The concerted effort to equate Neo Nazis to pornographers, atheists and lgbt people is rather worrying as well.
If you can't see the difference between those groups then the problem is on your end.
Hint: Neo Nazis wish to return to the good old days of 1939 or so where Jews and people of color are either dead, outcast, deported, enslaved or stuck in camps while white men rule the land as is their god given right.
So just in case it needs explaining: that's not the moral equivalent of pornographers, atheists or lgbt related material and I'm surprised that that needs spelling out.
Yeah, this whole "Nazi flags == rainbow flag" or "this is a slippery slope" thing the right-wing has been pushing is ludicrous. There's nothing controversial in saying that Nazi ideals are really fucked up. Porn and LGBT people don't kill other people, Nazis did and would do again if given the chance.
I don't think grandparent was equating them, but rather pointing out that someone in a position of power could one day equate them. If the rule is going to be "your website only exists if one of a handful of powerful people don't veto its existence," then you have to worry that one of those powerful people would someday decide that LGBT advocacy turns his stomach in the same way that Daily Stormer pissed off Matthew Prince.
If, on the other hand, the rule is "your website exists as long as the courts don't decide otherwise," then both LGBT sites and Nazi sites are safer.
LGBT sites are pretty safe because there are anti discrimination laws that would enable a lawsuit with a high chance of success when discriminated against for that reason. Good luck trying to establish Neo Nazism as a protected class under the law.
> Hint: Neo Nazis wish to return to the good old days of 1939 or so where Jews and people of color are either dead, outcast, deported, enslaved or stuck in camps while white men rule the land as is their god given right.
Hint: In other words, neo-nazis have no shot right? So let the neo-nazis have their say.
People like you are so shortsighted that it is bizarre.
We have free speech so that neo-nazis CAN'T win. You start limiting free speech and that's why you have nazi germany.
As my jewish philosophy professor said, nazi germany happened because of censorship. That's why she adamantly supported neo-nazis, kkk, etc having marches and even giving speeches in colleges/forums/etc. And as she said, as long as the most offensive forms of speech are protected, then she knows everyone, including her free speech, is protected.
> The concerted effort to equate Neo Nazis to pornographers, atheists and lgbt people is rather worrying as well.
It's worrying if you don't understand what free speech is about.
The reason why I support free speech for neo-nazis isn't because I agree with them. It's because I don't agree with them.
It's not a matter of just censoring neo-nazis. It's a matter of setting precedence. Okay? If you say it's okay to censor one ideology or one form of speech, then you make a mockery of free speech and nobody has free speech.
If people who disagree with neo-nazis are in power and they censor neo-nazis, then how do we protect ourselves when people who hate porn or gays or atheists are in power? Hmmm? Have you thought about this or are you just going by "emotions"?
The reason why nazi germany happened is because germany had censorship laws. So when hitler won a small minority of votes and he took over the government, he could ban political parties and political speech. If germany had free speech and you couldn't silence the 80% of non-nazis voters, nazi germany could never have happened.
"Saying I support censorship because I find X offensive" is justification for saudis censoring atheists, chinese censoring pro-democracy groups and thais censoring anti-royalty speech.
Okay? So please take a course in philosophy and try to learn what is really at stake. Because if people like you were in charge in the 1950s, 1960s, etc, we never would have had lgbt movement or atheist movement or the civil rights movement. Because they all would have been censored because they were offensive.
Believe it or not, there was a time in america when lgbt, atheist and civil rights speech was deemed more offensive than nazi speech. Thank god people like you weren't in charge and thank god we had free speech rights so that lgbt, atheists and civil rights groups could speak and express their ideas.
And oddly enough, the pro-censorship people like you are more like nazis since the nazis loved censorship. If you truly are disgusted by nazis, then you should be disgusted by censorship.
They actually do, and to close your eyes to the possibility is in light of the developments of the last couple of years a bit strange. But I don't begrudge you your worldview, let's hope you are right and I'm wrong.
Keep in mind that I live in a country that has suffered quite extensively from the previous batch of Nazis, that 'free speech' as you define it is unique to one country only and that that country at present is the one most at risk of having a serious problem on this front. Whether or not 'free speech' as you have enshrined it will survive is up for grabs but is no reason for your rather incoherent post above.
All the 'people like you' references are frankly not conducive to a productive discussion.
What about white nationalists or separatists? People who want a white ethnic country with restricted immigration. Are they outside our moral tolerance as well? AFAIU, a lot of these so-called Nazis are just white nationalists who want to assert their superiority, but not in a Hitler way.
> What about white nationalists or separatists? People who want a white ethnic country with restricted immigration.
They have the vote, don't they?
> Are they outside our moral tolerance as well?
Well, they are outside mine so if that's how you roll you won't find yourself invited into my house because you'd be incompatible with whoever else I might invite and you'd be incompatible with me.
> AFAIU, a lot of these so-called Nazis are just white nationalists who want to assert their superiority, but not in a Hitler way.
Yes, all we want is a nice white place for ourselves, and the temporary problem of how to get rid of those who we find objectionable we'll leave to our friends over there.
Note that the one group needs the others if they are to get their way and so they openly support each other and to all intents and purposes might as well be seen as one group by outsiders.
What if they propose a 100% peaceful process? Imagine something like apartheid, i.e. segregated schools, restaurants, etc. There is literally no violence here. Are people allowed to believe in a different set of political axioms (isolationism against multiculturalsim/diversity)?
Note that I'm talking about what stance government and its institutions should take against such rebellion, not who you invite to your private party.
Also, these are not my political beliefs. Just trying to see where the line is being drawn here.
> What if they propose a 100% peaceful process? Imagine something like apartheid, i.e. segregated schools, restaurants, etc. There is literally no violence here.
Are you kidding? A 100% peaceful process that will segregate society and return to the days we have fortunately left behind us and you believe that the perpetrators would not use force?
Majority decides that all people of color have to leave and they will just have to abide?
You're going to be in for a rude surprise if you think that would be without violence.
> Are people allowed to believe in a different set of political axioms (isolationism against multiculturalsim/diversity)?
Yes they are, but unfortunately for those people their beliefs are generally against the laws of most or all civilized countries where equality before the law is a very basic principle. What you are advocating is to create classes of humanity that are not equal before the law.
Even if you were to get a majority of a society to accept that there will be an immediate and violent response from the minority that you wish to dis-enfranchise. So there is no '100% peaceful process' to achieve this, that's a pipe dream.
> Note that I'm talking about what stance government and its institutions should take against such rebellion, not who you invite to your private party.
Yes, I got that.
> Also, these are not my political beliefs.
Then you're going to have to be very careful with how you express yourself lest someone mistakenly holds you to account for beliefs you don't have but wish to throw out there as some kind of academic exercise.
> Just trying to see where the line is being drawn here.
Where I deem it to be reasonable: the right for one group to exercise their freedom stops where that group attempts to limit the freedoms of others that they would like to claim for themselves. Symmetry is key.
My conjectured proposal is both symmetrical and consistent with equality: any citizen X is allowed to open restaurant/school which only caters to class Y, for all X and Y. It sure allows apartheid, but there are no perpetrators here. It's perfectly symmetrical.
> My conjectured proposal is both symmetrical and consistent with equality: any citizen X is allowed to open restaurant/school which only caters to class Y, for all X and Y. It sure allowed apartheid, but there are no perpetrators here. It's perfectly symmetrical.
No, it is not symmetrical because the number of members of the various classes and their power dynamics are not symmetrical. This obviously would benefit the majority ruling, or in the case of outright apartheid the ones in power or wealthy at the expense of those without power or wealth.
So no, it is not symmetrical, in fact it is the same dumb and fallacious kind of reasoning that whites under the apartheid regime used to justify their position.
The law does not allow whites to create schools where blacks are not welcome any more than it would allow a school created by blacks where whites aren't welcome. Ditto for restaurants and if you wish to create such a society you will likely find that your view is a minority view that will not make you any friends.
While I'm fairly conformist, and "won't make you friends" is sufficient for me to join the diversity bandwagon, I can imagine radicals not buying your counter-arguments. Groups like the altright truly believe that multiculturalism is the Worst Possible Thing Ever™, and fighting against it is noble even if that restricts their friend circle. Here's a Vox piece[1] where Renaud Camus explains much better than me on where altright are coming from. While I abhor violence and believe in Enlightenment ideals, I don't take diversity as an intrinsic good, and I think being against diversity is consistent with other Enlightenment ideals, and is not coming from a position of hatred or ignorance.
> I can imagine radicals not buying your counter-arguments.
That is because they are not going be be buying any counter arguments at all, regardless of merit.
> While I abhor violence and believe in Enlightenment ideals, I don't take diversity as an intrinsic good, and I think being against diversity is consistent with other Enlightenment ideals, and is not coming from a position of hatred or ignorance.
If you wish to stake out this position right 'on the line' that's your problem, not mine, it's not up to me to supply you with arguments for your feelings. I'm a bit surprised you would use an expensive word such as 'Enlightenment' and then use it to promote a radically un-enlightened position.
Whether diversity as such is an intrinsic good or not is not even up for discussion, diversity is the direct result of having a society where everybody is equal before the law. If you feel that is something that you could argue about you're going to have a hard time finding a country where you will feel comfortable.
As for the root cause: it need not be hatred or ignorance, there is a much simpler and baser emotion at work here: fear.
Ask yourself this: why is it that you feel that you could not share a country with people with a different culture from yours and with a different skin color than yours?
On another note, earlier you made it seems as if you were just 'asking for a friend' ("Also, these are not my political beliefs.") or speaking entirely in hypotheticals and now you actually admit that this is your own position after all. I'm super interested in how you got yourself into that position in the first place, I've yet to meet someone who openly admitted to such a stance so if you could please try to make me understand how you arrived at your position I'm most interested.
> That is because they are not going be be buying any counter arguments at all, regardless of merit.
Assuming that all the intelligent people in the world only belong to your camp is a reliable way to cloud your perspective, and not only unpersuasive, but dangerous. Since while you're complacent about the abilities of your opponent, they are recruiting and growing because they are not that stupid after all.
> radically un-enlightened position
How so? As I said, it's compatible with equality and symmetry. Your argument about minorities and wealth disparity is unfalsifiable. There will never be a time when we'd say that wealth disparity is gone, and discrimination doesn't exist. It's un-enlightened to use unfalsifiable statements as driving principles. This is why we're stuck on a downward spiral right now, because someone forgot to put in a good termination condition.
People have moralized their political stances (diversity in tech), so that disagreement automatically categorizes you as sexist, and possibly Nazi. Bulletproofing your stance from critics by moralizing it is profoundly unenlightened. Enlightenment requires making your idea criticize-able, something we're forgetting how to do.
Also, the Enlightenment and Hellenistic ideal is equality before the law, not "each man is equal", but "each man will be treated equally by the law".
> why is it that you feel that you could not share a country with people with a different culture from yours and with a different skin color than yours?
I'm a non-white non-western immigrant to this country, so I do speak from a very academic point of view. I have no skin in the game, and maybe that's why I am comfortable taking such an extremist position.
Color doesn't matter to me. But culture does. I believe there are inferior and superior cultures in this world, and there is little to be gained from an inferior culture. I've come out of such an inferior culture myself, only because I had the writings and wisdom of great western thinkers, who instilled the spirit of scientific inquiry in me. In no other culture, is science and its spirit as respected.
Culture and community is humanity's greatest strength. Most of what we achieved is due to culture (that we accidentally acquired in the 1700s) and cooperation among people of the same culture. By fucking up our culture, we risk losing the very thing that built western civilization and its ideals, and gain next to nothing.
Do you not see how little freedom of speech is valued these days? How hurtful speech is categorized as violence? FoS got us out of the fucking dark ages, and we plan to abandon and replace with absolutisms like "Nazism and anything which remotely touches Nazism is shoot-on-sight", or even better "I'll decide if you're Nazi or not, coz you mentioned biological differences between sexes/races, and we've already established that punching/killing Nazis is Good".
Since I come from a non-western country, I know the value of western ideals, probably (dare I say) much more than you, since I've lived in the counterfactual. And I see that the west is also denigrating to the same, becoming the worst of multiple cultures mixed together haphazardly, adopting the most base populist idea of each.
> there is a much simpler and baser emotion at work here: fear.
I don't deny this. Fear is not a base emotion though, unlike hatred or ignorance. It's fear of losing what's important. It's not an impulsive misinformed fear either. It's very carefully evaluated and sustained.
> you're going to have a hard time finding a country where you will feel comfortable.
I'm not a radical myself, so I am comfortable being a passive observer in a country going to the dogs. The altright have half the story right, and the other half (violence, anti-semitism) wrong, and it's possible to have a decently rational brain which believes in the first half without the second.
Also, believing in something just because it's comfortable and would make you the most friends is a profoundly unenlightened idea. I'm sure I don't need to recount the countless times in history when people had to take contrarian positions, make enemies, and eventually been proven right. I'm not saying you should abandon your friends, but you shouldn't disrespect people simply because they have an extremely provocative position. Being gay or an atheist was extremely provocative in the dark ages. Are you sure you're objective Right and not simply following a moral fashion?
Radical skepticism. Mistrusting everything mainstream media tells me, and trying to find alternative explanations for the same. The rationalist bloggers (SSC, LW), Sam Harris, a bit of Moldbug, conservative thinkers like Niall Ferguson, Douglas Murray, but mostly my own deductions from facts obtained from unbiased sources, or if not available, reading from ALL the biased sources (instead of just one), and weighting their argument's merit. You should try this. Every time you read an opinion `X`, find someone intelligent who is (for some godforsaken reason) arguing for `not X`, and see if his explanation makes more sense. Most of the time the mainstream opinion would be right, but often it won't.
First of all thank you for taking the time to write this long response.
Now let me try to correct some of the errors in how you arrived at your conclusion:
The first is that if you're an immigrant into a country you are roughly in the same position as a smoker who stops smoking. You, more than anybody else know the dangers of smoking first hand and so you will now fall through to an extremist anti-smoking position without realizing that the same people that allowed you to smoke before are part of the group of people who you are now arguing against.
Essentially you have leapfrogged the middle to end up on the other side.
Second, and point by point:
> I'm not a radical myself
You'd be surprised how many people would interpret your position as a pretty radical one. The one mistake I see over and over again in these discussions is that people have no idea in how extremist their positions really are because to them it is all reasonable.
> I am comfortable being a passive observer in a country going to the dogs.
It is going to the dogs, but this is in large part because of the group which you say you are a part of. There is a certain amount of hypocrisy in you moving from one country to another and then joining a group which fairly explicitly states that they are against people being able to do what you just did.
> Mistrusting everything mainstream media tells me
Why would you mistrust them and not mistrust the other sources that you have found?
> and trying to find alternative explanations for the same.
It appears to me that you are consciously selecting for sources that agree with your way of thinking and discarding those sources that disagree with your way of thinking.
> The rationalist bloggers (SSC, LW), Sam Harris, a bit of Moldbug
Those are considered 'fringe' (and worse) by a very large fraction of the population.
> conservative thinkers like Niall Ferguson, Douglas Murray, but mostly my own deductions from facts obtained from unbiased sources
Again, unbiased because they agree with you, not because they are actually unbiased.
> or if not available, reading from ALL the biased sources (instead of just one), and weighting their argument's merit.
That's a better method.
> You should try this.
What makes you think I don't? The fact that we disagree?
> Every time you read an opinion `X`, find someone intelligent who is (for some godforsaken reason) arguing for `not X`, and see who if his explanation makes more sense.
So, how is that working out for you so far :) ?
Note that - wittingly or not - you have aligned yourself with that element of your society that wants to destroy it an that given half a chance would deport you. That makes no sense to me.
> Most of the time the mainstream opinion would be right, but often it won't.
This we can agree on, but for different reasons.
Anyway, regardless of our different position on this subject once again my gratitude for taking the time for a reasoned and measured response.
> First of all thank you for taking the time to write this long response.
Thanks to you too for engaging with me respectfully. It's a shame that this conversation needs to be anonymous on my side. This will be my last response for some hours. Need to get some work done! :D
> Essentially you have leapfrogged the middle to end up on the other side.
I don't consider this the other side. My position is a fairly moderate "diversity is not as good as it's made out to be". Peter Thiel shares my position as well, but I ack that he's considered fringe at the moment.
> You'd be surprised how many people would interpret your position as a pretty radical one
By "not radical" I meant, I'm an armchair philosopher. I don't think my position is strong/confident enough to merit agency. I am happy merely talking about this, and not acting on it. For instance, I won't go and insult someone from an inferior culture (from my perspective) because of this position.
> It is going to the dogs, but this is in large part because of the group which you say you are a part of
Here, I completely and vehemently disagree. You've just stated this without any effort to argue why. And this truly is the core disagreement. As I said, my "group" isn't Trump or Nazis, but conservatives who want to conserve what is good in this society. What is killing this society is a rejection of enlightenment ideals, promulgated by the leftists and tolerated by the liberals, using violence when necessary.
> hypocrisy
I try to see things from an unbiased perspective. Whether I'm an immigrant or not shouldn't change what's good for western society (and therefore the world). So, this should perhaps prove to you that I'm not taking this position out of self-interest (unlike the whites), but could be taking this position out of ignorance, and I'm open to being convinced out of.
> Why would you mistrust them and not mistrust the other sources that you have found?
I mistrust them as well. Obviously. You could have simply steelmanned me here.
> It appears to me that you are consciously selecting for sources that agree with your way of thinking and discarding those sources that disagree with your way of thinking.
Umm no. This is literally the definition of scientific skepticism. That you try to find ALL explanations of a given phenomenon, and then pick the one with most merit, which explains the phenomenon completely using as few assumptions as possible and refutes most or all counterarguments.
As I said later, I often find mainstream media correct. For instance, climate change is a real threat (but MSM has the most shitty way of talking about it). I convinced myself of it not by MSM in this case, but by reading IPCC, watching nicely-done documentaries about it. On this topic, the rightwing media had only trash explanations, which was easy to see. Skepticism works. I'm not fooling myself. At least, not in such an obvious way.
At the very least, picking the best out of multiple sources is better than aligning with only one.
I should also add that I don't want to believe in what I believe. It's such an uncomfortable stance. I want to be proven wrong! If you have something I could follow which would convince me out of this, I would honestly be grateful!
> Those are considered 'fringe' (and worse) by a very large fraction of the population.
I agree. Again, I don't trust them blindly, but they offer good explanations. SSC and SH are not that fringe. I know senators listen to SH, and a lot of tech folks read SSC.
> conservative thinkers like Niall Ferguson, Douglas Murray,
I never said they are unbiased. I literally called them "conservative". They can't be conservative and unbiased at the same time. Cmon, give your opponent more credit.
> my own deductions from facts obtained from unbiased sources
By unbiased sources, I mean sources like the IPCC report, surveys by trusted names, etc.
> What makes you think I don't? The fact that we disagree?
You seem to not like anything your friends would disagree with, and therefore it seems you're in a filter bubble. Also, your previous comment to the tune of "I've never met someone who openly takes this stance" is another clue.
> So, how is that working out for you so far :) ?
I don't understand the rhetoric. Good?
> destroy it an that given half a chance would deport you
Core disagreement. I don't think they plan to destroy it. Further, I'd rather have a functioning Enlightened society where I'm not living, than a dysfunctional society where I am.
Ok, so my reading on this so far is this: you've decided to move to another place and now you would like that place to remain the way it was when you chose to move there.
Please realize that culture is fluid and that culture has always been changing due to influences from other cultures and that you will never be able to find a place that is static to the degree that you seem to desire.
Once you acknowledge that you can start to think about how to constructively guide a culture's change while under the influence of more and less desirable influences from outside.
> Core disagreement. I don't think they plan to destroy it.
You must have entirely missed the hostile take-over of the conservative party by the fringe, this is no longer a thing that is up for debate, the GOP is no longer able to control the fringe to the point where it is forced to dance along to the tune of the minority radical element. It's a real problem. Once the conservative movement manages to distance itself from the fringe - assuming they can do it - you will again have representation in politics but right now it appears that you do not.
edit:
Thinking about this a bit more, you should have moved to Switzerland, it is far more in line with your way of thinking than the USA is.
> you would like that place to remain the way it was when you chose to move there
This isn't a good characterization at all.
> that culture is fluid
I do want it to evolve but not in the wrong direction. I want MORE western values and scientific and enlightenment ideals, not less. I don't want identity politics and post-modernism and moral relativism and political correctness and feelings over facts/science. In short I want what Steven Pinker (http://a.co/7ctFP0t) wants. And sometimes, being smarter about immigration is the only way to move towards a better society, instead of axiomatically believing in "diversity and immigration is an intrinsic good", which is an extremely unscientific position to take.
> You must have entirely missed the hostile take-over of the conservative party by the fringe
This is actually a common myth. If you have the patience, Ben Shapiro (Conservative NeverTrumper) explains it in this video (https://youtu.be/67zCG-KPWfQ). He essentially says that the actual number of people who hate other races and want to kill non-whites, i.e. neonazis, are very few, and most altrighters are just people who want to protect western values, are against the "whites are oppressors" narrative, etc.
> you should have moved to Switzerland
This is not so important to me that I sacrifice my tech career. Also, there is pretty much only 2-3 places in the world to do AI, and bay area is one of them.
> The concerted effort by the pro-censorship crowd to exploit nazis to promote censorship is rather worrying.
This, right here, is a straw-man that I've seen repeated countless times. I am not pro-censorship, but I'm sure as hell not for forcing companies to provide services to Nazis and other scum.
There's a huge, gaping difference between those two things and I'd appreciate it if you stopped conflating them.
There's a huge, gaping difference between those two things
Is there? If you need companies to effectively publish on the internet, then those companies refusing to work with you means you can't publish. Do you consider that censorship?
I'm kind of surprised that would need re-iterating but yes, there is.
> If you need companies to effectively publish on the internet, then those companies refusing to work with you means you can't publish.
No, you can go buy a printer and write your little screed in notepad and print it out, then distribute your copies. Who every equated the internet with all venues of publishing?
> Do you consider that censorship?
Absolutely not. Censorship is when the state muzzles your ability to communicate, see the former eastblock and present day China and North Korea. That's censorship. This is companies deciding who to do business with.
I, and most other people, disagree with this definition.
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information that may be considered objectionable... Governments, private organizations and individuals may engage in censorship.
Yes, private organizations and individuals may engage in censorship. But for those classes it is a censorship with a relatively limited effect. Censorship at the state level is where it starts to become a real problem.
I have a big problem with people trying to equate objectionable people not being given each and every platform they desire with censorship. If you wish to spew hate and division then you should not be surprised if you will receive some pushback from people who do not wish to become associated with your particular brand of hate. Action begets reaction. I've yet to see an actual example of censorship acted out in a way that I found the term to be appropriate when it concerns online communications between fringe groups and their followers. Typically they're spoiling for a fight and then play the victim when someone engages, and cry 'censorship' when actually censorship and worse is what they would hope to inflict on others if they achieve their stated goal.
But for those classes it is a censorship with a relatively limited effect.
In this case we're talking about removing these opinions from the internet.
the initial requests we received to terminate their service came from hackers who literally said: "Get out of the way so we can DDoS this site off the Internet."
I don't see any practical difference between this and what China does on the internet. Only difference is I agree with the side that gets to censor here.
Does it suprise you that on opinion which yearns to de-humanize untold millions and seeks to destroy them finds pushback?
That's not censorship, that's action begetting reaction and as long as it is limited to groups that aim to do bad things to large numbers of people I'm perfectly fine with it.
Note that this particular gem of a website is run by one of the worlds foremost trolls, a man who I believe is not exactly 100% in the head and who loves to watch the world burn. If you feel that he deserves a platform I suggest you make your own Neo Nazi friendly CDN and take some business away from Cloudflare, they won't mind.
Private internet services of many kinds prohibiting use for “adult” content much more broadly than pornography is routine, and has been for a long time.
Does that also apply to pornography? What about atheism? What about lgbt content?
The concerted effort by the pro-censorship crowd to exploit nazis to promote censorship is rather worrying.