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Workable Objectivism (Ayn Rand)


Br16

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21 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I’ve come to believe most people who heavily moan about the issue of “civility”in terms of how people address really dehumanizing ideas fall into three stripes-idiots who are unknowingly doing the work of bigots through hyper-fixating on things like  “tone” which in turn draws attention away from the ideas being criticized, egotists who think they’re superior by virtue of being “big enough” by saying they want to keep the conversation “polite”(oh they’re so moderate and rational),  and bigots who want to normalize gross ideas through acting outraged at the less”polite” responses given to their rhetoric. 

I'd think a lot of the civility fetishists check two or three of these boxes, like @Heartofice.

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With regards to tone civility of the discussion - I tend to believe it very important. Not because there are no stupid, ignorant or misguided people whose ideas can and should be criticized. but because being condescending or offensive towards the other party defeats the whole purpose of the discussion. When you repeatedly call someone a bigot, or kid who needs to grow up, or inhumane, or anything or the sort - you achieve absolutely nothing: you deny him the opportunity to learn anything from you (really, when was the last time any one us us learned anything from someone else after being called an idiot); and you deny yourself an opportunity to learn anything from him and meaningfully engage with his ideas. Instead of both of you being smarter and enriched after hearing each other's opinion - and thus maybe actually profiting from it, what you got instead is perhaps few pats on the back from ideologically like-minded people and self-gratifying feeling how you proudly unmasked yet another racist/sexist/bigot/nationalist/insert_slur_here. If that's what you want from a topic - fine. But you could do a lot better (so kudos to few people who actually posted meaningful and constructive posts with arguments).

On 8/20/2019 at 5:20 AM, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I’ve come to believe most people who heavily moan about the issue of “civility”in terms of how people address really dehumanizing ideas fall into three stripes-idiots who are unknowingly doing the work of bigots through hyper-fixating on things like  “tone” which in turn draws attention away from the ideas being criticized, egotists who think they’re superior by virtue of being “big enough” by saying they want to keep the conversation “polite”(oh they’re so moderate and rational),  and bigots who want to normalize gross ideas through acting outraged at the less”polite” responses given to their rhetoric. 

This is not directed at you personally nor only to you, I just find this segment to be representative with regards to lot of what I'm talking about. Sooner or later, you'll find yourself in a debate where you'll be in a minority, or even up against everyone else. And likewise inevitable is that someone from the opposing side will find you ideas stupid, appalling, disgusting or even dehumanizing, although you certainly won't think that yourself. When that happens, last thing you'll want is for your opponents to brazenly hurl insults and slurs your way instead of trying to engage you with arguments. And to dub people who try to defend your right to speak your mind as bigots, egoists or idiots.
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As for objectivism itself, I don't hold it in particularly high regard - any system based on lack of empathy for your fellow humans is not particularly healthy for either an individual or society in large. If you want a philosophy based around individualism and personal strive for excellence, reading someone like e.g. Roman stoics would be immeasurably better idea.

And for all that, I think objectivism is relatively harmless. By its very definition it's bound not to be popular with large amounts of people, and I can't imagine any society ever adopting it as their ideology. If you want to combat ideologies that have actual potential to be dangerous, start with opular ones - and there's no shortage of these.

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 call someone a bigot

right, it is an ad hominem or ad consequentiam fallacy to draw a conclusion regarding the arguer's character from the arguments made. 

and it certainly fails to persuade; we have a trump-voting staff member at my office, and he believes all of the now pedestrian wrongnesses that trump voters endorse on race, ethnicity, citizenship, war, courts, legal interpretation, guns, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, pregnancy, schools, prayer, drugs, you name, he believes the worst things, on a razor's edge from fascism.  but one of the first things he says in discussion is a very defensive position that 'the liberals' think he's some sort of ignorant hayseed because he believes all these things and

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dagnabbit i ain't ignorant just because i think the family is the foundation of society and the world's immoral now and why can't it be like the 50s and swarthy peoples are uppity and women need to keep their legs shut and if you have a penis you are a 'man' and america is great and capitalism is great and war is great and it's all hilary's fault unless it was obama's fault and obama is a moslem and obama is not a US citizen and antifa are terrorists and we should shoot mexicans at the border and medicare for all will be death panels and can never work because socialism is sin

and on and on and on ad infinitum. no one in the discussion had said he was ignorant or implied that trump voters are cognitive deficients--though obviously there is much uncensored internet water under the bridge for him, as well as regular ginning up by right populist media victimization cultism. these are all manifestly asinine beliefs, but there's no debating it because this character is always already on the knife's edge of rage--the least disagreement triggers the defense mechanism--they are part of a totalitarian mechanism that repeatedly traumatizes them and prevents rational examination of their premises; their conclusions, mostly based on personal invective and insults of perceived opponents. never has our staff member actually made an argument in favor of proposed policies, but rather simply snipes at deviants from trumpism as either 'liberals' or 'moslems' or 'rinos'--it is as though usage of one of the president's puerile nicknames for opponents were sufficient to disqualify their policy preferences.

the question accordingly becomes how persuadable is this person? how much effort should be expended in rational discourse to draw the person out of fascistic non-thought? there is little appeal to the logos for the trump voter--it is almost all aristotelian ethos (based on unwarranted assertions, such as in birtherism and death panels and whatnot) backed by a severely prejudiced pathos. it is primarily an economics: at what cost is this person to be rehabilitated into civil society, wherein it is unacceptable to lock asylum seeking children in cages? if the cost is too high, better to marginalize with accusations of bigotry, which seems to be the default condition preferred by many interlocutors (again, logical fallacious, but apparently an economic debate-management protocol)? this relates to the earlier point i'd made in the US politics thread about rehabilitation of other deviants from the peremptory norms of civil society. this is not a criminal, but rather a person who would likely stand guard at a concentration camp, if trump commissioned him to do so.

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10 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

With regards to tone civility of the discussion - I tend to believe it very important. Not because there are no stupid, ignorant or misguided people whose ideas can and should be criticized. but because being condescending or offensive towards the other party defeats the whole purpose of the discussion. When you repeatedly call someone a bigot, or kid who needs to grow up, or inhumane, or anything or the sort - you achieve absolutely nothing: you deny him the opportunity to learn anything from you (really, when was the last time any one us us learned anything from someone else after being called an idiot); and you deny yourself an opportunity to learn anything from him and meaningfully engage with his ideas. Instead of both of you being smarter and enriched after hearing each other's opinion - and thus maybe actually profiting from it, what you got instead is perhaps few pats on the back from ideologically like-minded people and self-gratifying feeling how you proudly unmasked yet another racist/sexist/bigot/nationalist/insert_slur_here. If that's what you want from a topic - fine. But you could do a lot better (so kudos to few people who actually posted meaningful and constructive posts with arguments).

How bad does the message have to be before the speaker gets called out as vile?

If a man politely says he desires “peaceful ethnic cleansing” of non-whites and for gays to be executed or locked up for having gay sex, is it really such a detriment for someone to call that man a racist or homophobe? 

The position is already offensive and one of  condescension. 

So why not call it innately bigoted-hell monsterous even? Because it might make the speaker in question feel attacked?

I don't believe that's grounds enough to reframe. 

Honestly the conduct your promoting would mostly accomplish give off the impression that one should be able to hold grossly bigoted ideas that would entail the mistreatment an entire groups based on characteristics almost always entirely out of their control without being looked at as a bad person. A person getting into a debate with David Duke is not ethically  obliged to try to respond to his Anti-Semitic rambling in a way that won't make Duke feel attacked as a person

And perhaps it would get the bigot in question to go “geez it sure is great we could respectfully disagree that blacks deserve to be kicked out of America for being black but glad we could still possibly grab a drink later” and give you pat on the back in the end going "we could just respectfully disagree and there's nothing wrong with that" Like with Joe Biden. He  basically bragged about being able to do do with old segregationists-sure they pledged  their entire political careers largely in trying to keep non-whites subservient in America but at least they were civil-hell they even managed to stay friends.

10 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

This is not directed at you personally nor only to you, I just find this segment to be representative with regards to lot of what I'm talking about. Sooner or later, you'll find yourself in a debate where you'll be in a minority, or even up against everyone else. And likewise inevitable is that someone from the opposing side will find you ideas stupid, appalling, disgusting or even dehumanizing, although you certainly won't think that yourself. When that happens, last thing you'll want is for your opponents to brazenly hurl insults and slurs your way instead of trying to engage you with arguments. And to dub people who try to defend your right to speak your mind as bigots, egoists or idiots.

The last thing I want them to do to hold back. If someone thinks I’m being grossly racist they should call me out as  such rather than trying to spare my feelings just to keep the conversation “civil”.

I will not get mad at someone for daring to call a “polite” white nationalist who espousing how non-whites are inferior and how Jews are responsible for all the major wars in the world a bad person just because that white nationalist  May call me as racist for not thinking it would be bad for the majority of America to be non-white in the future.

Heres the thing a conversation a conversation being "civil" in all aspects does not mean it is accomplishing anything good. And to the bolded where did I say that?

I’d be the first one to say a neo-Nazi should be legally allowed to call me along with the rest of my family inferiors in say public park.

He or she has the right to speak there. And I have the right to call them idiotic racists  in response. 

Calling a person a bigot in response to their words is not the same thing as stifling their freedom of speech. Honestly, such an idea gives off the impression of undue entitlement and ironically promotes censorship. That it is your right to say whatever you want and other people should not be allowed to call you a bigot of any sort regardless of your rhetoric.

10 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

And for all that, I think objectivism is relatively harmless. By its very definition it's bound not to be popular with large amounts of people, and I can't imagine any society ever adopting it as their ideology. If you want to combat ideologies that have actual potential to be dangerous, start with opular ones - and there's no shortage of these.

It is certainly a lot more appealing to those  most who have political/social power in a society. 

Which in turn does reverberate throughout society in a largely negative way.

CEOs, board members for massive corporations, and politicians do-shape how society functions. Like it or not Rand’s philosophy does have relevance to this day:https://www.politico.com/story/2012/04/7-pols-who-praised-ayn-rand-075667

 

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10 hours ago, sologdin said:

 and on and on and on ad infinitum. no one in the discussion had said he was ignorant or implied that trump voters are cognitive deficients--though obviously there is much uncensored internet water under the bridge for him, as well as regular ginning up by right populist media victimization cultism. these are all manifestly asinine beliefs, but there's no debating it because this character is always already on the knife's edge of rage--the least disagreement triggers the defense mechanism--they are part of a totalitarian mechanism that repeatedly traumatizes them and prevents rational examination of their premises; their conclusions, mostly based on personal invective and insults of perceived opponents. never has our staff member actually made an argument in favor of proposed policies, but rather simply snipes at deviants from trumpism as either 'liberals' or 'moslems' or 'rinos'--it is as though usage of one of the president's puerile nicknames for opponents were sufficient to disqualify their policy preferences.

I got a pretty vivid demonstration of the aggrieved defensiveness of the Trumpkin on social media the other day. A little local Facebook group for parents in my corner of liberal Massachusetts, where discussion is usually limited to requests for local vendor recommendations or questions about homework packets from the elementary school. Someone posted that her "Hate has no home here" sign had been stolen. It occasioned an eruption of preemptive resentful defensiveness from a couple of dipshits, who decided to MediocreWhiteMansplain why those signs were the true artifacts of hate, because they were evidence of hatred for Trump and part of the national conspiracy to make Trump voters feel terrible. We got an explanation of the genesis of those signs, why Trump's Muslim ban is indistinguishable from a previous Obama policy, fulsome accusations of liberal fake news hatemongering, you can't wear a MAGA hat without being assaulted, etc etc. A suburban mom's yard sign got stolen, and  yet the real victims were a pair of upper-middle-class white Christian right wing men, who were apparently triggered by the mere existence of a "hate has no home here" sentiment somewhere within ten miles of them.

I guess it's a symptom of the same atrophied brain disease that makes you think Roseanne Barr losing her job over a months-long torrent of deranged and racists tweets is a full-on assault on the prerogatives of the most privileged people who have ever existed.

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In general - it is effective for someone in that person's ingroup to call that person vile. It is entirely ineffective for the purposes of convincing that person to do basically anything at all if you aren't a member of their ingroup. Especially the more American conservative that person is. 

However, making them unwelcome in a community that they want to be welcomed into is actually reasonably effective in changing things, since you're getting ingroup behavior mods. 

The other thing that is effective (though not necessarily in changing that person's mind) is deplatforming them. Shouting that person off stage, removing their mic, removing their ability to continue their speech, never treating their asinine ideas as having any merit or having any right to even be heard - this, well, works. It doesn't convince that person, perhaps (eventually a lot of people get tired of not being able to be heard), but it convinces others to shout them down too, and eventually they just...don't get to talk much. This is one of the most underrated things to do with respect to white supremacists and objectivists and the like. Milo Y used to be a guy who showed up on Bill Maher; now he's unfunded, begging for money and no one cares about him because people removed his microphone. 

Free speech does not mean you get handed a megaphone. 

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

The other thing that is effective (though not necessarily in changing that person's mind) is deplatforming them. Shouting that person off stage, removing their mic, removing their ability to continue their speech, never treating their asinine ideas as having any merit or having any right to even be heard - this, well, works. It doesn't convince that person, perhaps (eventually a lot of people get tired of not being able to be heard), but it convinces others to shout them down too, and eventually they just...don't get to talk much. This is one of the most underrated things to do with respect to white supremacists and objectivists and the like. Milo Y used to be a guy who showed up on Bill Maher; now he's unfunded, begging for money and no one cares about him because people removed his microphone. 

Well no platforming has worked to remove Milo of his source of income in terms of online revenue, but it was the deplatforming and shouting him off stage etc that gave him any power in the first place. Every time some loony stormed on stage it only fuelled his arguments and made him seem more important. 
It was exactly when he went on shows like Bill Maher that he was heavily exposed, made to look like the ridiculous human that he is and his arguments fell apart. The real downfall of Milo has been his own mouth, when he is allowed to say the stupid things he says, eventually he goes too far, he talks about the benefits of child sex etc, and thats when his popularity starts to fall away. 
It's the same with pretty much every figure you probably hate, were it not for people storming on stage and making themselves look foolish then there wouldn't be the Youtube clips that make these people famous. You'd have no idea who Milo was in the first place.

 

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How bad does the message have to be before the speaker gets called out as vile?

Its a good question, but I think that on the whole most people have a good idea of where the line is and what is reprehensible and what is acceptable. Where the line is muddy, is that the internet is very good at doing 'takes' on everyone's opinions, interpreting every statement with the very worst faith possible and reacting to that. Also once conversations become emotionally charged and abusive then there is little come back, one person dropping their standards will lead to the other pushing back and then there is no point continuing. 

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Just now, Heartofice said:

Well no platforming has worked to remove Milo of his source of income in terms of online revenue, but it was the deplatforming and shouting him off stage etc that gave him any power in the first place. Every time some loony stormed on stage it only fuelled his arguments and made him seem more important. 

Not particularly, and certainly not compared to his reach on Facebook and instagram. 

Just now, Heartofice said:

 It was exactly when he went on shows like Bill Maher that he was heavily exposed, made to look like the ridiculous human that he is and his arguments fell apart. The real downfall of Milo has been his own mouth, when he is allowed to say the stupid things he says, eventually he goes too far, he talks about the benefits of child sex etc, and thats when his popularity starts to fall away. 

The downfall of Milo was when he was removed from most social media platforms. Maher increased his fame significantly. 

Just now, Heartofice said:


This thread is a case in point. The OP came in with some genuine thoughts on a subject they were interested 
It's the same with pretty much every figure you probably hate, were it not for people storming on stage and making themselves look foolish then there wouldn't be the Youtube clips that make these people famous. You'd have no idea who Milo was in the first place.

This doesn't appear to be backed by evidence. Richard Spencer was well known before being attacked. After being attacked and forced out of, well, anywhere, he admits that his own message is basically done for and he can't be heard anywhere.

Attacking Spencer and shouting him down didn't make him more famous. It made him afraid and weak. 

Just now, Heartofice said:

Its a good question, but I think that on the whole most people have a good idea of where the line is and what is reprehensible and what is acceptable.

Again, history shows this isn't remotely the case for any level of 'vile' that you'd care to administer.

Just now, Heartofice said:

Where the line is muddy, is that the internet is very good at doing 'takes' on everyone's opinions, interpreting every statement with the very worst faith possible and reacting to that. Also once conversations become emotionally charged and abusive then there is little come back, one person dropping their standards will lead to the other pushing back and then there is no point continuing. 

The fallacy here is that there existed some magical time where there was convincing people that weren't in your group via rational discourse of something different. If that time existed, it was fleeting and narrow. 

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2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The downfall of Milo was when he was removed from most social media platforms. Maher increased his fame significantly. 

It might have increased his fame but I don't think it made him more popular. He was horribly exposed on that show and Bill Maher really showed him up. Milo was made famous by being able to look sane up against people who couldn't challenge him, but one he came up against someone better than him he looked stupid. It was really his Paedo comments that killed him, and anyone who was supporting him tended to fall away. Plus he wrote a terrible book that I think nobody bought.

Richard Spencer is an actual nazi. The reason that you see so many of these internet alt right types doing so well is that they get deplatformed or shouted down for saying far less controversial things, they get called Nazis etc and equated with Spencer when they are really not the same. Being shouted down and deplatformed is actually really helpful for a lot of people, it makes the deplatformers look unreasonable and crazy and creates victims. There wouldn't be a Jordan Peterson if people didn't scream at him when he talked, probably no Ben Shapiro either. 

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@sologdin - that's a interesting angle to consider, and the one I haven't thought so far.

Perhaps one could say that crying bigot is also "economically" inefficient - since you're expanding time and energy into ineffective method, and since you're already committed to saying something - you're better off using a ethod that has a chance of actually working.

@Varysblackfyre321 There's a lot of various stuff I want to respond to here, so I hope my post sound coherent enough.

First off, it's important we make a distinction between what you can/are allowed to speak, and what you should (n't) speak. The first one is, we seem to agree, pretty broad category: you can speak almost anything you like, provided you give others the same opportunity. I haven't disputed this. So yes, you can call others racists, bigots, inhumane or whatever, but the question remains whether you should. Will it lead to productive discussion or are you saying it just to gratify your desires.

The thing is - while it's true that there are actual nazis, bigots etc. out there who genuinely don't care whether they hurt or step on somebody else, I don't think there's that many of them. Far more common is, I believe, that proclaim others as racists, nazis etc. and then justify these labels to shut them down. Just look at this very thread, for example: one guy opened a topic on a subject he was interested in, was immediately bashed by almost everyone, was labeled various nasty labels a dozen times and then retreated when discussion became too toxic (and this is without going into content of the discussion, for I disagree with him in almost everything he said). Does this sound like a insidious nazi quietly spreading his propaganda to you using polite speech? Have we become so fearful, so afraid and frightened that we must protect ourselves against one objectivist by proclaiming him inhumane, stupid or whatnot; and to assume he's masking some nefarious agenda by being polite and respectful? If so, we have a huge problem ourselves.

In fact, it's telling that, when I mentioned how you might find yourself surrounded by majority who may try to shut you down, you immediately started talking about genuine nazis and racists - people who are, in modern society - almost an archetype of "bad" or "evil". But the world is rarely so black and white - what happens e.g. when you're arguing for women's right to have an abortion, and can't make your argument becuase the other side is rabidly calling you child murderer? Or e.g. when you speak about being an atheist, and bunch of deeply religious people are labeling you as amoral psychopath. Or maybe the opposite occurred: maybe you happen to be religious and found yourself among atheists who were more than happy to tell you how dumb and deluded you are.

In all of these (each of I've seen actually happen) what happens is always the same: majority is uninterested and unwilling to engage and hear the opposing side, and finds it much easier to tag some label onto them. Being polite and respectful, on the other hand, simply means giving the other side the benefit of doubt: assuming that they aren't really evil jerks with dark agenda, that they maybe have something interesting to say and that they - like you - are arguing in good faith. That's it. And I can't help but think that world would be a better - and smarter - place if this was default position for every argument each of us had.

So, case in point, can we extend the same courtesy to br16? Can we not a priori assume that he is somehow vile, immature, uncompassionate or uncaring - provided that he does the same to the rest of us (which he did)? Are we strong enough to meaningfully engage with him or are we truly so frightened that we must preemptively shut him down? Take this post for example:

On 7/12/2019 at 2:46 PM, Liffguard said:

Even in the very novel itself, Galt's Gulch only works because of a scientifically impossible infinite energy perpetual motion machine. Rand herself could only ever make her ideal society work, even in her own imagination, by appealing to a vague hand-wave.

Also, ever notice how Galt's Gulch completely glosses over all of the other details about how the society works. There are no labourers, only industrialists. Who does the work?We're told all of the manual labour is done by machines, which rather implies that in Rand's view, anyone incapable of building or buying industrial robots doesn't deserve to live in her society, and therefore deserves to die.

And furthermore, how about that Galt's Gulch, despite being a supposedly hyper-competitive objectivist utopia, doesn't actually have any competition. Francisco D'antonia runs the only copper mine. Ellis Wyatt runs the only oil well (and by the way what's that oil even for if they have an infinite energy device?). Nobody ever tries to undercut each other or take over each other's business. For a supposedly capitalist society, Galt's Gulch is rather cooperative. Dare I even say communist? Each member has an assigned place in society, and contributes to the common good and receives enough for their needs.

Galt’s Gulch was Rand’s chance to show her dream of how an objectivist society would actually work. She had total freedom of imagination to do so. And the result is a philosophically contradictory mess that relies on literal magic to work.

polite, without ad hominems and with lot of substance (i.e. arguments). Exactly the kind of post you're happy to read in every debate, the posts which presents one's arguments well and contributes to the discussion. My question is: why isn't every post in this topic like that? Because people are more ready to judge than to understand and like to assume the worst about others who don't share their epistemological bubble - that's why.
 

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

The other thing that is effective (though not necessarily in changing that person's mind) is deplatforming them. Shouting that person off stage, removing their mic, removing their ability to continue their speech, never treating their asinine ideas as having any merit or having any right to even be heard - this, well, works. It doesn't convince that person, perhaps (eventually a lot of people get tired of not being able to be heard), but it convinces others to shout them down too, and eventually they just...don't get to talk much. This is one of the most underrated things to do with respect to white supremacists and objectivists and the like. Milo Y used to be a guy who showed up on Bill Maher; now he's unfunded, begging for money and no one cares about him because people removed his microphone. 

But what about the cases where the deplatformed is not an utter asshole? What if he merely has a different opinion or even is outright progressive? What about e.g. 19th century feminist fighting for women's right who couldn't get her/his message across becuse nobody wanted to give her/him a platform? What about a filmmaker whose movie details huge amounts of corruption and the highest level - but he can't get it played anywhere because no cinema (or TV station) wants to make enemies of some powerful people (this happened in my country 2 years ago)?

In general - who is to say who gets platformed and who gets deplatformed? The world is built upon many various groups, who across all levels are opposed, if not outright inimical to each other: leftists and rightists; pro-choice vs pro-life; capitalists vs communists; religious vs atheists; people who oppose death penalty vs people who favour it. Etc. What keeps all these groups from tearing at each other is the possibility of public discourse. They each had to choose between being allowed to speak and allowing others the same; and shutting down others and being shut down by them in return - and somehow each of them figured that former is the better option. That's why the idea of free speech is so important, and should be IMO limited only in narrowest of circumstances (such as inciting violence and such).

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4 hours ago, Knight Of Winter said:

@sologdin
@Varysblackfyre321: why isn't every post in this topic like that? Because people are more ready to judge than to understand and like to assume the worst about others who don't share their epistemological bubble - that's why.

 



In general - who is to say who gets platformed and who gets deplatformed? ).

The collective public gets to say.  You're looking at this backwards - it's not about who gets deplatformed, it's about who gets a megaphone.  Free speech doesn't give you the right to have everyone have to hear what you have to say.  If your ideas suck (objectivism) and are largely trash, why should anyone bother to listen or engage in a serious manner.  Better to point out this stuff out.  

I don't have to sit here and treat every idea or thought that everyone has equally - it makes zero sense to consider something like objectivism like it's a serious idea with any kind of framework behind it.  What about fruitarianism?  Why aren't people engaging with fruitarianism more seriously and without humor?

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I, too, had pointed out Liffguard's post as an excellent post to respond to. There's no reason that Br16 couldn't just respond to that. In fact, he had numerous opportunities to engage with someone who had substantively critiqued the text, but he went back to try and issue me some "Objectivism for Dummies" style life pointers about lining up a new job after I had landed what I thought was the job of my dreams. He ignored Liffguard to respond to my angrier posts. Indeed, there were numerous attempts by others to engage him on a civil level, and he said those were interesting and he'd respond after reading some links. And yet he never did respond to any of those. He kept responding to me, though. But even in his responses to my real world example of the imbalance between capital and labor, he couldn't bring up any real-world examples of objectivism working for him, which is something I requested. It's almost like he had no real responses to the criticism of Rand's shitty self-serving book.

Don't rewrite the history of this thread to ennoble Br16's failure.

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38 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

The collective public gets to say. 

And who or what exactly is collective public? It's not an uniform group - rather it's a mess of various peoples and groups with different opinions and ideas. Rightists will want to deplatform leftists, and vice versa. People who oppose death penalty often want to shut down people who favor it, and receive the same in turn. So out of these two (four), which one represents the general public? Who gets to decide? Free speech is a compromise, as I said, between all the conflicted groups which enables them all to have their say under certain conditions.

Or maybe you think that the dominant group represents the "collective public" and get to decide who gets (de)platformed. And that works pretty well when you're in the majority (like on this forum), but it gets incredibly incredibly  dangerous in other circumstances. It means, for example, that Jews get deplatformed in Nazi Germany, or that feminists gets deplatformed in patriarchal comunities. That Trump-voters get to decide who will speak and who won't in many American states and cities. Seriously, why is it, when someone advocates deplatforming - that they absolutely never consider if they were maybe the ones who will get deplatformed.

38 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

I don't have to sit here and treat every idea or thought that everyone has equally

Of course you don't and nobody is forcing you to. But I daresay you do have to converse with objectivists respectfully - and attack their ideas instead of them personally - if you want them to behave the same towards you. Or you can choose to help create a world where everyone trashes everyone else as soon as they set a enter a community of different-minded folks.

And if you genuinely consider objectivism to be a horrible idea and want world to get rid of it - ask yourself what kind of approach is best suited to achieve this? Maybe it is indeed trashing every objectivist you see together with your ideological buddies, but maybe...just maybe some other approach could yield better results.

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1 minute ago, DanteGabriel said:

I wish you had the guts to engage with me directly instead of talking about me out of the side of your mouth or asking me to PM you so your humiliations can be in private.

Yeah still waiting for you to actually PM me instead. Read back everything Knight of Winter has said because you could really learn a hell of a lot.

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Just now, Heartofice said:

Yeah still waiting for you to actually PM me instead. Read back everything Knight of Winter has said because you could really learn a hell of a lot.

I've read his posts. I just don't find them convincing. If you'd actually read my response you would see that Br16 had numerous chances to engage with more polite posters, but ignored them to engage with my posts, despite your wailing and hand-wringing about how my angry posts, rooted in real world experience about the imbalance of power between capital and labor, were ineffective in drawing engagement. I guess my posts are like honey for intellectually dishonest flies like you and Br16.

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1 minute ago, DanteGabriel said:

I've read his posts. I just don't find them convincing. If you'd actually read my response you would see that Br16 had numerous chances to engage with more polite posters, but ignored them to engage with my posts, despite your wailing and hand-wringing about how my angry posts, rooted in real world experience about the imbalance of power between capital and labor, were ineffective in drawing engagement. I guess my posts are like honey for intellectually dishonest flies like you and Br16.

I'll leave it up to him to respond. But I think his points apply quite generally to these types of conversations, not just this thread (in fact I think this thread has shown a number of people actively engaging with the OP on the topic, which has proved very useful and helpful. There were also the usual few who do nothing but post memes or try and be funny which is pretty much exactly what hes getting at) 

Personally I found the thread very interesting, I think it did a good job at actively persuading me in one direction, and it did it by discussing the topic openly. If it was just people, who like you, tend to shout and rage at people and use sarcasm as debating tools then I wouldn't have learnt anything and would probably think that Br16 might have a point and you were all just trolls. 

So I'd suggest going back and rereading KoW's posts and seeing how you can better improve yourself in the future. 

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23 minutes ago, Knight Of Winter said:

And who or what exactly is collective public? It's not an uniform group - rather it's a mess of various peoples and groups with different opinions and ideas. Rightists will want to deplatform leftists, and vice versa. People who oppose death penalty often want to shut down people who favor it, and receive the same in turn. So out of these two (four), which one represents the general public? Who gets to decide? Free speech is a compromise, as I said, between all the conflicted groups which enables them all to have their say under certain conditions.

Or maybe you think that the dominant group represents the "collective public" and get to decide who gets (de)platformed. And that works pretty well when you're in the majority (like on this forum), but it gets incredibly incredibly  dangerous in other circumstances. It means, for example, that Jews get deplatformed in Nazi Germany, or that feminists gets deplatformed in patriarchal comunities. That Trump-voters get to decide who will speak and who won't in many American states and cities. Seriously, why is it, when someone advocates deplatforming - that they absolutely never consider if they were maybe the ones who will get deplatformed.

Of course you don't and nobody is forcing you to. But I daresay you do have to converse with objectivists respectfully - and attack their ideas instead of them personally - if you want them to behave the same towards you. Or you can choose to help create a world where everyone trashes everyone else as soon as they set a enter a community of different-minded folks.

And if you genuinely consider objectivism to be a horrible idea and want world to get rid of it - ask yourself what kind of approach is best suited to achieve this? Maybe it is indeed trashing every objectivist you see together with your ideological buddies, but maybe...just maybe some other approach could yield better results.

I'm not calling for the OP to be banned, or for his speech to be limites, just for his ideas to be ridiculed.  Who cares if a conservative think tank doesn't invite leftist speakers for an event, or a Milo Yiannpoulis gets protested?  Deplatforming someone isn't revoking their freedom of speech.  

What I mean by the collective public is that if you out your ideas out into the world no one is under any compulsion to engage with them.  If there's some substance there, your argument will stand on its own.  Or you get things like this thread.  This is free speech in action even if you don't like the tone.

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