[HN Gopher] Cognitive ability is a powerful predictor of politic...
___________________________________________________________________
Cognitive ability is a powerful predictor of political tolerance
Author : mpweiher
Score : 174 points
Date : 2022-12-04 09:44 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
| guerrilla wrote:
| I'd bet on this not replicating, but if it were to, it would
| remind me a lot of Idiocracy. The "smart" people will tolerate
| the fascists until they are eliminated by them (keeping in mind
| this nearly happened in recent history.)
| brainchild-adam wrote:
| Tied to this topic seems to be the ability to tolerate unpleasant
| emotions.
|
| My impression is that avoiding negative emotions is something we
| all impulsively attempt, and it takes practice to increase one's
| ability to tolerate them. This, in turn, seems necessary to
| tolerate positions so different to our own that they cause us to
| feel threatened, which can, if the fear is intense enough, lead
| to outright hatred.
|
| I assume quite some intolerance can be linked to this principle.
|
| It seems our earlier evolutionary impulses (fight, flight in this
| case) can easily take over unless we not only learn to become
| aware of them but also to tolerate them.
| passwordoops wrote:
| I had a thought the other day if the current intolerance is due
| to the growing infantilism that's been occurring since the 90s.
| This whole notion that interactions must be positive, pursue
| good feelings, people need protection from "harmful" content,
| etc. is the root of the current climate. If everything you've
| been told up to now is "be positive, be happy!" then it follows
| that unpleasant emotions are to be avoided.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| As someone who grew up watching the media of that era, I have
| trouble agreeing with that characterization.
|
| Most of what I saw wasn't encouraging Stepford/Disney
| saccharine positivity nearly as much as it was encouraging
| basic decency and politeness in day to day interactions,
| including those with groups that traditionally hadn't enjoyed
| that. It didn't even discourage arguments but rather
| emphasized being productive with them -- in other words,
| argue to find solutions, not to stoke each others' emotional
| bonfires.
|
| If anything based on the steep decline in basic decency in
| the past couple of decades, I think it could be argued that
| the messaging of the 90s was unfortunately a failure.
| naasking wrote:
| > I had a thought the other day if the current intolerance is
| due to the growing infantilism that's been occurring since
| the 90s. This whole notion that interactions must be
| positive, pursue good feelings, people need protection from
| "harmful" content, etc. is the root of the current climate
|
| This is one of the core ideas behind prof. Jonathan Haidt's
| book "Coddling of the American Mind". There's probably
| something to it.
| synu wrote:
| I seem to find the opposite, that people appear to be admired
| and build audiences based on how much they can troll or
| generally how nasty they can be to whichever rival group.
| People aren't avoiding each other to stay in safe, happy and
| positive bubbles, it's more like rival football club ultras
| out to kill each other.
| luckylion wrote:
| Those views can go together, can't they? If you've never
| learned to accept the existence of things you don't like,
| and feel entitled to have everything done your way, you'll
| love people who are fighting for your side. If you also
| believe that "the others" aren't doing it because they are
| different from you but because they are evil and know
| better but hate you and all things that are good, then
| you'll especially enjoy the vicious and nasty attacks on
| them.
|
| I don't think they could avoid each other, given that
| they're trapped within the same reality. If anyone manages
| to fork the simulation into multiple branches strictly
| divided by tribe, will they be happy places? Or will new
| factions form, and the process repeat?
| gavinray wrote:
| I don't know that it's necessarily so much unpleasant emotions
|
| Let me paint a picture:
|
| My maternal grandparents are country folk, from Kentucky. My
| grandfather was an electrical engineer and a sort of whizz kid
| type. Architected/drafted and built his own house, made
| youngest highest-ranking naval officer in Coast Guard history,
| stuff of that sort.
|
| Having lived their entire lives together, they are on very
| different sides of the political spectrum. My grandmother is...
| unfortunately, a somewhat stereotypical Kentucky old white
| lady. You can guess her stance on things like immigrants and
| who she voted for. I love her but I have to try to blank out
| some of the things she says.
|
| My grandfather on the other hand will just say things like
| "Well, you have to try to see it from their side.", and "Don't
| you think that's a bit of a generalization?"
|
| But God help you if you cross the old man. I've done it once in
| my life and rarely seen a scarier thing.
|
| So (IME), you can have political tolerance separate of your
| emotional tolerance and emotional experiences.
|
| Political tolerance (for me) really boils down to: "Treat
| others how you want to be treated; Live and let live" which
| seems to me the most logical/reasonable way to go about it.
| tstrimple wrote:
| > Live and let live
|
| This isn't possible when one major political party refuses to
| allow that to happen. Many conservatives claim to just want
| to be left alone and then turn around and try to legislate
| who can marry who, how people live their lives, who is
| "worthy" of being part of our country, what books are
| available in libraries. You can't live and let live when
| you're constantly being attacked for intrinsic traits and
| being disenfranchised.
| gavinray wrote:
| > Many conservatives claim to just want to be left alone
| and then turn around and try to legislate who can marry
| who, how people live their lives, who is "worthy" of being
| part of our country, what books are available in libraries.
|
| That's not very let-live at all, is it?
|
| I don't like to get into politics, but in my very unread
| and not-up-to-date opinion (I didn't even know some kind of
| election was happening recently, I care that little)
| neither end of the political spectrum is a good place to
| sit.
|
| Sitting on an end means you have an agenda and a strong set
| of ideals. I have my own morals/ethics, but they sort of
| start and end at the boundaries of my own being.
|
| As long as you have people who think that other people
| ought to behave/think more like them, you'll have conflict.
|
| I hold out hope for biohacking advanced enough that we mod
| ourselves out of this in a few hundred years.
| rayiner wrote:
| > "... Live and let live" which seems to me the most
| logical/reasonable way to go about it.
|
| Only if you assume we're not a society, and that there's no
| social benefits to enforcing socially desirable behaviors and
| suppress socially undesirable ones.
| generalizations wrote:
| > no social benefits to enforcing socially desirable
| behaviors and suppress socially undesirable ones
|
| What universally-agreed-upon moral standard do you think
| you can base that determination on?
| Thursday24 wrote:
| Remove the law, and all that remains is a jungle, where the
| strong domineer the weak.
| bitwize wrote:
| So! Now you would give the Devil the benefit of law?
| jfk13 wrote:
| For my own safety's sake.
| gavinray wrote:
| "Live and let live" is based on the hope that everyone
| adopts that philosophy.
|
| Obviously with humans this can never be the case, until we
| modify our own brains/neurochemistry.
|
| IMO, adhere to it so long as the "Non-aggression Principle"
| holds, once that's breached, do whatever it is you have to
| do.
|
| "Leave me alone and I leave you alone. Poke me with a
| stick, and..."
| rayiner wrote:
| Partly, yes, but it also assumes that "leaving each other
| alone" results in societally beneficial outcomes. That's
| not necessarily true. For example, in many Asian
| countries it's common to call out family and friends on
| their weight. It's not a "live and let live" approach,
| but it might explain why Asians tend to be skinny. (I'm
| reminded of the line from "Everything, Everywhere All at
| Once," where the mom goes "Wait. You are getting fat. And
| you never call me even though we have a family plan. And
| it's free. You only visit when you need something. And
| you got a tattoo and I don't care if it's supposed to
| represent our family. You know I hate tattoos.")
| gavinray wrote:
| Fair point and great anecdote. Though when I think
| "interference of my 'let-live'" my mind jumps to things a
| decent bit worse than family who make some well-meaning
| remarks that sting.
|
| I don't want to turn this into a big
| political/philosophical thing, but it feels like the line
| is between suggestions or commentary and forcible
| policing.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| "live and let live" has traditionally described the more
| tolerant end of the spectrum of possible "social
| enforcement", not the absence of such enforcement - the
| problem is that the group that wants religious rights for
| society doesn't want marriage rights for others in society,
| and the group that wants abortion rights in society doesn't
| want gun rights for others in society. And so on.
|
| So the question is whether to have a society where we
| generally allow people to do things we don't like, as the
| price of being allowed to do the things we do like, or a
| society that prevents us doing what we want as the price of
| preventing others doing things we don't like. Or, you know,
| each side trying to get freedom for the things they care
| about but trying to ban the things they dislike?
|
| There is an obvious analogy with religion and religious
| freedom that I think the US constitution and bill of rights
| handled very effectively (compared to most other countries)
| at the "live and let live" end of the spectrum, maybe as a
| society we might want to see if the same principles might
| work more broadly?
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| That's a false equivalence. "Pro-life" advocates use a
| topic that some people find emotive purely for political
| ends.
|
| Gun control advocates object tto avoidable gun massacres
| in schools, malls, and other public places.
|
| They're not remotely comparable.
|
| The obvious difference is that if a woman has an abortion
| it's _fundamentally a private matter._ The outcome
| affects a single person. Or two people at most.
|
| The outcome is not a line of ambulances and coffins and a
| traumatised community of teachers, parents, and
| neighbours.
|
| Of course they're framed as if they're equivalent
| freedoms, because in the US "freedom" is a master-frame
| that can be used to justify almost anything.
|
| And that's the real problem. One group consistently uses
| deceptive single-issue appeals to emotion to gain and
| hold political power. If there are no real issues to
| appeal to, they'll quite happily invent some. They
| fundamentally don't care what the issue is as long as
| it's politically useful.
|
| The other group _actually cares_ about outcomes - not
| just in a negative sense of wanting certain things not to
| happen, but in the positive sense of expanding political
| access to everyone in the community for the benefit of
| the entire community.
|
| What's missing - in the US particularly - is a political
| system which makes this fundamental distinction clear and
| explicit. Democracies have few defences against deceptive
| framing used for political grift.
|
| And that's not a good way to build a better future.
| efitz wrote:
| Wow, you just provided a positive data point for the
| article.
|
| You completely dismissed the idea that anyone pro-life or
| pro-2A might have any good faith reason for their
| beliefs.
|
| Thanks for validating the premise of the original
| article.
| halkony wrote:
| Someone else in the thread pointed out this happens when
| political abstractions fall apart and this is a pretty
| good example of that haha
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| that's a very long and eloquent way of saying "the thing
| I want is _right_ and the thing you want is _wrong_ " -
| unless you think you can _persuade_ the people who
| disagree with you to support your position, my earlier
| point about "live and let live" still stands, and in
| fact, you're making my point for me, that many people
| feel that the freedoms _I_ believe in with should be
| available to everyone, while the freedoms _I_ disagree
| with must be forbidden.
| User23 wrote:
| > That's a false equivalence. "Pro-life" advocates use a
| topic that some people find emotive purely for political
| ends.
|
| No, we think killing innocent human beings is gross and
| wrong in principle.
|
| There's nothing emotional or religious about it. If you
| accept the premises that a fetus is an innocent human
| being and that intentionally killing innocent human
| beings is wrong, then if you have any respect for logic
| you must conclude that abortion is wrong.
|
| Biology tells us that at the moment of conception that
| single diploid cell is a human being. Therefore, in that
| model, in order to justify killing a fetus it must either
| be unintentional or the fetus must not be innocent. The
| intentional case can apply to procedures that are
| intended to help the mother that unfortunately harm the
| fetus. For the other case I can't see how a fetus could
| be guilty of anything deserving death. However, as an
| counter-example, I'm given to understand that's the case
| in Jewish law at least some of the time.
|
| Anyhow as you can see there is no deception, in framing
| or otherwise. It's just simple premises and sound logic
| from them. On the other hand I rarely see logical moral
| reasoning with generally acceptable premises from the
| pro-Choice side, so you're correct that the subject is,
| for some people, primarily an emotional one.
|
| Anyhow I've kept this to just a simple explanation of why
| we're pro-Life, because I don't think HN is the right
| place to debate political issues, but it is the right
| place to correct erroneous statements.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| A simpler argument is "why is killing children in a
| classroom with a gun wrong, but killing children in the
| womb with a scalpel ok?"
| adwi wrote:
| > I can't see how a fetus could be guilty of anything
| deserving death
|
| Paradoxically the Catholics do
| (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin) I'm sure
| there's finicky nuance that the current devout could
| counter with--apparently they recently decided they were
| just kidding about limbo being a thing--but that was the
| mindset drilled into me during my formative years.
| svnt wrote:
| > Biology tells us that at the moment of conception that
| single diploid cell is a human being.
|
| Ah yes the deification. When was the last time you spoke
| with Biology? Because when I speak to it it says no such
| thing.
| rayiner wrote:
| There's nothing metaphysical about that. Scientifically,
| "a human" is an alive organism of the species "Homo
| sapiens." A blastocyst, embryo, or fetus is undisputedly
| alive, and undisputedly has human DNA. It is "a human."
| Now, it's a human at an early stage of human development
| --and _that_ might have various ethical and moral
| implications--but it 's scientifically unsupportable to
| say that it's not a human.
|
| For example, the OED defines "tadpole" as "the tailed
| aquatic larva of an amphibian (frog, toad, newt, or
| salamander) breathing through gills and lacking legs
| until the later stages of its development." There is
| nothing metaphysical about saying that a tadpole is "a
| frog."
| hbrn wrote:
| > Scientifically, "a human" is an alive organism of the
| species "Homo sapiens."
|
| You seem to be conflating linguistics with biology. If we
| agree to change the definition of a word "human", this
| isn't going to make pro-lifers happy, because their
| problem is not with words.
|
| Also, I don't think "human" means _alive_ Homo Sapiens.
| Human and Homo Sapiens are synonyms.
|
| > A blastocyst, embryo, or fetus is undisputedly alive
|
| But that's exactly what is being disputed. For example a
| braindead person is "undisputedly" dead, yet an embryo
| has even less brain activity.
| User23 wrote:
| > For example a braindead person is "undisputedly" dead
|
| No, they're not. If they were indisputably dead we'd just
| say dead. The qualifier means it's something other than
| actually dead.
|
| You could quibble that after medical death biological
| processes continue in various cells and organs for a
| while though. And of course there's the old first
| responder's adage that the patient isn't dead until he's
| warm and dead. Cold and dead, as in fished out of ice
| water, isn't necessary dead dead.
| svnt wrote:
| They do not have agency and so are functionally dead.
| User23 wrote:
| This is a good example of a premise that isn't generally
| acceptable. If we agree that persons who lack agency have
| no right to not be killed then we can kill infants, the
| severely mentally ill, involuntarily commited persons,
| and arguably severely physically disabled persons.
|
| Not to mention, determining who does and doesn't have
| agency and thus a right to not be killed strikes me as
| considerably trickier than the basic medical definition
| of dead, which is basically no heartbeat. Hence the
| observation that cold and dead might not really be dead.
| Severe hypothermia can make the pulse undetectable.
| hbrn wrote:
| > basic medical definition of dead, which is basically no
| heartbeat
|
| This is an extremely reductive statement. There is no
| unified medical definition of death, precisely because
| it's a highly controversial topic.
|
| Closest to what you're trying to say is UDDA (which,
| ironically, is currently being revised), and it
| explicitly mentions brain death: "An individual who has
| sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of
| circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2)
| irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire
| brain, including the brain stem, is dead."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Determination_of_De
| ath...
| hbrn wrote:
| See how casually throwing in the word "undisputable" in a
| discussion of a controversial topic triggers a dispute?
| sokoloff wrote:
| This reads to me as a perhaps unwitting but excellent
| demonstration of political intolerance.
|
| Is it possible that the pro-lifers have a genuine belief
| that a fetus is worthy of protection equal to (or similar
| to) a human life? If that's their initial belief, it
| seems reasonable that they'd conclude that 40-50x as many
| abortions as firearm homicides per year represents a
| greater problem in the former than the latter.
|
| I don't think your proposed "fundamental distinction" is
| anywhere near as fundamental as you seem to believe.
| User23 wrote:
| > There is an obvious analogy with religion and religious
| freedom that I think the US constitution and bill of
| rights handled very effectively (compared to most other
| countries) at the "live and let live" end of the spectrum
|
| While the post civil war amendments were ruled to have
| changed it, at the time of ratification the establishment
| clause did not apply to the individual states. And many
| of the first thirteen had some official religion or
| other. So while it was live and let live at the federal
| level, at the local level it wasn't so much.
| rayiner wrote:
| Yes, the original design of the U.S. is something more
| like live and let live at the community level rather than
| the individual level. The idea was that you could have
| different groups of religious nuts living alongside each
| other, not to eviscerate the ability of each group to
| enforce rules within their own communities.
| weard_beard wrote:
| You assume that there is and of a right aught to be
| enforcement. Others view that social evolution as up to
| god. We all cooperate and the least rigid will adopt the
| best and we'll all copy one another.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| We have 3000+ years of very detailed data on how well
| that works, and all the "cooperation" that can be
| achieved...
| weard_beard wrote:
| Prisoners dilema. We have 3 billion more to get it right.
| marmetio wrote:
| There's a line where you should intervene when others are
| not letting others live and let live. That's the overall
| human societal obligation that everyone has to each other.
|
| Then there's another line where you build the type of
| society you want, but only within your own circle of
| culture or geography or whatever.
|
| Live and let live requires assuring the first part, while
| also not imposing your own version of the second part on
| people who are not within your circle. The expression has
| always had nuance. Until now, I had never heard such a
| simplistic interpretation.
| rayiner wrote:
| > There's a line where you should intervene when others
| are not letting others live and let live.
|
| But why should that be the line? Why shouldn't we police
| each other's behavior to ensure everyone is making better
| decisions that serve larger societal ends while
| preserving social peace?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The Counterpoint is that individuals should serve their
| own ends as long as it preserves social peace.
|
| Many object to the idea that Society should extract as
| much utility value from individuals as possible up until
| they're breaking point is reached.
|
| Furthermore, the breaking point for social peace can be
| modified and delayed by harsh repression and subjugation,
| so I don't think it is a suitable limit on suppressing
| the desires of individuals
| marmetio wrote:
| Maybe I wasn't clear, but that's the second line I
| described in the second paragraph that I wrote.
|
| You can build whatever society you want. But there are
| also different societies. Some by choice, some not.
| People can be part of multiple societies at the same
| time. The trick is to manage the interfaces between
| societies without imposing yourself on a society you
| don't belong to. Live and let live.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Because authoritarianism is bad.
| brainchild-adam wrote:
| Thank you for sharing.
|
| I might be reading this wrong, but it seems to me from your
| description that your grandfather simply did not get "ticked
| off" by the same things as your grandmother. Those topics do
| not seem to have generated strong emotions in him. But they
| seem to have done so in your grandmother.
|
| What raises strong emotions in people seems to be highly
| subjective. To what extent you are able to have those
| stronger emotional responses while at the same time not
| succumbing to the impulses that go along with them, is what I
| would argue determines your ability to tolerate the stimuli
| that generate these emotional responses.
|
| Since these responses are physiological, rooted in our
| survival instincts, they greatly affect our ability to be
| rational, open, and contextualize. Instead, they move us into
| increasing levels of black-and-white thinking and fight or
| flight, first mentally, then physically.
|
| Whenever I explore topics that stir up strong (negative)
| emotions in myself, I find that they are usually tied to
| this, if I can get deep enough in my exploration.
|
| After all, we're just animals trying to survive and
| procreate, even though we have become very elaborate and
| ornamental in our pursuit of these goals.
| svnt wrote:
| You are dismissing a level you are apparently incurious
| about -- that of why certain seemingly irrational responses
| happen.
|
| Using "highly subjective" for something that is much better
| understood than you are implying is only an indicator of
| where you've chosen to draw your own boundary in pursuit of
| a constrained cognitive ability.
|
| It's also an indicator of this limit that the two things
| you're inaccurately taking as given are intimately linked:
| emotionality and reproduction. When things get too complex
| you conversationally reduce humans to emotional animals and
| end of.
| brainchild-adam wrote:
| I am sorry, but your comment is so terse that I find it
| quite difficult to really understand.
|
| I am very interested in learning and growing, though, so
| maybe you can help me understand what you were trying to
| say.
|
| This is what I got and my associated comments and
| questions:
|
| > You are dismissing a level you are apparently incurious
| about -- that of why certain seemingly irrational
| responses happen.
|
| You seem to be saying: There's something (a) you think
| I'm incurious about (b) that also is relevant to this
| discussion.
|
| My thoughts: What exactly is this "level" you are
| referring to? I do have thoughts on "why certain
| seemingly irrational responses happen", but I'd first be
| curious to know what you are referring to.
|
| > Using "highly subjective" for something that is much
| better understood than you are implying is only an
| indicator of where you've chosen to draw your own
| boundary in pursuit of a constrained cognitive ability.
|
| You seem to be saying: There is "something" (a) that I
| qualified as "highly subjective" in my comment ("What
| raises strong emotions in people"), and (b) that me
| qualifying it as such is an indicator of a "boundary" (c)
| which I have drawn (d) in order to "constrain" my
| "cognitive ability".
|
| My thoughts: I am not sure where your argument against my
| statement is. How is "What raises strong emotions in
| people" "much better understood" "than you are implying"?
| What am I implying in your opinion?
|
| > It's also an indicator of this limit that the two
| things you're inaccurately taking as given are intimately
| linked: emotionality and reproduction. When things get
| too complex you conversationally reduce humans to
| emotional animals and end of
|
| You seem to be saying: (a) I am limited in my cognitive
| ability, (b) as evidenced by my inability to realize how
| emotionality and reproduction are linked, (c) the two of
| which I also "inaccurately tak[e] as given". I also (d)
| flee from complexity by referring to the fact that we are
| animals.
|
| My thoughts:
|
| How am I taking emotionality and reproduction as given,
| and how so inaccurately?
|
| Where do I dispute a link between the two?
|
| What are we in your opinion if not animals?
|
| Also, I read an undertone of both "you are stupid" and
| "you are evil" in your comment. Was that intentional or
| am I misunderstanding you here?
| voxadam wrote:
| Full paper: https://sci-
| hub.ru/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/1...
| tomlockwood wrote:
| So their samples were drawn from Mechanical Turk users and the
| Danish military, exclusively? I'm dubious about how
| representative these samples are.
| runeks wrote:
| True. But it's an interesting result regardless of whether it
| can be extrapolated to the general population.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| I personally think it's interesting only to a certain group
| of people with a particular worldview. I think it's
| academic value is suspect.
| omarhaneef wrote:
| N+1 theory on why this may be the case:
|
| Cognitive ability is forged in reading and discussions. After
| you've seen the arguments rehearsed hundreds of times you've
| become inundated and exhausted by the arguments and counter
| arguments from both sides of many debates.
| d0100 wrote:
| I'd like if ChatGPT would know what are the most common
| arguments (as word-for-word as possbile) for X, where it
| started and how people picked up and how often it gets
| repeated. For example "crossed state lines"
| uptownfunk wrote:
| Let's assume tolerance means tolerance of viewpoints which
| disagree with our own position.
|
| From an evolutionary lens, if someone disagrees with us, then
| aren't we predisposed not to tolerate since tolerating would be
| at odds with our own survival? That's the sort of lazy evaluation
| approach.
|
| A more nuanced take could be that being tolerant also encourages
| us to revisit our own position and improve it if need be enabling
| a greater likelihood of survival.
| halkony wrote:
| This approach seems to assume that there is one "correct"
| position that optimizes likelihood of survival. With biology,
| it's not like evolution approaches a "limit" of the perfect
| species, so the most valuable opinion for a decision making
| species is whatever is needed in the moment. In fact, we gain a
| lot of evolutionary advantage by outsourcing our opinions to
| other members of the species. Tolerance gives us mental
| capacity to worry about our immediate problems.
|
| Also consider that disagreement takes psychological, emotional,
| and sometimes physical resources to act on properly.
| Disagreement can be expensive and won't always pay off. So
| that's probably why humans are evolutionary predisposed to
| agreement.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| "I'm tolerant to those who have opposing views, just want to shut
| them up, de-platform and bully their employers to make them non-
| hireable" /s
| mgrthrow wrote:
| "I'm tolerant to those who have opposing views, I just want to
| bring guns to shut down their drag performances, attack the
| power grid to cancel them, and post violent memes about them
| online" /s
| psychphysic wrote:
| BTW if you or anyone in this thread do not know of how this
| all started check out the Metcalf sniper attacks[0].
| Basically suspiciously after a weakness in power
| infrastructure was identified it was exploited.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack
| mgrthrow wrote:
| Last night, there was an attack on several power stations
| by armed right wing groups in North Carolina to shut down
| drag shows.
| realjhol wrote:
| Why is it so important to you for drag queens to perform to
| children?
| mgrthrow wrote:
| It's performance art with no child inappropriate content?
|
| It is no different than "why is it so important to you for
| characters at Disneyland to be able to perform for kids."
|
| Drag is not inherently an inappropriate performance art.
| Yes, sexual drag shows exist. No, not all drag shows are
| sexual.
| tdeck wrote:
| The purpose of these laws is making it impossible to exist
| as a trans person in public. The playbook is to 1) suggest
| that wearing gender nonconforming clothing as in drag shows
| is inherently sexualized (not true) and thus doing so
| around children is inappropriate and then 2) outlaw "drag
| shows" around children because many conservatives and cops
| can't tell the difference between a person in drag and a
| trans person, so it gives cops plausible deniability to
| harass trans people (even more than they already do).
|
| In parallel there's a massive ongoing social media campaign
| equating being publicly LGBT with pedophilia, which is an
| old trope that I thought had died off in the US but has
| sadly resurfaced.
|
| This situation is extremely dangerous for trans people and
| it's going to be dangerous for gays and lesbians too if it
| succeeds. Major conservative Christian groups have stated
| publicly that they think gay rights are too entrenched to
| attack right now, so the plan is to try to divide the "T"
| from "LGB", go after trans people, and then build up the
| public appetite to roll back gay rights again.
|
| https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/10/23/christian-
| rig...
| nilespotter wrote:
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's not that powerful of a predictor. I know many intelligent
| people who absolutely hate the opposite party.
|
| Although I do see some truth to the overall idea. I have also
| seen many average or below average people parroting whatever
| inflammatory stuff they heard from the media or others, without
| even understanding the topic.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| There's a whole lot of difference between hating a political
| party and hating the supporters of said party.
|
| I have had to explain this to online friends who felt
| persecuted while in reality people's issues is the party not
| the person.
| giantg2 wrote:
| True, many people even hate their own party, just less than
| they hate the others.
| throwaway5Am1k wrote:
| >I know many intelligent people who absolutely hate the
| opposite party.
|
| Intelligent or simply well educated?
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Usually its the latter rather than the former
| giantg2 wrote:
| In many cases, both. But there are a few that didn't go to
| higher education.
| swayvil wrote:
| Or well spoken. It's amazing how intelligent you sound when
| you talk good.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I have the opposite problem. I speak western Pennsylvanian.
| "There's patches of slippy ice down by the crick."
| jwmoz wrote:
| > It's not that powerful of a predictor.
|
| Their research states otherwise.
| giantg2 wrote:
| No, it doesn't.
|
| It merely says that cognitive ability is the _strongest
| single predictor_. That may very well be true when comapring
| to other indicators. However, it doesn 't mean that it's
| powerful enough to have any practical application. I don't
| see anything that we can use this information for - another
| useless study.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > absolutely hate
|
| Does that necessarily mean the don't tolerate them though?
| giantg2 wrote:
| I guess we would have to define tolerance, which it seems
| there are other comment threads here asking the same thing.
|
| I'd say calling them stupid, cursing at the TV, etc would not
| fit many definitions of tolerance.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| The full text on sci-hub has this paper's definition of
| tolerance as something along the lines of "even evil people
| still have rights".
| giantg2 wrote:
| Again, even that has huge holes in the definition,
| considering each side denies certain rights even exist.
| Hard to say you defend someone's right to an
| abortion/gun/etc, especially when someone's rights on
| those sorts of issues can vary by state.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Let's all remember that these "unintelligent" people exist on
| both sides of the political divide. Whatever you believe, some
| one without a clue it parroting it.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Very true. I tried to leave my comment generic so that it
| applies to all sides (which is what I've seen so far).
| water8 wrote:
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Full text is paywalled, and I'm not interested in paying to see
| it, but if I _did_ , what I'd be looking at is the
| operationalization of "political tolerance" and "cognitive
| ability", particularly the former. I've found that studies with
| the kind of conclusion this has often use very dubious methods of
| operationalizing complex variables, particularly the dependent
| variable, such that while the conclusion may be true with the
| given operational definitions, it is far from clear that it
| corresponds in any close way to what most people hearing the
| conclusion would understand it to mean without seeing the
| particular operationalization in use.
| mypastself wrote:
| So that's why I'm so tolerant of those idiots on the other side
| of the political spectrum...
|
| In all seriousness, as I don't have access to the full text, I'm
| wondering how they measured tolerance in particular.
| ohCh6zos wrote:
| Given the summary I think they mean the "I hate your ideas but
| will defend your rights" kind of tolerance.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Looking into the paper (see the sci-hub link), it's a bit odd.
| Data source is Mechanical Turk respondents in the USA, and
| Danish military draftees in Europe, who had to take a
| 'cognitive ability test'. "Political groups" don't include
| members of political parties - they have 'neo-Nazis',
| 'Christian fundamentalists', 'socialists' and 'communists'.
| Seems like there are a great many other groups one could list.
|
| Social science papers are notorious for being non-replicabale
| and based on non-representative samples, so I doubt these
| conclusions really mean much.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| I don't see tolerance or threat columns for "socialists" and
| "communists" listed in the results table?
| svnt wrote:
| They are in Table 1 but not the results.
| endominus wrote:
| The first sentence of the introduction clarifies the definition
| of "political tolerance", which seems to be a term of art;
| "Citizen support for the rights and liberties of even those
| political groups that they dislike, commonly termed political
| tolerance, is an important element of liberal democracy." So
| what is being measured is support for the civil liberties of
| political groups that are disliked by the respondent. Survey
| respondents were given a list of groups and asked to rate, from
| -4 to 4, a. how much they liked that group, and b. how much
| they would protect that group's rights.
| thriftwy wrote:
| > Citizen support for the rights and liberties of even those
| political groups that they dislike
|
| Is exactly zero now for most of politicized Twitter with
| their loud congratulations of deplatforming of their
| opponents.
|
| (Who otherwise think they are an example of tolerant)
|
| I wonder if the research highlights their low cognitive
| ability.
| howenterprisey wrote:
| "Deplatforming" has nothing to do with "rights and
| liberties", and everything to do with the "rights and
| liberties" of those whose computers they formerly used
| space on.
| briandear wrote:
| So black people at the lunch counter in Greensboro in
| 1960.. their sit in.. So the owner of that lunch counter
| did he/she have rights and liberties violated?
|
| How about when governments are the ones directing
| provider companies to throw people off those computers?
|
| For example, if trans-activists were being deplatformed
| because the government is telling the socials to do that
| would you honestly say that it's about the rights of
| those who own the computers?
|
| There is a concept of privately owned public spaces.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| Also worth pointing out that this was a sample of only
| Mechanical Turk users in America, and members of the Danish
| Military in Denmark.
| jfengel wrote:
| Draftees in Denmark, which includes all men, plus women who
| volunteer. So it's skewed, but not quite as skewed as if
| you used only self selected people.
|
| I am told by people who do this kind of research that using
| Mechanical Turk isn't as pointless as it would sound. I
| have to take them at their word in that.
| wheelinsupial wrote:
| What do they say about Mechanical Turk? Is it that it's
| more representative of non-American point of view?
| atoav wrote:
| In the methods section they mention a survey. So that is likely
| how they meassured it. Of course the particulars would be more
| interesting, but for this access to the paper would be needed.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| Yeah same, the definition of tolerance is very important here.
| Like for example I think a lot of people would view me as very
| intolerant of transphobia, but I doorknocked 1000 doors in our
| recent state election here, so in some ways I'm very tolerant
| when encountering people that don't agree with me.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| I dont see how canvassing for a political agenda is tolerance
| of opposition. Sure, you'll run into people who disagree with
| you, but you don't tolerate their POV and are actively
| encouraging political action against their POV.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| This is a ludicrous definition of tolerance of opposition,
| if any active campaigning for your position is considered
| "intolerance"
| tomlockwood wrote:
| Also yeah, while I was actively campaigning I met many
| people from other parties - and the other side of the
| aisle, and stood next to them outside voting booths and
| had some nice conversations.
| enkid wrote:
| Encouraging people to rethink their political position
| isn't intolerant unless it cross over to some sort of
| coercion. There has to be an ability to argue what a best
| policy is, or there would be no reason for democracy in the
| first place.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| Actually, a lot more listening happens on a successful
| doorknock than most people would think. Listening and
| really hearing people is necessary, much more necessary
| than making a specific political point.
| atoav wrote:
| Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance springs to mind where he
| postulates that every free society that aims to remain just
| that: _free_ has to be intolerant to certain opinions that
| (should they become too widespread) would endanger the
| freedoms of others as well.
|
| Freedom is a complicated thing, because it has both positive
| _and_ negative definitions. You can have the freedom to do
| what you want on the one hand but also have the freedom to be
| placed into certain situations (e.g. tortured) on the other
| hand.
|
| Now obviously there is going to be a collision space where
| somebody wants to excersise the positive freedom to do a
| certain thing that hurts the negative freedom of another
| perspn or a group of persons to not be subjected to that very
| thing.
|
| Freedom in that sense is the attempt to constantly balance
| those two sides and allow the individual to be as free as
| possible, while also preventing malicous actors to take away
| the freedoms of others.
|
| The thing is that freedom in that sense takes constant effort
| and adjustment to keep alive and up date and this goes beyond
| just writing new laws and enforcing them.
|
| Intolerance toward the intolerant is a crucial thought if you
| want to keep your and everybody elses freedom as it is.
| naasking wrote:
| > Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance springs to mind where
| he postulates that every free society that aims to remain
| just that: free has to be intolerant to certain opinions
| that (should they become too widespread) would endanger the
| freedoms of others as well.
|
| People really love paraphrasing Popper into saying what
| they personally think tolerance means. Popper did not say
| that a free society must be intolerant of ideas that would
| endanger other freedoms should they become widespread. In
| fact he specifically says we should _not_ do this:
|
| > In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that
| we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant
| philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational
| argument and keep them in check by public opinion,
| suppression would certainly be most unwise.
| subradios wrote:
| Intolerance of the intolerant is often word mincing to
| justify one's own bigotry.
|
| You only hear about it in reference to all five Nazis or
| few hundred KKK members, but never in reference to the
| thousands of articles about the problems with Whiteness.
|
| "I will justify my prejudices in a way that sounds nice to
| liberal professionals".
| endominus wrote:
| The paradox of tolerance, as it is commonly argued, has to
| be one of the worst philosophical arguments actually taken
| seriously. It basically boils down to an argument from fear
| - We all believe in the importance of {Sacred Value}, but
| the Evil Ones are coming to take {Sacred Value} away! By
| using our own good natures and {Sacred Value} against us,
| they will claim power, and then destroy {Sacred Value}! The
| only way to stop them is to destroy {Sacred Value}, thereby
| depriving them of the ability to use it against us!
|
| Incidentally, here's what Karl Popper himself had to say on
| the matter; "Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the
| paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the
| disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited
| tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not
| prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught
| of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and
| tolerance with them.--In this formulation, I do not imply,
| for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance
| of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them
| by rational argument and keep them in check by public
| opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we
| should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even
| by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not
| prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but
| begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their
| followers to listen to rational argument, because it is
| deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of
| their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the
| name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the
| intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching
| intolerance places itself outside the law and we should
| consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as
| criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement
| to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave
| trade, as criminal."[0]
|
| The form of "intolerance towards the intolerant" he
| actually discusses in his essay is rather far removed from
| the sweeping authority to suppression that it bestows in
| the eyes of many of the people who invoke it. He does not
| recommend censoring or removing any liberties of the
| intolerant, _unless and until they respond to rational
| argument by force_. Unless they instruct followers to
| disregard rational argument as itself deceptive. Unless
| they are inciting actual criminal activity.
|
| The idea that some ideas are in and of themselves too
| dangerous to allow to exist in the public domain, that
| rational argument should be monitored, controlled, and
| suppressed to ensure that "tolerance" remains is nowhere to
| be seen. It is only when the methods of a liberal democracy
| (that is, open conversation, debate, the marketplace of
| ideas) fail catastrophically that Popper sees the need for
| open intolerance towards those who answer argument with
| violence.
|
| In fact, the argument of the "paradox of tolerance" is
| actually, you may be surprised to learn, an argument _in
| favor of autocracy_. Its whole point is that liberal
| democracies can 't sustain themselves without a "benevolent
| despot". Popper was arguing against that idea. Per
| Wikipedia, again; "In the context of chapter 7 of Popper's
| work, specifically, section II, the note on the paradox of
| tolerance is intended as further explanation of Popper's
| rebuttal specific to the paradox as a rationale for
| autocracy: why political institutions within liberal
| democracies are preferable to Plato's vision of despotism,
| and through such institutions, the paradox can be avoided.
| Nonetheless, alternative interpretations are often
| misattributed to Popper in defense of extra-judicial
| (including violent) suppression of intolerance such as hate
| speech, outside of democratic institutions, an idea which
| Popper himself never espoused."
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| > The paradox of tolerance, as it is commonly argued, has
| to be one of the worst philosophical arguments actually
| taken seriously. It basically boils down to an argument
| from fear - We all believe in the importance of {Sacred
| Value}, but the Evil Ones are coming to take {Sacred
| Value} away! By using our own good natures and {Sacred
| Value} against us, they will claim power, and then
| destroy {Sacred Value}! The only way to stop them is to
| destroy {Sacred Value}, thereby depriving them of the
| ability to use it against us!
|
| Hmm. If I were trying to present a bad-faith
| interpretation of the paradox of tolerance, this is how
| I'd do it. If I were trying to present a good-faith
| interpretation of the paradox of tolerance, I'd probably
| replace the last line with something like "The only way
| to stop them is to _physically guard_ {Sacred Value},
| thereby depriving them of the ability to destroy it! "
| Tolerance, as a {Sacred Value}, isn't like a treasury or
| fortified position, it's an open-air exhibition never
| intended to be hidden away. The only option, if we're
| actually serious about having it, is to stand against
| those who openly and boldly identify themselves as trying
| to take it away.
|
| >He does not recommend censoring or removing any
| liberties of the intolerant, unless and until they
| respond to rational argument by force. Unless they
| instruct followers to disregard rational argument as
| itself deceptive. Unless they are inciting actual
| criminal activity.
|
| I suppose you've never heard of right-wing militias
| showing up to left-wing protests while cops look on, or
| plot to kidnap and overthrow a governor? [0] I suppose
| you've never heard Donald Trump suggest that "what you're
| seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening"?
| [1] I suppose you haven't heard of the banners at the
| most recent CPAC? [2]
|
| >"In the context of chapter 7 of Popper's work,
| specifically, section II, the note on the paradox of
| tolerance is intended as further explanation of Popper's
| rebuttal specific to the paradox as a rationale for
| autocracy: why political institutions within liberal
| democracies are preferable to Plato's vision of
| despotism, and through such institutions, the paradox can
| be avoided."
|
| I suppose you've never heard of Project REDMAP? [3] I
| suppose you've never heard of Murc's Law? [4] I agree
| with you -- the paradox of tolerance is best resolved by
| guiding our collective choices to avoid a direct
| confrontation with it, but the "political institutions
| within liberal democracies" seem powerless or unwilling
| to do anything about the encroachment of violent
| intolerance.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnap
| ping_pl...
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44959340
|
| [2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cpac-banner-
| domestic-terro...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP
|
| [4] https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/12/great-
| moments-m...
| endominus wrote:
| >The only way to stop them is to physically guard {Sacred
| Value}
|
| When the {Sacred Value} is participation in the
| marketplace of ideas, then guarding it against unwelcome
| elements is the same as destroying it. When your
| justification can be used, identically, word for word, by
| the same people who believe the opposite of your beliefs,
| then it's not a logical reason, but a justification.
|
| Regarding the examples of criminal action, I'd heard of
| some of those events. I've also heard of a CNN host say
| that a teenager had a "punchable face" because he wore
| the wrong kind of hat and stood silently while being
| accosted by a screaming stranger banging a drum in his
| face. I've heard a lot of talk about punching Nazis,
| which seem to be a broader and broader group every year.
| I've heard of comedians jailed for jokes. I've heard of
| teenagers jailed for singing along to rap songs. I've
| I've heard of that quote by Trump, just as I've heard
| stories of news anchors standing in front of streets
| aflame, calling protests "mostly peaceful." It all
| reduces down to that Orwell quote, doesn't it?
|
| I'm insulated from most of this, I realize, by not being
| American and not having the same intense loyalty to your
| political tribes. But "the other group is doing all these
| terrible things to us" is not a very convincing argument
| for changing beliefs like this. Every group wants to
| claim it is being marginalized, and basically every group
| can point out specific examples of exactly that
| marginalization happening. Giving one group the right to
| cancel the civil liberties of the other group, as the
| paradox of tolerance suggests, does not strike me as a
| particularly wise idea, given the stakes involved. I have
| no confidence in any group to hold that power justly.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| >When the {Sacred Value} is participation in the
| marketplace of ideas, then guarding it against unwelcome
| elements is the same as destroying it. When your
| justification can be used, identically, word for word, by
| the same people who believe the opposite of your beliefs,
| then it's not a logical reason, but a justification.
|
| My "justification" is not usable identically, word for
| word, by the same people who believe the opposite of my
| beliefs, because they do not believe my beliefs. I, and
| you, and anyone else, can establish this by reading the
| cited links in my post above. Further, the {Sacred Value}
| under discussion isn't "participation in the marketplace
| of ideas", it's tolerance!
|
| Society does value "participation in the marketplace of
| ideas", but that's another can of worms; not entirely
| orthogonal to tolerance, but it's obviously not the same.
| In fact, I'd suggest that overreliance on the
| "marketplace of ideas", which, like any marketplace, is
| most easily dominated by those with the most money, is
| exacerbating society's problems with tolerance.
|
| >Regarding the examples of criminal action, I'd heard of
| some of those events. I've also heard of
|
| All the examples you cite (a CNN host, individuals
| talking about physically opposing self-identified Nazis,
| "comedians jailed for jokes", teenagers jailed for
| singing) are individuals. They may be being oppressed, in
| your view, by monolithic forces of intolerance, but they
| themselves are not monoliths baldly angling to protect
| in-groups which the law does not bind, alongside the
| exclusion of out-groups whom the law binds but does not
| protect. Speaking of which--
|
| >Giving one group the right to cancel the civil liberties
| of the other group
|
| But that's not what's happening. One group is cancelling
| the civil liberties of another, visibly, but they are
| keeping those rights for themselves. When the Black
| Panthers armed themselves, Reagan, of all people,
| instituted gun control, and now LGBTQetc groups
| protecting LGBTQetc events get called out by those who
| were previously using those same arms to threaten them;
| curtailing access to abortion is a great good, but "the
| only moral abortion is my abortion", and so those with
| means get 'em anyway from elsewhere. [0]
|
| >It all reduces down to that Orwell quote, doesn't it?
|
| Yes, some animals are more equal than others. That's what
| I'm saying. Rules are for the little people, not the
| important people. The important people can break the law
| and act immorally, and it's _our_ fault for not stopping
| them. That 's Murc's law. Popper's political solution
| only actually works if there are actual checks and
| balances, but most of them seem to be legally toothless
| and highly dependent on the moral standard of the
| individuals involved. It's my understanding, for
| instance, that every President since Nixon has
| voluntarily released their tax returns in order to
| promote trust; Nixon didn't for eerily similar reasons to
| those bandied about in modernity.
|
| >I'm insulated from most of this, I realize, by not being
| American and not having the same intense loyalty to your
| political tribes
|
| I'm not American. I assumed you were, by the examples of
| left-wing badness largely drawn from talking-head
| American media, and certain nuances of your defence of
| the political right. I don't like the American uniparty,
| but the simple fact is that one wing of it acts very
| differently than the other. They seem to functionally
| agree on like 75% of things (big military budgets, pro-
| Israel, the 1/5 of the GDP provided by for-profit medical
| care), but the wedge issues have become meaningful
| socially, and are being exported abroad. We all benefit
| from, and are all bound by, the Pax Americana.
|
| [0] https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-
| abortion-is-...
| endominus wrote:
| >My "justification" is not usable identically, word for
| word, by the same people who believe the opposite of my
| beliefs, because they do not believe my beliefs.
|
| "If we tolerate {people with out-group beliefs}, they
| will take power and restrict our civil liberties,
| therefore we must guard {Sacred Value} from them" can be
| - and is - used by both sides to justify restriction of
| civil liberties.
|
| >All the examples you cite (a CNN host, individuals
| talking about physically opposing self-identified Nazis,
| "comedians jailed for jokes", teenagers jailed for
| singing) are individuals.
|
| I didn't know quite how to parse this. Are you saying
| that the victims are all individuals, or that the
| oppressors are? In both cases, that's not necessarily
| true. There were many people involved in calling that
| teenager a terrible person and harassing him - the force
| of the media, hate mobs on Twitter, and the like. And the
| people chilled into silence by "cancel culture" form a
| large group themselves. All of these groups, of course,
| are composed of individuals, but that doesn't seem to
| weigh on either direction. Of course the people who most
| acutely feel oppression are going to be individuals; how
| else would that work? Of course the oppressive group is
| going to be large; how else would it have any power?
|
| >One group is cancelling the civil liberties of another,
| visibly, but they are keeping those rights for
| themselves.
|
| And this is exactly what I mean about the symmetry of
| these arguments. I have heard this same idea repeated by
| right-wing people about the left! And they are able to
| produce examples of the same - that's what their
| complaints about cancel culture are. Here's an example of
| that; in the wake of the #MeToo movement, I have seen
| people on this very forum put forward the idea that
| allegations of sexual assault and rape are so serious and
| so traumatizing to the victims, that they should be
| assumed to be true and damning in the absence of evidence
| or trials. That is, that the accused should have their
| right to a fair trial, the right to be assumed innocent
| until proven guilty, revoked. That's a really damned
| worrying thing to hear as a liberal who's actually
| interested in protecting civil rights! Apparently some
| people have never heard of Emmett Till.
|
| The thing is, the pop-culture paradox of tolerance - the
| idea under discussion - is literally about being able to
| declare some ideas "intolerant" and thus remove them from
| the discussion. It's a claim that some ideas are so
| dangerous that the public needs to be protected from
| them, and the claim that the group presenting that
| paradox are the people who should make that
| determination. I don't trust any group with that power.
| To do so would be to willingly place myself under the
| power of a despot.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| The people "chilled into silence by "cancel culture""
| have let you know about their situation on talk shows and
| Twitter. They have not only not really had any rights
| taken away, but they are _individuals_ being "oppressed"
| by _individuals_. The power of a mob of individuals
| deciding that they don 't like you is not comparable to
| those in control of government making decisions about
| everyone's reproductive rights.
|
| >Of course the oppressive group is going to be large; how
| else would it have any power?
|
| Those in control of such government are actually in the
| minority; abortion and gay marriage and social programs
| are actually pretty popular. That's why they need Project
| REDMAP: to maintain power. The beneficiaries of endless
| tax cuts are an even smaller minority. But this is all
| just by the numbers, not how it makes a celebrity on
| Twitter feel, as platformed by a multinational news
| conglomerate.
|
| Emmett Till "was a 14-year-old African American boy who
| was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in
| 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman,
| Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. The
| brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers
| were acquitted drew attention to the long history of
| violent persecution of African Americans in the United
| States." [0]
|
| Just so we're clear, you're suggesting an equivalence
| between Emmett Till being _actually lynched_ -- not an
| isolated event, but a zenith of decades of racism and
| oppression -- and the _suggestion_ , not implementation,
| that those accused of sexual assault receive no fair
| trial? Are these the symmetrical arguments you're
| referring to?! They might have a symmetric character, but
| what those arguments _are actually for_ aren 't
| realistically comparable under anything like human
| morality. Unpunished murder as a result of systemic
| oppression versus angry suggestions on a forum are not
| the same, but I can't imagine what else you could be
| trying to say. If you're not actually American, you
| should be aware that you're carrying water in their
| culture war.
|
| One is what happened, one is powerless angryposting about
| what might happen. One group has taken away reproductive
| rights (for some, see "only moral abortion", above); one
| group is trying to prevent their own rights from being
| taken away. Symmetry!
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till
| harimau777 wrote:
| It's not in-group vs out-group, it's tolerant versus
| intolerant. If, for example, someone believes that
| homosexuality is a sin, but they treat gay people with
| respect and support them having the same rights as
| straight people, then there's no problem.
| concordDance wrote:
| > I suppose you've never heard of right-wing militias
| showing up to left-wing protests while cops look on,
|
| Note that the reverse is also quite common. "Punch a
| Nazi" was very popular for a while and antifa was big.
| Political violence is back on the rise in the USA, though
| its not as bad as the 70s.
|
| > I suppose you've never heard Donald Trump suggest that
| "what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's
| happening"?
|
| It really sucks that it was Trump who popularised the
| idea of "fake news". It tarnished an idea that long
| predated the most untruthful politician in modern US
| politics: While the big reputable news corps will very
| rarely lie in their own voice (I've only seen a couple of
| examples over many years of news reading) it is extremely
| common for those reading the news to pick up an incorrect
| view of what happened. Two years later I'm still
| correcting educated people who believed that the 6/6
| capitol invaders beat a policeman to death with a
| flagpole and a fire extinguisher. Or those who believe
| the Canadian protest truckers were Nazis proudly waving
| Nazi flags (as opposed to being disproportionately waving
| signs declaring the _government_ were Nazis and _these_
| signs having swastikas or SS symbols etc on them).
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| >Note that the reverse is also quite common. "Punch a
| Nazi" was very popular for a while and antifa was big.
| Political violence is back on the rise in the USA, though
| its not as bad as the 70s
|
| If the Nazis self-identify, and the most famous cases
| indeed did, I can't say I'm terribly concerned. Publicly
| espousing the view that some people are naturally
| inferior not by creed but by nature, and that you intend
| to impose physical consequences on them for that nature,
| isn't compatible with a free society. I don't think
| violence is a necessary condition to stop the Self-
| Identified Nazis from carrying out their murderous plans,
| but history shows that it is a sufficient one. Now look
| at the numbers: who hurts who, and by how much? Which is
| the bigger threat, as assessed by the US government:
| "left-wing terrorism", or "right-wing terrorism"? And
| what's "antifa"? Is it an organization with a website and
| funding, like the Proud Boys or Stormfront or the
| National Socialist Movement?
|
| >it is extremely common for those reading the news to
| pick up an incorrect view of what happened
|
| Sure, anyone who regularly reads HN has probably noticed
| the Gel-Mann Effect [0] in news articles pertaining to
| tech; other experts regularly notice them regarding their
| fields of expertise. Whether due to an overworked "staff
| writer" or intentional puff-piece (or imperative commands
| from The Owners to say this or that), the idea that one
| can "pick up an incorrect view of what happened" isn't
| unreasonable.
|
| I don't think that's what Trump is talking about when he
| suggests that the 2020 election was fraudulent and that
| the Constitution should be suspended in order to restore
| him to power.
|
| >Or those who believe the Canadian protest truckers were
| Nazis proudly waving Nazi flags (as opposed to being
| disproportionately waving signs declaring the government
| were Nazis and these signs having swastikas or SS symbols
| etc on them)
|
| Or those who believe the "Canadian protest truckers" were
| mostly truckers, or that they didn't have a memorandum of
| understanding that the Canadian Prime Minister should be
| violently deposed and replaced by a council chosen by
| them!
|
| [0] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-
| stated-the-ge...
| naasking wrote:
| > If the Nazis self-identify, and the most famous cases
| indeed did, I can't say I'm terribly concerned.
|
| You should be. Normalizing a behaviour encourages more of
| that behaviour, and outside of the original context.
|
| > Publicly espousing the view that some people are
| naturally inferior not by creed but by nature, and that
| you intend to impose physical consequences on them for
| that nature, isn't compatible with a free society
|
| Sure it is, as long as that view remains fringe, which it
| is. Encouraging or even tolerating violence against such
| people emboldens them and their claims of persecution,
| and the violence itself generates sympathy. You're better
| off ignoring them and addressing the factors that cause
| people to gravitate to these ideas. _That 's_ where we're
| failing today.
| ilyt wrote:
| >The paradox of tolerance, as it is commonly argued, has
| to be one of the worst philosophical arguments actually
| taken seriously.
|
| I think you meant that people use it as an excuse to be
| intolerant, instead of applying it whole. They are not
| "taking the philosophical argument seriously" in the
| first place.
| harimau777 wrote:
| Arguing in bad faith and encouraging their followers to
| disregard rational arguments is precisely what right wing
| groups (Fox News, Crowder, InfoWars, etc.) are doing. For
| example:
|
| The popular idea of "owning the libs" is based on
| trolling instead of engaging in rational debate.
|
| Labeling any even remotely left wing economic policy as
| "communism" is an attempt to invoke fear of Stalinism
| rather than considering the policy on its own merits.
|
| Refusing to understand what progressives mean by "gender"
| vs. "sex" in order to make discussion of the related
| issues impossible.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| > The paradox of tolerance, as it is commonly argued, has
| to be one of the worst philosophical arguments actually
| taken seriously.
|
| My understanding of the "paradox" was consistent with the
| long-form argument that you provided, and it always made
| perfect sense to me. In the face of a violent group who
| don't respect the arguments and traditions of tolerant
| society, societies must defend themselves with means
| other than rational argument, or perish. You seem to be
| arguing not against Popper but rather against some
| nebulous "as it is commonly argued" (maybe on Reddit?)
| and you haven't done a very good job of defining the
| position you're critiquing.
| cauch wrote:
| Two things come to mind when reading this.
|
| First: "as long as we can counter them by rational
| argument and keep them in check by public opinion,
| suppression would certainly be most unwise"
|
| That's the trick, right? Reality shows that countering
| crazy ideas with rational argument is not working very
| well. There are still people in US convinced that "the
| election was stolen" whatever argument is used, and they
| will never change their mind (they don't have any reason
| to change their mind: any argument can be claimed being
| "part of the conspiracy" so they don't have to accept a
| result that they don't like).
|
| Second: I don't see why it should be "all or nothing".
| Intolerance has different degrees of application. It goes
| from using violence to just refusing to give a platform
| to intolerant people (which is very mild: they can go
| everywhere else). It's part of "keeping them in check by
| public opinion". If someone has an intolerance level of
| degree 10, we can reply with an anti-intolerance measure
| of degree 10. If they have an intolerance level of degree
| 2, why should we not reply to anti-intolerance measure of
| degree 2?
| harimau777 wrote:
| Your first point is what I never see addressed in these
| discussions. I agree that "intolerance of intolerance" is
| dangerous since it could easily be abused or misused, but
| what's the alternative? What we are doing now isn't
| working.
| woooooo wrote:
| It's working fine? Who is President right now?
|
| The people who stormed the capitol are not being
| tolerated and approximately noone is arguing that they
| should be.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Is "noone" a euphemism for Donald Trump (and his many
| followers and sycophants and white supremacist dinner
| guests)? That's the only way I can make sense out of your
| argument.
|
| Donald Trump says he plans to pardon US Capitol attack
| participants if elected:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/01/donald-
| trump...
| concordDance wrote:
| Though many argue that most are being disproportionately
| punished for a minor trespass offence.
| harimau777 wrote:
| I'm not sure it is. There are still numerous anti-trans
| laws being passed. The supreme court struck down the
| right to an abortion and looks set to allow businesses to
| discriminate against gay people. Police brutality and
| unequal legal outcomes are still common. Gerrymandering,
| the electoral college, and campaign finance reform means
| that the weak still have almost no voice in government.
| [deleted]
| cvbv wrote:
| Saving children from being sterilized is actually a very
| good thing. It's one of the few things that conservative
| legislatures are getting right. They have, perhaps
| unintentionally, adopted some of the radical feminist
| position on this - to the benefit of women and children.
|
| The rest of their legislative agenda, agreed, it's not so
| great.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Saving children from being sterilized is actually a
| very good thing.
|
| Which children are being sterilised? Do you mean the ones
| going on puberty blockers? Because those are reversible,
| aren't they?
| naasking wrote:
| > Reality shows that countering crazy ideas with rational
| argument is not working very well.
|
| Really? Seems to be working great actually, we've had
| centuries of great social progress and increased
| liberties, an explosion of scientific knowledge, and
| religious adherence has never been lower. Rational
| argument seems to be winning in the long arc of history.
|
| Maybe you think there have been some disturbing recent
| hiccups, but if people seem to have "crazy ideas", you
| can also consider whether you truly understand where they
| are coming from.
| cauch wrote:
| Well, the centuries of progress you are referring to are
| sometimes happening in countries that, at the time, were
| applying a anti-intolerance stance. Laws again libel, for
| example, exist for centuries in countries where progress
| grew sometimes faster than in other places.
|
| On top of that, for your argument to work, saying that
| progress happened is not enough. You also need to prove
| that progress happened _better_ than otherwise. For all I
| know, we had great social progress, but we would have had
| super great social progress if more anti-intolerance
| happened.
| concordDance wrote:
| > Reality shows that countering crazy ideas with rational
| argument is not working very well
|
| It's working quite well really. There are few things that
| people stick to their guns on in the face of a good
| argument. For the average person maybe only a dozen or
| so.
|
| > There are still people in US convinced that "the
| election was stolen" whatever argument is used, and they
| will never change their mind (they don't have any reason
| to change their mind: any argument can be claimed being
| "part of the conspiracy" so they don't have to accept a
| result that they don't like).
|
| This is a bad example, actually providing a compelling
| argument on a case like this which is built on divergent
| world view would be the length of a book (to rebuild the
| erroneous parts of the world view), not an essay.
|
| The correct solution is to give people _general_
| epistemological tools and habits that are applicable in
| most situations that allows and encourages them to do
| properly rigorous research to understand a complex issue.
| That teaches them what kind of questions they need to
| ask, what sort of context might be relevant, how to judge
| reliability of information and ensuring they make their
| hypothesis disprovable.
| cauch wrote:
| People have zero incentive to do difficult effort to
| learn to accept things that they don't want to even
| accept in the first place.
|
| It's like saying "we should teach people to understand
| why committing crime is bad, so no one will commit crime
| anymore"
| ryan93 wrote:
| support for gay marriage has increased massively over my
| lifetime.
| endominus wrote:
| Per the second point, I have a thought experiment I like
| to present people. Let's say you were a judge at a murder
| trial. The evidence has been presented, and it's up to
| you to make a final decision, but you remain unsure.
| After taking stock of every scrap of evidence presented,
| you think there's a 60% chance that the defendent
| committed the crime. The punishment for murder is 10
| years of jail time. After some thought, you decide to
| give him 6 years, to match the level of evidence.
|
| Is that just?
|
| What you are proposing is normalizing intolerance.
| Systemitizing it, so that it has the appearance of
| fairness and justice while altering the culture and
| expectations around it. And as Popper (and Plato before
| him) argued, such a distinction requires a despot to
| determine who is unacceptably "intolerant" and who is
| merely intolerant of the intolerant. That philosophical
| position is incompatible with liberal democracy - that's
| what makes the "paradox of tolerance" a paradox!
| harimau777 wrote:
| I don't think that's a comparable scenario. In the
| scenario that you present the question is whether someone
| actually did what they are accused of. In the parent's
| scenario the question is how they should be punished for
| what they did.
|
| A better comparison would be a defendant who was found
| guilty but there were mitigating circumstances and a low
| probability of reoffending. In that case I would
| definitely support a reduced sentence.
|
| Similarly, the parent would presumably advocate
| overlooking intolerance when there are mitigating
| circumstances or if the intolerance is unlikely to have a
| serious effect. It's the difference between your uncle
| telling an off color joke at Thanksgiving and the chief
| of police villainizing black people in a press
| conference.
| cauch wrote:
| Your thought experiment does not correspond to what I am
| talking about. Your thought experiment correspond to the
| following situation: "someone is intolerant and are doing
| intolerant actions, but you don't these actions. Maybe
| these actions are intolerant to level 10, maybe they are
| intolerant to level 2".
|
| In what I'm talking about, you assess the situation and
| come to the conclusion "Mr A has done an intolerant
| action of level 2, so, we react by using anti-intolerance
| of level 2. Mrs B has done an intolerant action of level
| 10, so, we react by using anti-intolerance of level 10."
|
| The "all or nothing" is not working well, I have a
| thought experiment. Let's say you were a judge at a
| trial. The evidence has been presented, and it's up to
| you to make a final decision. The trial contains a lot of
| proofs and shows that the defendant stolen something. But
| you can only condemn the defendant for murder. If it's
| not murder, you need to let him free, and, if he want, he
| can steal again. If he steal, he may be arrested again,
| judged again, and released again without sentence,
| because it's not murder.
|
| > And as Popper (and Plato before him) argued, such a
| distinction requires a despot to determine who is
| unacceptably "intolerant" and who is merely intolerant of
| the intolerant
|
| That's social study 101, and if you don't realise that
| this challenge appears in EVERYTHING related to social,
| then I doubt you can provide anything constructive. Who
| decide that murder is bad? Who decide that underage
| alcohol drinking is bad? Who decide that putting
| employees in situation where they have to choose between
| bad salaries and not having anything at all is bad? ...
| There will always be a "despot" who judge what is good or
| bad. The trick is that this despot should be an active
| and continuous discussion between citizens not based on
| emotions, but based on what is fair.
| Stupulous wrote:
| >Reality shows that countering crazy ideas with rational
| argument is not working very well.
|
| Have you had a very different experience of reality than
| me? Apart from some very niche places, the response to
| crazy ideas has been insult, ignore, and call for
| censorship. In the rare case that any good faith response
| is made, it's an appeal to an authority that the crazies
| don't respect because it repeatedly and unapologetically
| lied about someone they do.
|
| From my perspective it is abundantly evident that the
| decades-long push of these people out of the public and
| into their own spaces is the cause of our current strife.
| In the aforementioned niche places, election doubts were
| all but extinct within a month because people actually
| addressed them at the object level. But I'm not saying
| you're wrong, I'm genuinely curious about where/when
| you've seen rational argument fall short.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| You do not need a strong mechanism to suppress
| intolerance all the time, nor autocracy, not even
| hierarchy.
|
| People used shaming, ostracizing and exclusion since
| forever against odious individuals. The real problem is
| groups of such people, especially bigger ones, and
| preventing such groups from accumulating or a strong
| demagogue with such odious views from taking control. The
| Internet makes it easier for such people to aggregate...
|
| There also is no such thing as a benevolent despot. To
| remain a despot, that person must ultimately do very
| calculated nasty things to remain in power. If only
| economic exploitation. (This as opposed to a chosen
| dictator who can be removed from power at any time,
| presumably.)
| endominus wrote:
| >You do not need a strong mechanism to suppress
| intolerance
|
| I would argue that you do need one, evidenced in your
| examples. You need a strong cultural bias/expectation
| towards tolerance. You need people to understand that
| tolerance is a good thing, a universally positive
| attribute. If the cultural holds that as a central
| belief, it has a strong defence against intolerance. The
| problem with the pop-culture formulation of the paradox
| of tolerance is that it weakens that belief.
|
| I heard a quote some time back that I loved; the only
| thing harder than holding to your convictions all of the
| time is holding to them some of the time. Any weakness in
| a people's belief that tolerance is a virtue, any
| exception that they carve out, can be worked on, widened,
| and manipulated by malicious actors. The danger of this
| idea of the paradox of tolerance is that it naturally
| leads people to accept intolerance - in the specific
| sense that the paper under discussion is using the term,
| the revocation of civil rights and liberties - as normal,
| necessary, and right.
|
| The idea of the benevolent despot is a Platonic one that
| Popper was arguing against. Fundamentally, the argument
| that some ideas are naturally dangerous and require
| suppression demands such a despot - at the very least, to
| determine which ideas are to be suppressed. Hence why the
| paradox of tolerance is an argument in favor of
| autocracy.
| JackFr wrote:
| > The Internet makes it easier...
|
| The printing press makes it easier...
|
| Radio makes easier...
|
| Television makes it easier...
|
| There is nothing new under the sun.
| mypastself wrote:
| Thank you for this. I'm seeing the argument and that
| particular misinterpretation raised frequently in online
| discussions lately. I suspect that few of its proponents
| have actually read Popper, and have based their
| interpretation on that terrible comic that's often
| reposted on Reddit.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| "Paradox" of tolerance is a narrow notion. Being intolerant
| of people who are intolerant only is the solution, the
| question is only of degree.
|
| Now what you're talking about is tolerance of use of
| violence, which is related to but not the same as
| intolerance. One can be perfectly tolerant yet willing to
| use force to defend their interests - perhaps even
| disproportional force.
|
| Tolerance is also not maximization of freedom. It's the
| bare minimum of allowing some people to live or not suffer
| odious consequences for being who they are, for what they
| believe and sometimes what they do.
|
| Now the thing about laws, if the authority enforcing or
| decreeing them is considered to be illegitimate...
| thewanderer1983 wrote:
| >"Paradox" of tolerance is a narrow notion. Being
| intolerant of people who are intolerant only is the
| solution, the question is only of degree.
|
| So more generally this. Person x who associates with
| group A is intolerant of group B because they think they
| are intolerant of C.
|
| To me what's really going on here is tribalism and lack
| of respect and dignity for other humans. Person x has
| decided to be intolerant of a person because they have
| placed them in a group of ideas they find wrong. Person x
| then shows no dignity or respect for that individual. The
| respect and dignity that everyone expects to be treated
| with.
|
| I've just become a father and I'm getting to experience
| my kids learning to walk, talk and develop ideas for the
| first time. It reminds me that all humans start this way.
| All knowing nothing as we go on our journey of
| development and understanding in life. Somewhere along
| that way, some of us decide that we being part of group A
| are more intelligent and/or have better values then
| others that we have decided to associate with group B.
| Therefore we decide that they don't deserve human respect
| and dignity when engaging with them. We have decided just
| to ignore them or cancel them or worse.
|
| This is the solution to intolerance?
| concordDance wrote:
| Even intolerance of advocacy of violence doesn't work as
| a solution as the law is enforced via the threat of
| violence. So any change to the add new laws is advocacy
| of state sanctioned violence.
| philippejara wrote:
| Popper was far less strict on the matter of "opinions" as
| your seem to portray, I quote:
|
| "Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of
| tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the
| disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited
| tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not
| prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught
| of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and
| tolerance with them.--In this formulation, I do not imply,
| for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance
| of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them
| by rational argument and keep them in check by public
| opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we
| should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even
| by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not
| prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but
| begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their
| followers to listen to rational argument, because it is
| deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of
| their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the
| name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the
| intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching
| intolerance places itself outside the law and we should
| consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as
| criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement
| to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave
| trade, as criminal."
|
| His position on opinions is that they're all fine, as long
| as they remain in the plane of opinions and are bound by
| rational dialogue. To him intolerance is pretty much
| physical violence or incitement to physical violence when
| faced with a logical argument.
| concordDance wrote:
| > free has to be intolerant to certain opinions that
| (should they become too widespread) would endanger the
| freedoms of others as well.
|
| As you allude to later on, this isn't really actionable
| from an objective perspective. Some hypotheticals:
|
| Imagine a society that currently doesn't require seat belts
| in cars. Any statements that the government should mandate
| seat belts would endanger others freedom to drive without
| seat belts, thus all such discussion and advocacy would be
| banned.
|
| Imagine a society which has a law that people may use
| whatever pronouns they think are appropriate for other
| people and neither corporations, nor individuals, nor the
| government may infringe on this. A proposal to allow
| corporations to make a policy requiring people to use
| others preferred pronouns in emails? Infringes on freedom
| and thus cannot even be discussed.
|
| Imagine a society which currently has no laws preventing
| people from copying information and distributing it.
| Copyright? Not even an idea you can discuss.
| bittercynic wrote:
| I think this reply avoids the thrust of the argument:
| there's no simple way to draw a clear line around the
| behaviors that shouldn't be tolerated. We need a robust
| process, and it is bound to be an ongoing effort to
| maintain a free society.
| mcculley wrote:
| We all have access. Thank you, Sci-Hub!
|
| https://sci-hub.se/downloads/2021-09-02/07/rasmussen2021.pdf...
| jwmoz wrote:
| That's quite interesting. I always found it difficult to relate
| to the left/right binary hatred.
| brundolf wrote:
| Seeing a lot of self-congratulatory nodding here
|
| I'll just say, this doesn't necessarily line up with my
| experience. The extremely intelligent people I know are every bit
| as likely to be politically intolerant as the less-intelligent
| people I know. They just have different reasons (overconfidence
| in their own logic/education, in their mental modeling, in the
| stupidity of the other side, etc)
|
| Would be curious to see a study where one high-IQ group is shown
| a fictional study with this conclusion and one isn't
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I don't want to be too abrasive, but are you sure they are
| _actually_ more intelligent, and not just more confident in
| their own intelligence?
| brundolf wrote:
| Yes, I have in mind people that I know quite well (several of
| whom I've worked with)
|
| The biggest predictor I've seen for political tolerance is
| exposure (or lack of) to those they disagree with (in non-
| political contexts). It's really easy to demonize people
| you've never gotten to know or develop rapport with as an
| individual, multifaceted person. And demons don't need
| political rights
| dTal wrote:
| In corner A, a published and peer reviewed N=2408 study that
| tracks political tolerance and its stability over several years
| across two countries.
|
| In corner B, your personal qualitative impression of your
| immediate acquaintance group.
|
| Is it possible that your skepticism is itself an example of
| overconfidence?
| tomlockwood wrote:
| N=2408 members of the Danish military or mechanical Turk
| participants, in a paper with one citation but a huge amount
| of retweets, in the time of the replication crisis. How is
| this paper credible?
| naasking wrote:
| In the replication crisis, psychology and sociology papers
| replicated about 30-35% of the time IIRC. In your
| experience, do random internet comments have a higher or
| lower chance of being true?
| tomlockwood wrote:
| As a random internet commenter, I think I face a bit of a
| paradox when answering this question. Do you, a random
| internet commenter, think this is a good paper? Should I
| believe you and the other people here? Should I look at
| how many upvotes this has on HN and see it as a sign of
| credibility, when all the upvotes come from random
| internet people?
| naasking wrote:
| I think evaluating credibility by placing a paper in the
| evidence pyramid is generally a good idea. I don't think
| the replication crisis is a reason to outright dismiss a
| paper, but certainly skepticism before replication is
| always warranted. I think one should also always be
| skeptical of how universal one's own experience truly is.
| throwoutway wrote:
| Skepticism can lead to hypothesis which can lead to new
| studies which can be superior to previous studies
| dTal wrote:
| Sure. There's nothing wrong with saying "this is
| counterintuitive to me, and I think it's worth exploring
| with an open mind why my mental model and the study
| diverge." But it's not really an interesting contribution
| to the dialogue to say "meh, I don't buy it" without any
| kind of followup. What are we meant to do with that?
| hristov wrote:
| Now there is a very clever bit of mind control.
| JackFr wrote:
| I find academic fads fascinating. "Intelligence" has become a
| taboo word, and so we find "cognitive ability" in its place,
| which is I guess a shibboleth for the in-group when you mean
| intelligence.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| there are many serial killers with very high IQ and zero
| ability to process logically the consequences of what they were
| about to do.
|
| cognitive abilities don't necessarily require intelligence,
| depending on which they are talking about.
|
| for example attention is a cognitive ability, many so called
| gifted kids lack the ability to focus and/or pay prolonged
| attention.
| WitCanStain wrote:
| I'm not sure I buy the high IQ but zero logical abilitu
| claim. Source?
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| see the literature about the most popular cases .
|
| They are all either sociopaths or psycopaths, two
| conditions that have in common the the inability to
| understand and care about the consequences of their
| actions.
| runeks wrote:
| > "Intelligence" has become a taboo word [...]
|
| Doesn't seem to be the case. Quote from the paper:
|
| > Largely omitted from the conversation, by contrast, is
| cognitive ability--also called intelligence, and which reflects
| the individuals' maximal (rather than typical) performance when
| understanding and solving complex problems and ideas.
| raegis wrote:
| They were using "cognitive ability" back in the 1980s when I
| was in high school taking the SAT.
| BMc2020 wrote:
| GWB wasn't stupid, he was 'intellectually incurious'.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| He flew interceptor aircraft in the US military, so obviously
| he had significant mental capacities. He also abused alcohol
| for a while in his early adult life, which would explain a
| lot of the symptoms we saw in his older years as president.
| BMc2020 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_military_servi
| c...
|
| Oh please. He got the spoiled rich kid treatment (son of a
| congressman in this case). Joining the guard was a way to
| get out of Vietnam. His 'champagne unit' flew obsolete
| fighters that were never going overseas. At a time when it
| was very hard for blacks to get into the guard, his unit
| had two. (Why? They were Dallas Cowboys).
|
| A smart man would take such a good deal and do nothing to
| screw up his free ride. GWB was not smart, so then...
| t-3 wrote:
| No, he was a good actor. If you thought he was a folksy
| idiot, that means he got you.
| BMc2020 wrote:
| He really committed to method acting then. So good he spent
| his entire life in character.
| teddyh wrote:
| You may have fallen for propaganda from your own team,
| trying to convince you that the opposing team is stupid:
| https://www.keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
| spookie wrote:
| I believe cognitive ability to be more concrete, clearer. In
| all honesty.
| [deleted]
| Veen wrote:
| Why? And by "why" I mean "for what reason". And by "reason" I
| mean "a cause for an action or event". And by "cause" I mean
| "a thing that gives rise to a phenomenon". So I suppose what
| I am saying is: "What cause for an action or event gives rise
| to the phenomenon of your belief that "cognitive ability" is
| clearer?"
| smt88 wrote:
| Why isn't ambiguous.
|
| Intelligence is used in multiple contexts and that makes it
| confusing even as a technical term. For example, in the
| context of national security or corporate strategy, it
| means "knowledge" rather than intellect.
| dahart wrote:
| Have you considered the possibility that "cognitive
| ability" is a technical term of art in this context, or an
| "improper noun".
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32673100 It's always
| worth assuming that terminology used for a technical
| scientific paper was chosen carefully and may imply certain
| specific things that those of us not working in the same
| field might not know.
|
| Still, even the words themselves don't seem to mean exactly
| the same thing; cognitive ability does seem more specific
| than intelligence (especially if you consider the common
| terms emotional intelligence, general intelligence, and
| artificial intelligence). It's pretty easy to find evidence
| that cognitive ability and intelligence mean slightly
| different things.
| https://sharpbrains.com/blog/2006/12/21/are-cognitive-
| abilit...
|
| Plus there are different aptitude tests, some named IQ Test
| (Stanford-Binet) and some named Cognitive Ability Test
| (CogAT).
| svnt wrote:
| The term intelligence has popular connotations that dilute
| its usefulness as a term of art. Once you zoom in on it, as
| with any abstract folk concept, you realize that there is
| no such thing as intelligence and because of that you
| cannot articulate a sensibly accurate position in a narrow
| field based on its use.
|
| In any sense of applied science "intelligence" is
| intractable. The historical equivalent definition would be
| maybe something like "cognitive ability for logic puzzle
| solving in Western culture"
|
| Or maybe you were making a joke, but this is a real
| problem, and "reason" has the same problem.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| This sort of churning around of words happens all over our
| culture, not just academia. Back in ~1985 when I was in school
| it became not ok to say retarded as that is derogatory , and
| there was shift to use the word "Special". Immediately then
| "special" become derogatory.
|
| Anyway this is normal human stuff that is always going on, its
| a bit silly, but its also fine. Find other battles to get
| irritated about that matter, is my advice.
| a_f wrote:
| Casuallly known as the euphemism treadmill I believe
| wanderingstan wrote:
| Yes, coined in 1984 by Pinker:
| https://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/05/opinion/the-game-of-
| the-n...
| contravariant wrote:
| Given how often intelligence is conflated with education or
| knowledge I don't think they're trying to avoid the word per se
| they're just trying to be explicit.
|
| They do use the term intelligence in the article itself.
| runeks wrote:
| How do they measure "cognitive ability" in this study?
|
| If it's just IQ the then why not just write "high-IQ" and
| avoid the ambiguity?
|
| EDIT: See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33855704
| cinntaile wrote:
| That's not an academic fad, it's just how languages organically
| evolve. The connotation of words shifts over time. Retard was
| ok before, now people say braindead instead. Switching one
| "medical" condition for another doesn't really change much but
| here we are because one is considered more ok than the other.
| In the future it'll be something else again.
| svnt wrote:
| Braindead people are the least able to defend themselves of
| any living humans. The fact that we use their condition as an
| insult is unconscionable.
|
| I don't know if I'm being sarcastic or not anymore.
| js2 wrote:
| > The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern
| world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of
| doubt. -- Bertrand Russell (1933) in "The Triumph of Stupidity"
|
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/03/04/self-doubt/
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| xcambar wrote:
| I'm afraid the title could be misread as "I'm tolerant so I'm
| more clever than you" or "the population of democratic nations
| are more intelligent than nondemocratic". All of that is
| obviously bullshit if you give it 2s of thoughts.
|
| That being said, democratic countries typically focus greatly on
| 1/ free speech (a driver of diversity) and 2/ education, which
| certainly is a good driver for cognitive ability, and might very
| well be a good driver for tolerance as well.
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| Is cognitive ability a euphemism for intelligence or something
| more specific?
| lr4444lr wrote:
| > with larger effects than education
|
| This is absolutely no surprise to those of us centrists who live
| in East coast blue cities.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Mostly vote for whoever I think causes the least amount of
| damage.
|
| I don't believe in branding, or false dichotomies masquerading as
| a democratic process.
|
| If Lord Buckethead ran internationally, the policies would poll
| well in my area.
|
| =)
| tomlockwood wrote:
| I wonder how consequential this paper is? It has been cited once
| but appears to have been widely retweeted. Is it a particularly
| good paper?
| tomlockwood wrote:
| Having a look at mentions of "political tolerance" in academic
| papers, it seems like there's been a great deal of discussion
| surrounding this since the 50s.
| runeks wrote:
| For anyone else curious how they measured "cognitive ability",
| here's the relevant section from the paper[1]:
|
| _Borge Priens Prove
|
| The Danish Draftee Board administered the Borge Priens Prove
| (BPP; Kousgaard, 2003) to the draftee sample. This 78-item test
| has a correlation of .82 with the full Wechsler Adult
| Intelligence Scale (Mortensen et al., 1989). We have access only
| to the composite BPP score, but a study of its four subtests
| demonstrated that Cronbach's alpha for the four tests, composed
| of verbal analogies, number sequences, letter matrices, and
| geometric figures, ranged from 0.72 to 0.82 (Hartmann & Teasdale,
| 2005).
|
| International cognitive ability resource
|
| MTurk participants completed the 16-item International Cognitive
| Ability Resource measure (Condon & Revelle, 2014). Alpha
| reliability was high (0.80), and strong convergent validity has
| been reported for the test (such as a correlation of 0.81 with
| the Shipley-2 measure of cognitive abilities: Condon & Revelle,
| 2014)._
|
| [1] https://sci-hub.ru/downloads/2021-09-02/07/rasmussen2021.pdf
| the-printer wrote:
| Studies like this are dangerous.
|
| 1. Scientific articles are almost like luxury clickbait these
| days. Let's be frank: how many of us paid even the minimum of 12
| USD for 48-hour access to the complete study and know what they
| even mean by the title?
|
| 2. This study in particular will likely engender the notion, that
| will now be taken as fact, that political intolerance is
| indicative of lack of "cognitive ability" (whatever that means).
| This point itself is an assumption, because the abstract consists
| of stanzas of loaded jargon.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| > science is dangerous
|
| Is this really the level of discussion we're having now?
| psychphysic wrote:
| Or not having more to the point!
| the-printer wrote:
| You have betrayed the nature of the angle-bracketed
| blockquote. Granted my initial response was prior to reading
| the article, I feel the same independent of the study in
| question, if not...stronger even, in spite of my errors.
| Perhaps my error itself is a testament to what I was saying.
|
| To entertain your intentional misquote, of course science has
| the capacity for danger. Is science some sort of monolithic
| and infallible structure that is incapable of being
| manipulated to inflict harm? Are you cognitively able to
| tolerate that?
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Are facts dangerous too? Should certain facts be hidden to
| protect people?
| jebronie wrote:
| wheelinsupial wrote:
| > how many of us paid even the minimum of 12 USD for 48-hour
| access to the complete study and know what they even mean by
| the title?
|
| I know not everyone on HN has a degree or access to college /
| university, but for those that do, don't you have alumni
| library access privileges?
| psychphysic wrote:
| What is half shocking, half depressing and increasingly common.
|
| Is mundane topics becoming "too dangerous" for general
| discourse.
|
| We (well I) mock the idea of religious topics know only to a
| small career (Rightful Heir star Trek TNG S06E23).
|
| Then it occured to me while the Klingons hid the true story of
| the creation of the original Kutliss by Kahless.
|
| People such as yourself would like to hide any topic which
| might undermine their personal preferred political agenda.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Some commentary...
|
| - Without access to the article and the author's definitions, I
| have some concern about the use of the word "ideals" in relation
| to tolerance as tolerance is less a matter of ideals and more a
| matter of being able to endure what we regard as disagreeable.
| It's something like patience. We can't show tolerance or patience
| for what we regard as good.
|
| - Today, we often construe tolerance as an obligation to accept
| and agree with ideas you disagree with (or else risk being called
| a bigot). Those who seem to be more vocal about the need for
| tolerance are often some of the nastiest people you'll meet. To
| quote Marcuse, "What is proclaimed and practiced as tolerance
| today, is in many of its most effective manifestations serving
| the cause of oppression."
|
| - What, then, does this article say about our universities? Our
| culture? Where is the tolerance of people with political views
| other than those now practically sanctioned by the state?
|
| - That cognitive ability should correlate highly with whatever is
| held to be an ideal in a culture is not especially surprising
| given that children who do well in school often do so because of
| how well they've conformed their thinking to what they've been
| taught. What is the difference between a child who receives high
| marks in a school following a curriculum laced with Nazi or
| Soviet propaganda versus one celebrating liberal or progressive
| values or something else? I am reminded of a story by Czeslaw
| Milosz in which he was addressing the problem of why so many
| intellectuals went along with the tyranny of the communist
| regime, and why he did not. His poetic answer was that it had
| less to do with reason and more to do with a "revolt of the
| stomach". What I take that to mean is that the "stomach" stands
| here for conscience (which is ultimately a matter of intellect,
| virtue, and rightly ordered will), and that intellectuals are
| great at rationalizing the hand that feeds them or threatens them
| if they do not possess properly formed consciences and virtue. If
| a certain understanding of tolerance is promoted in schools, then
| that's the version of tolerance I will expect most graduates to
| hold. You might even put on a show of considerate listening of
| the most absurd and obviously bad claims because you don't want
| to appear boorish and not because you're actually examining the
| claim seriously.
|
| - While it's true that greater cognitive ability means a greater
| _potential_ ability to examine claims, raw cognitive ability
| alone is worthless without virtue. You have to be honest, you
| have to have practice reasoning, you have to want to examine a
| belief fairly, you have to possess humility so you can know where
| your knowledge ends and therefore where your capacity to judge
| the truth of a claim ends, and you must not be swayed by ulterior
| motives like the desire for social approval or fear of
| disapproval. You should also have nothing to do with stupid,
| nonstarter ideas like skepticism or relativism or whatever else
| is used to justify false varieties of tolerance.
| biggerChris wrote:
| The title reads like me saying, " I'm smart because I work with 3
| year olds and put up with their annoying voice and bullshit".
| holmesworcester wrote:
| Yikes. Maybe this is why we tend to get less politically tolerant
| as we get older.
| Redilon wrote:
| Anecdotally people in their mid/late twenties + thirties are
| often the most tolerant. Teenagers and young adults are often
| more extreme in their views and hence often less tolerant.
|
| I'd argue the reason some grow less tolerant in the later half
| of their life is just that people often just stop giving a
| shit.
| motohagiography wrote:
| I can say that tolerance requires a capability for abstraction
| that is not intuitive to everyone. When we take things personally
| or respond emotionally, it is because we have reached the limit
| of our ability to reason about them abstractly. An example would
| be someone attached to a solution to a problem at work. They
| reach for emotional tools when they run out of ability to reason
| about it as categories or as objects. Some people don't bother
| with abstract reason at all and just act with whatever tools on
| whatever makes them central. The most seductive aspect of a lot
| of current political discourse is that it elevates and centers
| people with limited cognitive ability and offers them redemption
| and exaltation in exchange for channeling their smaller urges
| like envy and malice. It's an ancient hustle, imo.
|
| Politically and physically, it doesn't matter how intelligent you
| or your group are if you are outnumbered by a herd that responds
| to the appeals and actuation of its lower instincts. Enjoy the
| ride. The whole thing is quite a spectacle.
| syzarian wrote:
| There's a theory that human reasoning evolved in such a way
| that humans collectively don't search for the truth or the
| correct decision but rather for the most convincing reason.
| Whether or not this true it does appear to be how groups of
| humans act.
| svnt wrote:
| Define truth, though.
| syzarian wrote:
| In every language with a finite number of words there must
| be words that are not definable in terms of simpler
| words/concepts. Perhaps you've stumbled upon such a word
| with "truth". I think it is obvious what I meant to most
| people.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > When we take things personally or respond emotionally, it is
| because we have reached the limit of our ability to reason
| about them abstractly.
|
| > Politically and physically, it doesn't matter how intelligent
| you or your group are if you are outnumbered by a herd that
| responds to the appeals and actuation of its lower instincts.
|
| But this is not purely a matter of raw, inherent intellectual
| potential. Academics are notorious for having a history of
| rationalizing power or depravity of all kinds. The tyrannies of
| communism, for example, were the product of intellectuals who
| exploited the vices of the "proletariat" as a cudgel against
| their opponents. Ultimately, these intellectuals were fools
| because they either actually believed the absurdity of
| communism or they exploited a communism they didn't actually
| believe to gain power for themselves and through especially
| wicked deeds, and all evil is, after all, foolish and opposed
| to reason. I object to the notion that the more intellectual
| potential you have, the less evil you are just because you have
| a greater potential for intelligence. You can choose to be
| unwise for emotional and vicious reasons, thus thwarting the
| exercise of reason when it leads you some place you cannot
| handle.
| tescocles wrote:
| I don't know if this is quite what you mean, but I've had more
| than one discussion (and seen many more online on twitter,
| reddit) that goes something like:
|
| >Alice: say, for the sake of argument, that A is true
|
| >Bob: But A isn't true?
|
| >Alice: Whether A is true or not is a different question. For
| the purposes of our conversation (that we're talking about the
| consequences of A being true), it is.
|
| >Bob: But... A isn't true.
|
| >Alice: I give up!
|
| >Bob: I win!
|
| For Bob, it seems to be completely impossible to talk
| "stipulatively".
|
| It's equal parts frustrating and baffling to me that some
| people just can't understand the concept of talking about
| logical conclusions from some starting point independently from
| the veracity of that starting point, and I'd agree it's one of
| the big issues with (online) discourse today.
| dataflow wrote:
| I've been, and will probably continue to be, on both sides of
| this. The problem is that not every "A" deserves
| counterfactual analysis for both parties 100% of the time. As
| a silly nonpolitical example, imagine if A is "the earth is
| flat". I would be Bob in that example, because, well... I am
| not really willing to spend the time and effort required to
| debate the topic seriously every time it comes up, and I
| think most people are similar in this respect. It's not about
| cognitive ability, it's just that most people don't see the
| point of engaging in every conversation that's based on
| premises that are manifestly untrue to them.
| seti0Cha wrote:
| You are assuming that you are always aware of when you
| might be wrong. In other words, your judgement on when a
| counterfactual deserves to be entertained is itself
| fallible, and is most likely to be wrong when you have
| emotional commitments around the issue that are preventing
| you from reasoning well. By refusing to follow a line of
| reasoning, you are placing yourself beyond the ability to
| be reasoned with.
|
| I imagine you might dispute that that ever happens to you,
| and it may be that you are so thoroughly rational that it
| doesn't. But let me suggest a counterfactual for you:
| imagine you are not as rational as all that. How would you
| know? You would never engage in the conversations which
| would demonstrate this. So, as a general principle, maybe
| you should not assume that you are.
| missedthecue wrote:
| So if we were talking about conspiracy theories and I were
| to say, "imagine that the earth _were_ flat. Who would have
| motivation to hide it? "
|
| You would just have to stop the conversation there out of a
| complete inability to posit a theoretical in which the
| earth was flat?
| akiselev wrote:
| Honestly.. yeah. That situation is so ridiculous that I
| can't give a serious answer. I'd need to spend hours
| interrogating a flat earth believer just to figure out
| how to suspend my own disbelief. Question 1: how do you
| think Magellan's expedition circumnavigated the planet?
|
| Might as well ask me "imagine gorgokanakawommbledorks
| were a real thing, who would have motivation to hide it?"
| WTF is a gorgokanakawommbledork and what does it have to
| do with a civilization that never even acknowledged them?
| burnished wrote:
| I think you are missing some easy answers for that prompt
| like "no one". You don't have to accept their whole
| constellation of beliefs to accept an arbitrary statement
| for the purpose of discussion. Hell I think it allows you
| to make a stronger point - "even if I agreed with you on
| some of your priors I still think your conclusions are
| flawed".
|
| Frankly though from your responses I think your real
| position is more that you are particularly weary of this
| topic and/or don't feel the need to retread topics with
| new people if previous conversations have been
| unproductive.
| meany wrote:
| I agree that direct debate is a waste of time in these
| situations, and I as understand, research shows only makes
| the flat-earther more adamant. In situations like this, I
| focus on trying to understand what the emotional underlying
| driver is that moves people to support these kinds of views
| and see if I can engage with that. Humans are not primarily
| logical. Our views are heavily driven by need for
| acceptance by our community or to rationalize our
| uniqueness/importance, both which relate back to our
| survival
| dataflow wrote:
| > I focus on trying to understand what the emotional
| underlying driver is that moves people to support these
| kinds of views and see if I can engage with that. Humans
| are not primarily logical.
|
| Now imagine if A was "you committed this crime
| yesterday". There are _so_ many reasons beyond "acting
| emotionally" over why perfectly logical people wouldn't
| entertain a premise like that.
| naasking wrote:
| > The problem is that not every "A" deserves counterfactual
| analysis for both parties 100% of the time.
|
| Maybe a counterfactual analysis is not the point, but it's
| the first step to making some other relevant point, say by
| formal analogy. You shouldn't shoot down an argument before
| it even starts. Judge the actual argument when it's
| presented.
| rayiner wrote:
| That's fair, but I think there's a clear rule to be applied
| based on functional and practical considerations, which is
| to acknowledge that widely held assumptions must be debated
| in good faith. To take a political example, the majority of
| people in the world assume that marital unions (which are a
| feature of virtually every human society) exist primarily
| for the purpose of birthing and raising children. You can
| disagree with that premise, you can point out the other
| areas where society has agreed to deviate from that
| premise, you can point out the cruel ramifications of that
| rule in certain cases, etc. But you can't declare that
| premise ideologically and morally off-limits. Because you
| can't as a practical matter achieve a functional society by
| treating a wildly held belief as outside the scope of good
| faith debate.
| tptacek wrote:
| You could have said that about slavery in the 18th
| century.
|
| You can, in fact, declare some popular premises morally
| off-limits.
| nec4b wrote:
| No you couldn't say that about slavery! Because only a
| small privileged group was able to have slaves. On the
| other hand a majority of people gets married or live in a
| relationship. What a weird comparison you made comparing
| marriage to slavery.
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm obviously not comparing marriage to slavery. I'm
| observing that at various times, ideas that we today
| absolutely foreclose on were live debates, or even
| prevailing norms. In the early 18th century, if you'd
| gone around saying that all slaves must immediately be
| freed, and the matter wasn't up for discussion, you'd had
| been right. But Rayiner's logic could be turned against
| what you were saying, too.
|
| Just because 51% of people believe something, that
| doesn't mean we're bound to respect it. If that was true,
| Wikipedia would be infallible.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Well, seeing as we didn't get rid of slavery, but rather
| outsourced it, no you can't.
| tptacek wrote:
| This is incoherent.
| dp-hackernews wrote:
| Is it time for tea?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think the main problem raised by your statement is that
| people often don't have a sense of why they are talking or
| what the conversation is about. This is especially true on
| the internet, or as far as I can tell people are often just
| posting the first thing that comes into their mind.
| Speaking stipulatively may or may not be relevant, and that
| relevance depends on the subject and purpose at hand
| dataflow wrote:
| Or the issue is you can't find a polite way to
| communicate it at that point. Like in the flat earth
| case, "your premise is so insane that I don't want to
| waste another second of my life debating it with you"
| would... not go over well - neither with the second
| party, nor with the moderators of the forum facilitating
| it.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| That you're unable to even entertain the idea is the issue.
| synu wrote:
| You could spend your whole life entertaining flat
| earthers if you like, but why?
| dataflow wrote:
| Sorry, what? "I am unwilling to entertain it for the Nth
| time" does not imply "I am unable to entertain it" or "I
| have never entertained it".
| [deleted]
| nine_k wrote:
| Alice need to adapt to Bob's perception if she wants him to
| listen.
|
| "If we lived in a completely imaginary world where A were
| true" could address Bob's sensibilities a bit better.
|
| First make yourself heard, then make your point. Otherwise
| your point falls on deaf ears. This takes some ability to
| listen and tailor your arguments to fit your audience.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| >Bob: False premises lead to absurd conclusions. Therefore
| your demand that I agree to a "hypothetical" that we both
| know is false, is an attempt to pull a fast one somehow.
| ajuc wrote:
| Alice: have you heard of proofs by contradiction?
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| The Alices I speak to are rarely interested in this. It's
| usually an attempt to sneak in a plank of an argument to
| support some repugnant conclusion, without which plank
| said conclusion seems suspiciously like bigotry or a
| just-so story. Trickle-down economics, racial
| superiority, social spending, flat earthism, the divine
| right of kings, debt-to-GDP ratio-hacking, systemd, etc
| etc
| seti0Cha wrote:
| > an attempt to sneak in a plank of an argument to
| support some repugnant conclusion
|
| Why should that be a concern? Are you afraid you'll be
| forced to accept their conclusion?
| pessimizer wrote:
| This is where Bob claims to be an expert on Alice's
| motives (the motives that all people with her opinion
| secretly have), refuses to further participate in any
| discussions that allow Alice to contribute, and accuses
| anyone else who allows Alice to participate of _carrying
| water_ for trickle-down economics, racial superiority,
| social spending, flat earthism, the divine right of
| kings, debt-to-GDP ratio-hacking, systemd, etc etc.
|
| edit: not begging the question is literal racism.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| Alice: Assume P
|
| Bob: P is False, there's no point
|
| Alice: It's just a starting point for my argument
|
| Bob: And what are you trying to go with your argument?
|
| Alice: A proof by contradiction
|
| Bob: A proof by contradiction assumes not(X), shows that
| it leads to a contradiction, therefore proving not(X) is
| false, and X is true. In this case assuming P to perform
| proof by contradiction means you will prove P is False.
| If that's all you want to do, there is no need as I am
| already in agreement that P is false.
| ajuc wrote:
| > If that's all you want to do, there is no need as I am
| already in agreement that P is false.
|
| There's a difference between believing something is true
| and having a proof.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| Bob: Segmentation fault! (core dumped)
| MaysonL wrote:
| if A is false then A implies B is true, whatever the truth
| value of B is. Thus arguing from a false premise is
| meaningless.
| sicp-enjoyer wrote:
| That's a nice factoid, but if you read a little further in
| the logic book you would learn it's quite useful. Proving
| implications, such a B -> C can be an important step in
| themselves. It's also essential for proofs by contradiction
| and proofs of impossibility.
|
| Even if you were right, that particular definition of
| implication is just convention. There are other logical
| systems and views that don't interpret it that way.
| josephg wrote:
| "If there was a bug in module X, we'd see this exact
| behaviour..."
|
| "But there's definitely no bug there! I wrote that code
| myself!"
|
| These conversations seem pretty useful to me.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I've had your exact discussion both online and in person, You
| aren't alone.
|
| Sometimes online, I suspect it's insincere. They know why you
| are doing the hypothetical, it hurts their position, so
| instead of engaging with it they become absolutists.
|
| Other times, though (especially easy to see in person) it is
| VERY real. They simply are not capable of dealing with
| hypotheticals.
|
| Where that came up the most for me was when tutoring math in
| college. The abstract nature of math past algebra was just
| something some people could not grok. They wanted the hard
| and fast facts. "Ask me to do 7 * 5 and I'll have that answer
| in an instant, don't ask me riddles about x * 5 = 35".
| netsharc wrote:
| If Bob had heard the phrase before, maybe he'd say "I don't
| deal with hypotheticals". If I were Alice, that would make me
| see Bob as smart as an amoeba, because even animals deal with
| "What if" scenarios...
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| The signs of neurodegeneration like Alzheimer's include
| irritability and impulsivity, which intuitively supports this.
| It's like a failure of higher cognitive functions, so the basal
| emotions take over. Alternatively, it could just be a failure
| to regulate emotions.
| doliveira wrote:
| We're emotional beings first and foremost. That we're able to
| reason is just an accident of the big brains evolution gave us.
| [deleted]
| pickovven wrote:
| The research in this link isn't about whether or not people's
| behavior becomes emotional when encountering disagreement. But
| it's certainly interesting that takeaway is the top comment
| here.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| >I can say that tolerance requires a capability for abstraction
| that is not intuitive to everyone
|
| there's some pretty interesting research related to this done
| with criminals. At lower levels of IQ they aren't capable of
| hypotheticals like "how do you think the person felt when you
| robbed them" or "how do you think the mother of the person you
| killed felt about that". Which raises the question of how much
| they can even be held accountable for their actions to some
| degree
|
| Empathy requires a certain level of intelligence, children
| don't have the cognitive ability for it until they are a few
| years old and there are many "normal" adults walking around
| with IQ in a similar range as those children. High IQ
| psychopaths are interesting because they seem to be able to
| overrule most criminal behavior despite also not feeling
| empathy, they probably just run some sort of cost-benefit
| analysis that simulates empathy
| generalizations wrote:
| > Which raises the question of how much they can even be held
| accountable for their actions to some degree
|
| I think they can still be held accountable. They were told
| not to do a thing, and they did it.
| lmm wrote:
| Telling the unintelligent they must blindly follow orders
| doesn't seem like a great strategy for society either.
| _mway wrote:
| > _[...] it doesn 't matter how intelligent you or your group
| are if you are outnumbered by a herd that responds to the
| appeals and actuation of its lower instincts._
|
| Quite so, at least empirically speaking (in my own
| observations, anyway).
|
| I guess a natural follow up would be, is there any feasible
| external (to such a group) or general (trans-group) impetus to
| either (a) increase abstract reasoning or (b) avoid "baser"
| framing, assuming that's not intrinsically pointless? Obviously
| with e.g. politics, this is the goal of many folks (to incite
| emotionally rather than engage rationally, or to mask emotion
| as rationality), but I wonder how feasible it is to increase
| rational discussion (through abstraction, or other means) about
| rational topics for the sake of productive discourse.
| prirun wrote:
| It seems that encouraging this would have to start at a very
| young age, in elementary school. Parents may not have the
| capability (cognitive ability) or time to instill this kind
| of thinking in their kids.
|
| However, school is usually a place where authority,
| hierarchy, and group-think is reinforced rather than
| questioned. I can't see schools encouraging kids to do
| thought experiments like "Let's say your parents don't like
| it that a boy wants to have a boyfriend instead of a
| girlfriend. Instead of you just believing whatever your
| parents say, let's talk about why they believe that, how they
| might be getting it wrong, and why it's okay if you don't
| agree with them." Actually, some schools are trying that,
| with the predictable backlash from parents and others in the
| local community.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| This is the basis of the (apocryphal?) idea developed in the
| SAS of having a cup of tea. It's the same idea as "delay your
| reaction to a negative stimuli as long as possible."
|
| Political disagreements have been structured in our society
| along dialectics of power and, as such, are designed to attack
| and malign the very identity of the parties who disagree. This
| triggers the social isolation / anxiety response and can amount
| to amygdala hijacking, and then people lose their cool.
|
| It helps a lot to keep in mind that these responses have been
| exquisitely engineered via social media, cable news, etc. and
| that the person in front of you (or even online) is likely not
| your true enemy and you probably have more shared interests
| than you might think.
| l33t233372 wrote:
| When you say SAS, are you referring to the UK's special air
| service?
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Yup
| tbrownaw wrote:
| This paper is available on sci-hub.
|
| # What do they mean by "cognitive ability"?
|
| > Our Danish sample was selected using a registry of military
| draftees, which has been in operation since 2006. We drew our
| sample from the subset of the registry which had taken a
| cognitive ability test.
|
| > For our American sample, 2,766 respondents completed our survey
| using MTurk in September and October 2014.
|
| > The Danish Draftee Board administered the Borge Priens Prove
| (BPP; Kousgaard, 2003) to the draftee sample. This 78- item test
| has a correlation of .82 with the full Wechsler Adult
| Intelligence Scale (Mortensen et al., 1989). We have access only
| to the composite BPP score
|
| > MTurk participants completed the 16-item International
| Cognitive Ability Resource measure (Condon & Revelle, 2014).
|
| # What do they mean by "tolerance"?
|
| > First, questions of tolerance concern whether one thinks a
| group's fundamental rights (particularly pertaining to
| expression) should or should not be protected. This is,
| conceptually, not the same as asking whether one likes or has a
| positive affect for the group in question, although some
| psychological studies appear to treat it as such.
|
| > To say that questions of affect and tolerance are different is
| not to say they are entirely separable. The relationship between
| these domains in fact represents the second key element to
| operationalizing tolerance. Specifically, tolerance only
| meaningfully applies to groups that one might be motivated to
| restrict--that is, those one dislikes or otherwise opposes
| (Gibson, 2013; Sullivan et al., 1982).
|
| > A third element related to assessing tolerance is that the
| frequently observed discrepancy between an individual's
| generalized commitments to tolerance and the tolerance they
| endorse for specific groups makes the assessment of tolerance a
| distinctively complicated task (Gibson, 2013)
|
| # What groups did they ask about people's tolerance of?
|
| > Right/Christian Fundamentalists
|
| > Neo-Nazis
| tbrownaw wrote:
| This does _not_ appear to be the standard "university
| graduates have more leftist social values" that the title
| initially looked like it might be.
| the-printer wrote:
| The actual content of the article is underwhelming and mildly
| comical. Maybe the collective responses that can be gleaned
| from the comments here are as telling as the actual study.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| Yeah absolutely agreed. This article is widely and wildly
| retweeted, but seems academically dubious. HN really has a
| problem with upvoting things that conform to it's
| worldview.
| toss1 wrote:
| Now, what is the cognitive ability required to not only
| understand and be tolerant of other political points of view, but
| also recognize that this has limits, first and best highlighted
| by Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance [0].
|
| "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance
| must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend
| unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are
| not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught
| of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and
| tolerance with them..."
|
| And managing this paradox of tolerance requires even higher
| cognitive load than simply being absolutely tolerant, but
| constant judgements, and maintaining stability on a very
| 'slippery slope'.
|
| [0] https://www.politicalempathyproject.org/blog-posts/karl-
| popp...
| pca006132 wrote:
| You probably don't want to mess with someone who is both dumb and
| with low political tolerance. Now you can reduce this to avoiding
| people who are dumb...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-12-04 23:01 UTC)