One thing I've learned is you can't engage in a rational debate with an irrational person.
Yeah, you can plant seeds... But you won't win anything. And the seeds, you plant will be absorbed by others looking on mostly.
tolerance is a contract, not a gift.
my fist is a gift to the faces of bigots
To avoid bigotry is really hard nower days. I don't like Israels genocide but don't think all Jews or even Israelis are monsters. I absolutely hate the Iranian politics of murdering women for getting raped and similar stuff, but I don't think war is the solution. And suddenly someone jumps out of the woodwork blaming you "for support of genocide".... am I the bigot? I don't know any more...
You can't explain stupid to stupid.
You kind of can, but for the most part, it is better to just not engage unless they are showing themselves to be an open and honest interlocutor.
TIL the word "interlocutor"
"1. a person who takes part in a dialogue or conversation."
Thanks to you that apple is a Nazi now
/s just in case
Apple: I was a very far left leftist with strong values a d principles but then someone was rude to me on the internet and forced me to become a Nazi.
An open society that doesn't want the intolerant to undermine and topple it must be ready to defend itself - by reason and argument if possible, but these may fail because the intolerant reject reason itself. Force should be the last resort, but if all other means prove fruitless, it should be a resort still.
Look, I am a big believer in attempting to educate other people and better the world around you by trying to change harmful or hateful outlooks, but I also realize that some people cannot be changed. Trying to engage these types of people in real life is just putting yourself in danger. Engaging them online is fine but there's a limit to how long you should spend having dialogue with someone who could probably argue their irrational viewpoints for weeks on end without stopping.
But but my freeze peach!!1!21!
Woe, Tolerance Paradox be upon ye.
Is this centrism or is it just a bad faith argument from a bigot?
The person making the argument could just be naive too.
I could see myself 25 years ago making such a statement in completely good faith, trying to see both sides and all that. But I was naive to think that both sides were also arguing in good faith.
But to be fair, that naive messenger would still be repeating an argument that originated in bad faith.
Tolerance paradox
Unfortunately, the solution to the paradox boils down to "Might Makes Right". The bounds of tolerance aren't set by a consensus, but by whomever has the Power to Yeet.
And while this game seems satisfying early on (Yeet the Nazis! Yeet the Tankies! Yeet the Radical Centrists!) you do get into a cycle of purity where you're yeeting anyone who questions whether the last guy who got yeeted deserved it.
That leaves us with the age-old Martin Niemöller verse:
"And then they came to Yeet me - and there was no one left to Yeet back on my behalf".
What is the appropriate degree of tolerance? How do you prevent it from expanding to include people who would dissolve the institution? How do you prevent it from collapsing into a state of cult-like obedience to authority? It's a balancing act and one that the individuals with the power to silence fringe communities rarely have an interest in performing.
I appreciate this, I really do, but you do have to be careful not to end up like certain leftist Reddit subs where I got banned for the heinous crime of suggesting that voting for Harris might produce better outcomes than voting for Trump. Some level of discussion that goes beyond what the majority (or, lbr, the mods) think has to be allowed or you just have an echo chamber.
Granted, that isn't what is happening in the comic. The apologist here is genuinely advocating tolerance of Nazis. This situation is appropriate.
In my experience, most self-identified centrists, at least in the US, are to the right of what anyone reasonable would actually consider center. And I don't mean that in an "um ackshually the Dems are center right" way either, I mean they're often just Conservatives who don't hate gays (but do hate trans people) or something.
Godot discord in a nutshell
So is anyone rational actually leaving Godot? I saw that Redot, last I checked they were 52 commits behind, and their only 4 commits were changing any references of "Godot" in the code to "Redot"
They're not really centerists, they're just trying to stir the pot. Jon Stewart had a really good podcast on all this on the Weekly Show. I could only find a youtube video on my laptop, I think it's the full thing by the time.
Be sure to follow the rule before you head out.
Rule: You must post before you leave.
