone on my street [...] and [...], and our entire community were to shun him, refuse to interact with him, or at times, warn others of [...] - do you believe that is a violation of his fundamental human rights? That no person can be shunned or disliked for [...]?"
If the elided details merely included his race for example, would you consider that a violation of his fundamental human rights? If the elided details included his colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, at what point does that become a violation of fundamental human rights? To me, the question boils down to this: is redlining a desirable and/or legal practice if the target is a law-abiding citizen in good standing, despite all other possible non-essential attributes?
From my perspective, the homophobic Nazi has done nothing unlawful or contrary to the UDHR, if we can agree that imminent harm is the baseline for where speech can infringe upon others' liberty. If we disagree that imminent harm is the baseline for acceptable speech, then we need to figure out the exact location of that disjuncture to continue.
As a further point, censorship, shunning, or suppression do not resolve the underlying processes that led to the emergence of the supposed undesirable element in the first place. If this element is a Nazi, it does not address why this person identifies as a Nazi, how he came to be radicalized as a Nazi, and what cultural or societal forces led to him falling through the cracks of the social contract to begin with. Similarly with racists, homophobes, antisemites, misogynists, and all other self-righteous authoritarians of whatever political identity.
Censorship, shunning, and suppression in fact lead to the opposite--it ignores their provenance, lets them grow in the dark, and tempers their own narratives of persecution and conspiracy. If the goal is a harmonious society predicated upon love, or at the very least brotherhood, this is not reached by excommunicating people from the very possibility of de-radicalization, de-militarization, and rapprochement.
To quote the Buddha:
"Hostilities aren’t stilled through hostility, regardless. Hostilities are stilled through non-hostility: this, an unending truth."
Articles in particular:
2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion (emphasis mine), national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
10. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
11. (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
29. (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
Whether this dialogue can progress further depends on whether we can agree that, despite having no official jurisdiction, a social media mob attacking an individual constitutes being charged with a criminal and penal offense worthy of legal protections as illuminated by the above. If you believe that it not being formal prosecution that such protections don't extend to the accused, then there's no point in progressing further and I reiterate my original post.
---
Is everyone in America so ignorant that they don't know what happens when informal social standards become justifications for political suppression based on who the "public" and not the law deems to be "clearly bad" and "objectively horrible" people? You get lynchings and pogroms. You get informal show trials and massacres. You carve the stick that the next batch of self-righteous authoritarians stick up their ass to justify being inhuman, indecent, monsters.
I can already hear the response forming: "But we know that these people exist, are evil, and are harming people now! We have evidence!"
Yeah. That's what they always say.
I could list every group targeted throughout by self-righteous authoritarians through just Western history--Christians, Jews, Manicheans, heretics, lepers, Catholics, Protestants, witches, blacks, anarchists, communists, thugs, Muslims--and always find a justification that began with some variant of "But we have evidence that they were Clearly Bad People!"
All those other Devils were ridiculous, made-up nonsense. But not yours. Your Devil is real.
https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1q0d9/the_bush_...
It turns out that you really can't have both community and scale. The attempts end up aging differently, but inevitably, to something that the core membership doesn't want to be a part of and thus the predicates that enabled its existence stop. Its A people move on and the B people move in. This is true of every human group, subculture, or social phenomena really.
I strongly recommend reading Clay Shirky's commentary on the nascent phenomena of "social software" back in 2003:
https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2005-shirky-agroupisit...
Or consider C2's conception of it, particularly the end of it:
http://wiki.c2.com/?CommunityLifeCycle
The Decline, the formation of cliques and factions, incidents of abuse, of intellectual violence and namecalling. The software becomes encrusted with patches and extensions, the unwritten rules are flouted regularly and the meta-rules all but forgotten. It is a time of either shrinking membership, or overwhelming growth.
The Fall, an incident, whether social or technical that makes everybody realize that things aren't like they used to be. It usually leads to a revision or addition to the software as this is the easiest thing to fix.
The fact is that nuanced discussion doesn't scale. It requires a small core of dedicated users that can't get drowned out by dross (e.g. rabid Twitter users that collectively gish gallop). Broadcasting the existence of any of these communities is an almost guaranteed path to destroying the essence of what makes them successful communities in the first place.