Okay, I’ll bite. I need to add to my block list anyway.
Y’all have heard of the Nazi Bar problem, right?
Paradox of intolerance? Which turns out not to be a paradox after all? You should def look that one up rather than waiting for me to type it all out.
Bullshit genetic or reductio ad hitlerum fallacy.
Carried to its logical conclusion, anything tainted by Nazis (eg, the universe) is a Nazi bar.
Have you considered finding yourself another universe to inhabit, since this one is irredeemably tainted?
While we may argue the universe is far too vast to be a “Nazi bar”, so is the internet or any “platform”.
Worse, censoring ideas gives them covert power.
It doesn’t discredit them or strip them of power like challenging them in a public forum could.
It’s also a disservice to better ideas
it withholds opportunities for people to become competent enough advocates to discredit bad ideas
instead of deradicalize opponents, it drives their discussion elsewhere: they continue to radicalize & grow opposition unchallenged.
Censorship is incompetent advocacy: it mistakes suppressing the expression of bad ideas for effective advocacy that directly discredits bad ideas, develops intellectual growth, and steers toward better ideas.
Paradox of intolerance?
The bogus social media version subverting the original message or the real one?
You think you know the Popper Paradox thanks to this? (👉 comic from pictoline.com)
Karl Popper: I never said that!
Popper argued that society via its institutions should have a right to prohibit those who are intolerant.
Karl Popper: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance.
For Popper, on what grounds may society suppress the intolerant?
When they
“are not prepared to meet on the level of rational argument”
“they forbid their followers to listen to rational argument … & teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols”.
The argument of the intolerably intolerant is force & violence.
We misconstrue this paradox at our peril … to the extent that one group could declare another group ‘intolerant’ just to prohibit their ideas, speech & other freedoms.
Grave sign: “The Intolerant” RIP
Underneath it lies a pile of symbols for Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Black power.
A leg labeled tolerance kicks the Gay Pride symbol into the pile.
I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.
Censorship (or willfully blinding ourselves to information) plays no part in suppressing authoritarianism.
Only cowards fear words.
Words are not the danger.
It’s the dangerous people whose words we fail to discredit.
Source: The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl R. Popper ↩︎
People like to refer to the paradox of tolerance but always skip out on the inconvenient bit:
""Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.
— In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.“”
If you are not able to rationally argue why we shouldn’t be bigoted, I don’t know what to tell you.
i mean, seems you’re also conveniently skipping over the part that says:
as long as we can counter them by rational argument
it’s right there in the text:
popper states outright, that there are some ideologies and by extension people, that straight-up cannot be argued with. these, therefore, must be excluded from the community, and thereby form the limit to tolerance that must be enforced.
people really love to misinterpret popper…
what goes along nicely with the tolerance of paradox is the quote about anti-semites being entirely aware of how absurd their position truly are:
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
take both popper and sartre together into consideration of a larger context and it becomes abundantly obvious that a certain minimum of intolerance is strictly necessary for a functional society.
what happens when all checks on speech are removed can be clearly seen in the rotting corpses of facebook and twitter… it’s disastrous.
One problem with bigots is they dont care about truth or logic. Its a waste of time to continually argue the same points over and over again with people who refuse to learn or think.
If you are not able to rationally argue why we shouldn’t be bigoted, I don’t know what to tell you.
it’s not that people can’t, but spaces which have unlimited tolerance for sealions suggesting that it’s necessary to argue about that are likely to have less interesting discussions than spaces which do not 🙄
Then be clear about the rules. I have 0 problems with people creating communities with very clear rules on what is allowed and what isn’t. I wholeheartedly welcome that. What I take issue with is when people claim to have open discussion, or the space is for “rational discourse”, or “anarchist” discourse etc. but then ban everything that doesn’t very exactly align with the mod ideology.
If most people waving the anarchist flag would admit they’re just doing it because it’s cool but actually, they just want to be the authoritarians in place of the authoritarians, that would be fine. I’d happily avoid them. Problem is that when they don’t admit it, they drag down the whole anarchist ideology because they are misrepresenting it.
As is explained in a few responses to your paradox of tolerance reply (that you seem to have conveniently not replied to so far), the kind of discussion or conversation they are referencing requires both parties to be working in good faith.
from your own reference
as long as we can counter them by rational argument
If one party can’t or won’t provide logic or reasoning to their side of an exchange, that’s not a discussion because there is nothing to discuss with someone not willing to engage in good faith.
There are absolutely places that are ideological echo chambers, despite claiming otherwise, but banning someone for the inability (or unwillingness) to engage in good faith isn’t a removal based on ideology it’s a removal based on not adhering to the basic tenets of how discussions are supposed to work.
If it just so happens that most of that kind of banning happens to people with ideologies you subscribe to, perhaps it’s worth considering how you can help these people understand how to have an actual conversation.
That all being said, from what i’ve seen here I’d guess you’re on the purposeful bad faith side of things so I’m not expecting any reasonable consideration, but feel free to surprise me (or block me, i suppose).
You’re making quite a lot of frankly weird assumptions.
Find a single line from me where I’m saying that people who don’t engage in rational discourse shouldn’t be kicked out.
In fact, have a honest think. How much of your response is based on a knee jerk reaction instead of actually looking at what I’ve been saying in this thread?
You’re making quite a lot of frankly weird assumptions.
I’ve clearly stated what i’m referring to and how i got there, if you think there is an unsupported statement then reference it directly and i will respond.
That being said, fuck, i think i’ve seen two posts next to each other and missed where it changed from them to you.
That’s entirely my bad and i apologise, my response was supposed to be for the other person.
Not sure what theme you’re using but at least for me the default one makes it a bit hard to separate replies. I still like it most of all for just lurking.
i think people not knowing how to actually win an argument against a bigot is exactly the reason there are so many these days
shit’s easy. not that they’ll admit defeat but getting them babbling irrational nonsense takes very little debating skills. and when they inevitably start throwing ad hominems, then the mods have legitimate grounds to kick them out.
Okay, I’ll bite. I need to add to my block list anyway.
Y’all have heard of the Nazi Bar problem, right? Paradox of intolerance? Which turns out not to be a paradox after all? You should def look that one up rather than waiting for me to type it all out.
Bullshit genetic or reductio ad hitlerum fallacy. Carried to its logical conclusion, anything tainted by Nazis (eg, the universe) is a Nazi bar. Have you considered finding yourself another universe to inhabit, since this one is irredeemably tainted? While we may argue the universe is far too vast to be a “Nazi bar”, so is the internet or any “platform”.
Worse, censoring ideas gives them covert power. It doesn’t discredit them or strip them of power like challenging them in a public forum could. It’s also a disservice to better ideas
Censorship is incompetent advocacy: it mistakes suppressing the expression of bad ideas for effective advocacy that directly discredits bad ideas, develops intellectual growth, and steers toward better ideas.
The bogus social media version subverting the original message or the real one?

text alternative
The True Paradox of Tolerance
By philosopher Karl Popper[1]
You think you know the Popper Paradox thanks to this? (👉 comic from pictoline.com)
Karl Popper: I never said that!
Popper argued that society via its institutions should have a right to prohibit those who are intolerant.
Karl Popper: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance.
For Popper, on what grounds may society suppress the intolerant? When they “are not prepared to meet on the level of rational argument” “they forbid their followers to listen to rational argument … & teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols”. The argument of the intolerably intolerant is force & violence.
We misconstrue this paradox at our peril … to the extent that one group could declare another group ‘intolerant’ just to prohibit their ideas, speech & other freedoms.
Grave sign: “The Intolerant” RIP
Underneath it lies a pile of symbols for Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Black power. A leg labeled tolerance kicks the Gay Pride symbol into the pile.
Muchas gracias a @lokijustice y asivaespana.com
Karl Popper opposed censorship/argued for free inquiry & open discourse.
Censorship (or willfully blinding ourselves to information) plays no part in suppressing authoritarianism.
Only cowards fear words. Words are not the danger. It’s the dangerous people whose words we fail to discredit.
Source: The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl R. Popper ↩︎
People like to refer to the paradox of tolerance but always skip out on the inconvenient bit:
""Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.
— In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.“”
If you are not able to rationally argue why we shouldn’t be bigoted, I don’t know what to tell you.
i mean, seems you’re also conveniently skipping over the part that says:
it’s right there in the text:
popper states outright, that there are some ideologies and by extension people, that straight-up cannot be argued with. these, therefore, must be excluded from the community, and thereby form the limit to tolerance that must be enforced.
people really love to misinterpret popper…
what goes along nicely with the tolerance of paradox is the quote about anti-semites being entirely aware of how absurd their position truly are:
take both popper and sartre together into consideration of a larger context and it becomes abundantly obvious that a certain minimum of intolerance is strictly necessary for a functional society.
what happens when all checks on speech are removed can be clearly seen in the rotting corpses of facebook and twitter… it’s disastrous.
One problem with bigots is they dont care about truth or logic. Its a waste of time to continually argue the same points over and over again with people who refuse to learn or think.
But remember, be sure that your point is logical and truthful, and not parroting talking points in spite of them being repeated all around you.
Being truthful and logical is not always a popular position. Some would say it’s not even often the popular position.
You personally don’t have to. Always plenty of people out there willing to do it for you.
it’s not that people can’t, but spaces which have unlimited tolerance for sealions suggesting that it’s necessary to argue about that are likely to have less interesting discussions than spaces which do not 🙄
Then be clear about the rules. I have 0 problems with people creating communities with very clear rules on what is allowed and what isn’t. I wholeheartedly welcome that. What I take issue with is when people claim to have open discussion, or the space is for “rational discourse”, or “anarchist” discourse etc. but then ban everything that doesn’t very exactly align with the mod ideology.
If most people waving the anarchist flag would admit they’re just doing it because it’s cool but actually, they just want to be the authoritarians in place of the authoritarians, that would be fine. I’d happily avoid them. Problem is that when they don’t admit it, they drag down the whole anarchist ideology because they are misrepresenting it.
key words there are discourse and discussion.
As is explained in a few responses to your paradox of tolerance reply (that you seem to have conveniently not replied to so far), the kind of discussion or conversation they are referencing requires both parties to be working in good faith.
from your own reference
If one party can’t or won’t provide logic or reasoning to their side of an exchange, that’s not a discussion because there is nothing to discuss with someone not willing to engage in good faith.
There are absolutely places that are ideological echo chambers, despite claiming otherwise, but banning someone for the inability (or unwillingness) to engage in good faith isn’t a removal based on ideology it’s a removal based on not adhering to the basic tenets of how discussions are supposed to work.
If it just so happens that most of that kind of banning happens to people with ideologies you subscribe to, perhaps it’s worth considering how you can help these people understand how to have an actual conversation.
That all being said, from what i’ve seen here I’d guess you’re on the purposeful bad faith side of things so I’m not expecting any reasonable consideration, but feel free to surprise me (or block me, i suppose).
You’re making quite a lot of frankly weird assumptions.
Find a single line from me where I’m saying that people who don’t engage in rational discourse shouldn’t be kicked out.
In fact, have a honest think. How much of your response is based on a knee jerk reaction instead of actually looking at what I’ve been saying in this thread?
I’ve clearly stated what i’m referring to and how i got there, if you think there is an unsupported statement then reference it directly and i will respond.
That being said, fuck, i think i’ve seen two posts next to each other and missed where it changed from them to you.
That’s entirely my bad and i apologise, my response was supposed to be for the other person.
No hard feelings :)
Not sure what theme you’re using but at least for me the default one makes it a bit hard to separate replies. I still like it most of all for just lurking.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, I’m on the default but i’ll explore the other ones now, see if there is anything i prefer.
i think people not knowing how to actually win an argument against a bigot is exactly the reason there are so many these days
shit’s easy. not that they’ll admit defeat but getting them babbling irrational nonsense takes very little debating skills. and when they inevitably start throwing ad hominems, then the mods have legitimate grounds to kick them out.
“You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves in to.”
Though it is occasionally possible to point out how their arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny and get them to engage on it.
Only works with the ones not doing it on purpose, however.
Just to let you know before I block you, I didn’t read your “reasonable disagreement” of a wall of text
You mean the direct quote of Popper that you yourself referred to? You didn’t read the very piece of text you told me to read?
>“look up paradox of tolerance UwU” >“ok, let’s look at what it actually says” >“i didn’t read it UwU”
that tracks
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
so I guess you have an intolerance to intolerance?
Lemmy is a Tankie Bar.
Okay, that’s just funny. Hi friend
So how is that different when it’s online vs offline?