Comment by bad_user
6 years ago
The paradox of tolerance is bullshit though, as it's not based on empirical evidence.
It's just armchair philosophy used as justification for intolerance by intellectuals, the mental gymnastic people need to get over their cognitive dissonance.
AFAIK Plato came up with it to justify autocracy. That says it all actually.
This seems like a really wild stance to take on a paradox. Paradoxes aren't principles, laws, or theories. They're just self-contradictory or logically contrary statements; they don't require "empirical evidence" outside of the reasoning laid out in the paradox itself.
It would be better to say that people shouldn't use a paradox as evidence for something (e.g., claim aliens must exist because of Fermi's Paradox).
> paradox of tolerance
Unnecessary use of the 'paradox' label.
If a criminal shoots a cop, that is violence.
If a cop shoots the criminal back, is that the 'paradox of violence' ?
If a surgeon cuts open a patient with a knife, to treat a tumor, is that the 'paradox of violence' ?
Violence used to curb violence is peace. Peace used to ignore violence is violence.
There is nothing 'paradoxical' about not tolerating the intolerant. That is basic justice.
You had me until here:
>Violence used to curb violence is peace. Peace used to ignore violence is violence.
So an eye for an eye, eh? And if I use my eye to look away, I also deserve to lose it? I think you are a dangerous fellow. I'd sooner allow someone to say some mean things on the internet than let someone like you ever get into a position of power.
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Well no, a claim is made and that is... unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. And this is then used as an argument in debates such as this one.
Are there documented cases of this happening or is it just a wild guess?
My bet is on the later.
There is empirical evidence from the multiple natural experiments that happened on subreddits at the start of Reddit.
I personally had to come up with arguments to justifiably censor people to stop the sub I became a part of, from becoming more of a chess pool.
I was a card carrying member of the market place of ideas/ free speech camp till 12-13 years ago, at which point it was clearer to me that giving free speech to certain groups was the same as allowing prions to proliferate in the food chain.
Which is why stronger moderation was required to reverse the descent into madness - it worked.
The people who were hateful bigots were ejected and made their own forums, where they promised never to ban dissenting voices.
Sure enough, they too started banning voices because
1) they weren’t there for free speech in the first place, just for indoctrination.
2) free speech meant that They became petri dishes for even more extreme material and eventually had to be banned or risk getting the entire forum/subreddit removed.
————
I’d love alternate interpretations for it, if possible, but the experience from these multiple natural experiments show that letting malicious Machiavellian actors on your platform will result in the abuse of normal users and the tolerance of the system.
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I think you're going to get heavily downvoted (HN loves the paradox of tolerance), but I wholeheartedly agree. I think it's complete nonsense, not to mention that its spirit is much better represented by older ideas (e.g. Mill's Harm Principle). "Tolerance" is kind of a weasel word anyway, essentially giving carte blanche to the one that invokes the paradox.
The evidence is in: HN hates the paradox of tolerance and loves the idea of having its cake and eating it, too. I'm not surprised, but I'm slightly surprised that you're surprised.
> "Tolerance" is kind of a weasel word anyway, essentially giving carte blanche to the one that invokes the paradox.
How so? Demonstrating that a principle makes for a poor foundation has little bearing on its ultimate validity.
> How so?
Consider a group of Neo-Nazis that want to stage a peaceful protest espousing their ideology. They get their permits and set out in a town square, chanting all kinds of anti-Semitic and white power nonsense. The question "are the Neo-Nazis being intolerant?" is a tricky one. On one hand, the answer is a resounding "yes," but on the other, they're the proverbial dog that's all bark and no bite.
Consider some local Jewish group that wants to stage a counter-protest. I'll give you the same question: are the Jewish protesters being intolerant? Again, it's a tricky one: they might argue they're being intolerant of the Neo-Nazis' intolerance (as I'm sure Popper would say).
The Neo-Nazis could, in turn, argue that they aren't being intolerant at all - they're just exercising their First Amendment rights. In fact, it's the Jewish counter-protesters that are the ones being intolerant! So we're just going around in circles debating who's being "intolerant," what "intolerant" means, and what it takes to go from "tolerant" to "intolerant" -- the classic sorites paradox[1]. This is all equivocation.
When we look at simpler tests like Mill's Harm Principle, the problem is simplified! If, the Neo-Nazis aren't harming anyone, they're free to do whatever they please -- as are the Jewish counter-protesters. Harm is a lot easier to wrap one's head around than "tolerance," so that's why I think it's a much more palatable litmus test.
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/
Because in that phrase, "tolerance" is not actually defined, or is defined in a way that does not match the common-sense usage of the phrase. It's kind of like how "racism" had to be redefined so that white people couldn't be victims of racism.
Never saw validity as a good marker, reminds me of Sophistry-esque arguments. If you're an intelligent enough person you can bend and twist almost anything you want so that it's "valid".
I prefer the imagery and idea of something with a good foundation over something that's valid.
For me the paradox of tolerance doesn't make too much sense is because intolerance usually is recursive. There would be intolerance, and intolerance of intolerance, and intolerance of intolerance of intolerance, so on so forth. It is usually can be used as justification against other groups, since everyone is in the intolerance chain.
Maybe it should be paradox of even/odd level of tolerance? Also, in practice, it's hard to define which are the primitive intolerances and which are not.
And why should we believe you vs. Plato?
You shouldn't believe me or Plato, unless you like religion. You should believe in empirical evidence.
Is it based on empirical evidence? Is it based for example on longitudinal social studies? The answer is no.
And certainly absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence but it's baffling to me how people can cite this as fact, even if it might as well be bullshit.
I hope you realize that for the uninformed, like me, your response is as dubious as OPs. All you are saying that this is false and it has been proven by empirical evidence - trust me.
It explains cancel culture perfectly though.
> The paradox of tolerance is bullshit though
So do you tolerate intolerance?
Sorry, not falling in that trap ;-)
It is impossible to be tolerant of all things. The paradox of tolerance is one way of picking which things to be intolerant toward. There are lots of others, mostly worse. Ultimately though, we all have to pick.
Yeah, because you know it's a paradox.
et voila - we have a paradox
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That isn't a natural dichotomy, it's silly to break down problems into that sort of black and white ("you're either for us or against us!" sort of nonsense). There are always multiple choices.
The real question is whether reacting with similar intolerance leaves you better off - or has any meaningful influence on the bad actors in question.
Diplomacy is full of these tradeoffs.
But it is you cannot be tolerant of all things. You can't simultaneously be tolerant of cats and of people who wish to ban cats. Those two things cannot simultaneously be accepted.
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don't we all tolerate intolerance on some level/topics?
it seems to be perfectly acceptable to be intolerant to some groups of people and religions/ideologies.