Thanks for sharing, I didn't know that before. My family members are from different countries having different culture background, I tried to understand their behavior and things they taught me, sometimes they were totally different.

The criticism is simple: 1. Yes, those that claim to be "cancelled" are many, doesn't mean their criticisms aren't real. They're being censored, but the censorship isn't infinitely powerful. Numbers can be high but smaller than other numbers. 2. So what if Elon Musk does it too? That's not really relevant. 3. What does the "responsiblity of being held accountable" entail? Anonymous speech exists, and I don't see what reasonable principle would disallow it. 4. You've failed to actually say whether or not you actually want to prevent others from speaking freely or not. If yes, the principle applies and you should be prevented from speaking freely. If not, then it doesn't.

The last time we trusted the enlightened vanguard of society to make decisions for us it resulted in mass famines and the death of millions of innocent people.

Read up on the Rwandan genocide to understand what "open animosity" means, please.

If so, then affirmative action is violence.

Cringe-inducing? More like terrifying, how the people you thought were liberal and principled would put the Nazis to shame with their rhetoric. Look at some other comments in this very post, they want to criminalize conservative opinions, deny their vote or outright bomb them all, and have no fear saying it out in the open.

But what if I really really wanted to keep a domesticated philosopher as a pet?

U mad, bro?

Which step are you referring to?

It does attempt to address it, although I contend it fails in that attempt.

>But what constitutes “based on evidence and ways of reasoning acceptable to all”? According to Rawls we can only answer this question truthfully behind the veil of ignorance2. Because only under the veil the answer would represent an agreement to limit liberty only by reference to a common knowledge and understanding of the world.

The problem is that there is no common knowledge and understanding of the world. We all have our own points of view, and we all make those assessments subjectively.

I disagree somewhat.

The problem with the article is its theoretical level.

>The freedom of the intolerant should only be limited if the people holding totalitarian beliefs can no longer be “kept in check”, in the words of Popper, or is a danger to the public order, in the words of Rawls.

This implies a world where we can objectively agree on a clear line, and if someone stepped over it, we can all agree that this specific person can now no longer be kept in check and can now be suppressed. But the world is not like this. Everyone assesses from their own point of view, and may come to different conclusions. Fascist abuse of freedom relies on this: it pushes the boundaries, and when the first ones cry foul, they get support from those who do not agree with that assessment, and create division. And because the minds of people and the rules of the society are changed with enough support, the fascists can gather enough support by operating on the vicinity of the line to push the line further and further.

You say that we should only be intolerant of violence, not merely non-acceptance of our views, but if we wait until the fascists get to violence, it is already too late. They gather support by being intolerant, and if we don't suppress that, they are allowed to gather enough support that we will be unable to stop the violence when it starts.

I recognize the problem that if there is no universal rule, it is impossible to objectively say when are we not actually preventing the rise of fascism but simply suppressing non-acceptance of our views. This is a real problem. But I argue there can be no universal rule, because such a rule needs to be careful enough to not go too far (like you advocated), but a rule that is that careful is a rule that will not stop fascists.

Exactly. That's why the idea of "thoughtcrime" from 1984 was so horrific, because you can't fully control what you think even when you have a very strong incentive from a repressive state to do so.

Denying anyone their individual rights because of their political or other beliefs should be a horrifying idea too. Only actions likely to lead to harm should lead to restrictions to your rights. Like public calls to or threats of violence

> tolerance is different from acceptance.

That’s the best way to put it.

It’s like the “☪️☮️🕉✡️🛐☯️✝️” sign. It doesn’t point to the magical unification of all religious ideologies pictured, into a single one. They just try not kill one another.

I agree, the idea that being a supporter of a free society forces you to accept some logical-sounding but foreign-to-reality inferences is dumb.

One of the main functions of our consciousness is to anchor us in time. It takes a tremendous amount of memory and prediction to create the bubble of time in which we create our personal narrative. It isn't surprising when disorders of the brain or mental illness disrupt this personal narrative, because it takes so much constant effort to maintain.

when was that

people who actively do not want the climate change crisis to be dealt with, and who are running the machine that makes it happen. oil execs, propagandists like prager u, lobbyists.. your uncle gary can be educated, darren woods and matt walsh cannot

Hoo, haven't had someone step into the ring and just openly attack atheism in quite a while.

>I don't get militant atheism.

I'd prefer dissenting rather than militant. I'm not out to kill or conquer you, but I certainly disagree and I'm up for debating it. But it comes from dealing with theists.

>It's not as if there isn't a crazy conundrum no matter what you believe.

Except it's NOT crazy if the rules are consistent and jive with everything else. From all the other rules, to everything we see, to everything everyone else has ever experienced. ESPECIALLY if it's useful. A rational belief isn't crazy, that's a false equivalence trying to drag me down to your level. And what IS "crazy" anyway? It's when you can't understand someone's irrational reasoning, and that happens very quickly when they believe in things that can't both be true at the same time.

>E.g. it's about equally crazy to believe the universe has lasted forever,

Sure. Crazy. Especially when you look at how entropy behaves. We've observed this all over the place and it's fundamental in thermodynamics, your refrigerator, all the power plants you benefit from in your daily life.

>that it was created from nothing,

AND HERE IT IS. The tired regurgitated lie. This is absolutely NOT what the big bang theory says. But it's what the christian propaganda has spread about the globe in an effort to poison people's brains. Want to know why I dissent? It's the LIES. Lie to me and I just double down on my distrust and skepticism. Where there's a propaganda campaign organized against a particular belief I re-question everything I've ever heard about it and try to figure out where the lies end and the truth starts.

But yes. The genesis of energy would be VERY crazy considering what the big bang theory tells us, and the observable iron-clad rule of conservation of energy. People are worked very hard for millennia to violate it and failed.

>that a god existed forever, or that a god was created from nothing.

Yes, both very crazy. No observable evidence what so ever. Unless you're being poetical or playing some word games.

You know what isn't crazy? SCIENCE. There's plenty of bits which we don't know the complete truth yet. The difference between how much light we see (and how we think galaxies form) and how much gravity we feel and how fast stuff is spinning around the milky way. But rather than put on some bravado con-man bluff, we can acknowledge that we don't know, and hunt down an answer. All our ideas about how all this stuff works aren't going to be perfect, but if we repeatedly get less wrong than before, we'll approach the truth FAR better and faster than any religion ever will.

>Additionally, the majority of religious belief, seen through the lens of atheism, is the formalization of conventional wisdom by people who lived out their entire lives centuries ago.

That I'll agree with. Religion is important to study if you want to know anything about anthropology. Before we knew better it was a strong driving force in a lot of law, medicine, economics... just a whole lot. And it's important from a sociological angle to know how and why pockets of a population are going to be irrational. Where the conventional wisdom is quite foolish, like where they flagellate themselves, you'll find a lot of irrational behavior.

>[religions enforce] lifestyles in favor of one that promises stabler, more long-term happiness

Except, you know, the ones that REJECT hedonism. Which is many of them. Most religions are a pile of rules that helped and supported whoever was in power. If telling people they would be happy in the afterlife let them work harder and behave while they were alive, that was a message the rulers could get behind. What helps the nation really does have a lot of overlap with helping the people within the nation. And any nation with a religion built around self-destructive actions tend to, you know, self-destruct on a larger scale.

And this is a very important bit. Where they were once useful tools and steering people into behaviors that helped the group, the religions abide by evolutionary processes themselves just as much as species do. The self-destructive ones die out, the ones that don't spread themselves die out, the ones that conquer and infect others survive. The evolutionary process has left us only with the old-time religions that SERVE TO SELF PERPETUATE THEMSELVES. Now a days, religions are more about helping themselves rather than the people within the group.

Coincidentally, old-time religions are dying out because they're incompatible with the current modern society. The only survivors will be the ones that don't butt heads with rational thought and flee off to the god of the gaps or refine themselves strictly to moral conundrums. (Game theory and sociology are coming for you too).

>Religions are all about human nature,

Religions are all about everything. You can't just cherry pick the bits that talk about psychology. If you're okay with tossing out the garbage bits like genesis, any depiction of the super-natural like walking on water, virgin birth, coming back from the dead, reincarnation, multiplying fish, burning oil without consumption, everything the church did to Galileo and Turing, and on and on and on... oh and what the church said about tectonic plates. Even that was controversial back in the day. It's like a constant ball and chain holding us back. But if you're okay with just ditching all claims made by all the religions that aren't strictly psychological or sociological, then all the more power to you. It's a step in the right direction.

I wanted to toss in the crusades, Muhammad's pedophilia, the treatment of women, everything most of them say about homosexuality, whatever nonsense was going through those guys' heads on 9/11/2001.... but that IS what religion suggests we do as far as "human nature" goes. I dissent.

>No one will be passing on your negativity generation to generation

My children are free to believe what they want, but so far when it comes up in conversation they're not believers. What I'm really pushing onto them, and this isn't up to them, is rationality.

> know-it-alls

This really isn't the insult you think it is. I strive to know all I can. What exactly is wrong with that and why would you treat knowledge as negative? That, I think, is the most telling thing about your entire rant.

EDIT: Oh, a snarky late update while saying you're too lazy to read anything?

>I'm sorry if your day-to-day thinking is dedicated solely to simplifying everything that makes other people human. You'll likely find, once you age beyond 18-25, that you were mistaken here. It happens to all sorts of people, and it's generally social/life inexperience that promotes such swift simplifications in regards to everything and every argument and every conflict. I'd bet you ignore other tough problems like war. "It's so simple just stop killing others and be fair." Thanks, genius, we know. There happens to be more present than that.

Simplifying everything? Yes. The simplest explanation that jives with everything else is the best explanation.

Beyond 25? I'm hitting 40. Geeze, another attempted low-blow swing and a miss. You're really not good at this.

War? ...War sucks. You know what REALLY sucks? All the religious war that was fought over absolute bullshit reasons. But you want a real solution to war? Nukes and trade. The threat of nuclear retribution has kept the gits at the top from invading each other and trade has stopped them from attacking to their own detriment. Violate those rules and suffer, as Russia is showing us. (And, sadly, that Ukraine really should have kept the nukes)

Cool rant bud but I’m replying to someone who didn’t say anything you said and just made the nebulous argument of no free speech “for those who would destroy it” which is just a convoluted way of saying “free speech but not for the bad ideas”.

You gave a bunch of extremely narrow and well defined examples of things not covered under most understandings of free speech, which I agree with as a non-free speech absolutist.

But I noticed you didn’t include advocating for anti-free speech ideas. Which as someone who believes in free speech I want to defend the right to express even if I think they’re stupid, and why I have such a visceral reaction every time I read an “ok I like free speech but just let me censor that one it’s the bad one I promise it’s ok just give me the power…”

Not the same thing, No True Scotsman, logical fallacy.

If you are going to make a counterargument, make a logical, rational one.

The Popper Paradox is semantic, and not truly a problem of logic.

No structure should include it's own annihilation: this is why it is illegal to try to overthrow a government, for example. Taking the term 'free speech' as an absolute has already been thrown out in countless ways, because it cannot be allowed to exist as an absolute. Calling for the murder of others is illegal, despite 'free speech'. So are making threats of bodily harm. And countless other forms of criminal speech.

Such limits are imposed because not all humans can be trusted to be responsible, reasonable, rational, or have good intentions. It is the same reason anarchy cannot ever be allowed: it always ends in violence and collapse (and warlords!).

Truly free speech could only be permitted if humanity was incapable of violent crime and destruction for its own sake. And that is not going to happen. 'Free speech' always means free speech with conditions. Always.

So not only should we execute people who are hateful, we should throw in the un/mis-informed as well? You know I'd argue that climate change activists who protest nuclear energy against all logic and reasoning contribute a great amount to rising CO2 levels, should we throw them in as well? Or is it only the people YOU think are the enemies?

[removed]

violently overthrowing climate change deniers is self defense on a global scale.

Extremely interesting

whether a certain kind of people should be allowed to live shouldn't ever be a question and we shouldn't tolerate people who act like it is