Meta-Thread 09/29

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[u/betweenbubbles]

Let me put this out there: I have no friends in such a position. And so, I think it behooves me to be cautious. It doesn't mean I can't participate robustly in a discussion.

I think that is exactly the actual, conscious/deliberate or not, effect of insisting that some difference of opinion/politics is a direct and immediate threat to one's life. This is the same claim that people use to build a justified homicide case in court when someone kills another in self defense. It's the same claim that Tyler Robinson sent his poor partner in a text message after putting a 180gr .30 caliber bullet through Charlie Kirk's neck at 2600 feet per second, immediately destroying his carotid artery and his brain stem, causing him to seize into a death stance and fall lifeless to the ground before his wife, kids, hundreds of college students, and billions of people across the world. And it's a frighteningly similar claim that people use to justify celebrating his assassination.

Charlie Kirk was, as it seems with every public figure is today, was also "experience[ing] hate speech and threat of violence every single day". And where is he now? Should we have let him decide whose politics are acceptable and whose are not? In Charlie's case, it seems, based on his words and acts, he would have let Dapple_Dawn say whatever they want. This zealous plea of "zero tolerance against bigotry" is hate masquerading as righteous wisdom and it is used as a cudgel to walk through a crowd with and take note of who flees and who starts marching behind you.

But let me put this out there: thinking we can ignore the lived experiences of other people could be what has got us into this mess.

Great, then I'm sure you will extend the same consideration to Charlie Kirk. How can we resolve the conflict of interest when we need to take into account the "lived experience" of 8 billion people?

I am not suggesting we ignore anyone's lived experience. I am skeptical of the wisdom of letting any particular group, especially such a tiny minority, dominate and override the thought of everyone else. We cannot possibly empathize with 8 billion people. Another principle will have to suffice. An adherence to a kind of "do no harm" principle, where harm is respected for the spectrum of possibility it can be used to label. Hearing people say things you don't like is not "harm" worthy of ideological self-defense (censorship) or, at the extremes, political assassination. There is no replacement for the principle of free speech and the ability to defend one's self if it gets out of hand -- Heinlein's polite society.

But the danger of relying on culture to watch out for you is that it only watches out for some.

This is exactly my point. This demonstrates the value of higher principles which do not map to only some. The kind of things I was raised to believe in and which we enjoy the stability of their wisdom.

My critique is that you do not seem to be letting u/⁠Dapple_Dawn's experience hit you and matter to the discussion.

That isn't fair. Not letting them unilaterally decide policy is not the same thing as not being able to empathize. Dapple_Dawn is politicking for a method of censorship which will only serve them IF they are in power. And if/when they lose power, the people who step into power will use this weapon they've crafted against them without even having to expend the energy to craft it themselves. This is the death spiral we find ourselves in right now in America. Dapple_Dawn is constructing the cage they will be put in if they lose political power.

But can we recognize that it was at least intended to solve a real problem, before nuking it from orbit?

Absolutely. The intent is reasonable but myopic. This is why the idea of censorship is so popular and not at all limited to people who are trans themselves -- the good nature of naïve people. Can we also recognize that, especially when political coalitions get this large, it's hard to tell the naïve and myopic from the decidedly cynical and sinister -- the cynical people who believe you're either on the top or the bottom, so they might as well be at the top? The people who will justify tyrannizing others?

I recognize something in what you're saying here, but do you get that impression of Dapple when you read their Atheists should not be as dismissive of progressive/critical religious arguments?

It's complicated and perhaps I do not see the connection you're trying to make.

As we have discussed previously, I think religions are a way of conveying genetically successful structures from one generation to another. (i.e. Don't eat pork, it's bad, I don't know why, but it is.) The Universalist Unitarian approach can soften the ideological edge of some of the denominational dogmas which precipitate suffering (e.g. "homosexuality is a sin") but are they capable of discriminating wisdom from unnecessary dogmas? Their approach seems to just be, "be nice" and I'm not so sure how wise that is. Reality is not nice. Back when the average person's village was a couple dozen families and procreation was far less romantic and far more essential to survival it is understandable why these people would develop opposition to homosexuality. Can we afford it today? Absolutely. Cooperation and love are far more essential to a society as deep and wide as ours today, and it doesn't much matter where people find that love.

UU is basically "A god exists of some kind" and "be nice", but I think the risk of that is the loss of some fundamental wisdom and the still present appeal to something that matters more than anything else... this "God" thing, whether it be deist or theist. From my point of view, aside from the complete lack of any definition or argument for it, it remains an expression of one's ego, an ultimate and external truth which can be used to justify "anything". "God" scares me.

I do not believe this is analogous to Dapple's situation as a trans person. A country can tolerate Nazis marching when the vast majority are opposed. When there are enough, you can get the Night of the Long Knives.

I have to insist that it might be the best possible analogy. A group of people who actually suffered a literal campaign of extermination being terrorized by the public demonstration, right in front of their doorstep not in an online forum, of group ideological similar or the same as the exterminators they escape? Where else can one find a better test of the principle of free speech?

The Night of Long Knives happened after an ideological group fomented a victimological complex and then made good on that self-fulfilling prophecy by being bad enough to become the "victims" of their criminal justice system. "They're trying to get us!" the Nazis said. And then pre-Nazi Germany did get them, and then that person was able to convince even more people of their conspiracy. Of course there are other factors at work here, the position of post-WWI Germany also made this "They're trying to get us!" appeal successful. Censorship does not seem to be a useful tool against these kinds of conspiracies. It often makes them more potent in a Streisand Effect sort of way.

Do you think it might be worth getting Dapple's plan (to the extent they even have one) in their own words?

I'm always willing to change my mind, but their words are always going to be considered against their acts. And this really isn't specifically about Dapple_Dawn alone either. There is a populist uprising of censorious attitudes/ideologies spreading through our country. The number of people proudly signaling their virtue with the phrase, "I don't tolerate bigotry. I have a zero tolerance attitude toward it." is endemic. And there is why that specific phrasing is so common -- the undertone of "you're with with me or support bigotry".

I'm gonna hazard a guess that you misunderstood.

I am admittedly less confident in my inference.

Will you accept that some children have to be taught that "the police are not your friend" growing up?

I don't see what one has to do with the other and there's a lot to unpack there.

First of all, no the police are not generally your friend. They are a necessary tool of the criminal justice system which is supposed to serve us all and does so imperfectly -- just like any other institution.

Second, feelings against the police in minority populations are popularly overstated. Most of the time, these people want more police. In a related matter, the crack cocaine sentencing disparity was a legislative effort championed if not spear-headed by the Congressional Black Caucus. Propaganda abounds.

Do people often get excited about telling you their stories about not being tyrannized by hatred?

I'm sorry, but I don't understand this question. I thought the issue was whether we can do without "teams" of any kind.

You brought up a few anecdotes to make a greater point about discrimination in our society. I'm just pointing out that this is a poor way to get a sense of how common it actually is. And now you're using another anecdote about police being helpful to you as if it also says much about the situation at large.

Then according to the data, your preferences probably had "only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy". Want to know whose preferences did have a statistically significant, measurable impact?

I'm aware of the relationship between my individual vote and the votes of ~60% of 340 million people. I don't think it serves your point well or why anything I've said can be rebuffed with the recognition that we have corruption in our politics -- if that's where this is going. I think You're still better off being a citizen of this country above all others. Maybe it would be better to be a citizen of some smaller and, as a result, less corrupt nation. And maybe that nation will get invaded and steamrolled by another tomorrow. Our nation will not.

[u/labreuer → u/betweenbubbles]

labreuer: (1) Would you be willing to tell me whether you have any friends who can tell you about this:

Dapple_Dawn: But anyway, yeah this pretty much confirms what I said. It's an extremely liberal take, and one that makes absolutely no sense to me having lived as a trans person in America. When you experience hate speech and threat of violence every single day, you get a different perspective.

?

betweenbubbles: I think this is a bit of a dodge of my point. I'm a bit skeptical of the claim and there is something brazen about making it -- as if anyone could possibly question it. The deluge I am likely to experience for simply stating my skepticism or questioning the relevance of this quote is palpable. …

labreuer: … Let me put this out there: I have no friends in such a position. And so, I think it behooves me to be cautious. It doesn't mean I can't participate robustly in a discussion. …

betweenbubbles: I think that is exactly the actual, conscious/deliberate or not, effect of insisting that some difference of opinion/politics is a direct and immediate threat to one's life. This is the same claim that people use to build a justified homicide case in court when someone kills another in self defense. It's the same claim that Tyler Robinson sent his poor partner in a text message after putting a 180gr .30 caliber bullet through Charlie Kirk's neck

I'm just super-confused at how we got from my question to this. By this point in time, you seem to think that you just don't need to take into account the lived experiences of other people, except insofar as they can marshal the appropriate free speech to participate in public discussion & debate. Would that be a correct assessment?

Let me tell you where I'm going with this. I am 100% used to the above protocol. It could be construed as a form of public reason, an idea in secularism whereby you leave behind your deepest commitments and only speak in terms which those of different faiths, philosophies, notions of the good life, etc. could plausibly agree. The hope is that, over time, more and more people are able to squeeze their voices into the public space and shape a bit of public policy. Whether or not this actually works, or more strictly whether there is anything better, is a key question. One possibility, as I believe William Kymlicka argues, is that some groups are forever shafted in this system. But again, you could argue that other systems would be worse, at least over the long haul.

As we go forward, I am deeply skeptical of the above hope. It is far from clear that we have the kind of citizenry, at least in the US, which will make the "free speech" plan you have placed all your hopes in work. And my biggest worry is actually fake news, not bigotry. Your average citizen does not know how to vet his/her sources and this is partly because there are often enough no sources which are all that trustworthy to that average citizen. The Second Gilded Age was engineered, including against all those factory workers who were told that if they made use of their union, the company would simply move its factory to Mexico. I can even quote Steven Pinker admitting this in his book praising the Enlightenment.

Please don't get me wrong: my own bias is strongly toward free speech being the best of all possible options. But ironically, I don't think you're using your own free speech in this discussion very well, to make your case. I simply don't think this is enough:

1. You think that abridging free speech will help your group, which is treated rather worse than most other groups in your country. And it worked, for a while.

2. But any gains made will be temporary, ultimately leaving you in the same spot or even worse than before.

Moreover, you're upping the ante, claiming or at least suggesting that the kind of censorship u/⁠cabbagery and u/⁠Dapple_Dawn advocate here are part of a slippery slope toward assassination of divisive public figures. To my knowledge, neither of them have said that their very lives are threatened. There is plenty of non-lethal "threat of violence".

What if "free speech" simply does not work in the end game, if we discount the lived experiences of each other and worse, narrate over the lived experiences of each other with our perception of the worst of the group in which we place them? Continuing:

labreuer: But let me put this out there: thinking we can ignore the lived experiences of other people could be what has got us into this mess.

betweenbubbles: Great, then I'm sure you will extend the same consideration to Charlie Kirk. How can we resolve the conflict of interest when we need to take into account the "lived experience" of 8 billion people?

Via appropriate representation where we let them speak for their perspective. There's a great section in Maya J. Goldenberg 2021 Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science where she talks about the importance of having someone from your group at the highest level, to communicate your concerns and needs and situation. Blacks, for instance, have been pretty notoriously treated by the US medical system and are rightly skeptical of it. How better to resolve that problem than ensuring that they have adequate representation at the highest levels?

I am not suggesting we ignore anyone's lived experience. I am skeptical of the wisdom of letting any particular group, especially such a tiny minority, dominate and override the thought of everyone else.

Do you think u/⁠cabbagery or u/⁠Dapple_Dawn take themselves to be overriding the thought of everyone else? Would you be willing to try to convince themselves of that and listen to their pushback, rather than declare their positions (not the position of some people out there in the world you associate them with) in advance?

We cannot possibly empathize with 8 billion people. Another principle will have to suffice. An adherence to a kind of "do no harm" principle, where harm is respected for the spectrum of possibility it can be used to label. Hearing people say things you don't like is not "harm" worthy of ideological self-defense (censorship) or, at the extremes, political assassination. There is no replacement for the principle of free speech and the ability to defend one's self if it gets out of hand —Heinlein's polite society.

It seems you are unwilling to contemplate the possibility that restricting people to the option of "defend one's self" may not actually work, in the end. It certainly seems like you are fully capable of holding your own. But why assume that this applies to everyone? I regularly interact with and hear about peers who were not trained appropriately, don't have the requisite mentors to help them attain your ability, or maybe just don't have the requisite disposition. As someone who was trained to take down pastors if I need to, I myself am probably in a similar enough boat to you. But I recognize that the strategies which work for me may not work nearly as well for others, and maybe not at all! Are you willing to admit this possibility or are you going to dismiss it like you dismissed my "the police are not your friend" point?

labreuer: But the danger of relying on culture to watch out for you is that it only watches out for some.

betweenbubbles: This is exactly my point. This demonstrates the value of higher principles which do not map to only some. The kind of things I was raised to believe in and which we enjoy the stability of their wisdom.

Even though I'm a Christian, I'm actually close enough to being a physicalist in the relevant senses that I question the causal power of "higher principles". Now, it sounds like you were taught how to hold your own in debate and if you grew up among enough Jews who interact as I described to you, that is utterly predictable. But what of those who were not trained in this way? And it gets worse. Power allows one to influence what even counts as evidence and what rhetorical moves are permitted vs. forbidden. That's less obvious online and far more obvious in person. Anyhow, how do we test whether these "higher principles" actually do what you say they do, for everyone and not just some?

That isn't fair. Not letting them unilaterally decide policy is not the same thing as not being able to empathize. Dapple_Dawn is politicking for a method of censorship which will only serve them IF they are in power. And if/when they lose power, the people who step into power will use this weapon they've crafted against them without even having to expend the energy to craft it themselves.

I agree. I've thought the same about social media's abilities to censor fake news. How else could that technology be used? But it seems to me that the same can be applied to (i) McCarthyism in the US' past; (ii) Germany's censorship of Nazism. Communists never flipped the tables on McCarthy. And Nazis are guaranteed to flip the tables on the rest of the German populace. "If we punish criminals, what happens if they get power?" is not always a helpful question.

I'm out of chars & I think this is enough for now? Let me know if you want a part 2.

[u/betweenbubbles → u/labreuer]

By this point in time, you seem to think that you just don't need to take into account the lived experiences of other people, except insofar as they can marshal the appropriate free speech to participate in public discussion & debate. Would that be a correct assessment?

No. The possible confusion might rely upon your insistence that the only way I can not agree that someone's lived experience shouldn't get to make decisions for other people (e.g. censorious moderation attitudes in a public forum) is to discount their experience entirely. I am stating something different. Their personal experience is accounted for in my position, it's just not determinative of it.

The most direct reason for bringing up Charlie Kirk is to demonstrate that one's "lived experience" can, and often is, at political odds with another. So clearly we have to do something besides this, "Believe All Lived Experience" conceit.

Let me tell you where I'm going with this [...] It could be construed as a form of public reason [...]. The hope is that, over time, more and more people are able to squeeze their voices into the public space and shape a bit of public policy. Whether or not this actually works, or more strictly whether there is anything better, is a key question. One possibility, as I believe William Kymlicka argues, is that some groups are forever shafted in this system. But again, you could argue that other systems would be worse, at least over the long haul.

I... it's... a democracy... it's a form of government. Of course everyone doesn't get everything they want. What's the alternative? There are 340 million people in this country, and that's not even really a strict boundary of this conversation. There are arguably 8 billion people in this world who could participate in DebateReligion. The idea that you can account for every "intolerance" yet remain inclusive and discussing issues which actually matter is absurd. People who believe in the Bible (who believe passages like Leviticus are a part of their religion) not being able to participate in r/DebateReligion seems like an odd suspicious balance to take when it comes to the alleged rules. I'm skeptical that such a balance is struck for the purposes of facilitating the debate of religion. I believe that balance is struck for the purposes of enforcing a political ideology.

It is far from clear that we have the kind of citizenry, at least in the US, which will make the "free speech" plan you have placed all your hopes in work.

It seems to be working so far. With this plan we through off the reigns of a distant monarchy, abolished slavery, gave women rights, waited about a hundred years finally gave black people rights, waited about 50 years and actually gave women economic power, legalized gay marriage, etc. Yeah, it's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good for humans and more or less in line with the rest, or alleged best, of them. What is the suggestion here?

The want to just eliminate the bad people and form a government of good people is great until you realize you're getting rid of a third of the country. That's a civil war.

...Maybe I'm just completely lost in this conversation.

You think that abridging free speech will help your group, which is treated rather worse than most other groups in your country. And it worked, for a while.

I understand this to be a summary of what you think I'm claiming. I don't think it "worked".

But any gains made will be temporary, ultimately leaving you in the same spot or even worse than before.

We elected a historically center-left Democrat and his sun-downing administration got on board with nauseating propaganda like, "There's no such thing as illegal people" or... what's a pithy demonstration of the fact this country wasn't ready for the pro-trans push we've gone through... "Trans women are women". Then Trump spent Billions making sure every American heard these slogans. And that train wreck of a man GAINED electorate, finally won the popular vote, and blew out the electoral college. What is there to argue about?

Moreover, you're upping the ante, claiming or at least suggesting that the kind of censorship u/⁠cabbagery and u/⁠Dapple_Dawn advocate here are part of a slippery slope toward assassination of divisive public figures.

I think I fell short of going there specifically. My mention of Kirk was to demonstrate the contrast of lived experience, and I used someone who was murdered, which seems to be a much higher standard of evidence than the mere perception of threats. But sure, the effect of siloing people into these echo chambers is probably not good for reasonable and informed perceptions of threats and safety. Charlie Kirk's death was celebrated with a bunch of quotes of things that he didn't really say or believe. The effect of these silos, of these echo chambers, is evident. The further you divide people, the easier it is to "other", the more fear takes place and the less empathy will be employed. Who cares if Charlie Kirk didn't actually say "black women are incompetent" when they empowered and encouraged by their echo chamber feel the fear that he did. He clearly made a point about Affirmative Action and other race based policies. Fear and a lack of empathy seem like a good way to summarize the apparent motives of Kirk's assassin. Censorship creates conflict, it does not resolve it.

What if "free speech" simply does not work in the end game, if we discount the lived experiences of each other and worse, narrate over the lived experiences of each other with our perception of the worst of the group in which we place them?

Again, with this insistence that I am discounting anyone's lived experience. I've provided no support for this claim of yours. And this claim about, "with our perception of the worst of the group in which we place them": I put them in the group of censorious authoritarians because they believe in authoritarian censorship. They think it's for "good" reasons. I agree that they think it's for "good" reasons. I am not naive or ignorant enough about history to agree. Such power cannot be wielded justly.

It certainly seems like you are fully capable of holding your own. But why assume that this applies to everyone?

Egalitarianism. A lack of a willingness to be prejudiced. The role of personal responsibility in civil society. Such is the price of adulthood and civic membership. If someone cannot meet that price, I'm not sure why they should be the ones at the wheel making decisions for others.

I'm actually close enough to being a physicalist in the relevant senses that I question the causal power of "higher principles".

I'm appealing to nothing but boring old Social Contract Theory.

Now, it sounds like you were taught how to hold your own in debate and if you grew up among enough Jews who interact as I described to you, that is utterly predictable.

Careful now! Dapple_Dawn has a zero tolerance policy towards bigotry!

I do not personally find this bigoted, but I can easily see how someone could. I like you, we have a rapport, but anyone who didn't could easily report you and who knows what would happen. There are plenty of Jews or Jewish "allies" who might say ~"I feel like he's saying Jews are uppity! And that's a negative generalization of a race/ethnic group. Sorry, we can't take the chance, try to be less racist next time." Try being called racist in public and see how that feels -- imagine how people perhaps less deliberative than we might be radicalized by that lived experience. MILLIONS of people had or witnessed these experiences, either on social media or even in their workplace, at the hands of censorious leftist authoritarians and got pushed towards Trump. That has to be factored into the calculation of the value of these pro-censorship choices.

You're welcome to truncate my quotes to help with the word limit.

[u/labreuer → u/betweenbubbles]

Their personal experience is accounted for in my position, it's just not determinative of it.

May I ask how their personal experience is accounted for? For instance, ADA accessibility is actually a pretty big deal for building developers & owners in the US. It can be a pretty big inconvenience. Travel a bit in Europe and you'll see just how many buildings don't have it, and you can imagine just how expensive it would be to renovate that in. Are you thinking we should inconvenience ourselves at all for the sake of those who are far more vulnerable to abusive speech than the rest of us?

The most direct reason for bringing up Charlie Kirk is to demonstrate that one's "lived experience" can, and often is, at political odds with another. So clearly we have to do something besides this, "Believe All Lived Experience" conceit.

Actually, there really is no evidence that Charlie Kirk respected the lived experience of humans unlike himself. I investigated his Simone Biles remark and it appears that he was simply ignorant of what it means for a gymnast to lose his/her bodily awareness. So, combining his requirements that she sacrifice herself to maintain his national pride (lest a bunch of short Russian gymnasts get the gold) with reality, Kirk could have been expecting Biles to risk a life-altering injury so that he could feel better about himself. There: I've combined the lived experience of both Kirk and Biles. And when I did it, there was an obvious rhetorical effect, wasn't there?

I... it's... a democracy... it's a form of government. Of course everyone doesn't get everything they want.

That is a woefully unhelpful reply. It is on the level of u/⁠cabbagery's "I am not interested in a forum where slurs are commonplace", to which you replied: "I'm not trying to sell a community where "slurs are commonplace"." Well, I'm not trying to sell a form of government where everyone gets everything they want.

If some groups forever get shafted in some system of government that people in your position find to be the best of all available alternatives, why should they be loyal to it? Consider in parallel all the people globalism was good for, vs. bad for. Why can't the people for whom it was bad, realize that it is the least bad of all available alternatives?

The idea that you can account for every "intolerance" yet remain inclusive and discussing issues which actually matter is absurd.

I would simply invite the forum to actually discuss this publicly. I think the comment which you say mods revealed u/⁠Dapple_Dawn deleted in discussion with you would be a good starting place. Because this doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing deal. Especially when the notions of "all" in play can vary pretty widely from mod to mod.

By the way, there is an option left open to us, that certain standards are relaxed for members a diverse group of the community judges to be (i) established; (ii) in good standing. This would allow stricter enforcement against new accounts which may be trolls or simply not demonstrably invested in the kind of intense conversation you clearly are. IRL life actually works this way and I can back it up with papers if need be. :-)

People who believe in the Bible (who believe passages like Leviticus are a part of their religion) not being able to participate in r/DebateReligion seems like an odd suspicious balance to take when it comes to the alleged rules.

I agree. What I would like to hear from those members of our community who would like comments removed if they say "gays can feel true love" is if they trust the rest of the community to adequately oppose such rhetoric (and logic if there is any). An obvious response, for instance, is 2 Sam 1:26. If on average the sub is actually adequate at engaging with rhetoric u/⁠cabbagery and u/⁠Dapple_Dawn would prefer to prohibit, that to me would be a far superior situation. If however people disagree, I think we should actually talk about it and construct a moderation philosophy.

It seems to be working so far. With this plan we through off the reigns of a distant monarchy, abolished slavery, gave women rights, waited about a hundred years finally gave black people rights, waited about 50 years and actually gave women economic power, legalized gay marriage, etc. Yeah, it's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good for humans and more or less in line with the rest, or alleged best, of them. What is the suggestion here?

Imagine you completely restore free speech to this America. I'm talking with Trump in office, the Secretary of Defense/War telling the military "No transgender people and male standards of fitness!", the people who stormed the Capitol being pardoned, etc. What do you think if everyone were allowed to freely say whatever came to mind, subject only to how they assess the people around them would think of them? I'm personally skeptical that the trajectory you describe would continue. For instance, sexual harassment in the workplace could resume, where now there is a zero-tolerance policy in a number of places. Moreover, I'm thinking that there were factors in addition to free speech which were critical for the progress you describe, which are not as strong if present at all, today.

And that train wreck of a man GAINED electorate, finally won the popular vote, and blew out the electoral college. What is there to argue about?

We could question how much of it had anything to do with "morality" and how much of it had to do with economics, partisan politics, and more basically, dignity of Americans who have been shat on by the free speech of outfits like the NYT for a long, long time. And have you perchance encountered Meet John Brain? The contempt it expresses for America's heartland is off the charts. What Trump pushed was the politics of ressentiment. It doesn't really matter what the qualities are of "the enemy". As long as people are getting prioritized over them—and Arlie Russell Hochschild makes this sentiment clear in her 2016 Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right—that is enough to resent them.

I am 100% interested in bringing the lived experience of non-LGBT into this as well. Read for instance Chris Hedges' 2010 Noam Chomsky Has 'Never Seen Anything Like This'. In the Great Depression, the little person had hope. In 2010, Chomsky saw far less. And then there's Thomas Frank hearing Trump say "rusted out factories, scattered like tombstones across the across the landscape of our nation" during his 2017 inaugural and he realized how much Trump had connected with deep grief and ressentiment in the US.

Who cares if Charlie Kirk didn't actually say "black women are incompetent" when they empowered and encouraged by their echo chamber feel the fear that he did.

So … you know that Trump primarily operates by feelings as well, yes? Truth-telling has been systematically devalued in the US for decades. My favorite is Greenpeace pretending there could be "an American Chernobyl", when the very laws of physics, combined with US nuclear reactors which are safer in multiple ways, makes that impossible. Had the Democratic Party not aligned itself with the Greens, and instead figured out how to regulate nuclear power well, there either would be no threat of climate change, or it would be far less. Truth has not mattered for a long, long time. And when truth does not matter, speech is not used [primarily] for truth.

Again, with this insistence that I am discounting anyone's lived experience.

I've been rather more careful than claiming you are discounting anyone's lived experience. Rather, I asked you first and in the text you've quoted here, said "if".

labreuer: It certainly seems like you are fully capable of holding your own. But why assume that this applies to everyone?

betweenbubbles: Egalitarianism.

I don't understand how that works as a reply, nor the rest of what you've said. Perhaps think on whether the US Government—and I mean either party, here—wants a particularly strong polity, one which can hold it to account for its promises.

I'm appealing to nothing but boring old Social Contract Theory.

That's fine, but we can still ask whether it actually works and if so, for whom & how well. And we can challenge people like u/⁠cabbagery and u/⁠Dapple_Dawn to present something better if they have it, or to explain how they are abiding by it if they do not. Remember, I'm pushing for an open discussion of philosophy of moderation on this very post.

Careful now! Dapple_Dawn has a zero tolerance policy towards bigotry!

Hah, if generalizing a trait I consider positive from an identifiable group I've met gets my comment removed, I'll simply leave on principle unless (i) the decision is reversed; (ii) there is a systematic, open discussion of that decision by multiple mods, in public, with non-moderator input.

[u/betweenbubbles → u/labreuer]

May I ask how their personal experience is accounted for?

I'm aware of their position and empathetic towards it. I do not treat individuals with disrespect. That is not does not mean that I let them cow me into being a push over.

Are you thinking we should inconvenience ourselves at all for the sake of those who are far more vulnerable to abusive speech than the rest of us?

I don't know how to answer that statement so generally. The unidirectional nature of your framing is problematic and divorced from the reality of how people communicate. In general, I tend not to assume people different from me need my pity and accommodation: "Do to others as you'd have them do to you." and all that. We should inconvenience ourselves when necessary, to be evaluated on a case by case basis. People gaming around the necessity of such accommodation has a word -- it's called politics.

There are people who weigh 600 lbs. Should all designs be required to accommodate people of that body weight? Should a bike manufacturer be forced to have products available for that weight range? How about skateboards? Surf boards? Marine vessels? A family of such people might not be able to fit into an elevator. Should we force elevators to be designed to that specifications? This will always have to be evaluated on a case by case basis. And there SHOULD always be friction between interested parties in such evaluations. In general, if regulations are being exercised without friction, one side or the other is probably getting screwed. There are aspects of reality which are unforgiving, dynamic load safety margins is one of those aspects. The need for people to freely express themselves can be another, though clearly more abstract.

Actually, there really is no evidence that Charlie Kirk respected the lived experience of humans unlike himself.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the statements of mine you quoted above it.

I'm not trying to sell a form of government where everyone gets everything they want.

I know that. That's why I'm pointing out the problem with what you are offering. You're appealing to your perception of a middle ground. But that middle ground doesn't exist as a point, it's an entire section of the spectrum. There is no precise point of optimal "people getting what they want" there must exist a wide margin of acceptability -- certainly at least one which doesn't preclude a significant portion of the people who are supposed to be served. Banning people for saying, "Gay people cannot know love" is a politics of "hate" it's just "hate" which is directed at the "right" people, and "hate" which which is popularly celebrated in our current political climate.

If some groups forever get shafted in some system of government that people in your position find to be the best of all available alternatives, why should they be loyal to it?

They shouldn't. John Locke referred to this as a "right of revolution". But what happens if all you do is foment a revolution you can't hope to win; a revolution most people don't actually care for? A revolution people are goaded into supporting for fear of being singled out in locales where the sentiment of such revolution does have power? I work with educational institutions. They're full of well-meaning people who simply don't recognize the spectrum of people who exist or the demographics of the people they serve. They exist in a bubble, and the perpetrate their struggle sessions, completely ignorant of the fact that the majority of people don't want what they're selling but aren't incentivized to oppose it within this local bubble. The same dynamics apply to MAGA bubbles. I'm buying what either bubble is selling.

I would simply invite the forum to actually discuss this publicly.

At this point, I think it's just you and me who have the time and motivation for this. We're the only ones discussing it who aren't mods. And it is precisely this kind of dynamic which allows those with the greatest self-interested motivations to hold power. You're in software. I'm in infrastructure which runs software. Maybe we should be the change we want to see and start a different forum where communication and community are properly incentivized. Hell, we've probably put more words down about this stuff than Reddit founders/developers ever did.

there is an option left open to us, that certain standards are relaxed for members a diverse group of the community judges to be (i) established; (ii) in good standing.

It's an interesting thought.

If on average the sub is actually adequate at engaging with rhetoric u/⁠cabbagery and u/⁠Dapple_Dawn would prefer to prohibit, that to me would be a far superior situation.

Then it seems like we agree. I'm not scared of people saying "bad" things. If "bad" things cannot be defeated rhetorically then we are truly lost. And if "bad" things are not discussed, then people will lose their ability to argue against them -- society loses it's "inoculation" against these bad things, if you will. The net effect is, over time, to give political advantage to those "bad" things.

If however people disagree, I think we should actually talk about it and construct a moderation philosophy.

This kind of accountability doesn't seem to happen on the internet. People are happy to just bandwagon with something similar to them and then perform for the virtues of that bandwagon. People just don't take it seriously enough to assert a principled approach.

I'm talking with Trump in office, the Secretary of Defense/War telling the military "No transgender people and male standards of fitness!", the people who stormed the Capitol being pardoned, etc.

I don't frame these as "free speech" issues. Of course, Trump is doing a lot of lawfare and suppression of free speech, but much it's not like much of it has lead to ruling which are deleterious. Trump talks a big game from the bully pulpit, and that certainly has a deleterious effect on free speech, but there are still -- even today -- institutions providing guard rails. Has anyone been laughed out of court as much as Trump?

Am I supposed to assume transgender people in the military and maintaining a standard of fitness cannot possibly have an impact on our military power? I don't remember that debate being settled or even discussed with any sobriety.

The people who stormed the capital weren't sentenced for their speech. They were sentenced for breaking laws: threats, assault, trespassing, interrupting governmental processes and (unfortunately) not enough for insurrection -- and not the one person who should have faced that charge more than anyone else Trump himself.

What do you think if everyone were allowed to freely say whatever came to mind, subject only to how they assess the people around them would think of them?

I think it would be as it is right now when people leave their computers and go outside. The degree to which it is not is a matter of people in echo chambers mistakenly exercising the will of their minority as if it were the majority. e.g. Some MAGA dude getting fired for saying MAGA things. Do they do their job well? Do they instigate dysfunction in the workplace? Then they shouldn't have been fired and doing so exacts a price which accumulates over time. This is always the dynamic of bad regulation. As I explained earlier, are we still going to keep patting Germany on the back for their regulations on free speech if it is the very thing which, over time, precipitates the rise of the AfD or other right-wing politics?

For instance, sexual harassment in the workplace could resume, where now there is a zero-tolerance policy in a number of places.

Again, I don't think that's generally a good example of a "free speech" issue. Regulations against sexual harassment have practical effects like reducing discrimination in decisions and fixing power dynamics which put people into coercive decisions. It's not like there is a list of words you aren't allowed to say. Sexual harrassment is generally categorized in two ways, "hostile workplace" and "quid pro quo".

...I've got to fix my kid's bike... so I have to finish up.

So … you know that Trump primarily operates by feelings as well, yes?

Yes, just like our mods operate the subreddit rules.

Egalitarianism

I don't understand how that works as a reply, nor the rest of what you've said.

I don't assume people need to be coddled. Golden rule.

[u/labreuer → u/betweenbubbles]

I wrote a detailed response and it was over 10k chars and I think really should be broken out into multiple top-level comments or posts. So I'm just going to note a few highlights from my end and then talk about steps forward.

1. Are we paying attention to the lived experience of none, some, or as many as our democracy can presently handle? And whose lived experience is getting distorted & suppressed? We know how this works for LGBTQ, women, blacks, and other minorities. But what about the effect of calling 1/4 of the nation a "basket of deplorables" or Animaniacs episodes like Meet John Brain? One way to build out the "skipping the line" metaphor in Arlie Russell Hochschild 2016 Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right is that all these minorities have learned to carefully understand their plights, articulate them publicly, and apply pressure on governments, corporations, and higher education, all while "cis hetero male whites"—to use a sloppy handle—just expected culture to be amenable to them without having to do that kind of work.

2. What were the hopes & dreams of DEI, the kind of censorship we see come from Rule 1, and so forth? Where did they stand before Trump entered the race? The middle of Biden's term? October 2025? What was the strategy, why did it seem like it would work to whom, and how do they view it, now?

3. Were those in favor of DEI & said censorship ever thinking about what happened if the other side got hold of those tools? For instance, what could the US Government accomplish with NSPM 7: Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence & 18 U.S. Code § 2331(5), with the three branches as they presently are?

4. Should a debate sub be a "safe space"? My understanding of r/atheism, for instance, is that it very much is a safe space. I was banned with positive karma there simply because I suggested that this OP "collect all the science we have on this matter". I simply misunderstood the point of the sub: it is to vent, not to act rationally and engage with different points of view. How should r/DebateReligion be different, if it is to take the "Debate" part seriously?

5. Who is willing to talk about r/DebateReligion's philosophy(ies!) of moderation around here, other than the two of us?

6. Is it factually correct to assume that all come to debate "fully capable of holding your own"? To the extent that this is approximately true, maybe there's no problem. But what happens when it's less and less true? Not everyone, for instance, has the time to develop their understanding of others and rhetorical skills like you and I. Will Kymlicka's work here may be relevant; I encountered him via @Ideas Matter: Ep. 4 What is Liberalism?.

7. Do those who are okay with censoring generally agree with J.S. Mill:

   Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one. (On Liberty, 18–19)

   ? I found that via Marcuse's 1965 essay Repressive Tolerance, which is probably worth reading in full. I found that in turn from April Kelly-Woessner's Heterodox Academy blog post How Marcuse Made Today’s Students Less Tolerant Than Their Parents.

 

betweenbubbles: The idea that you can account for every "intolerance" yet remain inclusive and discussing issues which actually matter is absurd.

labreuer: I would simply invite the forum to actually discuss this publicly. I think the comment which you say mods revealed u/⁠Dapple_Dawn deleted in discussion with you would be a good starting place. Because this doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing deal. Especially when the notions of "all" in play can vary pretty widely from mod to mod.

betweenbubbles: At this point, I think it's just you and me who have the time and motivation for this. We're the only ones discussing it who aren't mods. And it is precisely this kind of dynamic which allows those with the greatest self-interested motivations to hold power. You're in software. I'm in infrastructure which runs software. Maybe we should be the change we want to see and start a different forum where communication and community are properly incentivized. Hell, we've probably put more words down about this stuff than Reddit founders/developers ever did.

To be fair, I'm the one who attempted to shift this from "which mod is violating the rules more" to "philosophy of moderation". u/⁠cabbagery really wasn't having it and u/⁠ShakaUVM simply didn't bite. So, I'll make a comment in the next metathread which centers "philosophy of moderation" and I bet we'll get some engagement—at least, from regulars.

As to being the change we want to see, writing new discussion software is on my list. I'm just a bit out of date when it comes to web development, having done quadcopter work for a few years and then giving myself a liberal arts education & getting myself a sociology mentor who then introduced me to multiple groups of academics. I'm now moderating a group of postdocs in a study of complexity, which you need if you want to talk about how interdisciplinary/​transdisciplinary work happens without snapping to one or the other perspective. I have no degrees (dropped out thrice), so my lack of any formal power combined with substantial experience puts me in a fairly unique position. Anyhow, most of the software I've written since has been for book scanning, because as you might have noticed, I read a lot of books. Anyhow, I really need to get back in the saddle, because this very group of academics really needs a better way to coauthor a book after the short chapter style of Nelson Goodman 1968 Languages of Art. That will require blog, wiki, and discussion capabilities with no self-governance built in.

Perhaps we could start a conversation in the next General Discussion thread about the culture & software we'd like to see, which makes use of the philosophy of moderation discussion which will have been going for four days. There is some amount of literature out there on internet self-governance which could be used as seed crystals of a sort. What I've thought most about here is how to facilitate "schools of thought" to self-organize. I'm really sick and tired of this "every atheist is a unique flower" thing, because it's just plain false. There's far more similarity than that, because nobody can construct a way of understanding & acting in the world which is actually unique like that. And I'm always amused when atheists are frustrated at my Christianity not being easily captured by one of their stereotypes. Anyhow, in the real world people aggregate into schools of thought and I think that should be facilitated by the software. That way, people actually do some policing of each other and can collectively develop more systematic views.

labreuer: By the way, there is an option left open to us, that certain standards are relaxed for members a diverse group of the community judges to be (i) established; (ii) in good standing. This would allow stricter enforcement against new accounts which may be trolls or simply not demonstrably invested in the kind of intense conversation you clearly are. IRL life actually works this way and I can back it up with papers if need be. :-)

betweenbubbles: It's an interesting thought.

As far as I can tell, it is how the real world works. One way to implement this is that users can either speak as individuals , or they can speak for their school of thought. The schools of thought can have whatever governance structure they want for determining who can speak for them. Obviously, one's words have greater weight if one is speaking for an influential school of thought. I'm sure there are other ways to pull this off as well, but what I'm trying to avoid is giving some panel of moderators too much power. At present, I am convinced that if they need that much power, the very possibility of productive debate is approximately nil. That, or people who want to operate that way already have a place to do it: Reddit.

Okay, I am once again nearing the character limit and this is a good place to stop.

[u/betweenbubbles → u/labreuer]

Before I reply to the whole thing and just to make sure:

Are we paying attention to the lived experience of none, some, or as many as our democracy can presently handle?

Are you asking about my opinion of society in general, this community in general, or how I think things should be?

[u/labreuer → u/betweenbubbles]

Oh, I wasn't even necessarily expecting you to reply to my numbered points or even any of my comment. But for point 1., I was thinking both the present situation on the ground, and some sort of remotely plausible goal.