>This might be more convincing if Nazism and white surpemacy weren't themselves entirely predicated on violence.
If people were generally accurate about who is and isn't a Nazi or White Supremacist, this line of thinking might have merit (i.e., the idea that some types of thinking are inherently violent and must be suppressed at the level of speech, but of course who decides that?). But, observing political discourse over the past few years, people are not generally anywhere close to accurate about who is a Nazi or a White Supremacist. So what instead happens is a lot of people who aren't Nazis or White Supremacists get punched and milkshaked as collateral damage, and perhaps they are the majority of the damage.
As a followup, a person could reasonably contend that Socialism and Communism are entirely predicated on violence. They certainly have huge body counts, and consistently. And then you have people who think that Capitalism is predicated on violence. And suddenly everyone is punching everybody and we stop talking to each other, all because you wanted to punch a Nazi.
> Men seem very unwilling to recognise that the memo and the discussion itself is harmful.
...you realize where this goes, right?
Like -- suppose you're right; and suppose you're given the power to suppress all such harmful discussions. You apply it. No more such discussion. Great.
Now suppose this occurs but in fact you're wrong. We must then ask: How would you find out that you're wrong?
Well, in such a case, you probably wouldn't. I guess you might find out when the chickens, whatever they are, finally came home to roost. But ideally one wants to find out before then. Better hope the chickens are merely bad rather than catastrophic, seeing as you've been doing absolutely no planning for this case. And hopefully they come sooner rather than later.
(And that's assuming you're a reasonable person who would actually admit error at that point; see below.)
I mean, really... illiberalism, it always goes the same way. You think it's discussion that's harmful? Have you seen the alternative? Because, I mean, examples abound, and how it goes is pretty clear. You're talking about going down a path dominated by humanity's worst tribal instincts. I should hope that's not what you want -- but that's where that path leads. By the time the far-off disaster occurs, do you think it'll be people like you, who are capable of thinking clearly but just think certain discussions should be suppressed, who are going to be running the show? No, it'll the people who are the least reflective, the most tribal, the most doublethinky.
Liberalism, free speech, when working properly, is supposed to work as a negative feedback loop. If you're wrong, you find out. Someone contradicts you, supplies arguments, and then you can consider them and see whether they might be right. As a lot of people have noted, it... doesn't exactly always succeed at this. But suppression of speech... hoo boy, that fails so much harder. That's how you get positive feedback loops. As the professed beliefs of the group get further and further from reality, simultaneously the requirements that you agree, the punishments for disagreeing, get stricter and harsher. You sure as hell don't find the truth that way.
Truth, now... I notice that's something you didn't even mention at all. Because some of the points made in that memo, are, as best as people can currently tell, true. You haven't made any claims about to truth or falsity, only about harmfulness. But do you think the harmfulness of the claims in that memo exceed the harmfulness of shitty civilizational epistemic practices? (Nature can't be fooled, as they say!)
Like, OK, bad epistemic practices might not seem that bad, might seem like a worthwhile tradeoff, if you imagine suppression of specific facts or claims or discussions as an isolated thing. Maybe we don't need to know literally everything. But that's not how it goes. Free speech, liberalism, these are ideas that are unnatural to people, they had to be learned, and they are constantly seeking ways to slip them off or and go back to full-on tribalism (or pervert them in service of it). You may want suppression of particular claims... you will get the bad old days. The positive-feedback loop of doom.
Claims don't exist in isolation, after all; claims have relations between them. You can't just suppress one claim, because people will rederive it from other claims. And if the claim you suppress happens to be correct? Then people will definitely rederive it. So either surrounding claims have to go, or the process of inference itself has to go. Likely both. In fact definitely the latter; you can peel off surrounding claims all you want but eventually you'll have to attack inference itself. And hey, it happens already that people are constantly eager to do that anyway! They only need a little push... and then oops, there's your positive feedback loop. Once you encourage people to use bad methods, they'll use them to reach all sorts of bad conclusions... I expect many of them will surprise you!
(And what is the scope of this suppression? Shall the hidden truth be kept alive in the academy, say, with a strict cordon, so that the facts may be known by the chosen few but never applied outside where it might be necessary? Shall those who wish to learn a subject have to first learn only the public parts, and then apply to join, to learn the hidden secrets? Or shall it extend even to them? Is the pursuit of truth itself something that must simply be forbidden?)
It's a dark road you're suggesting here -- and not a new one; an old one, an ancient one, one whose failures we know very well. I'll take whatever harmfulness the truth might pose over that any day. I don't think it can really hold a candle to that."
What a well written and insightful comment that is. That it was downvoted to grey (at least at the time of me writing this comment) by above average intelligence people (a generally accurate description of the HN crowd I think) plausibly demonstrates how the positive feedback loops described manifest.
Sure, "Nazi" and "white supremacist" get overapplied. But that doesn't mean it's impossible to tell. Look at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville: people were literally brandishing Nazi symbols, chanting "blood and soil" and "Jews will not replace us". Is that not sufficient information to say that yep, these are actual Nazis?
And yes, you could stretch the "predicated on violence" to encompass a lot of things. But that's just a slippery slope fallacy. Nazism and white supremacy literally have dominance over and/or extermination of others as their explicit goals.
Sure, "Nazi" and "white supremacist" get overapplied.
Massively!
But that doesn't mean it's impossible to tell. Look at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville:
Yes, many of the attendees were National Socialist equivalents. However, what I see in recent years, is that someone advocating for Free Speech for everyone can be held falsely equivalent. That's going too far. Someone criticizing Antifa branded violence can be held as falsely equivalent. That's also going too far. Very often, I see ideologues who basically proclaim that people who don't agree with their platform are to be falsely equivalent. Example: Kirsten Gillibrand Compares Being Pro-Life to Racism | ‘The Other Side Is Not Acceptable’
It's as if someone, somewhere, is trying to spread emotionally charged, outrage inducing, anti-intellectual ideas designed to short circuit discourse. As a society, what we instead need to do is to quell outrage, promote intellectual integrity and rational discourse.
> It's as if someone, somewhere, is trying to spread emotionally charged, outrage inducing, anti-intellectual ideas designed to short circuit discourse.
If people were generally accurate about who is and isn't a Nazi or White Supremacist, this line of thinking might have merit (i.e., the idea that some types of thinking are inherently violent and must be suppressed at the level of speech, but of course who decides that?). But, observing political discourse over the past few years, people are not generally anywhere close to accurate about who is a Nazi or a White Supremacist. So what instead happens is a lot of people who aren't Nazis or White Supremacists get punched and milkshaked as collateral damage, and perhaps they are the majority of the damage.
As a followup, a person could reasonably contend that Socialism and Communism are entirely predicated on violence. They certainly have huge body counts, and consistently. And then you have people who think that Capitalism is predicated on violence. And suddenly everyone is punching everybody and we stop talking to each other, all because you wanted to punch a Nazi.
The road to hell...
From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14967092
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> Men seem very unwilling to recognise that the memo and the discussion itself is harmful.
...you realize where this goes, right?
Like -- suppose you're right; and suppose you're given the power to suppress all such harmful discussions. You apply it. No more such discussion. Great.
Now suppose this occurs but in fact you're wrong. We must then ask: How would you find out that you're wrong?
Well, in such a case, you probably wouldn't. I guess you might find out when the chickens, whatever they are, finally came home to roost. But ideally one wants to find out before then. Better hope the chickens are merely bad rather than catastrophic, seeing as you've been doing absolutely no planning for this case. And hopefully they come sooner rather than later.
(And that's assuming you're a reasonable person who would actually admit error at that point; see below.)
I mean, really... illiberalism, it always goes the same way. You think it's discussion that's harmful? Have you seen the alternative? Because, I mean, examples abound, and how it goes is pretty clear. You're talking about going down a path dominated by humanity's worst tribal instincts. I should hope that's not what you want -- but that's where that path leads. By the time the far-off disaster occurs, do you think it'll be people like you, who are capable of thinking clearly but just think certain discussions should be suppressed, who are going to be running the show? No, it'll the people who are the least reflective, the most tribal, the most doublethinky.
Liberalism, free speech, when working properly, is supposed to work as a negative feedback loop. If you're wrong, you find out. Someone contradicts you, supplies arguments, and then you can consider them and see whether they might be right. As a lot of people have noted, it... doesn't exactly always succeed at this. But suppression of speech... hoo boy, that fails so much harder. That's how you get positive feedback loops. As the professed beliefs of the group get further and further from reality, simultaneously the requirements that you agree, the punishments for disagreeing, get stricter and harsher. You sure as hell don't find the truth that way.
Truth, now... I notice that's something you didn't even mention at all. Because some of the points made in that memo, are, as best as people can currently tell, true. You haven't made any claims about to truth or falsity, only about harmfulness. But do you think the harmfulness of the claims in that memo exceed the harmfulness of shitty civilizational epistemic practices? (Nature can't be fooled, as they say!)
Like, OK, bad epistemic practices might not seem that bad, might seem like a worthwhile tradeoff, if you imagine suppression of specific facts or claims or discussions as an isolated thing. Maybe we don't need to know literally everything. But that's not how it goes. Free speech, liberalism, these are ideas that are unnatural to people, they had to be learned, and they are constantly seeking ways to slip them off or and go back to full-on tribalism (or pervert them in service of it). You may want suppression of particular claims... you will get the bad old days. The positive-feedback loop of doom.
Claims don't exist in isolation, after all; claims have relations between them. You can't just suppress one claim, because people will rederive it from other claims. And if the claim you suppress happens to be correct? Then people will definitely rederive it. So either surrounding claims have to go, or the process of inference itself has to go. Likely both. In fact definitely the latter; you can peel off surrounding claims all you want but eventually you'll have to attack inference itself. And hey, it happens already that people are constantly eager to do that anyway! They only need a little push... and then oops, there's your positive feedback loop. Once you encourage people to use bad methods, they'll use them to reach all sorts of bad conclusions... I expect many of them will surprise you!
(And what is the scope of this suppression? Shall the hidden truth be kept alive in the academy, say, with a strict cordon, so that the facts may be known by the chosen few but never applied outside where it might be necessary? Shall those who wish to learn a subject have to first learn only the public parts, and then apply to join, to learn the hidden secrets? Or shall it extend even to them? Is the pursuit of truth itself something that must simply be forbidden?)
It's a dark road you're suggesting here -- and not a new one; an old one, an ancient one, one whose failures we know very well. I'll take whatever harmfulness the truth might pose over that any day. I don't think it can really hold a candle to that."
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