Tolerance isn't considered a virtue because it's easy. Tolerance is a virtue because it's difficult. It requires us to put up with people who may adhere to worldviews we find utterly alien or hold views we find abhorrent.
It's easy to come up with an example and find yourself thinking "It's unreasonable to tolerate that!". Instead, consider asking yourself why people a century ago might tolerate views you think of as perfectly reasonable today.
Tolerance of someone who thinks such things is certainly possible.
Tolerance of someone who says such things in a work environment--knowing that the subject of the speech might be a coworker, boss, or direct report--is another thing entirely. Employees should not have to tolerate that, and employers should not expect them to.
To be super clear about this, making bigoted statements is a behavior in the workplace, and it is smart of businesses to set and enforce expectations for acceptable workplace behavior.
You're absolutely right! Being difficult does not in any way make something a virtue. However, in cultural terms we generally don't aspire to traits that are trivially achievable (example: having skin).
I would say difficulty is a neccessary, but as you so right point out, woefully insufficient condition.
Tolerance didn't become a virtue solely because it was difficult. It became a virtue because it was difficult and the alternative was war - total, global war that could've annihilated the human race a lot more quickly than global warming.
We've largely forgotten what war was like - it's become something that we send disenfranchised young soldiers from poorer economic backgrounds to so corporations can make more money. I suspect that if people were actually faced with a direct choice between tolerance and war and could make the choice rationally, they'd choose tolerance every time. But of course, usually once wars happen it's because people are no longer acting rationally. And right now few people really believe that the alternative to tolerance is war, they just believe that the people they can't tolerate will willingly give up the beliefs they find repugnant.
> it's become something that we send disenfranchised young soldiers from poorer economic backgrounds to
I know this is an article of faith in some political circles. Promising poor kids money for killing Those Other People is the only way military service makes sense.
Tolerance of someone who wants to deny your whole existence is not something anyone should ever tolerate. That‘s not a virtue, that‘s madness and potentially suicidal.
So can we please not jump from "this person disagree with me or thinks something about my life choices are immoral" to "this person denies my whole existence"?
Yes, there are some people who fall into the latter category. But there are others somewhere in between, and it might be useful to exchange world views and increase mutual understanding, and maybe even change some minds.
I think it's ridiculous so many political discussions these days jumps to an existential fear of your side's complete eradication, and a mindset that any action is justified to avoid that outcome.
That’s what I mean when I say denying one’s existence. There is clear intent behind those words. I didn’t pick them arbitrarily. That’s a necessary condition for tolerance to become abhorrent.
You are either attacking some weird fantasy or you honestly believe that being gay† is a life choice.
—
† This obviously includes everything heterosexual people are able to do with no one blinking an eye, like mentioning their partner in casual conversations, bringing their partner to work events when partners are allowed to attend, etc. That just logically follows. Obviously how openly you talk about your romantic partner to someone else is definitely a life choice – I’m just saying that it logically follows from being gay not being a life choice that gay people have to be tolerated to talk about their romantic partners as openly as heterosexual people. Or else there wouldn’t be equality at all.
The issue with refusing to tolerate intolerance tends to be the difficulty in defining intolerance. There are strong incentives to define intolerance as today's political foes, and weak incentives to resist this urge.
For my own part, I exist in a political context where I know that lots of people want to deny my whole existence. And so long as society is willing to keep them to nothing worse than the occasional unkind word, I'm willing to live with that. I prefer it to the endless mission creep that all too easily comes when the ostracism and purges start.
I know that this didn’t work out in the past and the result were not hurt feelings, the result were millions of murdered people. I know that tolerating intolerance is not solely to blame for that, it probably didn’t even play a major role, but it did play a role. And that‘s why I want to avoid making that deadly mistake in the future.
Yeah, deciding when it is ok is then a hard problem but I’m willing to accept that.
It might be worth recalling that historically, trying to supporess interolant viewpoints often helps make them more popular. Which is to say that intending to avoid repeating a historical mistake may wind up encouraging the exact opposite. Cautious consideration of the possible effects of deliberately adopting intolerance may be worthwhile.
It may also be worth inquiring about what a person means when they refer to their own lives before going on to describe genocide. There's potentially some awkward outcomes there.
Be careful that you do not want to deny their whole existence in return.
The example given was a gay person who encounters someone (a Muslim, say) who thinks they should be sentenced to death. But if the gay person decides in response that Islam should be eradicated, that's (at a minimum) cultural genocide.
Note well: I am not an apologist for Islam. I consider their theology to be wrong. But in opposing them, don't become them.
Yeah, something has to give and we as a society have to find out what.
I don’t get why people shy away from making these hard calls. I mean, I don’t even think this one is a hard one to make.
Of course all of this does not exist in an ideology free completely politically neutral space. You have to make some assumptions and some value judgements. That’s ok. There is nothing wrong with that.
I’m also so weirded out when people try to construct working societies from this maximalist non-interference maximalist neutrality point of view. I don’t think societies have to be neutral.
You are also constructing one very weird case that just doesn’t work at all and makes no sense.
> There's a significant difference between an ideology and an identity.
I suspect that many Muslims consider that to be their identity, not just their ideology.
> Why—whenever the question of hate comes up—is HN so quick to rise to the defense of the hateful?
Because I'm hateful (to at least somebody). And so are you. We don't defend the hateful because the hateful are so wonderful. We don't defend them because we agree with them. We defend them because we're defending us some time down the road.
"I'm a shitty person, and so are you." is a cop-out and frankly insulting.
> I suspect that many Muslims consider that to be their identity, not just their ideology.
I can't believe I have to explain that the difference is between what's a choice and what's not: You can't change your identity. Ideology is arbitrary.
That isn't what I said. I said that there is someone who thinks you're a terrible person. It doesn't matter whether you are or not. They think you are, because you're too gay, or too straight, or to conservative, or too liberal, or your skin is too dark, or your skin is too light, or you're too old, or you're too young, or you're too religious, or you're not religious enough, or you have the wrong religion, or whatever. There are people who think that you are a terrible person.
So be careful of justifying intolerance of the terrible. That rationale can be used against you, perhaps by people a whole lot less well-meaning than you are.
We let literal Nazis March in Skokie, the world did not end. Tolerance except for those one thinks are immoral beyond reason is gives just as much license for, say, an anti-abortion activists who genuinely sees abortion as murder to remove people who support abortion.
I disagree. In the interest of peace, I "tolerate" working alongside people who I know believe that, for instance, I will doomed to a fiery hell because I don't believe in their Savior. (I'm Jewish).
And you know what? I work alongside these people just fine! We talk about computer engineering at work, not religion. And everything moves along.
The problem with Google is they have a bunch of immature children who are not interested in "peace."
Tolerance for tolerance's sake isn't useful though. The hypothetical Nazi / Hitler example shows up: if Hitler existed today, are we supposed to tolerate his views?
Tolerance breaks down because morality kicks in: a good moral person tries to wipe out evil when they see evil. The problem is that we can't agree on what is, and isn't evil.
Which is a problem when people increasingly believe the "other side" to be evil. (Abortion is murder vs Anti-choice are womanizers). Both sides want to wipe each other out, not necessarily kill them, but they want to politically negate the opponent's argument.
In many cases, ideas, ideals, and philosophy are incompatible. That's just how the world works.
Does action include hateful speech? Not being facetious just genuinely wanting to know. I've always found it difficult to dissociate views vs actions when it comes to espoousing a hateful view.
Pretty much every political position is considered "hate speech" by people on one side of an issue or the other. The term has been over used so much it's losing much of its meaning.
> I've always found it difficult to dissociate views vs actions when it comes to espoousing a hateful view.
Views: giving a speech arguing abortion should be illegal
Actions: blowing up an abortion clinic
I find it very troubling so many participants in this discussion having difficulty distinguishing between speech and action, and why they should not be treated as the same thing.
So, if my view is that trans women should be called men, and I call a trans woman at my work a man, is this speech or an action? This is where I'm having difficulty distinguishing speech and action.
In the US? Would be protected free speech, and the government cannot make any laws about it.
For your company, though, they could fire you for violating their internal policies.
To categorize the speech, I would say it's just being an asshole. Even if you believe biological sex is assigned at birth and is immutable, going out of your way to not address someone the way they wish to be addressed is just being intentionally rude.
So is it okay that the company does not tolerate that view, even if that view is only expressed through speech? We're not in the context of a government, only an employer. Is that fine?
Someone, at some point, probably regardes some of your views as hateful. With that in mind, how much would you like to be subject to prior restraint based on someone else's internal emotional understanding of your views?
Generally it's worth dividing hateful words from hateful actions. Saying something racist in hateful, and might have political or social consequences, but wise societies are aware that getting into the game of policing speech is a mess. Attacking someone for being the wrong race is much more clear-cut, and society generally has an interest in discouraging violence to begin with.
> Someone, at some point, probably regardes some of your views as hateful. With that in mind, how much would you like to be subject to prior restraint based on someone else's internal emotional understanding of your views?
How does ME accepting tolerance cause the OTHER guy to be tolerant as well?
I don't swing the first punch during fights, but I'll absolutely punch back. That doesn't change the fact that fights happen to break out. One day, you will find yourself up against an intolerant person, and your only defense is to also be intolerant against them.
> One day, you will find yourself up against an intolerant person, and your only defense is to also be intolerant against them.
No, being a tolerant person means tolerating people even when you find their views wrong, immoral, or heinous. There's nothing impressive about tolerating the views you like and not tolerating the views you don't.
When you find an intolerant person, the right thing to do is to tolerate them. Let them see that you are willing to accept them, even if they are not willing to accept you. That is how views are changed.
This notion that the defense against intolerance is to be intolerant yourself is how society sinks into tit for tat tribalism.
> When you find an intolerant person, the right thing to do is to tolerate them. Let them see that you are willing to accept them, even if they are not willing to accept you. That is how views are changed.
If the opponent is more charismatic than you, you will lose this fight. There are some very intolerant people out there who are more charismatic than you, and are better able to recruit supporters to their cause.
> This notion that the defense against intolerance is to be intolerant yourself is how society sinks into tit for tat tribalism.
This notion that YOU are more charming than the "intolerant" people is naive. What if the other guy is more charming, and manages to rile up crowds better than you can?
There's a reason why Obama signed papers to just kill Anwar Al-Awlaki with a drone strike. At some point, you just stop playing the "tolerance" game and gotta get your hands dirty. The idea that we can teach tolerance to everyone else is naive and counterproductive at this age.
If your opponent has view you consider intolerant, and the majority of society agrees with them you're saying the right thing to do is use suppression to enforce your minority view on the rest of society. Do you really realize what you're saying here?
Under this logic if I think abortion is murder, and I consider everyone who supports abortion is intolerant then I am justified in suppressing pro-abortion speech even if the majority of society is pro-choice.
The end result of your line of thinking is civil war. Coexistence with people who have values and morals different from each others becomes impossible when people's response to views they find wrong is to be intolerant toward those views.
> If your opponent has view you consider intolerant
If my opponent thinks I'm intolerant, then ME increasing my level of tolerance does NOTHING to fix the problem.
> The end result of your line of thinking is civil war.
Not if the other side down backs down first. Which is usually what happens. Why should the onus be on ME to back down?
------
Yeah, its complicated. But play with the game-theory of the model. That's the current direction we're marching towards politically. My point is that your philosophy of "tolerate the opponent" does NOTHING to stop this game-theory matrix. My optimal move is to be intolerant, especially if my opponent is intolerant.
Yeah, its a prisoner's dilemma. But that's the reality of politics.
> If my opponent thinks I'm intolerant, then ME increasing my level of tolerance does NOTHING to fix the problem.
Yes, it does. Responding to intolerance with tolerance provides the change (however slim) to engage with these people and change their views. Responding with intolerance of your own deprives you of this chance. The former offers some chance of change, however slim. The latter offers none.
> Not if the other side down backs down first. Which is usually what happens.
The problem is, the "other side" is thinking the exact same thing. Also, the way you frame tolerance as one "side" against another highlights the way people use "intolerance" just justification for the exclusion of the out-group.
> Why should the onus be on ME to back down?
The onus isn't on anyone to "back down" the onus is on society to foster a culture where the response to encountering someone with view they find heinous is to engage and try to bring them in alignment with society.
> Yeah, its complicated. But play with the game-theory of the model. That's the current direction we're marching towards politically. My point is that your philosophy of "tolerate the opponent" does NOTHING to stop this game-theory matrix. My optimal move is to be intolerant, especially if my opponent is intolerant.
No, it is not because we're all on the same team. By selecting the option that causes a net loss but a personal gain for yourself, you're leaving all of society worse off. The "other side" is still part of the society to which you belong, like it or not.
I am seriously disturbed by this line of reasoning, the thought that it's better to leave all of society worse off as long as the "other side" is harmed more than "our side". The end result is that the two "sides' cannot coexist, and one either destroys or expels the other.
As I've challenged other posters before... this whole discussion is taking place in reality. Your theories about peace and quiet are all nice and all, but it doesn't work in practice.
Go hangout at Stormfront. Talk to white-nationalists. They're all gathering there, and you can go try to convince them to stop being racist if you so desire.
This isn't some hypothetical la-la land. You literally can go to white-nationalist websites and talk with them and try to convince them to be otherwise more tolerant of others.
----------
In any case: I've got slanty eyes since my parents were from an East Asian country. I can't change how my eyes look like, I'm distinctively Asian (although I'm unable to speak or write in any language aside from English. I've lived here my whole life).
I can change my viewpoints because I'm a rational person. But if white-nationalists make an enemy out of me, there's nothing I can do about it. I cant change my eyes or skin color.
Fortunately for me, white-nationalists are more scared of other races than my race. But they're still not exactly welcoming of me either.
---------
As I said before: how can My life (or society in general) get better if I become more tolerant of the white-nationalists who want to make America whiter and with less immigrants? They want to kick me out of the country (well, starting with Hispanics first. But I know I'm on their list). How am I supposed to "tolerate" that viewpoint?
> I am seriously disturbed by this line of reasoning, the thought that it's better to leave all of society worse off as long as the "other side" is harmed more than "our side". The end result is that the two "sides' cannot coexist, and one either destroys or expels the other.
Do you wish to "tolerate" white nationalism, and their philosophy to kick immigrants out of the country? To the point where some of them are going out to El Paso and literally shooting people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_El_Paso_shooting
This is what we are dealing with:
> "In general, I support the Christchurch shooter and his manifesto. This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas. They are the instigators, not me. I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion."
> As I said before: how can My life (or society in general) get better if I become more tolerant of the white-nationalists who want to make America whiter and with less immigrants? They want to kick me out of the country (well, starting with Hispanics first. But I know I'm on their list). How am I supposed to "tolerate" that viewpoint?
Because if you do engage with them you can figure out why they think those things and try to change their views.
By comparison if you behave intolerantly towards them, then they will become even more entrenched in their belief that immigrants do not tolerate whites, thus reinforcing their xenophobia.
> Do you wish to "tolerate" white nationalism, and their philosophy to kick immigrants out of the country? To the point where some of them are going out to El Paso and literally shooting people:
Speech and actions are two different things. People can talk about hanging wall Street bankers all they want, but that becomes illegal the moment that this becomes violence. Same with white nationalism or any other belief.
> Have you tried to do this? Because I've tried. It doesn't seem to work.
Yes, I have talked to many people that hold views that are labeled as "white nationalist" and engaging with them can change their views. Case in point, I managed to convince people to support immigration tied to employment. I sought to understand why this person opposed immigration, and learned that they feared that immigrants would become dependent on social services. So I made the point that immigration policy can be structure in a way to avoid state dependence.
You often won't be able to make them pull a total 180, but you can usually make them more nuanced in their opinions.
> Because I want to live here, a location I've lived my entire life, they believe that I "don't tolerate whites"? This is ridiculous on the face of it.
You're right, it is ridiculous. But that's what they believe. And if you treat them with intolerance (which is what you've been trying to justify throughout this thread) you're only reinforcing that belief.
> No, seriously. Go try arguing against a white nationalist for a while. Its utterly hopeless to get them to change their opinions.
Not with this kind of attitude, it isn't. But actually try and engage meaningfully, understand why they believe the things they do, and show them that you are willing to tolerate them even though they don't want to tolerate you and the chances of changing their minds improves considerably.
> Maybe it should be illegal before the violence breaks out. You know, to prevent violence, instead of reacting to it.
You'll have to start by repealing the first amendment. And after you do, there will be people that will seek to label your views as violent and ban them.
> Case in point, I managed to convince people to support immigration tied to employment
I appreciate your honesty, but that's not what I'm talking about. Immigration or anti-immigration is a solid political subject but its "safe". That's the stuff normal people talk about.
Have you ever met someone who believed in The Great Replacement or White Genocide? Its basically a conspiracy theory: these people are not rational anymore. No amount of arguing can convince them otherwise. I'm Asian. Just talking with a white-nationalist reminds them of the Great Replacement. Just seeing me enforces their viewpoint.
Yeah, being tolerant of other viewpoints works... when the other person is also a good person at heart. But when you meet truly despicable nutjobs on the white-national spectrum, you lose hope in that "tolerance" viewpoint rather quickly. The only option I've concluded from my experience in that matter, is to censor them and prevent them from recruiting more people.
I dunno, maybe you can figure out a better plan. But I'm perfectly willing to use the censorship button to mitigate this problem. And unfortunately, I don't think I have any better option.
> Have you ever met someone who believed in The Great Replacement or White Genocide? Its basically a conspiracy theory: these people are not rational anymore. No amount of arguing can convince them otherwise.
What is your plan for these people then? Kill them? Put them in reeducation camps? Deport them?
Like it or not, these people exist and they're not going anywhere. We can either:
1) be intolerant towards them, thus making them form their own communities and grow more and more extreme because they're surrounded by like minded people.
2) be tolerant towards them, and try to change their beliefs.
Do you think that thes people are more likely to change their views if the rest of society is intolerant towards them and the only people they talk to are other white nationalist? Or if society does act treat them with tolerance, and they interact with more non-white-nationalists.
If we treat them with intolerance, then the only community they will find is with other white nationalists. If we do this, the problem is going to get worse and there are going to be more attacks.
Tolerance doesn't somehow prevent white supremacists from forming their own communities or becoming more extreme. If anything, it encourages them to continue doing so, because tolerance is a signal that society will accept their behavior and beliefs as normal, and that there will be no negative social consequences for them, at least until their plans for mass murder become action.
And white nationalists talk to non-white nationalists all the time. That's how they recruit new white nationalists. They're not ignorant of the arguments made against their beliefs - they're well aware, and yet they reject those arguments and persist, because irrational beliefs can't be rationalized out of. Most conspiracy theories would vanish in a puff of logic if that's how people worked.
Simply letting them organize where they will to spread their hatred unabated on any and every available platform, and then only politely and respectfully trying to convince them that their plans to throw the perfidious Jews into the ovens is a bad idea isn't going to do anything but push the Overton window of tolerance for their intolerance in their direction.
> What is your plan for these people then? Kill them? Put them in reeducation camps? Deport them?
Censor them, and prevent them from recruiting more. Wipe them off of Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter. Ban hate-speech.
> 1) be intolerant towards them, thus making them form their own communities and grow more and more extreme because they're surrounded by like minded people.
And take down these communities as they pop up. Its like weeding, you gotta keep knocking it down. I don't expect perfection. But make it a hassle for them to organize.
> Censor them, and prevent them from recruiting more. Wipe them off of Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter. Ban hate-speech.
Again, not possible unless you repeal the first amendment. Not really possible even if you do, since TOR exists.
> And take down these communities as they pop up. Its like weeding, you gotta keep knocking it down. I don't expect perfection. But make it a hassle for them to organize
Do you realize that part of the reason why these people hate immigrants is because they think immigrants hate them and want to get rid of them? Referring to them as "weeds" that need to be purged is playing straight into their narrative.
Knock down their communities and they will see it as proof of their persecution, and use this censorship to appeal to more peole. Deprive them of the ability to use words, and they will use violence.
White nationalism has been around for over a century. The attacks only started to accelerate when they started getting deplatformed. Make no mistake, this approach has been making them more violent and it will make them even more violent if it continues.
1st Amendment only applies to US Government. It doesn't apply to webpage administrators. As such, it is certainly possible for Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter to start to clamp down on the subject.
The daily stormer runs its own website. Genuine white nationalists have been kicked off Facebook and YouTube for a long time now.
You cannot knock down these communities. It is not possible without drastically reducing civil liberties. Freedom of speech and association are not going away. The only viable option to engage and attempt to change their views.
I know. But that website is hosted somewhere, and maybe we can convince those hosts to take it down.
> The only viable option to engage and attempt to change their views.
And you're free to attempt to do that at Daily Stormer / Stormfront / any other website where they pop up. But I'm telling you that trying to convince them doesn't seem to work.
> Go hangout at Stormfront. Talk to white-nationalists. They're all gathering there
And lots of those people didn’t use to hang out there before we banned them from mainstream forums for having simple disagreements about what good policies and governance is.
We threw them out to the loonies, and wonder why they come back crazy. How about we take some responsibility for that?
Leave them on mainstream forums where their words can lead to greater amounts of recruitment from the population? Reducing their recruiting arm to smaller-and-smaller portions of the internet is the goal.
The white-nationalist idea of White Genocide and "The Great Replacement" holds a great deal of power. As they discuss this nonsense in the mainstream, it only makes more and more believers come to their side.
> For me, that day was a long time ago. And that was not - and is not - my defense.
Please share your experience. Did you run away? Did you actually change their opinion?
Here's my story: for a month, a man with an anti-Asian sign would be marching around and pointing his "Go back to China" sign at me. (My parents are Filipino and I'm born in America) What do you expect me to do, walk out and have a reasonable discussion with the guy?
No. You call the police and get that man out of my life. No one has to tolerate this kind of hate. And no amount of reasonable discussion can convince a crazy man to tolerate others.
Deal with the problem. Get them out, kick them out. I'm not going to wax-philosophical and think "oh, he's demonstrating his freedom of speech / 1st amendment rights". Nah, he's trespassing on private property and I want him out of my workplace.
True story. This is how you deal with problems. "Tolerating" the hate only makes it fester and get worse. Hoping for the man to stop marching (after he's been marching for literally weeks) is the height of insanity.
---------
Look, we've got Christchurch mosque shootings and El Paso shootings. There's a hateful philosophy which is GROWING. Its pretty clear to me that "tolerance" has lost the fight. There's literal blood in the streets now, as the hate is beginning to fester and spread even further.
We can work to slow down the hate today, or we can sit still and "tolerate" it for the years to come, hoping it goes away by itself.
I'm genuinely struggling to understand here, because on one hand you talk about tolerance being a difficult thing where we should tolerate the viewpoints of others. On the other hand you're expressing that saying somethign hateful might have political and social consequences. But I was under the impression that, in your view, saying hateful things and recieving a social consequence as a result of your hate is a sign of an intolerant society.
Political and social consequences as distinct from legal or physical ones. Voters don't always like their candidates being hateful. I tend to drop racist friends.
I still think racists deserve emergency medical care and effective fire departments, though.
I'm quite certain I work with some racists - my employer is too large and diverse for the number to be zero. As long as they keep their mouths shut in the office, I'm more concerned with whether or not they're good at their jobs.
> If they want to run their racist mouth at work, they might be fired for it.
That's all we want. For people to be fired when they mouth-off racist views in the workplace.
Aka: being intolerant of intolerance. We can't be thought-police, no one has a mind-reading device. The best we can hope for is to kick people out when they demonstrate themselves to be an intolerant person.
Based on your comments, it seems to me that you want a great deal more than people to be fired for violating corporate policy. Perhaps I have misread you?
Lets put it this way: I have no problem with the assassination of Anwar Al-Awlaki. The ultimate solution: killing leading figures of dangerous philosophies, should only be used in times of war. (And the USA is certainly "at war" with extremists like ISIS and Al Qaeda).
I don't believe we are "at war" with white-nationalism. We are certainly not at the point where we should be imprisoning or killing people, yet. But I do believe we are at the point where we should seriously be considering to take down their websites and fire them from our workplaces.
The general hope is to clamp down on the philosophy and hamper them, so that this issue doesn't grow into an "open war" situation. One side has already demonstrated a willingness to spill blood on the matter, so we are marching closer and closer to violence on this issue.
There was a time when we could hope for better tolerance. But unfortunately, we're at the point where we need to be seriously considering our "strong soft-options": censorship, website bans, propaganda, infiltration / counter-intelligence, and spy-games, and other such tools.
--------
Ex: I HOPE we have tasked the FBI to infiltrate white-nationalist websites, not only to keep tabs on them but also maybe try to grow into leadership positions within white-nationalist groups. Full on infiltration / spy-games need to be going on (if they haven't happened already).
This is the least we can do in the wake of the El Paso shooter, especially since other political options (ex: background checks) seem out of reach.
----------
Note: Martin Luther King Jr. was subject to this kind of infiltration. This is literally the FBI's job: to infiltrate groups within the USA, keep tabs on influential figures who might be dangerous. Its unsavory, but only through infiltration can you figure out who is dangerous, and who is safe.
> His views are his own. He should be free to express them.
Hitler didn't do anything but talk and lead others. Hitler just inspired an entire country to attempt genocide, through inspiration ALONE.
Hitler wasn't a man like Stalin (Stalin would personally execute people). Stalin "swung the axe", made sure his hands were as bloody as the people he led. Hitler in contrast, was a coward who ended up killing himself in a secure bunker as soon as the world turned against him.
Words alone have huge effect on people. The words of a powerful man can alone be enough to cause issues.
Yes, we let literal Nazis March in Skokie. Tolerance except for those one thinks are immoral beyond reason is gives just as much license for, say, an anti-abortion activists who genuinely sees abortion as murder to remove people who support abortion.
We absolutely cannot let evil stand when we identify evil. Otherwise, it marches in and kills many. On the other hand, if we misidentify evil, then innocent people die.
I'm not saying I have a solution. But the idea that "tolerance will save us all" is hopelessly naive. The sad fact is, a large number of people are systematically intolerant.
> We absolutely cannot let evil stand when we identify evil. Otherwise, it marches in and kills many.
No, you let evil speech stand. And you call it out as evil, and make clear reasoned arguments why it is evil. That is the solution.
Only when that evil speech turns into action does the society step in.
Resorting to censorship only demonstrates weakness and an inability or unwillingness to argue against evil. This leads to people questioning whether the target of censorship really is evil at all.
> No, you let evil speech stand. And you call it out as evil, and make clear reasoned arguments why it is evil. That is the solution.
That doesn't work.
If you really think you can "convince" people to tolerate others, feel free to go to Stormfront and convince the white-nationalists to stop being racist.
Go and try it. Its not like these hateful locations are unknown, its a free and open internet. Go an talk with them for a week. You might learn how easy it is to rationalize bigotry and racism.
At some point, you gotta just shut it down, like what the world did to 8chan. And these situations aren't hypothetical at all. You literally can go test your theory at Stormfront.
> Only when that evil speech turns into action does the society step in.
We're too late for that. Christchurch shooter, and then El Paso shooter. We've got a strain of intolerant speech that are inspiring lone-wolves to go into literal suicide missions to shoot people they don't like right now.
Gun control debate is locked. Its been like 2 weeks and everyone's already forgotten about the El Paso shooter. Nothing will come about with that.
But at least we shut down 8chan, one of the hangout spots for this hateful branch of people. We should probably shutdown other hangout spots too, like Stormfront.
No, quite the opposite. Shutting it down often makes things worse. Deplatforming (both in the social sense and in the technological sense) gained traction around 2013 and 2014. Do you think that bigotry and racism as reduced since then? The daily stormer was kicked off cloudflare in 2017. Do you see a reduction in hate and bigotry?
No, if anything we have seen an increase. You can't change people's minds by ostracizing them. Shutting down speech, especially the speech you think is immoral, makes the problem worse.
And to your point, yes people have changed the minds of white nationalists by engaging with them. It's hard but it can happen. By comparison, how many white nationalists do you think had their minds changed by having their speech censored? Usually this only reinforces the belief in a {Jewish | Globalist | immigrant | etc. } conspiracy against whites. If people think big tech is run by George Soros and is censoring conservatives and is working to the detriment of whites, then getting kicked off th internet is pretty much directly reinforcing their conspiracy.
We can look at Germany as the best example of how to do this correctly. In Germany, it is literally illegal to portray Nazi imagery. They did their best to fully "kill" the Nazi movement after their loss in WW2.
Shutting things down works. The (modern) US just doesn't want to go that way. In fact, shutting things down and erasing history is perhaps one of the most effective methodologies from a historical point of view. But historically, the US had an office of censorship for a reason during WW2, so that public opinion could be unified against Nazi-ism.
People often ask why WW2 was so effective at unifying the country. Well... yeah. Office of Censorship and clamping down on speech, and systemic advertisements + propaganda funded by US Government and pushed by Walt Disney.
It just needs to be done from the top down. You can't expect the free market to do it on its own.
> By comparison, how many white nationalists do you think had their minds changed by having their speech censored? Usually this only reinforces the belief in a {Jewish | Globalist | immigrant | etc. } conspiracy against whites.
The idea is not to change their minds. The idea is to prevent them from talking, and changing the minds of others.
And we can also use Germany as an example demonstrating the ineffectiveness of suppression: the Nazi party members were repeatedly imprisoned, yet this only reinforced their movement. The primary Nazi party newsletter was raided by police over 30 times. The attempt to shut Nazis down did not work and was likely counterproductive.
The Allies may have reinforced aversion to Nazism after it was defeated. But political suppression did not successfully stop Nazism in Germany.
> The idea is not to change their minds. The idea is to prevent them from talking, and changing the minds of others.
They'll still be talking to others, you fundamentally cannot stop that. The only difference is that we are depriving ourselves of the chance to challenge them on their bigoted and hateful beliefs.
And lastly, you're making the dangerous assumption that the people deciding which views are getting suppressed agree with you. There's a good chance many of the views you hold dear are ones that a significant portion of the population want to get rid of.
Hampering is sufficient. Forcing them to rebuild newspapers and reform their membership over and over again means they are spending less time recruiting members.
In the most extreme cases: killing works too. Bin Laden / Anwar Al-Awlaki. Both were more "inspirational" figures than actual day-to-day management, but their ability to spread and inspire others was still better than the typical ISIS / Al Qaeda member.
Destroying the mouthpiece works. Full on killing / murder is only condoned in war-like situations, but there are "softer powers" like knocking websites offline. Sure, they are tenacious and spring up again (and will continue to do so unless we actually kill them), but every hour those websites are down is another hour where they fail to recruit members into their philosophy.
Considering that we refuse to utilize the ultimate solution (assassination / killing) vs these people, the best we can hope for is to just inconvenience them over-and-over again. Its just like banning troll accounts at a highly-moderated forum. The trolls inevitably pickup a new VPN and get to post again for a few hours. The idea isn't to stop the troll from talking, its to hamper the troll from talking.
> They'll still be talking to others, you fundamentally cannot stop that. The only difference is that we are depriving ourselves of the chance to challenge them on their bigoted and hateful beliefs.
Nah, we can totally do that. You and I can talk about white-nationalism right now. Do you believe that white people are "being replaced" by immigrants? And if so, do you think its a long-term negative for this country?
Bam. Now we can talk about the subject. And I trust you (and most random strangers) to have decent opinions on the subject. The issue is that a large group of white-nationalists are working to recruit young people into their hateful philosophy, and to grow their base. And this growth includes violent action (with them cheering the actions of El Paso shooter + New Zealand's shooter).
I'm not against intelligent discussion of these subjects. I'm against the recruitment and growth of power of hate-groups.
Hampering the troll from talking had been thoroughly demonstrated to be ineffective, or even counterproductive. Again, what evidence do you have that deplatforming works? Deplatforming gathered momentum starting around 2013 and 2014. Since then, white nationalists and other bigoted groups have only become an even bigger problem.
Not only can I not see how this supports your assumption that suppression works, it actually demonstrates a positive relationship between suppression and these sorts of movements.
Especially when these groups allege a conspiracy to suppress them, the the last thing we should be doing is the exact thing that hate groups allege. When we start banning white nationalists sites, it makes lots of people think "oh shit, there really is a {Jewish | Globalist | Muslim} conspiracy out to get us."
> Not only can I not see how this supports your assumption that suppression works, it actually demonstrates a positive relationship between suppression and these sorts of movements.
You've got cause-and-effect backwards. More and more people are deplatforming as they realize that white-nationalism is a bigger problem than they once thought.
-------
Deplatforming works. Lets not look at white-nationalism, but lets look at "Elsa-gate" instead. Children were watching creepy "Elsa" videos (from Disney's "Frozen"). How do you stop this? You ban them from the site.
Bam. Children don't watch them anymore, cause those videos are banned.
-----
How do you solve the problem of white-nationalists recruiting on this webpage? Well, you ban hate-speech.
The problem is that White-Nationalists can simply... go to Facebook... or Youtube... as recruitment grounds. The big websites aren't cooperating yet. This needs to be a systemic top-down effort, unified across the major websites.
> You've got cause-and-effect backwards. More and more people are deplatforming as they realize that white-nationalism is a bigger problem than they once thought.
And yet, despite (or perhaps because of) increased deplatforming, these groups are stronger than ever and are committing more attacks.
If what you say is true, we should have been seeing a decrease in white nationalism since 2014 when deplatforming started to accelerate. We've seen the opposite.
> Deplatforming works. Lets not look at white-nationalism, but lets look at "Elsa-gate" instead. Children were watching creepy "Elsa" videos (from Disney's "Frozen"). How do you stop this? You ban them from the site
Elsagate wasn't a political movement, it was a group of trolls gaming the YouTube algorithm for views and lulz.
> The problem is that White-Nationalists can simply... go to Facebook... or Youtube... as recruitment grounds. The big websites aren't cooperating yet. This needs to be a systemic top-down effort, unified across the major websites.
We keep cutting off the heads of the Hydra of white nationalism and it keeps getting stronger. Bans and suppression is useless at best, counterproductive at worst.
> Elsagate wasn't a political movement, it was a group of trolls gaming the YouTube algorithm for views and lulz.
Nonetheless, deplatforming them worked quite well.
> Both of those websites ban white nationalism.
Not well enough. Moderation on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, and other sites is extremely subpar and plenty of people can get their recruitment efforts in.
Especially with the "black-hole" of algorithmic "recommendations", these systems automatically pull white-nationalists (and child-pornographers, etc. etc.) together.
We have given these groups the tools they need to automatically find each other (through recommendation listings) and coordinate with each other. Of course their connections and organization are going to get stronger.
> Not well enough. Moderation on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, and other sites is extremely subpar and plenty of people can get their recruitment efforts in.
Find me three examples of actual white nationalists or child pornographers on YouTube. Every time someone makes this claim, I challenge them to substantiate it. Most of the time, people don't respond and the rest of the time people provide links to generic conservative channels that are anti-immigration, do not believe in the mutability of gender, etc. but are nowhere even remotely in the realm of believing in the supremacy of the white race or supporting the expulsion of non-whites from the country.
I don't have a link, but you can trust me when I can say that I've had discussion with white-nationalists on Youtube.
They gather around conspiracy-related videos. The "discussion" is mostly in the comments / private messages, not actually in the videos themselves.
Its been a long time since I've actually hunted down white supremacist groups on Youtube, maybe things have changed. Follow enough conspiracy theorists, and you eventually get to comment-sections which are almost entirely composed of white-supremacists talking about nonsense.
------
With regards to child-porn, its less actual porn and more compromising positions (links to child gymnastics, children playing in pools with wet shirts, etc. etc.). Not actual porn, but its clearly sexual in nature (even if not originally intended). I'm sure you're well aware of the problem however, its been discussed to death. I'd rather not revisit that subject personally.
In any case, the COMMENTs are the goldmine for child-pornographers. Its clear that they are sharing child-porn off Youtube. They just use Youtube as a methodology to find each other and communicate.
Youtube comments are practically unmoderated. Youtube practically has no moderation on comments what-so-ever.
------
That's the thing about Youtube's recommendation engine: its really good at preventing people from seeing some groups. But if your Youtube history matches a profile (ex: child porn or white-supremacy), you actually find those groups rather quickly.
It takes some effort to actually pull yourself into those groups however, and you taint your Youtube account history while doing so. So its not really something I like to do on a whim.
I know Youtube changed some stuff this year (fewer comments on gymnastic videos, high-school wrestling competitions, etc. etc), but its all automatic. Without actual moderation, the problem will only arise once again.
> I don't have a link, but you can trust me when I can say that I've had discussion with white-nationalists on Youtube.
As usual, when challenged to back up the claim that YouTube hosts white nationalism and child pornographers the commenter fails to do so.
At best you managed to show that some videos of kids had creepy comments, which YouTube promptly banned after it was brought to light. I recall this phenomenon, and YouTube's response was swift and decisive. So much so that many creators actually complained that YouTube was being too aggressive.
> How do you solve the problem of white-nationalists recruiting on this webpage? Well, you ban hate-speech.
> The problem is that White-Nationalists can simply... go to Facebook... or Youtube... as recruitment grounds. The big websites aren't cooperating yet. This needs to be a systemic top-down effort, unified across the major websites.
Sure sounds like you're saying YouTube and Facebook host white nationalist content to me. Saying that YouTube and Facebook are lax in kicking off white nationalists is still saying that they let white nationalists on their site.
It's only after I challenged you to back up this claim that you pivoted to talking about comments.
> Sure sounds like you're saying YouTube and Facebook host white nationalist content to me.
That's not my intent. You can take at my word, or leave it. Your choice. There's plenty of other issues we can talk about without getting wrapped up about this particular point.
Youtube _comments_ are poorly moderated. Do you agree or disagree?
Play around on that side of Youtube long enough, and the white-nationalists eventually show up. Last time I went down hunting for white-nationalists, they were somewhere around that area.
Yeah, I'm finding more and more stuff the more I look. As I stated before: the more you fill you search history with this stuff, the easier it gets to find.
"Normal" people aren't able to enter the black hole, because after seeing one video, they click on something else. Conspiracy-nuts continue to click into the hole, filling up their history and getting drawn in more and more. Its just how Youtube's algorithms work. The more you click on these things, the more Youtube serves you this kind of content.
That's enough conspiracy / white national hunting for me though. I think I've proven my point now and don't feel like dirtying my history anymore.
> It's funny how these basic nationalist thoughts are now "far right-wing" In the past these were beliefs that most of the population understood. You dont let your own nation be ethnically and culturally replaced by outsiders.
> I love how Jewtube welds the Wikipedia article to the Great Replacement and tries to dismiss it as a "nationalist right wing conspiracy theory".
> Europe taxes it’s citizens to import Africa
Whilst Africa kicks out europeans
Found em. Took about 10 minutes but I'm pretty sure I found what you were looking for. Do you believe me now?
So now I've shown you what's out there. Now I ask you again: what should we do about this? Should we just... let these people continue to collaborate on their mission of hate on Youtube? Or should we like, do something about it before they decide to shoot someone else (El Paso / Christchurch)
It's easy to come up with an example and find yourself thinking "It's unreasonable to tolerate that!". Instead, consider asking yourself why people a century ago might tolerate views you think of as perfectly reasonable today.