You’ve got to give people a space to consider both sides of every argument. Better to cordone off that space than have that discussion elsewhere.
If you tell someone NEVER GO INTO THE LAST DOOR ON THE THIRD STORY, they’ll endlessly wonder what’s inside. If you show them that it’s your amateur paintings, they’ll never care again.
We want to act like we are purely rational beings, and maybe some of us operate on that level consistently, but those of us that do not, even for a moment, are ripe to have their animal brains taken advantage of for evil.
The paradox of tolerance is an iffy justification. It's an anecdotal testament of someone who survived the Holocaust, IIRC. Not to minimize the Holocaust or any part of it. That said, as far as I've seen, there's no established historical pattern that fascism is a function of societal tolerance of intolerant ideologies.
I don’t need to have a discussion with a guy who beats his wife because he never got help for his PTSD to know it’s wrong. Giving it a platform treats it like a point of view and not a gross fucking crime.
I don’t need to talk to a Nazi to know that gassing Jews and gays is wrong.
People seem to think that there are some unexplored ideas here that merit further discussion. We have already established that this shit is not what we want. Those in doubt can read accounts of domestic violence victims or a couple of history books to educate themselves.
And here is where the SpeakWrite machine was given authority to rewrite history in order to satisfy "The Grinning Fox" as Malcom X puts it.
If you don't want to talk to those people, then don't. But to stand there and claim to speak for all of us and claim you are the authority on what topics are authorised for discussion is such an disgusting level of narcisistic meglomania that needs to be stamped out.
You're just a Totalitarian, and you should be put on a podium along side your historial commrades (and their outcomes) for all to hear and see.
This shit has happened before, and many millions were silenced into the siberian wastelands for it.
I have no idea what I just read but I’m pretty sure that even if it was a cohesive thought that it is incorrect. Look, if you want to spend your time building a platform helping extremist groups communicate and coordinate, go right ahead. I think that’s a bad idea, and yes I am fairly certain I am right. Also, as someone who lived in an actual totalitarian regime, I think I know when I see a bad faith usage of totalitarianism in an argument.
Bothsidism is a straw man argument designed to present arguments that compare practical effects of different ideologies in bad faith and give rhetoric to people who have no business making the argument in the first place.
Dismissing an argument based on rhetorical sophistry is keeping your head in the sand while trying to get others to do the same. It’s reckless.
You might not need to talk to that guy to know beating his wife was wrong. But talking to him may make you realize he’s in a lot of pain, and that he’s been hurt by a system larger than both of you. That doesn’t absolve him of guilt but I think pragmatically it gives us a better shot at preventing such things in the far future.
You don’t have to browse Nazi forums to know that gassing Jews is wrong. But you may start to discover the reasons why these (mostly) young men are so angry, which I posit allows one to do more to prevent the spread of such ideologies.
> talking to him may make you realize he’s in a lot of pain, and that he’s been hurt by a system larger than ...
I'd look at fat-people-hate and beat-women subreddits more like bank robberers planning their next attack on a bank, discussing weapons, and having a good time looking at viedos of robberies from the past.
Then you can visit them and tell them "But it's wrong to rob banks, it's not your money and think of the poor people working in the bank, they'll get PTSD".
Or you say "Let's discuss the big underlying systematic problem that is larger than all of us, and makes you rob banks, and how to solve it"
Then you get banned from that subreddit, and the bank robberers continue enjoying robbing banks.
> Then you get banned from that subreddit, and the bank robberers continue enjoying robbing banks.
Bank robbers don't rob banks because they enjoy robbing banks. Bullys don't bully because "omg wow have you tried bullying it so great".
I'm all with you that bullying sucks, but if you want bullying to stop, you better damn well understand the motivation. If you reach for "they are just evil people", you're not thinking hard enough.
There is a difference in talking to someone to understand a problem and providing a communications platform for them to connect to other bullies in order to form a community that validates the practice. How in the world is that so difficult to see?
Say you build walkie talkies, and a member of the KKK shows up and says he needs 100 of them because they are rioting in a black neighborhood tonight and need a way to coordinate their plans. Do you say “sure in fact take some for free!” just so you can listen in to understand exactly how they are terrorizing their black neighbors, or do you tell them to fuck off because you don’t want to provide tools to a hate group?
> But you may start to discover the reasons why these (mostly) young men are so angry, which I posit allows one to do more to prevent the spread of such ideologies.
The hypothesis that forums dedicated to the spread of neo-Nazism can be effectively used in such a way actually help the world do more to prevent the spread of such ideologies is largely unproven.
Unlike the fact that the dissemination and social reinforcement of Nazi propaganda is an efficient way to help people in a lot of pain 'realize' that the 'real' cause of their problem is Jews.
What you say has a kernel of truth to it, but I think you are thinking of the wrong tool for the job. There was a well studied psychological phenomenon (sorry I can’t recall the name of the researchers at the moment) where if you put people of similar ideology in a room together and let them converse for a period of time, they will come out of that room holding more extreme views than they went in with, down to holding views that are more extreme than the view of their most extreme member going in. This happen every day on Reddit. Take /r/conservative. Theoretically, a great place to get a conservative point of view and discuss how it might clash with something opposite it. In practice, it has become a safe bubble. If you express a strong liberal viewpoint or identify as a liberal, you will get banned. Ask how I know. And at that point why would anyone outside that bubble go visit it, and why would anyone who is there leave? It creates the exact opposite effect of what you are describing.
Also, again, I am happy to fund research on why men beat women (or any person of any gender beats any other gender, though let’s face it, most times domestic violence is by men against women), but I don’t need 1000 angry men trying to justify to me and each other why it’s ok.
And that’s my point: the web allows us to give voice to those who haven’t been heard before. If a former Nazi wants to explain why he did what he did and why he walked away from it, we should give them voice and listen. If a current incel wants to detail his struggles and ask for help, we should lend an ear. But what help can be given to a man who beats his wife by 1000 men who do the same and think it’s totally justified? What possible good comes of helping them reinforce their beliefs while providing tools to exclude all external points of view?
Lastly, yes it is true that some points of view are just wrong. There are in fact bad ideas. Eugenics is a bad idea. Racism is a bad idea. Misogyny is a bad idea. We can let the academics study it and the therapists try to fix it, but we absolutely do not need to entertain it, pretend like there is some valid point of view there, or give it a platform just so someone can turn around, point out that the existence of the platform means there are two sides to the argument and demand more equal representation. If you really want to help, try going on those fringe subreddits and offer to pay for therapy for those young men. If they take you up on that offer, yes you’ve done a good thing. But in my experience you get a nicely worded message from a mod saying that you and your ideas aren’t welcome here.
Edit: also, I don’t give a fuck if you are in pain because crushing system, etc. If you beat your wife, you deserve a beating. If you think it’s sometimes justified you deserve two. Don’t make your problems someone else’s pain. It doesn’t make you justified. It just objectively makes you an asshole.
Edit 2: Daryl Davis is a black man who has been befriending members of the KKK and successfully convinced over 200 of them to leave. That does not justify the existence of the KKK, just shows how difficult it is to do this kind of work: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinc...
> Lastly, yes it is true that some points of view are just wrong. There are in fact bad ideas. Eugenics is a bad idea. Racism is a bad idea. Misogyny is a bad idea.
As someone who has been looking for good anti-racialist arguments for a long time (along with explanations for why eugenics is wrong and why we think there aren't substantial sex differences that make the sexes on average more suited to different things) the fact these kinds or things are censured and censored everywhere is immensely frustrating.
The only things I can find are sites talking about why racism is true or sites talking about why it's wrong, but I can't find resources talking about why it's false!
If you happen to have links about eugenics/racism/sexism that talk about their falseness (I mean, I presume you have actually seen arguments against them that makes you so sure they are bad/false?) then please let me know.
> As someone who has been looking for good anti-racialist arguments for a long time...
Racism isn't useful and isn't actionable at a policy level.
Let's suppose there is some trait X (could be IQ test score, high jump ability, whatever) that is statistically variant by rigorously defined race. Group A scores on average 98, group B scores on average 103.
The median difference between groups doesn't actually matter, because individual scores are spread on a normal distribution. Therefore some percentage of individuals of group A will score higher on trait X than individuals of group B even if on average they do not.
So how can you effectively filter out individuals for entry into some special program? (for example, the high jump event in the Olympics)
Well, you have to test each individual. And if you want the very best, it behooves you to test each individual as fairly as possible, because there's always a chance that you will sample an individual from group A who is a super star, and also find an individual from group B who is a dud.
And it is the same for any other trait you would like to filter for.
Racism is an attempt to find a convenient mental shortcut so that it may provide cover for hatred of an out-group. But racism is ineffective and stupid.
Actual discussion of racist thought is pretty off topic, I am more interested in where one could find good anti-race realist resources (and arguing for why attemptibg to censor racist thought can cause the problem of lack of said resources) then trying to rehash hundred thousand word arguments on an extremely complex topic in comments.
That said, it would be rude to ignore the effort you've made, so:
The main actionable things the HBDers I've spoken to want include no longer automatically treating mismatches between demographics in employment, prison, etc as a problem and introducing testing for those coming emmigrating into their country.
Also, there is a weakness in testing, namely that even racialists think things like intelligence are partly non-shared environment, so if you set a lower bar filter from a population with lower average IQ, then while the people you get will meet your threshhold, their children would often not (assuming this supposed genetic difference exists), which is relevant to immigration rules.
> Also, there is a weakness in testing, namely that even racialists think things like intelligence are partly non-shared environment, so if you set a lower bar filter from a population with lower average IQ, then while the people you get will meet your threshhold, their children would often not (assuming this supposed genetic difference exists), which is relevant to immigration rules.
So are we going to kick out in-group children from the country when their IQ scores aren't high enough? No? Then that is a a bad argument.
Also, I have been trying to avoid the whole debate on what IQ test actually measure...
While I agree with the point of the article that current genetic imbalances are horrifying, underappreciated and getting worse (and mostly not race based), there's still plenty of suffering to be had due to racism.
If race realism is correct then job quotas, immigration and education policy will cause a fair few problems, and if it's wrong then the very large amounts of suffering enduring by some ethnic minorities will be fixable.
So while this is far from the most important issue (that goes to things like ageing, possible dysgenic trends and the possibility of true AI), it's still pretty important by the standards of modern policy debates.
> You seem to be describing a meritocracy which, if I understand correctly, is an ideal promoted by white supremacists?
White supremacists might say they want a meritocracy, but most/all of them actually don't. They just want to create filters slightly more subtle than "no X allowed" signs for their establishments.
As I mentioned, if you are going to test, it needs to be fair and accurate, or else it isn't useful. If you want chess champions, you don't hold a quiz on trivia, you stage a chess competition.
A metriocracy being preferable isn't just the viewpoint of white supremacists. However, anyone expressing that view is labelled as a white supremacist. The game is rigged.
It seems like you and the word meritocracy have some issues. I never brought it up and frankly it has nothing to do with my argument. You inserted it into the conversation, then immediately played victim. I can’t tell if you are trolling or legitimately can’t figure out what we are talking about here so trying to switch the subject to your own grievance, but in either case, please stop.
"why we think there aren't substantial sex differences that make the sexes on average more suited to different things"
I don't know any sane person who thinks that.
Feminism was about that woman have the right to choose a role, that was traditionally reserved for men (and the other way around).
That women does not get discriminated for being women.
The fight against the idea, that women are made for household and kitchen (and bed).
But yes, that originate idea got forgotten quite a bit, to the point where women get he idea hat it is wrong for a woman to be at home and take care of the kids and not pursue a carieer.
I am not sure what you mean by racism/sexism/eugenics being false. If you mean why they are bad ideas, I can only do so much in terms of links, since I learned that these ideas are bad before the web was popular. I guess here are some things you might want to consider:
I am not going to spend more time Googling for you on this, but feel free to continue the research yourself. Try searching “effects of X on Y” and “morality of Z” and “why is W wrong” if you want to see those points of view. Form your own opinion, but keep one thing in mind: the often cited argument for a lot of this stuff is that “we’ve never implemented it correctly”. I hear this a lot about communism nowadays. There are a lot of setups where the idea inevitably leads to an outcome. For example, the US political and elections system inevitably leads to a two party system. It can be mathematically proven that this is the case. Similarly, ideas like racism inevitably lead to human and economic suffering, and those who try to separate the idea and it’s effect as implemented should be suspect of making arguments in bad faith. Examine their theories more closely.
Lastly, there is only so much you can learn from short form articles on the web. Read Sapiens. Read a couple or history books on WWII. Talk to a concentration camp survivor if you can find one. Talk to a Nazi solder. Talk to almost any woman in your life. I guarantee you that your mother experienced sexism, sexual harassment, and chances are outright sexual assault, since a very large percentage of women have in their lives statistically speaking.
I greatly appreciate you taking the time to find things, it displays a good will and charitable nature that's often lacking in the world. :)
That said, I have done a fair bit of googling and for various reasons, which would be too much of a digression to go into, have found most of those kinds of resources unsatisfying (e.g. the idea that differences are only skin deep is trivially refutable by racists). By possible coincidence I've already looked at most of the resources you linked (e.g. Sapiens and Uncle Tom's Cabin) and the HBDers still make a more convincing case. And I think this is mostly because while the HBDers can easily read the arguments of anti-racists and come up with counters, anti-racists are not even aware of the content of HBDer stuff and so cannot argue against it.
I think the censorship of racist thought (and other outside-Overton-Window thought) has indirectly lead to anti-racist argumentation weakening due to lack of understanding of what their opponents actually think and argue.
What you are describing isn’t a situation of refuting arguments. If I tell you that you can’t find the resources you seek because the racists have bugged all your devices and are constantly messing with your search results and reading material, I wouldn’t refute your argument. I would simply be ignoring reality or outright lying. That’s the reason why it’s so easy for a racist to come up with a counter argument to “turns out we are not genetically different): their argument needs only to appeal to a feeling, not be rooted in fact. In fact, the speed with which they come up with counter-arguments indicates mental gymnastics more than knowledge of the subject. Arguments for racism often center around specific “self-evident” truths which if you examine closely turn out to be simply circular arguments. As an example, one argument is that black people commit more crime than white people. If you look at certain statistics a certain way, you could come to that conclusion. But this ignores certain facts. For example, crime is much more strongly correlated with socioeconomic status. A poor white town is going to have just as much crime as an equally poor town occupied primarily by any race. But because white people got a bit of a head start in the US (as in were not bought and sold as property and not worked to death against their will), the median income for a black family is lower than for a white family. And of course keep in mind that most white collar crime is committed by white men who make up the majority of the C level at most corporations. We rarely prosecute that kind of crime even though it can be a lot more damaging (as in murder of one person means a murder charge. Dumping toxic waste into rivers that leads to hundreds of thousands of birth defects and genetic dresses is “white collar” so we fine the company and fire the exec, but nobody goes to prison).
Look closely, and you will find inconsistencies in these arguments. Oh, sure there are plenty of them but none of them seems to really hold up to scrutiny. Few will cite scientific studies (some will go as far as saying that science is censored so you shouldn’t trust it which is an obvious red flag for someone making shit up), and ones that do often misinterpret or misquote it. If you’d like we can try it out: find the best written argument for any of these points of view and we can together break down exactly where the lies and fabrications are.
As someone on the other side of this (who can defend their position if given the chance), I think the idea that censorship of my position is going to help it be more broadly accepted is probably false. On an intellectual basis, it doesn't indicate a defensible position, but we've moved past that: the debate is not a reasoned argument anymore. People are not naturally inclined to follow reason, and if people's values are adjusted to prioritize anti-racism over reason, then there is no contest; reason will lose.
Again, as with other comments above: I am not advocating for a slippery slope type of thing. I am however saying that specific groups mentioned above are widely (though not universally) considered undesirables. The specific groups: men who beat women, racists, and Nazis. Do you have a better ruler by which to measure those people and whether we should create software tools to help them communicate better/easier with each other? Do you condone any of those group and do you want to publicly defend their ideas as moral or valid? Because if not, feel free to get off the high horse and shut the fuck up.
This is either misinformed or just directly a bad faith argument. Leaving these communities around is, indeed, very much like letting a wound fester. There isn't really any doubt now that people can use platforms to radicalize others to extreme and often dangerous viewpoints. What's being banned is not a rational space for discussion between reasoned gentlemen, it's a place where people escalate emotions and whip each other into a frenzy. They're not banning earnest discussions of World War II history, they're banning "hey let's role play Nazis semi-ironically until one of us flinches and shoots someone in real life."
The differences between your stance and our parents stance emerge from different world views not from different information levels or a difference in academic rigor. (Or faith!)
> There isn't really any doubt now that people can use platforms to radicalize others to extreme and often dangerous viewpoints.
What you actually said here ("people can use platforms to radicalize") is true but also trivial. They can use platforms for all kind of things.
More broadly:
It's neither proven that the possibility of radicalization is a problem related to new technologies nor that censorship is a tool effective in mitigating it. Last but not least there's the philosophical question: it's not even clear that this problem we're perceiving is something that should be mitigated on a technical level.
That is very much an ongoing research project and will continue to be for a long time as long as communities continue to adapt to new communication technologies.
> Leaving these communities around is, indeed, very much like letting a wound fester. There isn't really any doubt now that people can use platforms to radicalize others to extreme and often dangerous viewpoints."
Interesting... I don't think I've previously seen the argument that such communities are, in effect, an "attractive nuisance".
A similar argument applies to pro-anorexia communities, although the danger there is self-harming behavior.
