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kryogen1c 5 days ago

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.

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).

tempodox 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> stop making apocalyptic predictions.

You’re one to talk.