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.
Maybe assuming you are the only one with reason in a conversation is the problem. You don't have to agree with someone to understand their point of view or reasoning.
Its definitely easier to ban or block if all you want is a circle jerk though.
There is no debating with people that believe in mythology as real life. Who says there is a lake of fire I'll go to because I'm queer, who vote for someone their religion says is the anti-christ. Blocking is just avoiding stepping in shit.
One could spend the enegry to spin their own beliefs to demostrate their contradictions... but their cognitive dissonance will cause them to just dig deeper to maintain their world view... people have to have an open mind before any rational debates can be made.
Yup, you can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into
For most of my life, I was pretty quiet about being an atheist, and literally all of my friends were Christian; *they assumed I was too, and it was easier to let them. Eventually I stopped caring who knew, and finally told a few of my friends that I’m atheist. In every case, the response was ‘you can’t be atheist – you’re too nice’.
A couple of them flat-out refused to believe I’m atheist, telling me that I’m actually Christian, I just don’t go to church or pray, and that’s okay. Utterly refusing to accept I don’t believe in their god, and trying to convince me of all the reasons I’m acktuaaly a believer, even if I don’t think I am. It’s been confusing and maddening. Some of these conversations have gone on for more than a decade.
Many people will straight-up refuse to see anything that doesn’t conform to their worldview, and there’s not a thing you can say to break through it.
e: *
I'm with you, but understanding someone's view sometimes means acknowledging that it is, in fact, irrational. There are reasons some give as to why they think that cis women need protection from trans women, but those reasons are either not rational since the vast majority of evidence is to the contrary, or they are founded on the extreme minority of evidence that confirms them (meaning the search for evidence was conducted irrationally).
If I try to understand someone's point of view, restate it to them in a way they accept, and present overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and their response is to say the evidence is irrelevant because it's possible some of it was biased, that's irrational.
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.
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.
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.
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.
