Brazil has a functioning judicial system. Good to see. May he rot in prison, that piece of shit. — Mikie

Wasn't the US supposed to be the beacon of light for free democratic societies in the world? Trying to install it in other nations by the means of anti-communist wars...? Fighting for the "good".

...how's that going? :sweat:

It is obviously an atrocity of the first order. Ezra Klein, a liberal columnist at the NY Times, pointed out that Kirk, with whom he would disagree about almost everything, was practicing real political debate: going out into college campuses all over the US and taking on all comers. His was a model of civil discourse.

Except for one thing.

I can't reconcile how this purportedly fine upstanding citizen could go into bat for the candidate that denied, and tried to subvert, the 2020 election, including whipping up a mob who ransacked the US Capitol Building, and was caught on tape discussing how to fake an election win with fake electors. I don't understand the depth of delusion that allows these apparently earnest and educated activists to pretend that the current President is anything other than an authoritarian egotist who poses a mortal threat to the American body politic. Of course, this kind of political violence, and gun violence generally, is a mortal threat to public order. But then, so is the current President, who appealed for an end to this 'divisive hate speech which is tearing us apart' and then added, 'which is only ever practiced by radical left lunatics.' — Wayfarer

The problem with the reactions right now is that people whitewash Kirk's behavior and what he has actually said over the years. Even his most vocal critics plays a part in creating this martyr of him.

It's the usual way of people totally unable to keep two truths in their heads at the same time. That an assassination is awful, but so was Kirk.

He spread some rather extreme views, called out for deaths of people, wanted to pardon Pelosi's attacker. There's no denying that someone spreading such hate opened up to the risk of being hated back, to the point of violence.

I mean, there are no trans animals in nature. — Outlander

You need animals to dress up to show it? This is unfortunately part of the public lack of knowledge in the area of transexuality. As Sapolsky says in this video, we viewed homosexuality as a psychopathology and then discovered, no, it's not. And here we go again in history, viewing transexuals in the same way society viewed homosexuals before society matured into actual knowledge (well, the intelligent ones in society anyway)



So, what Kirk and people like him spewed out is pure transphobia. It's exactly the same as when society had widespread, "state-supported" homophobia and it leading to suicides, stigma and extreme suffering for homosexuals just wanting to live in peace and be respected as any other person.

And as I'm usually arguing, society never cares for the indirect suffering caused by a shifting attitude in society because of a high tolerance for hate speech and phobic bullshit spreading around.

We're living through the same maturing society towards transexuals as society went through in the 80-90s for homosexuals. In the end, we will have lots of people who once spewed transphobic hate in public, to be viewed by history as awful.

Who wants to be considered equal to the homophobic haters in the 80s who were part of the crowd who made life a living hell for homosexuals back then? Anyone?

The reason for homophobia and transphobia is because people are drawn to it to feel safe. They feel safe having a group in society they can blame for anything. Who becomes an enemy that are responsible for any troubles they have. It's the behavior of the actual weak and pathetic, who make zero contribution to society which improves the life and safety for all.

Society doesn't get more tolerable and good by allowing such hate to be spread. The free speech argument by the right wing magas who usually spews out this transphobia is not in favor of free speech itself, it's a blanket defense for them to be able to spread this hatred.

I want to focus on this notion of "balance", in particular, because that seems to be a concept in play in these discussions -- if we could trust one another well enough that what the other does, even if I wouldn't do it, then "balance" is at least adjacent to a good goal.

But we don't live in a time where "balance" is possible.

I don't know if the violence is warranted. That's the question, in the face of the absurd world we live in. — Moliere

I think balance is impossible as long as people view freedom of speech as some abstract axiom without any defining societal parameters.

As it is now, it is used by the hateful to legitimize hate speech. And as Popper's tolerance paradox describes, this practice slowly erodes society into becoming intolerant. This is exactly what we're seeing in the US. Freedom of speech used as blanket defense to spread intolerance.

And since this is what's going on, there's no way to balance because there are no tools to balance with. So we end up with measures that tries to balance things through violence instead; an escalation of the divide through a desperation to balance the scales.

If you spread intolerance hard and long enough, and if no one actually oppose and stops you, then you will eventually get a violent push back.

Think of it as a rubber band being stretched. If nothing stops you, no one blocks you from stretching it further, eventually it will snap back at you and hurt you.

I think Kirk is an example of how far society can push its intolerance before things start to snap. The people, especially those negatively affected by the hate of the intolerant, want actual pushback on the hate, but if the state and society at large instead stupport that hate, then you push these people into desperate measures.

Think of it this way, if you are a person who are in the crosshair of society's accepted hate. Spread by people like Kirk. And you plead for society to stop being like this and you just get more hate. Going on until there's a point where the state itself starts to implement policies that would classify you as sub-human, who want to deport you, even though you're not from anywhere else, who starts to limit your freedoms, who wants to put you in segregated areas away from other people, who want to chemically assault your existence with either taking away needed medicine or try to medicate your "problem" away... and this just keeps going and going and no one does a fucking thing to balance it back... when do you become the rubber band snapping back?

If we are to balance things in society, we need to first acknowledge hate speech for what it is; that it is a call for intolerance, a call for dividing society into accepted and not accepted people. If we accept it for what it is, then we understand that freedom of speech is not a valid defense for it because it's rather a call for destroying part of society, not improving it.

Freedom of speech could be considered true only for that which attempts to improve society. If banning trans, or other people in society is part of an argument for improving society, it needs to be backed up with actual evidence as it is an extreme claim. If such evidence does not support such claims, it can't be defended by freedom of speech and instead falls under hate speech, thereby becomes an attempt to destroy society and is thereby illegal.

If we actually apply the already existing laws on hate speech to actually function properly, Kirk would never have been able to continue saying what he was arguing for. He would have needed to change his debate tactics and rhetoric to be actually factual rather than performative propaganda. And he wouldn't have been the kind of target he became.

People like Kirk push the limits more and more because there's no one on the other side pushing back. There's no laws, or laws used, that prevent him from eroding tolerance in society.

And if you rally for intolerance, then you will rally those who are intolerant of yourself. Further, if people get hurt by your intolerance, then they will hurt you back.

So, a first step to balance things out is to actually apply hate speech laws as they're supposed to.

After that, block politicians who try to go into elections with hate speech as part of their strategy. If you want to protect democracy, don't let anti-democratic politicians into positions of power that lets them change laws. That should be fucking obvious really.

If so then we never have warrant for political violence, since no one has perfect knowledge of the future. — Moliere

What we do know is what leads society into anti-democratic, intolerant behaviors. And so if we are naive and stupid as a society to let the intolerant, racist, homophobic, transphobic, psychopathic, narcissistic, imperialistic authoritarian lunatics into a position to change laws... then we know where that leads. History have already showed us this and if we think that's not a problem for society and our democracy... then we are absolutely, fundamentally stupid. Because then the only way forward is violence, and we invited that in by being actively stupid or passively naive.

In general the question is the justification of political violence: whether we choose the ballot or the bullet as a political and ethical question, and the various justifications about that. — Moliere

When rule of law doesn't function and democracy is being manipulated... what purpose does the ballot have?

The fact is that almost everyone speaks out in horror against this assassination, but I would argue that there are far more people than people think who behind those words have no problem with it happening.

This is how polarized things have become. In which people play some charade of thoughts and prayers, but view each other as mortal enemies.

So when does this "cold war" become an actual war? When does it become something in which people openly accept themselves to be on a side that shoots the other, rather than playing the charade?

Is the current situation in the US, and even globally, between the far right and most people left of that far right... enough of a divide to spark warranted violence to balance things back from that extreme?

If the political extreme is whatever sparks consequences of death for people in a society, be that direct or indirect (suicides or being left to die), is it warranted to violently fight back at the extreme that caused it? If society can't use rule of law and democratic methods to fight that extreme and that extreme worms its way into actual government... does that warrant revolutionary violence against this status quo?

In hindsight we look back at regimes and wonder why no one fought back before it became this regime. But I would argue that the time before those regimes look almost exactly as how it is now. We can't know if the US marches towards an authoritarian regime before it actually happens.

So is this a time that we in the future will look back on and wonder... why didn't anyone do anything before it was too late?

Will the assassin who tried to kill Trump be viewed as a hero who failed if we end up in a dictatorship under Trump? Like operation Valkyrie?

To define what warrants political violence as being good demands perfect knowledge of the future. Maybe many previous successful assassinations actually prevented something we didn't know would happen, no one knows.

It's why I think The Dead Zone is a really good philosophical experiment for this topic.

I think that it's pretty obvious why this happened. Kirk was part of the rightwing fascists who argues in defense of the second amendment for the purpose of legitimizing hate speech, to move the goal posts of values in society towards hate of certain people in society. He was arguing for violence, literally, through his point of gun deaths necessary to defend the second amendment, but his and others rhetoric was never about defending everyone's speech, it was about defending THEIR speech.

Kirk and people ideologically similar to him are the very same responsible for banning books and silencing people who speak of things like trans rights. It was never about defending the second amendment, it was about transforming society into silencing certain groups of people in favor of the Maga based right.

If you argue for violence, for hate and for polarization, you will eventually get violence, hate and polarization. This isn't about the identity of the killer, it doesn't really matter who that is, because the killer is the symptom of the world that people like Kirk slowly push into reality. This is not literally that "he asked for it", but in some form he did.

I'm always amazed that society has such a bad ability to understand long term consequences. How the dominos fall. How is it so hard for society to grasp that the hateful rhetoric of the far right, spearheaded by Trump, Maga, Farage, Bannon etc. eventually leads to a world that honors that rhetoric?

If anything is to blame for the deaths of Kirk, as well as the deaths of all the unnamed people caused by radicalized right wingers, it's the general hateful rhetoric that dehumanizes and polarize society.

What we're seeing is just the consequence of all of this boiling over. The delusion that this rhetoric is just an expression of freedom of speech, when it's in fact the very definition of hate speech that cause actual consequences for people.

It's easy for the general public, far away form such violence, to just talk about the rhetoric being freedom of speech, but Kirk might be the most noticeable consequence of this dehumanizing, polarizing rhetoric that's been going on for years now.

We shouldn't fall into the trap of looking at this assassination as some isolated event. This is a symptom of our polarized times.

Fighting polarization is the way to mitigate the risks of political violence, and fighting polarization requires us to stop being so naive to the effects of hate speech; of its capacity to move the goal posts of the general public into slowly hating others more and more.

Stop the hateful rhetoric, stop the dehumanization of groups of people in society, stop the dehumanization of political sides. People need to stop being so fucking naive and stupid about these things that erodes society.

I'm not surprised whatsoever that someone like Kirk got killed. If anyone was surprised by it, they don't have a clear understanding of how our modern world behaves.

Though, his argument for the gun deaths in defense of the second amendment was primarily for "the other side" to die so he and others can continue spreading their hate. The defense of the second amendment by people like Kirk has always been a strategy to legitimize hate speech.

This is what happens when such hate is spread vast and wide. If they argue for polarization and violence, they will get polarization and violence in the end. It's like people don't understand that hateful rhetoric leads to hate.

Did he truly think that what he argued for would lead to a better world? That reducing certain groups of people in society to sub-human levels would lead to a better society?

One doesn't have to cheer or laugh at something like this. It just shows exactly where the hateful rhetoric of the grifting fascist right leads, and it's not towards an open, empathic and safe society.

No, it's not. Trump is immune. Even before SCOTUS established this (and before they became corrupted), the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel had determined that a sitting President cannot be indicted. So the only way Trump can be held accountable is if he were impeached and removed from office.
The House of Representatives is controlled by Trumpists. They publicly rationalize everything he does. So although a judge determined Trump's action was illegal, Trumpist Congressmen say the judge got it wrong. It will be appealed, and they will continue to say the courts got it wrong unless and until SCOTUS affirms it. — Relativist

Yes…. and if people oppose the idea of this being actual rising fascism, they’re delusional. I’m still waiting for people to ignite some actual rage in opposition to all of this. There still not enough of anti-fascist rage going around. Instead, people, even on the side of criticizing Trump and his followers, treat them as a sort of legitimate political side.

But I find it pretty simple; whenever the democratic mechanism gets dismantled and the laws and regulations doesn’t work on a leader who abuse his power for whatever reason, he and his loyalists should be removed, with force if necessary. And if it can’t be done by the agencies meant to protect the nation, then it’s up to the people to do it instead.

I’m still waiting for the people to rage enough that it starts to become dangerous for Trump and his loyalists. Because that could fuel political actors in opposition to take much stronger action and not fiddle around without actual opposition.

But maybe they’re holding back because they want Trump to screw things up enough to win the mid term. And then when they have that power we will see that rage come down on Trump harder than we’ve ever seen on the US political stage. Well, one can only hope that’s the long game they’re playing. If not, then the people itself will need to do something.

And per tradition, I’ll ask, what’s the people of the US doing about it?

We can’t blame narcissistic psychopaths for their attempt at seizing power, but we can criticize the people for not removing such people from positions of corrupt power.

People saying that this isn’t possible are essentially enablers of these people to wield their power without consequences.

For instance, the troops deployed in LA was judged to be illegal. If a presidential order and actions on those orders are illegal, then US Marshalls should arrest Trump. Simple as that really. That’s how non corrupt governments handle people who abuse power.

Yet, since that’s not happening, then the people are responsible for upholding the laws of the nation. Maybe the people should remove him from power by force then? Some would argue that this would be similar to Jan 6, but it’s not, since it’s based on the fact that Trump has acted illegally against the constitution and that the systems of government are unable to uphold that constitution. In that case, there’s no other choice for people than getting their hands dirty and out all the people involved with this corrupt takeover and abuse of power.

A democratic leader who acts illegally has revoked their contract with the people of that democracy. That person should be taken down by force if necessary. How else would the US survive as a democracy than to protect itself from those who want to destroy democratic systems?

There’s a point when these people can’t hide behind the fact they were elected democratically. Almost all dictators were ”voted” for democratically. Would people stand in the middle of Nazi Germany’s peak and honestly defend Hitler for being democratically elected after he seized power and created an authoritarian regime? I don’t think so.

Don’t underestimate US stupidity. They may win again… with cheating.

I think the problem is that both sides view Trump as someone with a plan or agenda. All I see is someone who’s going with the flow, following a trend, fully focused on placing all eyes on himself through different forms of embarrassing, improvised behavior, in front of all the cameras.

World politics is pushed around by the consequences of one man’s narcissistic ego trip to feel good… there’s no plan, it’s a child playing with his toys and people try to react within the confines of law, reason, and society to confront and battle him.

It’s more embarrassing to see the world deal with Trump, than the man himself.

I believe that there is a very easy way for Trump to stop the war in Ukraine: he must initiate an all-US referendum with suggestions to prohibit big sports for transgenders, and establish that there are only two genders, men and women. If such a referendum is performed, Russians will experience a cognitive dissonance – they will realize that democracy leads to prohibiting gender diversity – and their worldviews will evolute, so they would stop supporting Putin and his war. This is so simple… — Linkey

So the simple solution to stopping the war in Ukraine is to let Trump ban trans people from sports? :rofl:

And why would the Russian people get cognitive dissonance by that and not everything else that contradicts Putin? Why would that information specifically be something they manage to accept as outside information when the whole problem of information in Russia is that it’s constantly flooded with contradictions to make the people so confused as to grab onto the only reality that is tangible, which is the here and now for them locally.

They wouldn’t get that dissonance. All of that just sounds like a way to justify what Trump is doing in the most far out scenario possible :lol:

[

I think we’ve been down this road before. I don’t agree with it. It’s true that Trump has been Biden 2.0 in regards to Gaza and Ukraine. But on other consequential matters— especially climate change and nuclear proliferation — Trump is not the same. And those differences matter. — Mikie

Yes, some people treat things very simplistic, as a set of only one policy against another, rather than a web of politics that comes with the elected. Trump is absolute chaos and screws up so many things for the US and the world that the bad of Biden would probably have been preferable to this mess Trump is creating.

The core problem is that US politics overall tries to cater to rural America more than urban areas. Rural America is gone, there’s no industry to sustain it. The hard working man that builds his own house is a dream that ended long ago, but these relics in politics still believe it to exist. They try to win votes from people in these areas on the idea that rural America will return to its glory days of industry. But there’s nothing to be gained from it. They get the votes, but these regions are more or less on their death bed and the abandonment of urban voters will backfire so hard when these relic politicians die off.

Both parties, but especially the republicans are facing extinction in the form they exist under now. Mamdani is a good example of how fed up many are with the stupid, corrupt, disgusting politicians.

The old ones need to die and die fast. The entire congress, senate, democrats and republicans are filled with 75-90 year old demented fools, believing themselves to exist in the mid-1900 political landscape. Out of touch, out of their minds.

And the only reason these people haven’t been pushed out of politics yet is because they have so many capitalists feeding them money while younger people doom scrolls TikTok more than actually getting into politics.

A revolution doesn’t need to be armed, it could just be people pushing these old relics out the door and updating politics to the actual times.

Compassionism only works if all follows compassionism, and all can only follow compassionism if all are equally able to suppress their emotions in face of violence acted upon them.

It is a condition that is unattainable for society, even if it’s a virtue to live by. But it becomes as naive as turning the other cheek, because the psychology of people, the sociology of groups are far more complex than able to be governed by individuals showing absolute compassion.

It is fundamentally not compatible with human nature on a large scale, and is instead a privilege of the ones able to maintain absolute empathy in all situations, which most people do not.

It becomes a utopian ideal that is unattainable in practice as not all problems can be fixed by such a mindset.

I’m reminded of an organization in Sweden which speaks for world peace and who constantly oppose Sweden sending weapons to Ukraine to help them fight back against the invading Russia. This organization is fundamentally correct in what they strive for, but their absolute stance is a naive approach which ignores that stopping help to Ukraine would undoubtably lead to continued atrocities by the Russian forces, with the rapes and murders of civilians that we saw at the beginning of the invasion. The group’s compassion does not help people at all, and instead would just leave an open playing field for those who fundamentally oppose compassion.

That humanity doesn't have free will, that we are bound to the consequences of the genes and environment we grow up in, does not mean we shouldn’t have boundaries that mitigate dangerous individuals, groups and nations. That knowledge only informs the need to have a society that mitigates the possibility of forming such violence, but we cannot just accept the violence that is already happening or accept such individuals through compassion. Because the compassionate act should reasonably be towards the innocent victims of the violence and preventing them from being harmed, and that might sometime require that we act in opposition of compassion, against the violent aggressors with violence. The act of compassion in this case, is to destroy the aggressor with violence to protect the innocent.

This is why morality cannot be boiled down to a simple manifest of absolutist empathy or compassion, because it becomes a naive ignorance of the complexity of human psychology and its effect on society as a whole.

Or they'll demand cheap fossil-fuel based energy to run AC and heaters. — RogueAI

First, ACs won’t be enough in some places. Second, if any breaks, they die, so the risk is too high or it’s impossible to leave and transport goods between AC powered buildings, so the society collapses anyway. Third, continued use would just make the problem worse until the plastic outside of their units melt or material catch fire and they die anyway.

Bottom line, they can’t escape it by burying their heads in the sand. Prevent it in time, die in the heat, or flee to some other place that cannot fit millions of people. It’s a disaster however things go...

At this point, what else is left to do? I think Malm was right — although he doesn’t advocate killing anyone, he does suggest destroying property and fossil fuel infrastructure in his book “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.” I think this approach was catching on in 2021, but then at least the IRA passed. Now there’s nothing. Perhaps it’s time. — Mikie

It will start to happen the more politicians keep doing nothing and the oil industry getting more support by politicians. And if such actions as described in that book doesn’t work, then it will move on to more extreme levels.

For some in the world, climate change is indeed an existential battle. It’s probably going to be a walk in the park for someone like me living far north, but there are so many regions of the world that may become akin to an alien planet when degrees start to creep up to 60-70 degrees C. Add to that the humidity problem in which bubbles of humidity makes 19 degrees C feel like 31 degrees, the result could be absolutely catastrophic for some.

We are talking about millions if not billions of people in some cases. What happens if they are forced to move because of the basic necessity of avoiding to die in the heatwaves or general heat in their home nation?

They’re not going to be some small rebel group doing terrorist attacks out of desperation, we could be seeing millions of people taking what they own to make or buy weapons and start demanding residence in other nations. And people who face extinction will fight until they are extinct. That level of commitment to a cause cannot be fought with high tech military.

So the next large conflicts of the world due to climate change might be huge and I don’t think people realize that this will be the single largest consequence of climate change… people believe things will get a little warmer and that people up north can start to grow wine in their yards. Like, people are fucking stupid.

Now that the Christian right has merged with the MAGA cult, an area of agreement has been the burning of fossil fuels. It intersects with hypermasculinity and savage capitalism. (Really it’s just the donors are largely fossil fuel companies, who happen to own the media as well. The Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch can be thanked for a lot of this.)

For some reason, once Trump picked up on the climate denial piece, he ran with it. In the same way he did with tax cuts. Contrary to any evidence whatsoever, they’ll now go on believing that man did not evolve, tax cuts jump start the economy, and climate change is a hoax. It’s now locked in — dyed in the wool.

The bad guys have won. And unlike the movies, no matter if there’s a comeback or a swing in power, it’s already too late. The time to act was decades ago, and the time to mitigate the absolute worst effects were these last 10 years. And the one and only piece of legislation that addressed the issue is now dead.

This is not a political party— it’s a death cult. Literally. — Mikie

Just cements the concept the US is just another religious fundamentalist nation, like Islam fundamentalist nations in the Middle East. One step from installing laws based in religious texts rather than moral philosophy.

And ignoring climate change will just lead to a world in which the rural Americans die off in heat waves and other extreme weather. So let the death cult kill themselves, I really don’t fucking care anymore about people who constantly flood the world with absolute bullshit and shoot themselves in the foot.

But it will also ignite violence from those who feel like victims of these politics. We will probably see rebel groups starting to kill oil industry figures and politicians who keep perpetuate anti-climate politics.

Add to that all nations of the world that might end up in conditions that are unlivable. Becoming globally homeless and in turn start organizing themselves as military forces to fight for other places where they can live.

These people might even ignite sympathy from many in the world finally realizing how catastrophic the climate change problems truly are and when such forces start invading nations like the US, many might even just cheer on while they push forward.

And these people won’t be some little rebel group, they might end up being millions of people with nothing to lose as they have no where to go. It will either end with a mass slaughter of millions of people because nations have no other choice when getting invaded, or these people will win and force themselves into taking over large regions of other nations.

Nations who try to mitigate climate change might use that fact as a way to argue against these groups invading them and direct them towards nations who can be blamed for the situation the world has ended up in.

At some point, the world needs to outlaw oil. The world can debate oil for decades more, but at some point the problems are going to become actual reality and the oil industry will not have the power to fight back at people literally firing at them.

It’s like all the arguments against mitigating climate change are economical, but at some point the economy will crash so hard due to climate change that we’re just postponing everything. Politicians who need to fool the masses in order to keep their power are the ones responsible. No politician want to be blamed for economic crashes due to extreme decisions to fight climate change, but they will some day need to do it, so all politicians just hope they’re not the ones having to do it.

It’s pathetic really. Everyone is pathetic. Everyone deserves what’s coming.

I don't say he was right. But I'm not at all sure he was wrong. It's all much easier from an arm-chair and with hindsight. — Ludwig V

Exactly. What if he didn't drop the bomb and Japan surrendered after a year more of fighting? And would that have ended the imperial ideals? Both Germany and Japan basically became more peaceful than any other nation involved in WWII.

The moral issue here is that I'm not, and I don't think anyone is, arguing for massive destruction as a solution to anything. But I'm observing what happens to the collective psychology of society when something does happen.

That people tend to be shaken out of past thinking and advocate for better morality for real, with actual applied philosophy to the new ethics.

It's like the world tries to operate on moral discussion, theories and philosophy on an intellectual level, but it's only when something dramatic happens that the world actually progress forward.

Maybe because the ones opposing better morals, conservatives in moral thinking and politics become so unpopular that the debate, over night, shifts in favor of the progressive morals that it essentially becomes law.

However, in some cases no one knows what the morals of a new paradigm is. No one really understood the morality that came out of the the nuclear bomb. It was a totally new way of thinking about morality in world politics.

I would argue that we're in the same kind of state right now. With the extreme rightwing populism and demagogs eroding democracies I think we need to see something like Trump trying to install an actual dictatorship in the US in order for western democracies to install new frameworks for how to block such people from ever gaining power through democratic means.

Or how climate change will need a massive event of mass deaths before the world start to wake up for real to change society in order to mitigate the problems.

Climate change is really the most obvious one here. I also think that a massive destructive event in climate change would not only change how we mitigate climate change, but also the morality of how we deal with global industry. That we might even start to force nations to stop certain destructive energy politics out of moral reasons in ways previously considered unthinkable. That industry and politicians won't be able to argue for "the economy" or such things when speaking of destructive industries.

We would essentially need a massive catastrophe due to climate change before we can build a world that is ecologically sound and rational. The world seems to not be able to do this on its own.

That's true. But can we ever calculate that the creation balances the destuction, morally speaking? If only there were a way of ensuring that no-one will use that thought to justify some total horror in the future. I wouldn't trust any human being with that decision. If it has to happen, let it happen without, or in spite of, human agency. — Ludwig V

No, it's not moral to make it an intentional act. It's not an act that can be forced upon the world because that would obscure the moral lessons that come out of such an event.

If you intentionally do something with the intention of "teaching a lesson", you become the center of the immorality. The destructive event needs to be something that rises up from the thinking of all people so that all people start to question the status quo.

Like:
- The allowance to let climate change continue until a catastrophic event.
- The perpetual increase in firepower during a world war (nuclear bomb)
- The lack of scientific scrutiny in areas like eugenics, popularizing thinking that leads to the holocaust.

These three all show a society stuck in a perpetual thinking, debating, discussing something that is unable to move out of bad morals into actual moral understanding. Only the events that rised up or will rise up from this will teach an actual lesson about the topic.

- If the world sees a climate catastrophe that kills millions, we will start to change the world into better ecological balance immediately, silencing those who try to oppose it.
- If the constant increase in the military power reach a bomb that is so powerful it could destroy the world, we understand the concept of MAD and start to work against war in ways not seen before (like the UN).
- If the lack of scrutiny in science leads to the holocaust, we will start changing the ethics of science to not allow such nonsense as eugenics to dividing people.

If, however, someone tries to do something as an act of teaching morality through massive violence, that will only end up with the same effect as terrorism. Did 9/11 make the world think morally about the conditions of people in the middle east and help them to a better life? No, it enraged the world like a stupid mob to start slaughter them instead, forming new factions of terrorists in IS.

You cannot intentionally create a catastrophe, because then you become the center of the destruction, not the thinking of all.

The fear of atomic warfare has never prevented small wars in the years since then. But it seems that people are beginning to think that it is OK to threaten it. I suspect that complacency is a factor, but miscalculation is all too easy, so I'm not at all secure about it. — Ludwig V

But without the thinking about the bomb after WWII, we would probably have had a WWIII between Russia and the US. The cold war relied on the morality that MAD created. It became such an existential threat that even the most stupid politicians weren't stupid enough.

However, the lessons learned will erode further and further as memories of history fade away... when new generations that don't actually understand the horror of the nuke start to form world politics, we might see them used again...

...but that will probably form a new paradigm of MAD morality, and the cycle continues. Just like wild fires.

I am not sure that it is possible for time to end. That is partly because I am inclined towards a cyclical picture of the universe and see the idea of 'nothingness' before or after the existence of life in the universe as rather dubious. — Jack Cummins

Why not? Time is only one dimension we experience, it doesn't mean that anything outside of the reality of our experience wouldn't allow for a timeless existence.

I think this is the fallacy of how we think about our own mortality. Rather than thinking about what happens after death, think about what happened before you birth, where were you? We view the time before out own experience of life as nothing special (in most religions), but there are tons of narratives dedicated to where we go when we die.

The same goes for the universe. We only argue in terms of what we can perceive, experience and define; we think about these things inside of the definitions that allow us to think.

This is why we struggle with what came before the big bang, because it cannot be defined within the conditions of what allows us to think about it. So it becomes a cognitive paradox for us that we cannot solve. The same goes for what happens after time ends. We cannot, by our very function within time, think about what that would be.

Best way I would argue would be to think of it like the block universe theory. That the past is a form of solidified spacetime in which time is a direction just as much as space. Like an axis in which events change in space, but it doesn't move. If possible to walk along this axis you would see space change in its 3 dimensions, but you can only walk back and forth along this axis, like scrolling though a video.

That the future is an undetermined probability function that ends up in a defined state when the present comes in contact with it. Entropy causing the collapse into a state which is defined in relation to everything else in the universe and directly adds to that past block of time axis.

We only experience the collapsing state so we experience time as we do based on this thin edge between possible states and the past solid block of a time axis.

And we can view this past block as a timeless entity. And it may be that its this that exists when time ends, the block ends, it becomes, within a higher existence, a "blob" of spacetime, solid, unmoving.

Like a fuse, burning from one state to another, from high energy to low in a violent present, and then its just the end state, still, unmoving. Maybe the ash blows away, degrades into another state within a higher dimensional existence, part of some other definition of time that is not how we define time, but still moving as a larger entity.

No one knows because this is far beyond the limits of current scientific knowledge. But I think the block time theory, especially if combining it with the quantum physics of the collapsing probabilites, have a lot of logical merit. And it makes a lot of sense when thinking of how time actually functions in general relativity, bending and shifting, but always going forward along its axis.

What I don't understand about this situation, is the fact that if he read the Bhagavad Vita, and caused the death of in Hiroshima, as estimates range from 90,000 to 166,000 deaths, while in Nagasaki, estimates range from 60,000 to 80,000, then did this weigh heavy on his conscience about the negative karma he earned by his statement about Shiva? Was he aware that such negative karma results in a very long life of struggle and torment by your reincarnation cycle? Whatever the case may be, I am just wondering about a guy also causing potentially rockets with atomic bombs, which were actually created also potentially assuring the death of many other people. — Shawn

He wasn't Hindu, so I doubt he thought of karma in this way. He also wasn't responsible for how nukes were to be used, as demonstrated by the scene with Truman. I think the film shows the balanced perspective of him being focused on the science while also struggling with how to navigate a world he knows less about. He's naive in all cases regarding politics and war and this naivety later became his strength as he argued against the use of nukes in a way that politically was viewed as naive.

I think Oppenheimer is someone who demonstrates perfectly what hindsight bias is about. That while living in the moment of something, people generally have no clue how to process anything. And it's only in hindsight that people ask "why'd you do it?" "Why did you think like that?"

It's one of the behaviors of people that I dislike the most as it's a projection of false intellectualism and introspection. Like when everyone says they would not have been a Nazi in 1930s Germany, when in all likelihood they would have been, statistically speaking. In the same way that people today struggle with knowing where to stand in current ongoing issues of the world, but will eventually end up in hindsight bias whenever reality reveals itself to them (often by the true intellectuals).

May I ask, what are your views on the matter of causing death through something destructive, and how according to any ethically bounded theory, what this actually results in? — Shawn

In ethics, I don't think any such level of destruction works. Neither Kantian or utilitarian works. Maybe utilitarianism works if we view the deaths of 100 000 as a mean to save the entire species, but it's still problematic.

But then again, we can think of wild fires. Such a destructive event has been somewhat hard coded into biology to rid an ecosystem that has become broken. Many forests thrive after a wild fire because of the eradication of built up bacteria, fungus and many invasive species. Life didn't end with the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

These highly destructive events throughout earth's history have over the course of longer time spans been beneficial to nature. They reset and in the long run help restore. It's both beneficial for evolution to continue improving biology to stand against the extremes of nature, while making sure no entity wipes out nature as a whole. We might not have had earth so filled with organic life if it weren't for all destruction that helped shape it. Scientists speculate that one of the reasons life began at all was through the fact of repeating large scale events that changed a static environment over and over.

Life forming out of, and finding stability, in finding an equilibrium with the ever changing environment.

So, destruction, just like Shiva's role, is both an end and a beginning. Shiva both destroys and creates.

Is there an ethical thought through this? Could a man-made destructive event also be beneficial, even ethical?

If a war is on-going, without any change, with soldiers that keeps dying and if continued will keep dying in numbers that far exceeds that of a one time destructive event. Would it be ethical to do it? Like a wild fire that cleanse an area from sickness and a slowly dying ecosystem, it cleanses the psychological lock that forms out of the hate that fuels the ongoing conflict.

How many highly destructive events in history ended up forming a long lasting peaceful society afterwards?

I think the shock of destruction is what fixes it. It may be that the destructive event is a wild fire of the mind. When an ongoing unstable condition exist in society, it's primarily due to cognitive bias between two groups who cannot get out of that condition. The day to day atrocities, pain and suffering caused by a psychological condition in which neither part can get out of it. And that a highly destructive event might shake people to the core so much that a better world forms out of it, destroying the never ending conflict once and for all.

That the end to something bad in the world isn't necessarily due to a "successful" highly destructive act, but that this act wrecks havoc on the minds of people involved in this conflict, forcing them out of their biases.

Like how WWII was so traumatic for the world that most of the peace we had since then is a direct result of people being shaken to the core so much they abandoned their previously held ideas to shape new ones for a better world.

And it's why people now fear that when the last of the witnesses of that event in history dies, we will see a rise in new atrocities and conflicts because people's minds again start to build up an unhealthy ecosystem of thought.

That people need to be shaken to the core in order to find ethical footing again. Just like works of art asks moral questions, humans need to test their moral grounds intellectually and emotionally in order to become truly moral. That we cannot just form a theory and act morally, it needs an emotional grounding in the real world... and when we stumble as a society, we actually need something massively destructive to shake us back into self-reflection and true understanding of morals once again.

What are the other pros and cons? There's a small danger of creating echo chambers, of course, if there were no public interaction. And it doesn't add to my mentions or comments count... — Banno

I’m not a fan of PM discussions simply because I think ideas should be discussed in public, because that’s how knowledge moves society forward. While private discussions are more comfortable, I don’t think that comfort is supposed to be part of the practice of philosophy, simply through the idea that philosophy rely on conflicting ideas to be tested.

It could be nice to test an idea that isn’t well fleshed out first before going into a public discussion, but I feel like private discussions kind of defeats the purpose of this place, which is to be a public forum. Private discussions then becomes more of a fulfillment of the self and the ego, rather than what philosophical discourse is supposed to be.

I think the problem primarily boils down to that there are only a few on this forum that seem to have the capacity and ability to actually discuss ideas, especially when conflicting with their own point of view. And so many discussions become filled with low quality, biased reasoning, with barrages of fallacies that just bloat everything.

In my opinion, the standards should be higher. It doesn’t have to be about making an argument based on academic practices, formats, or such, but rather a standard of examined thought that excludes emotional outbursts, heavy bias and obvious fallacies. That constant repetition of flooding philosophical discussions with thoughtless ramblings warrants a warning or even ban if ignored. More than the current standard.

I think the tolerance bar is too high and it serves only the people acting on that level, often dragging things down to their level rather than them being forced to get their act together.

But it comes down to where the mods want things to be and I won’t argue that they do a bad job because how to set the bar is extremely hard. Compared to other places online, this place is pure heaven in terms of behavior. I just think that the tolerance bar needs to be lowered a little.

@Jamal Maybe threads could be marked by the writer? As an intent by the poster for what type of discussion they want? Like, if someone wants a more open discussion where people are free to express however they want, that could be “Open”. And if they want something focused heavily on logic/math or something, maybe “logic/analytical”, and if someone wants the discussion to be more focused and with heavier scrutiny, maybe “Focused” or “High level”. Or maybe just three levels; “Open”, “Medium, “High”, for free discussions, to more casual but focused, to those with longer written arguments featuring links to actual papers and high level discussions, warranting the highest level of discussion.

Maybe? At least that would warrant an easier way to mod the threads so that people who want a higher level discussion can get rid of those who are mostly here for a lower level of open discussion, while not erasing that option for those people who want to discuss more casually? :chin:

Incredibly sad! I cherished her comments and feedback in the past short story events. Few felt as honest and personal in opinions and ideas, with gravitas. She will be missed. :worry:

I don’t think Trump is stealing for a fight here, but the hawks around him surely are. They’ll be saying now is the time to take Iran out, they are weak and Hesbollah are on the back foot.
Trump will go along with it and try to use it to his advantage. Plus it gives Netanyahu cover for the genocide in Gaza and keeps him in power. If Isreal is at war with Iran, he can cancel elections. — Punshhh

Yeah, the only good thing from Trump is that he actually oppose the concept of war since he’s more interested in business deals than military geopolitics. The problem is that he’s too weak when shit hits the fan and it seems that people around him pressured him to accept all of this, that’s why he went from ”talks with Iran” to a big shrug over night, people around him put him in place and made him a puppet in this matter.

But even if this is all Netanyahu, which is most likely, it could drag the US into it. With so many militaries, resistance groups and terrorist groups weakened, it may be the only point in time to conduct a major invasion. With Israel leading the charge, the US might utilize it to not get blamed for initiating the war and rather ”act to stabilize the region” as an excuse to obliterate the problem of Iran.

We’ve seen that the US has indeed strengthen their presence of bombers close to Iran.

Marines, the regular armed forces, to be deployed. — ssu

Just inching things closer into a proper authoritarian regime. I guess no one cares? :chin:

Taiwan is too important to the world to just let an invasion slide. The diplomatic pressure on China to not do it is pretty strong.

What we see China doing is pretty much in line with what authoritarian governments do all the time; they bloat their ability to show strength. You can basically go back to the art of war and find strategies they follow;show weakness when you are strong and strength when you are weak.

A key point to remember about China is that there's no such thing as private companies. All companies have shared ownership in some form or another with the state and the state influence company policies. And since China has been aggressively investing in other nations, they have massive influence over western nations dependence on China.

At the same time they have lots of power over social media, able to effectively conduct information war much better than for example Russia. Strategies involving spreading conflicting information to undermine people's ability to do critical thinking around news, while promoting Chinese interests and appearance.

A key point have been media and films. Conditions for many Hollywood productions to receive funding from China involves changing plot elements to make China look better. One recent example that was extremely obvious was an episode of Love Death and Robots that basically used a Chinese main character who teamed up with an African character under the umbrella of "shared background and interests" to then combat western looking people. Which clearly speaks to their recent interest in investments in Africa and portraying that relationship under a good light.

The best way to make sure China doesn't invade Taiwan is to make sure they depend on the world more than the world depends on China. There's lots of naive politicians in the world who seem oblivious to the strategies China use to gain power.

- Ban Chinese investments as such investments comes with the Chinese government influence and insight.
- Ban Chinese investment in western media.
- Ban TikTok.
- Put further diplomatic pressure on China with earmarked trade deals that if China moves on Taiwan they immediately gets cut off from world trade.
- Help build up Taiwanese defenses with automated anti-air and anti-sea defenses around the island, making a large scale invasion extremely unlikely.
- Support the people in China with technology that bypass Chinese censorship.
- Invest in heavy cyber-defense and counter-cyber operations.

All I can see is a world that is as oblivious to China's intentions as they were to Russia's before the invasion of Ukraine. Better to prepare for what is needed to counter China before they invade Taiwan and make sure Taiwan has enough support so that if they get cut off from the world geographically, they can hold their own while the world diplomatically push China away.

While China can do lots to hurt the world if the world helps Taiwan, if the world is ready they can cut China off from so much trade that their economy collapse instantly. They already have huge problems with their national economy that if trade gets affected, it would crush them.

And with how important Taiwan is to the world when it comes to components for computers (semiconductors), the impact on the world would be extreme if we just let China take Taiwan. An economic and infrastructural chaos we're not even imagining. Regardless of what idiots in politics say, you can't just "start up a new fab lab". Intel has been trying in the US, but they're no where close to the capacity of TMSC. We already saw a disruption during the pandemic in which just a slight pause in production the economy of semiconductors created absolute chaos in the world industry. It's not just computers, it's EVERY thing that has semiconductors in it, which is basically everything that exists around us.

People don't realize the impact the destruction of Taiwan's semiconductor business will have on the world and it's in the worlds interest to defend Taiwan. Politicians and the public are too oblivious to all of it.

I'm wondering why anarchism is often placed closer to the far left than anywhere else. It's rather its own direction, a dismissal of all government. So I guess it should be possible to ask the question against most other directions in politics and not just marxism.

Fair enough, I was fundamentally objecting to the genocide claims since they are part of the great replacement narratives from white supremacists.

That there are cases of racist violence would be wild to argue against though. Especially since it's an understandable echo of the apartheid era. It takes time for a society to heal, especially one resting on so much violence in the first place.

But its the genocide angle that becomes problematic, because it's not what is happening and it's used by white supremacists around the world. They take advantage of singular cases of violence, point towards it and inflate it to support their great replacement narratives.

And when a president repeats these things, that's extremely problematic. Either he's too stupid to understand that he's been fed this narrative, or he's a white supremacist himself, which isn't far fetched. It's not something he would put on signs.

There actually has been violence against white farmers in S Africa. Rage against whites is understandable there. There's no need to deny it. — frank

First, can you make a clear distinction between the general violence that also affects black people and that of violence based on racist motives? Second, if such a statistical difference is large enough, does it constitute genocide against white people?

By your logic, we should then call the higher level of violence against black people in the US to also be called a genocide. And seen as a lot of such violence in the US is also conducted by the police, you have an even worse situation of systemic racism causing the violence and deaths; it should then be called state sanctioned genocide of black people in the US.

That’s not a slippery slope, because you basically take the fact that white farmers have indeed been killed, but you ignore the general situation in the region and just repeat the white supremacy propaganda narrative that has been constructed around it. Why? And the comparison I did with the US also rests on a comparable situation that white people are being targeted more in South Africa than black people, which still isn't proven to be the case when looking at the actual statistics. So it's not really a comparable situation either; it actually makes even less of a case for white genocide happening since the situation statistically is worse for black people in the US.

So I don’t really understand how you use the fact of violence against white people, without any context to it (the actual statistics of violence in the area), and conclude genocide? That’s not proof, that’s a wildly skewed interpretation of the data, seemingly influenced by the conspiracy narratives that’s been spread around online rather than forming a conclusion based on evidence.

This is the problem with these online conspiracy narratives in society, they seem to burrow into people’s minds so hard that the basic way people engage with news and information is to first believe the narrative and then ask others to prove against it, rather than demand evidence of the narrative’s claims first and be skeptical.

Basically, being skeptical today seems to be about buying into a narrative first as some form of substitute for actual skepticism, claiming the belief in that narrative is the skepticism. Instead of what skepticism is about, questioning narratives and demand evidence first, demanding rational thinking rather than biased thinking.

I’ve not seen any evidence of white genocide, have you? On the contrary, I’ve seen more evidence against it and more evidence that the idea of it happening in South Africa is a construct of white supremacists spreading these ideas into right wing politics. It was basically formed out of the apartheid era, an echo promoted by those who lost power when apartheid ended.

I wouldn't jump to that conclusion. Find out the facts first. — frank

But it is. The whole genocide of whites is part of the replacement conspiracy theory and it's being used in propaganda by white supremacists all over the world. What facts are you looking for? I don't think there's anything confusing about this. The attacks on farmers are part of a general problem in the area, but white supremacists reframe it to be a genocide that is partially backed up by the government, all of which is untrue.

The claim of a white genocide in South Africa has been promoted by right-wing groups in South Africa and the United States and is a frequent talking point among white nationalists.[6][7][8][9][10] There are no reliable figures that suggest that white farmers are at greater risk of being killed than the average South African. — Wikipedia

White supremacists have seized upon some of the farm-related violence in South Africa since the end of apartheid to peddle a propaganda campaign that exaggerates and distorts the situation to imply that South African whites are imperiled. They also insist that unless action is taken, whites in Europe and the United States will face the same sort of “genocide” at the hands of non-whites and immigrants. — ADL

AfriForum is not the only Afrikaner group which has lobbied in the US.

Another one is the far smaller and more extreme Suidlanders (Afrikaans for Southlanders), whose members Simon Roche and André Coetzee carried out a six-month visit to the US last year.

They met various far-right activists, including David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and Trump supporter, as well as other white supremacists and Nazi sympathisers, according to South African journalist Lloyd Gedye.

"This network has allowed the Suidlanders to spread its message of 'white genocide' around the world," he wrote in the Mail & Guardian newspaper.

This includes Australia, where several right-wing rallies have been held this year with protesters - many of them white South African migrants - holding up placards such as "Recognise the genocide" and "Stop the murders".

The message has resonated with Australia's former Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton who said in March that he was looking at giving South Africa's white farmers access to fast-track visas because they were being "persecuted" and needed help from a "civilised" country.

This prompted outrage from the South African government.

Mr Fikeni told the BBC that international support for South Africa's white farmers was not surprising, and tied in with the votes for Brexit and Donald Trump, and the rise of right-wing parties across Europe.

"The anti-establishment is growing across the world, partly because of immigration pressures. There are those who feel local cultures are being invaded, who want whiteness to be maintained in its purest form," the political analyst said. — BBC

For all its consistent permacrisis of crime, corruption, and inequality, South Africa has not been rocked by the White supremacist terrorist violence we have seen in the Global North. But when stories of White genocide retain a hold on the imaginations of certain kinds of White people, already convinced of their unfair dispossession by a regime of “reverse racism” and raised in a febrile atmosphere that emphasizes traditional masculinity and gun ownership, then the ground is fertile for radicalization and for White supremacist thought and action to burst out of the comparatively small communities of Whiteness and onto the national stage, with potentially devastating consequences. — SFS

This conspiracy theory has been propagated by some fringe groups of white South Africans since the end of apartheid in 1994. It has been circulating in global far-right chat rooms for at least a decade, with the vocal support of Trump's ally, South African-born Elon Musk. — Reuters

What more facts are you after? What else do you need to understand where this thing is leaning? I'd argue that whenever someone claims genocide, there has to be significant evidence for it, not against it. Because such a claim is extraordinary, and as such needs extraordinary evidence.

If you accept this narrative at face value and ask for evidence against it, then you are essentially just falling for this narrative rather than putting the claim under scrutiny. That the white genocide in South Africa is connected to the great replacement theory is a known fact by researchers of right wing extremism globally.

So I don't know what else you need? How is that connection "jumping to conclusions" when it has far more support than the opposite claim.

[

I don't think we could describe what's happening to whites in South Africa as a genocide. There's just a lot of violence, most of which does not affect whites. — frank

Because the genocide angle is a right wing conspiracy theory and not real. As you say, it’s violence in general, and right wingers use the high crime rate and murder rates to construct the narrative of white genocide. It’s within the same basis as replacement theory; white supremacy bullshit. This is how a population gets radicalized, with narratives that the people are too lazy to look up actual data on and too uneducated to understand that data. So they start with “maybe there’s something to this” and then slowly shift in opinions.

using or involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something

Mainly someone. — Malcolm Parry

How is that art and not just some kind of gladiator blood sport for the blood lust of the audience? Where's the art angle?

I was thinking more of deliberate violence being part of a piece of work. Would it be deemed art? I’m no expert and I will defer to people who are. — Malcolm Parry

I think you need to expand on what you mean here. There's lots of performance art that has components of violence. But regardless, all uses violence as a component, a part of something. The intention and reason for violence is usually what the artwork is about.

Is hydraulic press videos art about violence itself?

But the violence would be part of the piece. — Malcolm Parry

Yes, but how is that different from violence in stories? From acts of love, compassion etc. in stories? If that is what you mean, that violence is part of a piece of art, then I think history has already shown violence being part of art. Almost any piece of art has some form of balance between destruction and creation, between violence and compassion. It's everywhere in art because it's part of the human condition.

But that would mean there's no real point to the discussion as the evidence is in the pudding so to speak.

What I interpreted of this discussion is that it's about violence itself. The violence being the artwork. And in that way, I'd say it's impossible to disconnect it as a component of a greater context. The ones doing violence and why superseeds the violence itself and the violence becomes merely the craft and brush stroke than existing as the entirety of the artwork.

Why not? Two men in a gallery intentionally have a violent fight. Performance could be art, the blood and sweat left could be art, a video installation of fight could be art. Why not? — Malcolm Parry

Did you read my entire thing?

And to follow up, having something in a gallery does not automatically make it art as that is not any form of definition of art. And as I said, a single brush stroke isn't really art.

To define art in any form of objective manner there has to be a creator who has an intention of communication, even abstractly so, with the goal of a receiver (audience) to experience it. Even when an artist creates something that isn't meant to be seen or experienced, it's the act of not letting people see or experience it that becomes part of the artwork.

If you have two people intentionally having a fight in a gallery, the violence itself isn't the artwork. That's my point. A single brush stroke isn't a piece of art until it has an intention of being the whole artwork, and thus the reluctant to paint more than a single brush stroke becomes the actual work of art rather than the single brush stroke.

Two men fighting becomes something else entirely; who are these men, in what way do they fight? In what clothes? Nude?

If a woman birth a child under much pain, and this is shown as a piece of art, does the violence in the violent nature of giving birth then become the artwork or just one brush stroke of the whole?

That is my point. Violence is a component of something else, you cannot have an artwork of violence that isn't about something else when counting all components of that artwork.

Otherwise, you need to point out a piece of art that only consist of the component "violence" without anything else in relation to that violence.

The question that has been prodding my mind in recent times is whether or whether not violence could be considered an art form? That not so much the act, but the nature itself of it, shares brutality & beauty. Innately, since at least two distinct beings have existed on our planet, there was some form of violence or discord. It is apart of not only our nature, but the nature of our world too. — gadzooks

You need to define violence. If it is merely one conscious being acting destructively against someone else, then there's no inherent art to violence than someone expressing love. In itself an expression of love is not art, but mere communication of a certain intent and emotion.

Art is when there's a form of universalization of communication, often through abstractions that pulls in a broader context and philosophy around something specific.

If violence is more general in its destructive nature, even childbirth becomes violence. The destruction of the human body to birth a new. A woman screaming in pain as she suffers violence done to herself or the unborn doing violence onto her; yet we portray childbirth as beauty in art.

The director Nicholas Winding Refn has made a career trying to use violence as part of his art. But I'm still thinking violence itself just becomes the means to tell something, rather than embodying the art itself. Violence itself becomes an aesthetic, a paint stroke of craft rather than the artwork itself. You cannot have violence as art, but violence is a part of the paintbrush just like love or compassion is not art, but part of the paintbrush.

Scientism is the belief that science is the most authoritative or even the only valid way to gain knowledge about reality. It often involves the idea that methods of the natural sciences should be applied to all areas of inquiry, including the humanities, ethics, and religion.

There are two main types:

Epistemological scientism – the claim that science is the only reliable source of knowledge.

Methodological scientism – the view that scientific methods are superior to other methods in answering all meaningful questions.

Critics argue that scientism is self-refuting (because the belief that science is the only path to truth cannot itself be proven scientifically), and that it dismisses valuable insights from philosophy, literature, art, and spiritual or moral reflection. — Truth Seeker

I've also found that scientism is usually used as a criticism of arguments made with evidence found in science. I agree that there can exist an extreme reliance on science for everything, but at the same time it's the empirical power of evidence in science that is underlying most of what constitutes knowledge in the world.

The key is to use scientific evidence and the scientific method where it applies. Moral and abstract concepts that has to do with the experience of being a human being, is often not quantifiable by science.

I think there has to be a balance and most of the world already operates on such. I do however think that science should weight stronger than anything else; it's a component of rational reasoning and logic and is able to produce actual evidence compared to arbitrary ones and biased thinking.

Most of the time, the strongest critics of science usually have little insight into what science actually means. They argue about it as some form of singular entity of belief, which it's not. It's a method of thinking and practice aimed to remove human bias and emotion in search of evidence that explains an observation better than our emotional reactions to it.

In that regard, it's not much about seeing science as some solution, and more that science is the method and means, the tools to find answers. And in that way, science doesn't operate like some singular belief, but rather as a tool.

When we refer to "science" and "scientific evidence", we are referring to the result and answers produced by those who looked much closer than us at the thing we want to examine. To dismiss that process and those results in favor of that which better adhere to our emotional comfort, is to fail the logic of rational reasoning.

None, in the sense you mean, but it would probably make a difference to us if we knew we were in a simulation. It's the same question as asking, "Are we in a world created by a God?" The answer seems to make a big difference . . . but maybe it shouldn't? — J

What is that difference? The similarity is here with the concept of God would be Deism, and in that case also, the consequences for us are irrelevant as we are probably an unknown entity of the simulation to those running it.

If we weren't, there is no reason to hold the complexity of the simulation at the level it is, with us unable to probe the rims of this simulation. The simulation has to simulate the entire universe, with laws of physics unknown to us in a way with an expectation that we would find out about them as we have constantly done. This exponential complexity of the simulation makes no sense computationally, other than the simulation being that of the universe itself, meaning, our existence is not the goal, but simulating the entire universe, and our existence is merely the byproduct of the simulation's parameters.

So in the end our perception of reality, our experience of reality, becomes exactly the same as if the universe appeared without any creator. We are limited by the reality we exist in and knowledge about anything else outside it is unknowable to us due to these limitations. And if there was someone running an simulation specifically to simulate us, then we're not talking about a God, but a being or someone with a clear intention; an intention and purpose that we should be able to discern logically. So why would a simulation of this complexity be run? What's the purpose of this level of complex simulation?

Such a complexity suggests that the purpose is of a larger context and the inhabitants of it are irrelevant to that context. We then still end up with an existence of the same level of nihilism as if it wasn't a simulation.

I think the question of "why" is an important and forgotten one. The allure of the concept of reality being a simulation is the allure of the fiction that grows from it. It's a fascinating idea that spawns movies and stories like The Matrix. But even that movie ran into the problem of purpose as it's the weakest part of that story's lore. The purpose of a simulation is the most central and important aspect of it and it gets overlooked as a premise in any argument about it.

The simulation theory is often just an extrapolation of mathematical probability; the Niklas Boström argument is based on that probability. But without the proponent of purpose, it becomes a contextless probability that has no internal logic. There are tons of weird mathematics that looks wild on paper, but that doesn't mean you can extrapolate purpose that forms a concept outside of that math.

I'm gonna give my views on each of these.

1. Solipsism – Only your own mind is sure to exist.
Why it's unfalsifiable: Any evidence you receive — from people, books, or even me — could just be a product of your own mind. — Truth Seeker

While true that our perception is a product of our mind rather than objective (in the sense of true representation of reality), I'd argue that when someone face a complexity they cannot comprehend and over time learn to comprehend, Solipsism suggests that the mind created a complexity it didn't itself understand yet and later did. A progression of understanding that doesn't merge well with reality being a product of our own mind as that would suggest it would know all things but arbitrarily limit that knowledge in ways that are illogical to the concept.

2. Idealism – Only minds (or mental states) exist; the material world is a construct.
Why it's unfalsifiable: All physical evidence could be interpreted as patterns of experience or ideas within consciousness.

Implication: Challenges the idea of objective reality; everything may be “mind-stuff.” — Truth Seeker

Similar to solipsism, but more about the metaphysics. Deterministic events that can be witnessed by many suggests that there's an objective reality outside of the mind. This hypothesis is only true for the self and becomes an ego-arrogant observation of reality. In a broader context it suggests that all minds must share the same reality construct and that all measurable data about ourselves and reality must stem from some overarching "thing" that produce the same mental states for all.

It's an hypothesis that doesn't follow burden of proof and has no evidence for its claims.

3. Simulation Theory – We’re living in an artificial simulation (e.g., a computer simulation).
Why it's unfalsifiable: Any feature of the simulation could be indistinguishable from “real” physical laws.

Implication: If advanced civilisations can run simulations, and they would, we might be one. — Truth Seeker

If we are in a simulation, it is so advanced it is essentially reality for us, meaning, what's the difference between reality and a "simulation"? Comparing it to the holographic theory in physics, in which we are projections in 3D from a 2D surface outside of reality, it basically functions the same; without the fundamentals of the holographic nature of our reality, our reality wouldn't function as our reality.

So it doesn't matter if it's a simulation or not, the fundamentals of our reality is what it is and changing them would mean we aren't what we are.

4. Philosophical Zombie Theory – Other beings look conscious but lack inner experience.
Why it's unfalsifiable: You can’t access others’ inner lives; their behaviour might be perfectly human but devoid of sentience.

Implication: Raises deep questions about empathy, moral consideration, and what we can ever know of others. — Truth Seeker

Problem of qualia. But at the same time follows the ego-arrogant perspective of the self being more important than other beings. The question becomes "why you?" Why would others not have qualia and inner experience? The logic of the concept relies on the arrogance of the idea; that somehow you are the center of reality and everyone else is "fake". I'd say it's a form of fallacy out of paranoia, in lack of better description. While the concept is somewhat sound, it faces a logical gap too large to function in actually reasonable terms. In the end it becomes more of a science fiction concept in which the premise comes before the problem, in which there's a reason for others to be p-zombies and then the issue of knowing this or not becomes a reality. The question still remains, why are you at the center of this question? And why did someone else feed this theory to you if they don't have any inner life?

In essence, how can the question be asked by someone who does not have the knowledge of an inner life? How would the p-zombie who proposed this concept be able to conceptualize the difference between something with and without inner-life without an understanding of it?

5. Panpsychism – Consciousness is a fundamental aspect of all matter.
Why it's unfalsifiable: You can’t measure the subjective experience of an atom or rock.

Implication: Consciousness is ubiquitous — a kind of mental “stuff” in everything, not just brains. — Truth Seeker

This is not really just an untestable hypothesis. It depends on how we measure consciousness. If it turns out that consciousness is able to be measured in different states of gradual evolution based on the complexity of the thing being measured, then it can actually be tested. It is also a proponent in some theories in neuroscience.

What is being said here isn't measurable consciousness, but qualia. We can measure mental states and conscious activity in animals and even bugs. But we do not yet know if the physical processes of all matter have measurable consciousness, or if it's simply a matter of it being so minuscule that it becomes unable to be measured. Though, scientific research in this area is ongoing, so there's no conclusion yet.

And what is the difference between "everything" and "brain"? It's an arbitrary distinction as the brain is fundamentally just a composition of matter. From an outside perspective, what's the difference? Other than a certain and very specific composition that may give rise to an increased effect of being precisely an emergent consciousness?

6. Pantheism – Everything is God.
Why it's unfalsifiable: It redefines “God” as synonymous with the totality of existence — making it a matter of interpretation, not evidence.

Implication: Spiritual or religious reverence directed toward the universe as a whole. — Truth Seeker

Burden of proof and circular reasoning. "God" is a conclusion that doesn't follow the premises. Everything could be high energy ice cream of higher dimensions with the same argument.

7. Panentheism – Everything is in God, but God is more than everything.
Why it's unfalsifiable: Like pantheism, it’s a metaphysical interpretation that isn’t testable. It adds transcendence beyond the universe.

Implication: Allows both immanence (God in all) and transcendence (God beyond all). — Truth Seeker

Again, burden of proof and circular reasoning. "God" is a conclusion that doesn't follow the premises. Everything could be high energy ice cream of higher dimensions with the same argument.

8. Dualism – Mind and matter are fundamentally distinct.
Famous proponent: René Descartes

Why it's untestable: No clear empirical way to prove the existence of an immaterial mind separate from the brain.

Implication: Suggests consciousness could exist after death. — Truth Seeker

The problem isn't that it's impossible to empirically test consciousness outside of matter (brain), but rather that there's no evidence for them being distinct in the first place. It's circular reasoning basically and there's enough scientific evidence that points in the other direction, underlying that there is not consciousness without matter (brainbody or computer for that matter).

9. Theism – A personal God created and oversees the universe.
Why it's untestable: Claims about God typically lie beyond the scope of scientific inquiry.

Implication: Provides a moral and existential framework for billions, but rests on faith or personal experience. — Truth Seeker

Again, burden of proof and circular reasoning. "God" is a conclusion that doesn't follow the premises. Everything could be high energy ice cream of higher dimensions with the same argument.

Faith is no ground for sound philosophy. It's why most religious philosophers struggled so much. A tremendously biased itch in their brain they had to shoehorn into their philosophies, fundamentally limiting their inquiries.

10. Deism – A non-interventionist creator started the universe but does not interfere.
Why it's untestable: The absence of divine interference is indistinguishable from naturalism.

Implication: God exists but doesn't respond to prayer or intervene in history. — Truth Seeker

If there's any hypothesis of a God that has some reasonable ground it's this. Since it can be fused together with the simulation theory; essentially, we are a petri dish universe, something kickstarted as a chemical reaction in their perspective. But as such, it doesn't matter, because it just becomes a question about interdimensional aliens rather than "God" in the sense humans view the concept.

Another way to interpret is similar to movies like Prometheus and 2001: A Space Odyssey. That some entity kick started life/consciousness, but they're not God, but another form of life/consciousness creating us, as we would create AI.

Still, it becomes a hypothesis that demands observation to even come close to validity. So far nothing in science supports this other than maybe panspermia, but even that doesn't have as much support as abiogenesis.

11. Nihilism – There is no inherent meaning, value, or purpose in the universe.
Why it's untestable: Meaning and value are subjective constructs.

Implication: Can lead to despair or radical freedom, depending on interpretation. — Truth Seeker

The more we learn about our reality, the more support this gets. There might still be a purpose beyond human understanding, but that also means beyond us and indifferent to us.

Despair comes before the realization that we are forced to produce our own meaning. When God dies, it's our responsibility to create meaning for ourselves and our existence. Nihilism is only the depression out of the realization there's no meaning, it isn't a constant for our existence. The ones who propose such lack imagination and curiosity to look further. They are no pioneers of humanity.

12. Eternalism (Block Universe Theory) – Past, present, and future all exist equally.
Why it's untestable: You cannot directly observe future events as already existing.

Implication: Time is an illusion; "now" is just a perspective. — Truth Seeker

There are many concepts of the Block Universe Theory, not all propose the future being in that block. It can also be that the future is composed of fundamental randomness of probability and that this probability collapse when interacting with the presence composed of known states of matter, which solidifies in a solid state past. That our perception of reality is fundamentally the experience of these quantum states collapsing.

There's a lot of support in physics for this and time as an illusion is kind of accepted already.

13. Multiverse Theory – There are countless parallel universes.
Why it's (currently) untestable: Other universes are, by definition, beyond our observable horizon.

Implication: Our universe may be just one of infinitely many, each with different laws or histories. — Truth Seeker

There are two version of this. One is a multiverse with formed bubble universes, almost like bubbles in carbonated water. Each bubble has its own progression that doesn't split (as in quantum physics concept of parallel universes), so our universe is based on specific laws of physics that produce the properties of our reality. We wouldn't even be able to enter other bubbles as reality works fundamentally different there and we wouldn't recognize or could even comprehend the perception of reality in that place. This means, we only have our own universe and reality, while there are infinite bubbles in higher dimensional realities.

The other version is the quantum physics interpretation (Everett). In which there are no quantum collapses and that everything exists in parallel universes. But what is missed is that the differences between them are basically the difference in one single collapse happening, and essentially produces such a large quantity of universes that it effectively needs to be counted as infinity. And most of them look identical as a quantum collapse in any part of the universe and reality would constitute a split. The idea of other universe "where we did other choices in life" is mostly fiction. While possible, the location is not a single thing, but closer to a gradient of infinites.

14. Reincarnation – Consciousness is reborn into new lives.
Why it's untestable: No conclusive way to track consciousness or memory between lives.

Implication: May promote ethical behaviour, depending on karmic beliefs. — Truth Seeker

Again, similar to arguments about God. Burden of proof and circular reasoning. The conclusion comes before any evidence or reasonable premises. Pure faith.

The only concept that comes close is that our matter returns to nature. In a sense we are formed and we consume matter that becomes us and then we are consumed back into nature. Like a bright point existing and then fading away. But nothing of this suggests consciousness does the same as it would need to first prove the Dualist concept and then needs to prove this state of consciousness moves deliberately.

That said, we don't yet know if we could copy our consciousness into something like a computer system. We wouldn't be able to "move" into it, but copying the brain composition and simulating everything in such detail that the mind functions in the exact same way would essentially be something like it. But then it becomes something else and isn't a fundamental part of what constitutes reincarnation.

And since most actual evidence speaks against dualism, there's little in support of consciousness being able to operate within the matter construct of another form of brain. The brain composition and the specific consciousness it produce seems fundamentally inseparable.

15. Absolute Idealism – The universe is the expression of a single universal mind.
Why it's untestable: The "absolute" mind cannot be externally observed.

Implication: All existence is interconnected as part of a single consciousness. — Truth Seeker

Similar to arguments for God and simulation theory. Conclusion before the premise as well as why would it matter? The effect on our reality would be the same regardless and the purpose of this single mind would be indistinguishable from questions about what existed before the big bang.

16. Nondualism (Advaita Vedanta, Zen, etc.) – There is no fundamental separation between self and universe.
Why it's untestable: It’s a shift in consciousness rather than a theory with predictive power.

Implication: Suffering arises from the illusion of separation; enlightenment dissolves this illusion. — Truth Seeker

Removing the religious components, nonduality holds ground in the sense that humans have an arrogance in how we view our existence in the universe and reality. Similar to the geocentrism, we place ourselves at the center of the universe and then think of existence as us in relation to it, when both logic and science says that we are part of the same universe as everything else and it's fundamental for the purpose of fully understanding reality and the universe.

The problem with Adaita, Vedanta, Zen is that the religious bits are invented out of the concept and generally becomes something other than the pure scientific perspective.

17. Cosmic Solipsism – The entire cosmos exists for one observer (e.g., you).
Why it's untestable: Similar to solipsism but extended to cosmic scale. — Truth Seeker

Fundamentally the arrogance of humans, the geocentrism fallacy, a concept out of the ego rather than rational reasoning. Faith not in God, but in the self as being the most important thing in the universe... yet we see examples of this arrogance a lot in society :sweat:

Empiricism says reality is what can be observed and tested.

Rationalism says reality is what can be logically deduced.

Phenomenology says reality is what appears in conscious experience.

Pragmatism says reality is what works — what lets you survive and make decisions. — Truth Seeker

Why not all combined? Each hold some merit in some form or another, they're not mutually exclusive.

I think most problems in philosophy around the subject of reality, perception and consciousness stem from the biases people have towards a certain school of thought they learned, rather than finding a holistic perspective that finds the merit in different thoughts.

For instance, reality can be logically deduced, then observed and tested and yet still be within the limited perception of experience we have.

People are too influenced by their biases, getting stuck in the mud of emotional attachment to some faith they have of a specific concept, losing the ability to reach into higher forms of understanding.

Essentially, most people just argue for their side like all of this was about their favourite sports team. It's why I think most people fail at philosophy. They argue for a belief, not what follows the rational, the logic, the evidence and so on.

But if Hitler was really standing up for free speech then alternative views would have an equal amount of play-time on the radio waves. There must have been something that kept citizens from hearing alternative views, or that made alternative views to fascism less desirable. What was that? Would you be enthralled by Hitler's words to commit genocide? There were some that opposed Hitler and hid Jews at their own risk. What makes some people become spellbound by fascism and others not even though they hear the same rhetoric? — Harry Hindu

Yes, people spoke up, opposed, etc. but it was exactly that which became easy for Hitler and the Nazis to oppose by using free speech absolutism as a rhetoric. "See they want to silence us". I don't know how much you know about Germany, Hitler and the Nazis before the 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree, but they didn't argue for genocide but for changes to German politics trying to radicalize people into a new form of thinking about what it means to be German, and which later played into the antisemitism.

It looks more like you have a hindsight bias here, together with just mixing up history into a large mess rather than looking at the progression of politics and the fall into authoritarianism as a long process beginning at the end of the first world war.

Before the1933 Reichstag Fire Decree, nothing of what you think about Nazis and Hitler were true in the world. He was just a chaotic politician that was after the 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree viewed as someone "who could become a real danger", in a similar way to how we look at someone like Putin right now. And to some degree Trump as well, seen as how he uses the same exact toolset as the Nazis did before the 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree.

You have whole libraries of material to read about the psychology of the German population from the 20s into the 40s. I suggest you go into the details because it will explain why some becomes spellbound and others not. You can ask the same question about Trump and the MAGA movement today. Why are people being spellbound by an obvious narcissist who don't really care about them, yet they still view him as a deity? You have the seeds for a fascist state in the US right now, similar to 20s Germany. How it goes depends on how far Trump and his similars takes it, or how well the good people of the US stands up against it.

What I'm saying in this thread is that the absolute state of freedom of speech is an utopian delusion either by those who don't understand Poppers tolerance paradox, or those with a very simplistic understanding of society and social psychology, or who are simply using it like the extremists, to champion an ideal in which they can say whatever extreme views they have without consequences.

If you champion absolutism in this sense, then you are indeed arguing for no consequences for the speaker. They can say whatever they like without any consequence. If you look at this forum for example, how do you think it would look with an absolutist stance on freedom of speech? Well, Twitter/X gives a hint on exactly what happens. People are generally unable to act civil without laws and regulations and just as we judge morals in justice for actions, why shouldn't there be consequences for immoral speech? We already live in a society which does not operate on freedom of speech absolutism, yet do you feel limited? The only ones feeling limited seems to be those who actually want to spread hate, racism, homophobia, transphobia and other slurred language. Society is better off without them pouring toxics into the social sphere. And I don't think anyone would disagree with that, except those on that side of the fence.

So the question is rather, why would you defend the absolute state of freedom of speech without falling into the consequences that Popper lays out in his tolerance paradox?

I ... umm... did. There is no paradox about speech and I gave the argument. I am sorry that this isn't landing. — AmadeusD

Why did Popper call the concept a paradox of tolerance? You never addressed that (which is the paradox I'm referring to). What's the point in having any discussion with you when you continuously just ignore what is being talked about in a way that is convenient for you?

It certainly is. — AmadeusD

If you think so, then discussing anything with you is pointless as you will not add anything of value to a discussion. Rather than honestly engaging with the opposing argument, you ignore and just reiterate your original viewpoint. I see now that engaging with your posts will be pointless as you lack the philosophical grit to engage in discussions in honest.

I can't quite recall exactly what I was responding to there — AmadeusD

How convenient.

but the point is that I think Popper is wrong. And patently so. I gave the argument (i will dredge it up at some point). — AmadeusD

You didn't address the core premises of his argument or mine, you basically just said "I disagree" wrapped in the appearance of an argument. And it seems like it is pointless to ask for more as I'm not sure you know the actual difference.

This is so utterly bizarre and childish. I was going to go through both responses, but fuck that lol. — AmadeusD

No, it's you who acts bizarre and childish, and I think most people sees that.

The method by which it attained power was by suppressing alternative views - by keeping the citizens uninformed of viable alternatives. The moment they were able to suppress any opposing viewpoints, they held power over the people. — Harry Hindu

I think you need to look into the entire progression of what happened. You're still looking at the tail-end of the transition into authoritarianism. It began with the Nazis championing absolute free speech in order to paint those who wanted to silence them as the suppressors of free speech, and through their championing of free speech absolutism they could slowly erode the publics perceptions and radicalize people into standing behind their definitions of what is allowed to be said.

This is Hitler in the 20s:

We asked nothing of the world but equal rights, just as we asked for the same rights at home. At home we demanded the right to meet freely, the right which the others possessed. We demanded the right of free speech, the same right as a parliamentary party as the others held. We were refused and persecuted with terrorism. Nevertheless, we built up our organization and won the day.... — Hitler

I don't think you look at the transition into authoritarianism in the logical way it historically and psychologically happens, i.e you have to get the public behind your suppression of free speech in some way before you do it. They have to back you up suppressing society in the way you want, and the best way to do it is to first role play as the good side and then when you start to suppress society you do it in a way that includes all people who supported you. That way these people will feel like they are on the "good side of history". This is radicalization 101.

As you can see in that speech, Hitler positioned himself and his party as being suppressed and as championing free speech to allow them to spread their propaganda which eventually eroded the public into a radicalized state. The power of that rhetoric is that he gained power by putting himself in the position of standing up for free speech, not suppression.

It was only after he was elected that through the Reichstag Fire Decree they changed the Weimar constitution to start suppress society, but people supported them in doing so, because he'd convinced them of him and his party being on the good side. That it was an emergency change to protect society.

You are only speaking of what Hitler and the Nazis did post the 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree, when they already reached the point of having the people's support in suppressing free speech, it does not happen without the public standing behind you and for that you need a narrative that works. This strategy was what was criticized by Popper and other philosophers as being the absolutist state of free speech that eventually erodes free speech itself.

Yet people in society were incited by what someone said, even when opposing viewpoints are available. It was because the information was suppressed that people were incited. If the rioters had the correct information and still rioted, who would be at fault? — Harry Hindu

I don't think you understand the point I'm making. I'm saying that if a political party were to suppress freedom of speech directly without anything leading up to it, people would notice and oppose it in much greater numbers. But by eroding who the public think champions free speech, you can place people in the bubble that supports your side because you paint yourself as the champion of freedom in opposition to those who want to limit your speech. That way you gain numbers in followers so that when you tell them that you will suppress what can be said and talked about in society, it is in their best interest and that it's for their protection in order to protect their freedom. This is exactly how it went for Hitler and the Nazis and how they gained true power.

Just look at the political discussions on this forum. Most people on the left and right live in bubbles where they only get information from one side. There isn't always a counter-point if they live in a bubble, hence my solution to change the way the media disseminates information and abolishing political parties. Again, if the rioters had access to the counter-point and still rioted, how would that change the culpability of who started the riot? — Harry Hindu

This forum consist of people from all over the world. And I would rather say that the forum holds a rather good balance in the debates, disregarding a few very obvious ones. People cannot rid themselves of biases completely and abolishing political parties will do nothing to change the fact that people attach to different biases. Abolishing and ripping something up by the roots in order to replace it with something "better" will always lead to the animal farm scenario if the people doing so doesn't have a deep insight into how biases and psychology play into things and how to oppose those taking advantage of chaos.

But nothing of this has to do with the topic at hand really. Free speech absolutism vs restricted speech is more about the tolerance paradox than biased opinions. Opposing views does not change someone's bias in a straightforward way, and free speech absolutism has more to do with how very specific, radical, and extremist views take root in an open society.

The problem is that people don't think about freedom of speech absolutism towards its logical conclusion, and rather buy into the narratives that extremists use to give themselves free reign to spread hate.

Free speech without the absolutist state of it does not limit free speech. A non-absolutist version of free speech just requires more effort to recognize when the line has been crossed. So it's more about people leaning towards that which requires the least energy and effort, i.e the lazy. Instead of letting freedom of speech be something that is actually defended.

You are confusing freedom of speech absolutism with authoritarian speech - where you are ignoring that free speech entails the ability to question what is said, and the rioters did not have that, and possibly didn't care that they didn't. The only absolutism of free speech is the absolute capacity to question authority. Even then I might not say absolute as any criticism needs to be well founded and logical, but then I might ask, if criticism is not well founded and logical, is it really criticism or a straw-man? — Harry Hindu

How am I confusing the two? You are placing this into a binary construct that doesn't exist. I'm not really sure what you are arguing here. Free speech absolutism is not what you think it is. It's not "normal" free speech, it's a foundation of giving extremists free reign and a form of free speech that eventually always lead to intolerance and authoritarianism. This is what Popper argued, that the absolute state of freedom of speech leads to limited speech, that's the paradox he talked about. That in order to have free speech there must be limitations specifically on those who try to dismantle or manipulate the public by the means of freedom of speech absolutism.

I don't understand why you keep mentioning strawman all the time when I do understand that you try to juxtapose authoritarianism against freedom of speech absolutism and that the latter would grant the freedom to oppose authoritarianism, but that is a very simplified observation of how society and people works, in the same way you ignore how the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s actually happened and just boil it down to "authoritarianism" as if it just popped into existence from nothing in 1933.

The question is about freedom of speech vs freedom of speech absolutism. Almost all functional societies and democracies today operate on a non-absolutist version of freedom of speech in which society do not tolerate the spread of hate speech and moderate the public sphere to be protected from those who tries to openly radicalize. Though the complexity of radicalization is a topic of its own, free speech absolutism is one of the greatest tools used by extremists.

As Jamal points out, the holistic perspective doesn't mean the details are absent. A good way to look at it might be that the conclusions paint the big picture, while the premises in support of that conclusion compose the finer details.

Yet it's now laughable how the Trump crowd was against corruption and hated the Clinton's having a foundation and getting those speech fees etc. Especially the idea of American politicians getting money from the Arabs. But now... it's smart! — ssu

Because people are biased and the majority of people cannot think outside those biases they have. If someone on the other side does something that their own camp judges immoral, then they will pour all their hate towards that person. But if they later do the same thing, then they will not think it's immoral, even when faced with the fact that they've shown this hypocrisy. It's biased behavior 101.

People who are able to act, think and see past their own biases are rare, like, 1-2 % of the population rare. The world rests on people's biases being somewhat moral, by good people in the lead (or at least good enough), but all it takes is a slight corruption of their thinking by bad actors to influence their biased thinking into becoming supporters of murderous, hateful, racist and criminal behavior.

This is why people are shit. Not just leaders and corrupt politicians, but the people, embodying the banality of evil.