“Humans Are Not Smart Enough to Have Ideas That Lie Beyond Challenge and Debate” | Hacker News Reader

“Humans Are Not Smart Enough to Have Ideas That Lie Beyond Challenge and Debate”

reason.com

30 pointscolinprince34 comments

If you're trying to come up with something that lies beyond challenge and debate right now, you're missing the point.

Here's another. The number one, in the mathematical sense, remains the same value, regardless of the time or galaxy that you discuss the number 'one'. Mind you, I'm not describing the 'one' as tied to a physical quality like temperature, mass, heat transfer etc.

I'm going to challenge this based on the idea of fractal geometries, wherein a universe exists in which the number 1 doesn't exist.

That's not really true, there is a mathematical system where 0=1. It's just... Not very interesting, aside from it's existence.

That's not really true, there is a mathematical system (maybe even more than one) where "0=1", but when we say "1", we are not talking about what "1" refers to in such a system, we are talking about what "1" refers to in some mathematical system(s) in which "0≠1"

Nope. One is the multiplicative identity and zero is the additive identity. There's no a priori reason why the same number can't be both.

I'm sort of curious. All the talk about Universities shutting down debate and any sort of ideas that lie outside of the accepted left-wing doctrine. Is there anyone here on HN that supports this notion? That supports the suppression of contradictory ideas? That would protest if some horrible right-winger came to give a talk on your campus? Would love to actually hear from one of these individuals who would actually protest, actively try to stop a dissenting opinion from being spoken on campus.

Is there just one of you here?

I’ll raise my hand.

There’s no benefit in tolerating intolerance. If fascists take power they’ll come for the enlightened centrists too.

Try telling the gestapo “While, I respect your right to your opinions, I must ask you to unhand my wife and leave my home. “

So be intolerant to intolerance?

Is that a recursive function? Feels like it.

We had a war about it. It was a pretty big deal.

To read more on this concept, look up "paradox of tolerance".

Fuck yes be tolerant of intolerance. You don’t have to agree with it, but you can’t stop people speaking their minds. Even if those thoughts are repugnant.

Free speech only matters for the repugnant stuff. The phrase wouldn’t even exist if people only talked about rainbows and lollipops.

Study this case and try to see why the ACLU fought for it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_...

But who is a fascist? Few people will openly profess being one; many more will be accused (by somebody somewhere) of being a fascist even though they insist they are not. So, are you saying we should be intolerant only of self-professed fascists? Or also people who are labelled as fascists even if they claim not to be? But if the later – since anyone can levy the accusation, who will be given the power to decide which accusations of "fascism" are sufficiently proven to justify intolerance, and which ought to be dismissed? And how do you ensure that whoever is granted this power will not abuse it?

Fortunately, like conservatives, liberals also have critical thinking skills and opinions, and are able to disagree on who to protest and how vigorously.

So we should debate it? But how do we decide who wins the debate? Should we have a majority vote? If the majority believes a belief deserves our tolerance, then it should be tolerated, otherwise not?

Yeah I'll see you at the next antifa council meeting. I'll be the one in black.

Just want to point out that there are ways to protest that do not prevent the other person from speaking. Standing silently in the back of the room with signs, for example. I would wholeheartedly support such a protest.

Well that’s just more speech which is of course welcomed. What’s happening on campuses is quite different.

Maybe this is a US thing, but during 8 years of studying (media science among other things) I never once have seen an occasion where I would've seen use in protest. Sure there are people with differing opinions and political backgrounds, but in the end there is a minimum bar of merit people have to cross. It is not like we are inviting edgy "controversial" youtubers who cite papers they only have read the titles from to construct theories that have been falsified half a century ago without any interest in the actual field. Even if you study philosophy (like I did as well) the debates are typically extremely focused on the subjects at hand. So what you won't see is some guy from a political party trying to shoehorn what they already belive into a theory of everything held together by good will and hand waving. This is just not worthy of any discussion at all and would drag down the level of debate.

Of course that could depend of the field you are studying in, but you are either interested in the truth or you are interested in making a political point. Both at once is rarely the case.

I am working as an educator at an art university. In my perception the shutting down of debate is not at all an issue. Some seem to imagine that students have nothing else to discuss than "woke" issues, but they are actually studying in a certain field and "woke issues" might play different (usually very minor) roles their fields.

Our university typically invites people based on the merits in their field (and whether what they can contribute fits into the existing curriculae), not based on their political orientation. In the US where you have two parties this might be more pressing maybe?

My experience as a former student in theatre, film and media science is however that it is rare to have actual good rightwing scholars in that specific field, but this also translates to the arts. Good scholars have to be devoted to the fields primarily and not to a political cause. Inviting someone just because of their politics is not something that is done, unless their work is good.

The topics people deal with are in themself not unchallenging or "woke", e.g. Film students would also look at films of Nazi filmmakers, soviet propaganda films, other filmic movements, etc. So certainly not a diet that you would show to people if you want to avoid opening their perspective.

So my take on this is that there is enough different perspective here. Sure this university tries to avoid inviting trolls, political activists (from all sides!) and downright destructive people (from all sides!) — but that doesn't hurt the debate, it helps it.

The latest flashpoint for this kind of protest was e.g. Milo Yiannopolous coming to universities to give a "talk" that was little more than a hit-list of trans students on campus. Even when they're not so viscerally violent, they resemble political rallies far more than academic discussion.

In reality universities have never been the kind of place conservatives are now claiming they used to be. At most the shift is that speaker choices are now becoming more student-driven rather than admin-driven (but there was also a not-too-distant point where they became more admin-driven than lecturer-driven). That might be worth criticizing, but that's not the criticism being leveled.

And isn't it weird how "Speech First, Inc" has a lot to say about DEI programs or whatever "CRT" refers to this week but nothing to say about anti-BDS policies or Don't Say Gay bills?

"Free speech", or specifically its current cultural manifestation in the US, is also the kind of foundational issue universities should re-examine, isn't it? America has some of the broadest free speech laws in the world, but it's not clear they're materially more informed, receptive, or accurate than e.g. Germany or France.

It is inevitable that to progress ideas need to be built upon ideas. In order to make progress in any area of science or technology, you can't investigate every axiom in the chain. You need to implicitly trust that a lot of those ideas are true, especially if there is an academic consensus.

In my experience the people who mostly have their views shut down are people who derail high level (conversations about ideas built upon lots of levels of ideas) with questions about lower levels of ideas.

One (strange) example may be; in a debate regarding the best way to colonise Mars, a third person questioning the existence of space.

It's not helpful to question the existence of something that has been proven over and over again. It's wasting everyone's time. But it makes a good hot take for the media to represent like it is somehow an equal and opposite opinion.

So the third person, who questions the basics that scientists have been agreeing on for a long time, uses cheap arguments to derail the conversation. They get rewarded for it with media time, and people that want to confirm their anti-establishment biases.

This is the person that is most likely to get their views censored; and then the most likely to complain that wokeism is going too far and censoring debate.

I apologise for the Australian slang but-- Mate, nobody is censoring real debate; they're censoring shit-takes.

Unfortunately this may sound right but I believe you’re mistaken. Great example btw re Mars. But here’s a counter example that may prove my point:

A lecture is being had about the proper methods for dealing with runaway slaves. There is hot debate about how many slashes should be given vs how much food is withheld vs other forms of punishment. A lone protester in the back of the room has the nerve to call into question the morality of slavery to begin with. Has the nerve to derail the discussion into whether or not slavery should even exist. Questions out widely held axioms.

To me the most enlightening quote is: No social progress has ever been made that wasn’t at first widely rejected by the majority.

Think about that. It means how can ever expect to make progress if dissenting ideas (even one’s that question fundamental axioms!) are not permitted to be discussed.

Society has never had "academic institutions that pursue truth over any other concern" and thankfully never will. This mythologizing of universities past feels acceptable to liberals because it flatters their current values, but is ultimately a boring "good old days" reactionary turn.

If you are the last woman alive, and there is one man alive, you must produce children. Contradict me, assuming you are not the alien species that tried to wipe us out.

OK, how about this: why should the human race persist? What makes humans so superior to other forms of life?

Not saying it needs to but hey, if other forms of life are procreating by default, I think humans are allowed to make that simple choice as well.

Whether or not it should, it will. You might not believe that you are under any duty to reproduce, but there are many religious ultra-conservatives in this world who believe that they have a sacred duty to do so. Given the very high birth rates of many such religious groups (the Amish, Hasidic/Haredi Jews, Quiverfull Evangelicals, Traditionalist Catholics, Salafist Muslims, etc) – and that many of them do an excellent job of retaining their children in the faith (some of these groups continue to sustain >90% retention rates even after multiple generations) – humanity isn't going anywhere. But the more that secular (and religiously moderate/liberal) people choose not to have kids, to have fewer kids, to start families at a later age – the more they are helping to create a future in which people like them are going to be outnumbered by religious ultra-conservatives, and are likely to have no choice but to make compromises with that ever-growing population which they'd rather not have to make. Unlikely you or I will live to see it–but it might be only a century or two away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Mov...

There are people who unironically belong to this movement who would urge this woman not to mate. I don't agree with their arguments, but I believe that they should not be beyond debate. I'm not smart enough to identify their values as inferior on some absolute scale, and given their values their arguments may well be sound.

There's nothing to contradict as you have not provided any argument to support the claim that these two last humans must produce children.

This completely misses the point of your hypothetical, but if you only have two humans left your descendants will inevitably die out due to inbreeding. Two individuals isn't enough genetic diversity to sustain a species.

See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_population

I don't think that this is an absolute truth. This would depend on the genetic distance between the parents (and if parents and their childrens would procreate again).

If there are only two humans left, then it’s already too late. We need a breeding population of around 50, or we will suffer genetic collapse (the actual number is much higher, to be able to actually evolve, but you need at least that much to avoid catastrophic genetic drift). https://moscow.sci-hub.st/1832/d4805799591a7b5e7843531b9aeb0...

The arguments of that paper are for wild animals; it is open to question how true they would be for humans. Non-human animals get most of their adaptability from their genetics, and relatively little from culture; humans get a huge amount of their adaptability from culture. Humans may need less genetic variability to survive than other species do. It would also depend on how much of human knowledge and technology the sole surviving breeding pair would be able to retain. I don't doubt the odds would be against human survival in such a scenario, but I think we have to question how applicable research on other species is for humans – humans are capable of things no other species can do.

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