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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

There's an old old idea here, the Paradox of Tolerance, that might help alleviate your confusion:

> But we should claim the right to suppress them [intolerant ideologies] 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."

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

It came from Karl Popper, the guy better known for philosophy of science and using "falsifiability" as a primary criteria for what's science/not-science.

That the "free speech" crowd that said "we must allow all hateful and intolerant speech" sure does seem to quiet up when those advocating for open societies get silenced!

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Any ideology can be plugged into the "paradox of tolerance" and it works just fine, including yours [EDIT] and mine. That is why it is worthless. What is your defense if the conservatives, who currently have the political upper hand, invoke the paradox of tolerance against the left to justify suppressing them?

It should also be noted that [EDIT] the preceding sentence to Popper's quote is omitted: "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."

No it cant, that's just silly.

Popper was a serious philosopher, such a trivial and unserious engagement with the idea doesn't pass muster.

To quote yourself in another post: "I notice that you too have no counter to it!" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50190984) Kind of hypocritical there if that's the best response you can muster when actually presented an argument because that's just plainly the argument from authority fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority).

thank you for the attempt to enlighten me, but how could someone not have heard this quote when internet commies resort to using it like some unquestionable gospel whenever they rush to defend trillion dollar corporations suppressing dissent of the working class?

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In an attempt to save some discussion:

1) popper was not a communist, quite the opposite

2) I am not a communist, quite the opposite

3) it's not an unquestionable gospel, it's something to be considered and carefully see it it applies, or is valid

4) I have literally never seen another person cite the Paradox of Tolerance, something that I learned about decades ago, so imagine my surprise at your sarcastic response.

If this is such a common response in your experience, why don't you have any critique of it, other than strawmen?

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

The search shows 34 pages of comments and that doesn't include [dead] comments. I'm surprised it's that few; I suspect there's a time cutoff even though the settings says there isn't.

I can't be sure what you're trying to imply, but it certainly doesn't imply that anybody else should have encountered this topic in HN. I'm on here a lot, but only see a tiny fraction of the site, and it only comes up at most every couple of days across the entire site.

But even if somebody had encounters it a lot, it certainly doesn't excuse illogical behavior if only attacking straw men, refusing to engage at all, and make up weird insults about communism.

I notice that you too have no counter to it!

In a society that wants to minimize violence in daily interactions, we still allow it to happen. Claiming that the desire to minimize something means a total ban is just a childish and simple way to approach the issue. The residual of others to engage with the idea further proves how little they have thought about it.

> "I notice that you too have no counter to it!"

May I point out that I replied to your earlier post?

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