
I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup (2014) - anchpop
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/
======
motohagiography
This SSC piece has influenced a lot of my thinking. Christopher Hitchens wrote
about "the narcissism of small differences," concept as well.

There was another post on HN recently about a summary of Rene Girard, who
extended this idea ("mimetic violence" in his style) with the inevitability of
scapegoating neutral parties as an alternative to war. The rationalist
community that SSC has represented may be walking right into that scapegoat
role because they are viewed as compromised by the extreme right, and as a
gateway drug by the extreme left.

I would argue critics like figures associated with the so-called,
"intellectual dark web," are being scapegoated by social media platforms for
precisely the reasons Girard describes for picking scapegoats. There is no
point in tracking down the worst extremists because they don't have enough
political traction to represent "something being done," but popular,
relatively moderate critics are sufficiently high profile figures to make an
example of in the hope that it provides some defusing catharsis.

I couldn't say how much predictive power that model has. Either de-platforming
"works" because it delays sectarian conflict, or it delegitimizes discourse
altogether and just accelerates it. We're going to find out anyway, and it
appears we indeed live in interesting times.

~~~
stcredzero
_Either de-platforming "works" because it delays sectarian conflict_

Suppression doesn't work. It just reveals that the bosses who have control
have you out-grouped if you're not one of their "faithful."

 _delegitimizes discourse altogether and just accelerates it._

One can think of Free Speech in this way: The whole purpose of Free Speech is
to enshrine discourse. If there is Free Speech, then we can always fall back
on discourse and talk it out. This is why, "Free Speech doesn't mean freedom
from consequences" is bankrupt. "Free Speech doesn't mean freedom from
consequences," is just another way of saying, "Don't say that, or we will use
force on you."

It's a disappointment to see nonsense like "milkshaking" and "Punch a Nazi."
These are just dress rehearsals to more serious political violence. These are
signs of people being radicalized to the point, where they are going to
abandon discourse and resort to violent conflict.

I remember when teachers used to talk about how the democratic societies and
the USA were better than places like the USSR: Instead of using force against
dissidents, we had Free Speech. Now, society's conception of civics is
devolving into, "There is a right way to think, and if you don't agree, we'll
force you to!"

~~~
yourbandsucks
I'd say the problem is really the expanding definition of 'nazi'.

Popper's paradox of tolerance is a thing, we can't tolerate actual nazis who
would silence everybody in the name of 'openness'.

And the far-right types are still responsible for vastly more actual violence
than the far left types. A couple nazis have been punched and antifa got out
of hand in Berkeley once.. meanwhile, synagogues have been burned down,
mosques shot up, a Sikh guy in Texas got shot because someone those he was one
of "the arabs"...

The problem on the left side honestly isn't violence, it's suppression of
speech. The far left in the tech industry has control of speech in a way
that's pretty novel, and they need to be more careful and less righteous. It
feels good to call someone a nazi and cast them out, but let's exercise some
restraint and save that for actual nazis.

~~~
wwweston
> The far left in the tech industry has control of speech in a way that's
> pretty novel

When we talk about the far left which controls the tech industry to the point
where it can control speech, are we talking about very effective capitalists
who are somehow nevertheless economic leftists (and apparently have
shareholders of the same bent), or are we talking about a socially oriented
far left, perhaps even largely managed by historically disadvantaged classes
(and also have shareholders who support them)?

Because I can't think of any good definition of "the far left" that matches
the incentives, philosophy, and power behind the tech companies out there.

The closest argument I think could be made is that there's enough vocal users
who are concerned about certain kinds of content that some companies feel
compelled to respond to that concern. One can argue that has its own issues,
but it's pretty distinct from control.

> It feels good to call someone a nazi and cast them out, but let's exercise
> some restraint and save that for actual nazis.

I agree that nazi (like fascist) can be a term that's expanded to the point of
dilution. But... what's an actual nazi? If we don't know the answer, will we
be able to act effectively with our saved effort? If we're looking to history
as a guide, do we draw the line at something comparable to 1943 nazis, or 1933
nazis, or 1923 nazis?

~~~
stcredzero
_Because I can 't think of any good definition of "the far left" that matches
the incentives, philosophy, and power behind the tech companies out there._

There's a group of far left activists, who are also included within a lower
tier of non-programmer workers for companies like YouTube and Google, as well
as programmers and technologists who are sympathetic to their views. The
impetus comes from the 1st group, who has sway with the 2nd group.

 _can be a term that 's expanded to the point of dilution_

To the point of a Bernie voting Korean American journalist (Tim Pool) being
accused of being one of them, to the point of people yelling to have him
mobbed and beaten in the street.

 _But... what 's an actual nazi?_

What's key, in 2019, an era when "brands" are easy to create anew, to the
point where even kids and the poor have the resources to do so and organize
around them, it is not the brand, but the behavior, the semantics, which is
important. Who uses violence, intimidation, and vandalism to silence
opposition and for political gain? Who dresses up in the same clothes, like
"gang colors," and uses anonymity to get away with doing the above?

We need to be skeptical of this authoritarianism masquerading as "justice" and
"openness."

~~~
BryantD
> What's key, in 2019, an era when "brands" are easy to create anew, to the
> point where even kids and the poor have the resources to do so and organize
> around them, it is not the brand, but the behavior, the semantics, which is
> important. Who uses violence, intimidation, and vandalism to silence
> opposition and for political gain? Who dresses up in the same clothes, like
> "gang colors," and uses anonymity to get away with doing the above?

... Proud Boys? Just sayin'.

~~~
stcredzero
_Proud Boys? Just sayin '._

Sure. A few of them are going to jail for criminal political violence. Then,
also facing legal consequences are the members of Antifa who were looking for
the Proud Boys, and ended up assaulting a couple of innocent Marines going to
a dance. One of them was non-white, and the Antifa members apparently were
spewing the most vile racist, toxic words the whole time.

Again: We need to be skeptical of this authoritarianism masquerading as
"justice" and "openness."

------
skrebbel
Star Slate Codex is the only "armchair philosophy" site I read. I really love
it.

Every time I click a link to some of the author's inspiration sources, or read
the comments even, I'm appalled at how complicated and unattractive the
writing is there. The contrast to Alexander's writing is simply so stark. I
simply find myself giving up after a few paragraphs.

I recently read his enormous and lovely "Mediations on Moloch" essay, and was
amazed by how hard I found it to follow the Nick Bostrom citations. I mean
this is a famous bestseller philosopher. Is Bostrom's writing so bad, or is
Alexander's writing simply so good?

This article is one of my favourites. I love how, like many of his articles,
he doesn't actually change my mind about anything (at least not to my
knowledge), but he does help me express, verbally, an itch that I had about
something for a long time.

~~~
quacked
That feeling you talk about in your last sentence is one that's familiar to me
as well, because I get it all the time when reading SSC, and we've got to be
suspicious of it- that's exactly how people who read <religious literature,
cult creeds, academic papers> that confirms their preexisting ideas feel.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Not every thing you read is meant to change your mind. I had this feeling with
SSC too (more frequently in the past, in the Meditations on Moloch era, less
so now), but I can clearly tell that I had pieces of those ideas developed on
my own, and an SSC article only let me put them in a refined form.

(Having been brought up in a pretty cultish religion, I'm now painfully aware
of cultishness works.)

------
klodolph
Highly recommend reading some of GK Chesterton. You may or may not like it,
but his perspective is unique and he was influential among authors you are
more likely to have read (like CS Lewis). Much of his work is now out of
copyright and freely available.

You could start with _The Man Who Was Thursday._

~~~
brobdingnagians
I second this. I started reading a lot of his works a while back. He has a
very unique point of view from what I know. He was also friends with or
friendly with some of the leading authors of the day whom he criticized,
notably Shaw. His use of paradox is highly entertaining too and he made it
into something of an art form.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill is a fun read (he is notable for supporting
distributism); his essays are very enjoyable too.

------
opwieurposiu
The recent youtube purges provide an example of this mechanic in action. In
order to prevent "discrimination, segregation or exclusion" of certain groups
of people, youtube must discriminate, segregate and exclude certain groups of
people.

We don't make peace with our friends, we make peace with our enemies.

~~~
ridaj
Attention can be gotten with conflict but there is a cliff-like point after
which it becomes counterproductive for ad revenue — see advertisers pulling
out of YouTube (or some Fox shows for that matter) over not wanting their ads
to show next to incendiary content

~~~
otakucode
Where? Where can I see advertisers pulling out of YouTube? I heard all about
the "adpocalypse" but I waited and, sure enough, YouTube's revenue from
advertising grew by leaps and bounds during the time period of the
"adpocalypse" when they were claiming that companies were leaving. It was, as
far as the actual numbers reported in Alphabet's earnings, a total fabrication
or at least extreme hyperbole. There simply never was a meaningful amount of
advertisers pulling their ads.

~~~
sonnyblarney
"Where can I see advertisers pulling out of YouTube?"

Consider a situation in which you are selling a gadget, or software.

Do you want your ad run up next to a guy using the f _g_ t term to describe
other people? Even in 'good spirits' or even 'in context'?

Maybe that's too abstract, given that you perhaps might not be selling stuff.

I do.

Frankly, I think it's all overblown, I think people should speak their minds
and we should all be tolerant.

That said _I don 't want my products anywhere near your controversy_. No, way.
We put a lot of effort in what we do, we're trying to communicate a message,
we 100% do not want that anywhere near our message.

When we get up and go to work and try to do our jobs, a lot of this stuff
seems academic and ridiculous. For the same reason we don't want our ads next
to porn, we don't want it near ugly language. I love stand up comedians, but
much of their (live) work is too off colour for many advertisers.

So, the decision by YouTub etc to pull ads, but allow the content to remain is
actually quite reasonable.

~~~
ridaj
Depends if you sell gadgets or if you sell a dream aka a strong brand (such as
Disney)

------
zdragnar
What a fascinating read. I was constantly reminded of Girard throughout.

Also, you probably know more people of the other tribe than you think. They
probably just want to deal with you as a person, rather than as a tribal
identity. Granted, I don't think I know any creationists either, but I'm also
slightly to highly skeptical of the 40% claim.

~~~
opportune
Probably because you don't live in a very rural area or the bible belt. I knew
many creationists from my hometown and peripherally in college, but haven't
had any creationist friends or active acquaintances since then.

A lot of creationists tend to be older and uneducated so working in tech in a
larger city is kind of the polar opposite of where they congregate.

~~~
zdragnar
I do live in a rural area, just not the bible belt. There are plenty of
intelligent design types- that is, God made the universe, set evolution in
motion, etc., just not the 7 days as literal, evolution is fake kind that the
article mentions.

There are a few Amish and Jehovah's Witness and Pentecostal types arpund, but
nowhere near 40%.

------
inflatableDodo
> _I mean, from a utilitarian point of view, you are still doing the correct
> action of not giving people grief because they’re a divorcee. You can have
> all the Utility Points you want. All I’m saying is that if you “forgive”
> something you don’t care about, you don’t earn any Virtue Points._

> _(by way of illustration: a billionaire who gives $100 to charity gets as
> many Utility Points as an impoverished pensioner who donates the same
> amount, but the latter gets a lot more Virtue Points)_

This is a great illustration of what I understand of Antisthenes' precept that
_Virtue is the only good_.

~~~
wayoutthere
I think that’s just another way of saying “rhetoric matters more than logic”.
Greek philosophy was obsessed with this argument — which I think is still
relevant today. I think the definition of Utility Points and Virtue Points map
directly to “points acquired through logic” and “points acquired through
rhetoric”.

In a democracy, it’s obvious that rhetoric _does_ matter. The masses will
always be too uneducated (even if only contextually) to understand or care
about the logic, thus rhetoric wins out. It was true for Socrates, and it’s
true today. I think it’s pretty easy to see the same divisions in worldview
present themselves around the world.

~~~
inflatableDodo
> _I think that’s just another way of saying “rhetoric matters more than
> logic”. Greek philosophy was obsessed with this argument — which I think is
> still relevant today. I think the definition of Utility Points and Virtue
> Points map directly to “points acquired through logic” and “points acquired
> through rhetoric”._

I might note that in the example of; _a billionaire who gives $100 to charity
gets as many Utility Points as an impoverished pensioner who donates the same
amount, but the latter gets a lot more Virtue Points_ , no rhetoric is
required.

edit - regarding; _The masses will always be too uneducated (even if only
contextually) to understand or care about the logic, thus rhetoric wins out.
It was true for Socrates, and it’s true today._ In Phaedrus, Socrates makes
the point that knowledge of a subject beats rhetoric, by showing that to
deceive with rhetoric consistently, requires knowledge of that which you are
trying to misrepresent.

------
lordleft
This was a superb article. I was riveted from start to finish. I feel like
I've gained some nuance into American political and cultural self-segregation.

~~~
RickS
"All debates are bravery debates" from SSC is also brilliant. Really anything
on there is going to be worth the read.

Different vibe, but if you want another highly interesting take on political
segregation, this is a favorite of mine:

[https://www.epsilontheory.com/things-fall-apart-
pt-1/](https://www.epsilontheory.com/things-fall-apart-pt-1/)

------
finder83
This article was great and I resonated with it. I grew up in Texas, lived in
New Jersey commuting into Manhattan for about ten years, then moved back.
Anecdotally the differences do seem to be regional. I have friends on both
sides of "red" and "blue" on Facebook and in person. I'd probably side best
with "grey", but can run in both groups (standing out no matter where I go).

What's interesting to me is the severe level of misunderstanding of each group
to the other. I generally avoid media, don't have TV service, avoid Facebook,
etc. But in some rare life instances it gets forced on me and I see what seems
to be a media portrayal of what is just a characterization of the "other
side", whichever side that may be. In my experience, both sides have good
motives for the most part and truly care for and love other people. And in my
experience, both sides think that the other side doesn't love people or have
good intentions because they don't agree with X, while fully misunderstanding
or dismissing the issue. It's almost like when you hear some distant relative
who's overtly racist and you leave your nice peaceful sphere of influence and
realize that there are people who really hate others on a regular basis. And
of course, there are jerks on both sides and loving people on both sides.

All of that said, I see the polarization growing. It's to a quite scary level
and my wife and I have discussed that it wouldn't be surprising to see another
civil war within our lifetime. Not that we expect it...but not that we don't
expect it either. The confirmation bias is strong everywhere and it's only
getting worse. There seems to be no real communication going on at a national
level, only talking heads who don't really represent their side well. Any
conversation I do see seems to fall back into political rhetoric spouting
party lines, and never seem to get to the heart of people or issues. Media
complicates this, parties complicate this, and people just wanting to fit in
complicates this.

I don't know a solution...but I do feel like there needs to be one soon.

------
bittercynic
I think having an outgroup is avoidable, but it requires ongoing vigilance,
and an awareness that it is easy to slip into building your identity partly by
deciding who to hate.

If we're careful I do think it's possible to maintain an attitude that we're
basically all in this together, and we may have significant disagreements on
all kinds of things, but at the end of the day we're still all humans and
worthy of kindness and respect.

~~~
dave_b
If you care about some people more than others, then you have an ingroup and
an outgroup. Would you really want to not care for your own family members any
more than you care for a random person on the other side of the planet? That’s
what striving for no outgroups entails.

I think that’s a horribly misguided mindset. A better approach is to
_tolerate_ the outgroups and facilitate live and let live arrangements. Then
you can focus more on appreciating your tribe and less on fighting the others.

~~~
bittercynic
I was taking outgroup to mean a set of people that we find so abhorrent that
they're unworthy of any level of consideration or respect, and that we even
wished didn't exist. The term has a pretty specific meaning, and it goes
beyond just a group other than our own.

------
kbenson
> I need to remind myself that when they are bad people, they are merely
> Osama-level bad people instead of Thatcher-level bad people.

Best line, right there. The full meaning requires calling back to the
beginning of the essay, but the complexity of this is amazing, even on the off
chance it was quick attempt at a humorous callback.

------
barberousse
It's almost as if human communities are inherently driven to splinter, like a
living cell

------
alexandercrohde
tl: dr;

1\. Observes that groups can be more critical of groups that are similar to
them than those that are starkly distant

2\. Supports point 1 with the example that his liberal circle felt more
comfortable reveling in the death of Margaret Thatcher than Bin Laden. And
that Russel Brand claimed “Fox is worse than ISIS."

3\. Observes an apparent self-criticism in liberalism as evidenced by
criticism of America relative to Europe, criticism of whites (by whites), and
maybe even blanket criticism of "intolerance."

4\. Observes the hypocrisy of being intolerant of intolerance, and proposes
that Americans criticisizing America are actually criticizing a different
class of Americans, rather than being truly self-critical.

5\. Notes that America seems to have 3 "tribes" that roughly align with
politics "red" (loving football and such), "blue" (loving higher education and
such), and "grey" (being bothered by war on drugs + NSA).

6\. Concludes by acknowledging his own hypocrisy, in that his this piece
targeting is alleged-in-group (Blue)'s intolerance wasn't truly self-critical.
Observes he did the same form of non-self-criticism that he dislikes when
Blue-tribe does.

------
ranie93
>Try to keep this off Reddit and other similar sorts of things.

so much for that

~~~
reading-at-work
At least HN is a step above Reddit, right? Right?

Funny enough, I actually first read this article when someone in a deep Reddit
comment thread linked to it. So yeah, so much for that.

~~~
CondensedBrain
It depends on the subreddits you subscribe to. Communities with a single place
to interact will vary depending on time of day and topic. One day you get
upvotes, the next you get downvotes for the same kind of thing.

Hacker News _is_ Hacker News. Reddit is the communities you subscribe to. A
negative view of Reddit as a whole makes no sense. The defaults and other big
subreddits only reflect society at large, so any problem you have with Reddit
is really with society.

/r/slatestarcodex, /r/pics, and /r/DaystromInstitute have nothing in common
other than the platform.

~~~
mrfredward
>A negative view of Reddit as a whole makes no sense

I tend to think of "reddit" when used generally as meaning r/all for an
account that isn't signed in. You won't find many "red-tribe" beliefs here, so
I don't think you can say it reflects society at large. Anecdotally, I'd say
the subreddit that most consistently gets something that looks a little like
red tribe beliefs to the front page is r/unpopularopinion. Reddit is
definitely not an even cross section of America.

~~~
CondensedBrain
If voter turnout is to be taken as a measure, red/blue tribes aren't
representative of society. Voters (at least in the US) are a highly-motivated
minority with firm opinions. Turnout peaks in Presidential elections, but
still barely breaks 50%. Most people don't even pay attention until the
debates start.

Consistent Voter Tribe people don't believe me when I tell them the most
popular prime time cable news program barely has enough viewers to fill a few
large stadiums. What you see on /r/all reflects the interests of people who
watch TV shows with tens of millions of viewers, not the minority of people
extremely tuned in to politics.

This is why I stopped watching cable news and following most political media.
I realized they gave me a twisted view of how popular my opinions are.

------
komali2
I really liked this perspective and I think I learned a lot about my own
rejection of my heritage (it's "red group") and hometown friends and family.
It's true, I hate'm more than ISIS. Pretty silly, but I think it's good that
I'm chewing on this now.

One thing I strongly disagree with:

>When a friend of mine heard Eich got fired, she didn’t see anything wrong
with it. “I can tolerate anything except intolerance,” she said.

>“Intolerance” is starting to look like another one of those words like
“white” and “American”.

>“I can tolerate anything except the outgroup.” Doesn’t sound quite so noble
now, does it?

If Eich had gotten fired for arguing that healthcare should be a capitalist
free market system in America, or that guns ownership should have no
regulation, or some other red-group position that doesn't involve the
oppression of others, I'd defend him.

But, intolerance can't be tolerated. Paradox of tolerance, sure. Arguably,
making me intolerant (ARGUABLY).

There's a difference between conservative political views and intolerant
political views. The fact that a shitload of red group values coincide with
intolerance (or that a lot of intolerant people are red group) is sure
unfortunate for red groupers that are tolerant, but that's life. (and no, blue
group "intolerance of the intolerant" does not equate to "bad people on both
sides" for me)

~~~
xyzzyz
Let’s look back at the original quote of Karl Popper:

 _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 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._

You think that Brendan Eich and people like him would meet you with fists and
pistols if you didn’t suppress him by force? Or are you merely, contrary to
what Popper recommends, suppressing all intolerant philosophies?

~~~
komali2
I appreciate your approach here. Then again, while Karl Popper invented the
term, his initial quote around it doesn't for me define law.

But, to your point:

> You think that Brendan Eich and people like him would meet you with fists
> and pistols if you didn’t suppress him by force?

Eich? No. Persecutors of homosexuals? Yes. Homosexuals have been thrown in
prison, tarred and feathered, and subjected to physical and psychological
torture masked as "medicine" in the past. I would not be surprised to learn of
a weaponized gay uprising somewhere like Utah, particularly in the last
century or two. It was literally war for survival for them. Still is, in parts
of the world and even parts of America. The stories I could pass on to you,
and you can easily find on your own, stretch straight into 2019.

Eich was a member of this persecution class, even if he would be one saying
"guys guys, we shouldn't HURT them for their gayness, even though their
gayness is bad! Now here's another 1000$, feel free to spend it on tar."

> Or are you merely, contrary to what Popper recommends, suppressing all
> intolerant philosophies?

There's ambiguity here, around what "suppress" means, "suppress the
utterance," "keep them in check," etc. Anyway, Popper's word isn't law, and he
himself contributes to this ambiguity:

> We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to
> tolerate the intolerant.

To me, Mozilla is perfectly justified saying "we do not tolerate the
intolerant, please leave our organization." Nobody at Mozilla (that I
remember) was saying "put a ball gag on that man, he should not even be
allowed to speak." The argument was "Mozilla doesn't tolerate this. By having
him at the organization, we appear to tolerate it. We implicitly tolerate it.
We pay him a salary and some of that money he spends on oppressing gays. He
must go."

~~~
xyzzyz
_Eich? No. Persecutors of homosexuals? Yes. Homosexuals have been thrown in
prison, tarred and feathered, and subjected to physical and psychological
torture masked as "medicine" in the past._

But the ballot Eich voted for passed, and the homosexuals weren't met with
fists in pistols in California afterwards (at least not any more than everyone
else). Thus, in the Karl Popper's original view of the paradox of tolerance,
he'd argue that we shouldn't suppress the intolerant ideology of the people
who voted for that ballot, especially as we could successfully counter their
intolerant ideology with rational arguments, right?

Look, for me, your ideology of suppressing all ideologies you deem intolerant,
regardless of the actual actions of the followers, is very much intolerant, in
the original sense of Popper: _" 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're already at the "fists or pistols" stage, with
mainstream media praising the milkshaking and excusing the Berkeley rioters.
Please, ask yourself, are you completely sure you're not one of the baddies?

~~~
komali2
> especially as we could successfully counter their intolerant ideology with
> rational arguments, right?

No. It is not possible to convince someone that doesn't want homosexuals to
have the same rights have other humans, that they should have the same rights,
with "rational argument." First-hand experience. Sometimes introducing them to
confident gays who are proud of their personhood works, though that could just
result in an attempt to "save" the homosexual from their sinful actions.
Another way is peer pressure via zeitgeist, which is happening now.

> But the ballot Eich voted for passed, and the homosexuals weren't met with
> fists in pistols in California afterwards (at least not any more than
> everyone else)

Systemic implementation of dehumanizing laws results in a cultural approval of
acts of violence. If tomorrow the state of California said to you "your race
(whatever it may be) can no longer marry," how would that feel? It'd feel like
fists and pistols time to me. Sometimes that happens, and we get black
panthers. What else is someone to do when they are treated as sub humans?
Kowtow? "Please, oppressors, hear my rational pleas. I don't mean to be
intolerant of your viewpoint, but I argue that I am human."

>We're already at the "fists or pistols" stage, with mainstream media praising
the milkshaking and excusing the Berkeley rioters.

I don't speak for the mainstream media. I blame them for the rampant gun
violence and uptick in suicide in this country, for what it's worth. At the
same time, there are good investigative outlets exposing the hypocrisy and
crimes of oppressive government officials. Like all human institution, it's
imperfect.

> Please, ask yourself, are you completely sure you're not one of the baddies?

I ask myself this nearly every day. So far the answer is still "no." Pretty
easy to say so: I don't do things that support intolerance (insofar as
intolerance of intolerance doesn't count as intolerance in my value system,
which is the direct representation of my view on this discussion).

~~~
0815test
> No. It is not possible to convince someone that doesn't want [X's] to have
> the same rights [as] other humans, that they should have the same rights,
> with "rational argument."

Depending on what you mean by "rational argument", this is extremely wrong.
All known expansions of our moral circle to encompass other humans and even
other sorts of sentient beings, going as far back as Stoic philosophy in
antiquity, have occurred precisely via (more or less overtly stated)
moral/ethical arguments of this sort. Even OP's blogpost is itself such an
argument!

There _are_ people that your basic contention applies to - people you _can 't_
convince via such a 'rational' appeal to morals; consider the Christchurch
killer, whom I just discussed in another comment in this HN-thread. And if
hate content turns out to _systematically_ , with relatively-high probability,
offer up pretexts that such individuals can trivially use to justify,
publicize, glorify etc. their murderous acts, that's definitely something
which should be of grave concern to us; and a meaningful, perhaps even a
decisive challenge to the usual arguments for maximalist free speech. But
that's a very different argument indeed to the one you are actually making
here!

------
pgcj_poster
In this 7,340 word exposé on his discovery that "Democrats dislike
Republicans," Scott determines that judging people for their beliefs and
actions is basically the same thing as judging people for their sexuality or
skin color. In passing, he also manages to assert that homophobia is genetic,
which perhaps you should keep in mind next time he is conspicuously silent
while his fans talk about the genetic basis of the racial IQ gap.

"Hacker" "News" nods along, agreeing with Scott's view that the world is
basically fine as it is and there's no point in doing anything to change
it[1]. This of course has nothing to do with the fact that they are mostly
highly-payed white guys getting a great deal out of the current system.

Scott includes an epilogue in which he realizes that his argument is self-
refuting. Unfortunately, he misses the part where this generalizes to his
entire political philosophy.

[1] [https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/28/ssc-endorses-
clinton-j...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/28/ssc-endorses-clinton-
johnson-or-stein/)

------
ZeroGravitas
This is kind of like the "science is just another religion" argument.

If you're going to believe in something awesome that you don't fully
understand then believing in the one that gives you vaccines, self-driving
cars and Xboxes seems like a good choice.

Similarly, if you're going to irrationally hate another group then
irrationally hating the people who irrationally hate other people seems like a
much better choice than the alternative (possibly even a rational one), since
those people are almost certainly causing you direct personal harm by voting
for psychopaths and generally holding back progress across a million different
areas, even if they don't specifically hate you irrationally, just most of
your friends and possibly your children (but probably you as well if you don't
join in with the irrational hate).

When I follow the news recently I wonder about the pure-blooded Aryan Germans
in the Nazi era who weren't complete idiots or psychopaths and how they felt
as their country was flushed down the toilet of history by the others in their
own "in group". They weren't directly targetted for who they were but I'm sure
that was little comfort as they bled to death in Frozen Russia or had
firebombs dropped on them by the British.

(Edit: I also recently discovered the author thinks recycling is a conspiracy,
which I guess moved him out of my in group as I now am far less charitable in
how I read some of his stuff)

~~~
UnFleshedOne
Could you point me to where he thinks recycling is a conspiracy? I wonder what
his arguments are...

~~~
godshatter
The parent poster might be referring to this article:
[https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/01/what-happened-
to-90s-e...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/01/what-happened-
to-90s-environmentalism/)

Specifically section 5. I wouldn't characterize the author's view as
"recycling is a conspiracy", though. More like "we're not going to be up to
our necks in garbage anytime soon, like we thought we were in the 80's" which
the author mentions has affected the priority society has given to recycling
as a whole. If indeed this is what they were referring to.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It was that article, but not specifically the bit about landfill. He at least
attempts to back his opinion up on that in some way, though frankly that seems
suspiciously contrived in a similar manner to the "scientists used to argue
the earth is cooling," malarkey. But it was the casual way in passing that he
praised and linked to the two articles by John Tierney as if they were the
last word on the economic and environmental benefits of recycling that
staggered me.

The first line of the first article says "recycling could be America's most
wasteful activity." Remember this is the source he's using to bust a myth and
poke fun at people who believed it as being ridiculous.

The other is introduced with this spectacularly factually incorrect summary by
SlateStarCodex:

"Recycling remained inefficient and of dubious benefit, and never really
caught on".

I don't always agree with what he says but I've always thought he'd done some
research before coming to a conclusion. This revealed a blind spot where he
was so sure of something that he could mention this in the middle of an
article about crazy things people believe about the environment and not even
notice the dissonance.

It doesn't help that the articles themselves are almost the antithesis of what
I like about slate star codec ("smug, rich people like doing it" and "what we
teach preschoolers about this isn't totally correct" are not what I consider a
solid economic argument against something).

This totally shattered the SlateStarCodex brand for me, just as if he'd
casually linked to a flat earth believer or climate change denier as if
everyone knew what they were saying was true.(He had actually linked to
climate change deniers in the same piece but I had assumed at that point he
was being ironic).

edit: just in case anyone is wandering in from whatever "gray tribe" bubble
SlateStarCodex picked up this nonsense from, here's an overview of the
recycling conspiracy's talking points. I know it looks like a through review
of the academic literature analysing the topic but that's just what they want
you to think:

[http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Environmental_benefi...](http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Environmental_benefits_of_recycling_2010_update.3b174d59.8816.pdf)

 _" This report reinforces the key conclusion of the first report that
recycling of paper/cardboard, plastics and biopolymers for most indicators
assessed provides more environmental benefits than other waste management
options. For wood and textiles, more studies are needed to be able to make
firmer conclusions regarding the environmental benefits of recycling for these
materials.

It is disappointing to note that there are very few LCAs which include an
assessment of more innovative technologies such as gasification, pyrolysis and
anaerobic digestion. This probably reflects the requirement for a lot of
process data to model a particular option, which can be sparse in the case of
the newer technologies. However, the results of the few selected studies that
included anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis are very encouraging.

There needs to be a stronger evidence base on certain materials (textiles,
biopolymers and wood) and the more innovative EfW technologies. LCA studies
need to focus on a larger set of indicators rather than only on climate change
potential or energy demand. There are also LCA methodological issues that need
clarification, such as the treatment of biogenic carbon and the time period
considered for landfill impacts; greater clarity on these matters will help in
the comparison of waste management options."_

~~~
UnFleshedOne
"here's an overview of the recycling conspiracy's talking points"

Wait, are you saying this paper you linked and the part you quoted is made by
proponents of the idea that recycling is a conspiracy? It looks rather pro-
recycling to me... The first sentence you quoted states outright: "recycling
of paper/cardboard, plastics and biopolymers for most indicators assessed
provides more environmental benefits than other waste management options". I
didn't read the whole thing though.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
That was an attempt at humor.

The link is to a very long and boring PDF that summarises the various pros and
cons of different waste management approaches based on hundreds of Life Cycle
Analyses. Overall recycling is often the best choice and landfill invariably
the worst.

It doesn't really mesh with the worldview presented by the linked article(s)
where it would appear to be claimed that the only ones to ever take a calm,
logical view of the matter were professionally contrarian journalists, who
concluded it was all worse than doing nothing 20 years ago and still believe
that today.

