| ▲ | kybernetikos 5 days ago |
| You start your comment saying we should avoid making apocalyptic statements and end it by saying "the cycle is going to destroy our society". My conclusion is that you don't mind making apocalyptic statements about actions you think are dangerous to society, which sits uncomfortably with your asking other people not to. |
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| ▲ | roenxi 5 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| I'd say the appropriate read there is to slip the word "unjustified" into a few key slots. The view is nearly impossible to avoid in context. How do you see society surviving if the prevailing view is that anyone with a different belief is trying to bring on the end times? To the point where assassinating political opponents is justified? It would bring on the end of a society. It might well happen in the US case, they've been heading in a pretty dangerous direction rhetorically. If we take the Soviet Union as a benchmark they probably have a long way to go but that sort of journey seems unnecessary and stupid. |
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| ▲ | tshaddox 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > I'd say the appropriate read there is to slip the word "unjustified" into a few key slots. "You shouldn't do anything unjustified" is an uncontroversial and useless prescription. | |
| ▲ | the_gastropod 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | roenxi 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Well, yes. We expect most religious people to put up with society at large damning souls to an eternity of torment and whatever. And people are forever pushing economic schemes that result in needless mass suffering. Not to mention that for reasons mysterious warmongers are usually treated with respect and tolerance in the public discourse. An idea being "harmful" isn't a very high bar, we have lots of those and by and large people are expected to put up with them. Society is so good at overlooking them it is easy to lose track of just how many terrible beliefs are on the move at any moment. Someone being a threat to democracy isn't actually all that close to the top of the list, although moving away from democracy is generally pretty stupid and a harbinger of really big problems. | | |
| ▲ | the_gastropod 4 days ago | parent [-] | | The original quote I was responding to here was > How do you see society surviving if the prevailing view is that anyone with a different belief is trying to bring on the end times? The point I was trying to make is: this is not what’s happening. It’s not “anyone with a different belief”. But some people, Kirk included, literally advocated for, e.g., stoning gay people. That’s not a reasonable position we can just compromise on. That’s reprehensible dehumanization. | | |
| ▲ | roenxi 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm not inclined to believe Kirk actually advocated that. Where and when did he say that? I want to check what the context was. A quick search only turned up people apologising for spreading false stories about him. |
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| ▲ | pixl97 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Extremists don't like to address the paradox of tolerance. | | |
| ▲ | mkfs 5 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm confused; are you encouraging violence against intolerant leftists, especially Communist? |
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| ▲ | gosub100 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think they're politely asking for the far left to stop with the language inflation. Use words with appropriate and proportionate meanings. Do not try to gradually be more and more dramatic and impactful. |
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| ▲ | 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | Chris2048 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's not clear that "existential" threat and "destruction of society" are the same. A society can be "destroyed" via a lapse in the social contract, turning it into a "society" or a different nature, or a non social population. |
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| ▲ | kryogen1c 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > My conclusion is that you don't mind making apocalyptic statements about actions you think are dangerous to society, which sits uncomfortably with your asking other people not to. This is a nonsense argument. It is possible that constantly making apocalyptic statements can result in an apocalypse, and saying that people should stop doing that is not contradictory. The words you use matter. If trump is an existential threat to democracy, he should be assassinated. If you're not advocating for murderous escalation, then stop using those words (for example). |
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| ▲ | zamadatix 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > If trump is an existential threat to democracy, he should be assassinated. Who/what is defining assassination as a reasonable response to that threat, who/what maintains the list of words which can replace "democracy" in that section, and what happens when someone disagrees with the maintainer of that list? | | |
| ▲ | kryogen1c 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Those are all great questions, and why the point under discussion is whether or not we should choose our words more carefully and stop making apocalyptic predictions. | | |
| ▲ | zamadatix 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I wholeheartedly disagree - we need to be less concerned with who might say something and more concerned with how we teach society to react to it. Whether or not someone is making apocalyptic predictions should not define our ability to hold back from assassinating. | | |
| ▲ | wizzwizz4 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | How we say things is how we teach society to react to it. We're all teaching each other, every day. | | |
| ▲ | zamadatix 5 days ago | parent [-] | | I'd agree there are aspects of how we say things which can reinforce how to react about it, but I don't think that's a good primary way to teach how to engage with polarizing content and certainly not via the way of avoidance of the types of statements bigstrat2003 laid out. I.e. there are very reasonable, particularly historical, examples of belief of potential threats to democracy which turned out to be true, so I don't inherently have a problem with that kind of discussion. I actually think calling that kind of statement as the problem would actually drive more extremism. At the same time, I do believe there are ways to share such statements while also reinforcing healthy ways to react at the same time. kryogen1c's example ending in "he should be assassinated" crosses the line from bigstrat2003's talk of apocalyptic claims to direct calls to violence about them - the latter of which I agree is bad teaching (but I'd still rather people be encouraged to openly talk about those kinds of statements too, rather than be directly pressured to internalize or echo chamber them). This is why the first question posed about the statement from kryogen1c was "Who/what is defining assassination as a reasonable response to that threat". The follow on questions were only added to help highlight there is no reasonable answer to that question because it's the call to assassination which is inherently problematic, not the claim someone is a threat to the democracy here. The latter (talking about perceived threats) is good, if not best, to talk about directly and openly. It's the former (calling for assassination about it) which is inherently incompatible with a stable society. |
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| ▲ | mrguyorama 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Humans are not rational machines. You can "educate" someone all you want, they will still suffer from all the normal biases and those biases will still affect their choices. This is why we have double blind trials even though doctors are "experts" | | |
| ▲ | zamadatix 5 days ago | parent [-] | | I agree with this, and, as a result, I don't believe there is any possible approach which results in 0 people assassinating political figures for what other people say. I think the same conclusion can even be reached if people were supposed to be expected to be perfectly rational beings. I do believe education on how to effectively engage against an idea which feels threatening is better equipped to handle this apparent fact than bigstrat2003's approach of teaching people to not say certain beliefs because they'd be worth killing about. That doesn't mean it results in a perfect world though. Some may perhaps even agree with both approaches at the same time, but I think the implication from teaching the silencing of certain beliefs from being said for fear they are worth assassinating over if believed true ends up driving the very problem it sets out against. Especially once you add in malicious actors (internal or external). |
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| ▲ | tempodox 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > stop making apocalyptic predictions. You’re one to talk. |
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| ▲ | yunwal 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | lmm 5 days ago | parent [-] | | I don't believe you are "just curious", but my answer would be: yes, and that is not a fair description of Trump. | | |
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