It’s literally up to you to use your words to fight their words. As soon as you try to ban words and speech it will immediately be turned around against you. If you cannot fight their words with your words that’s your problem not theirs.
The skill is debate and debunking. It should be fairly simple to show a serial lack of honesty and bullshit. If you can show that then it should be fairly simple to get people to stop listening and disconnect. Calling their words mean will convince no one. Do the work if you care so much.
It’s not a debate skill issue, it’s an education issue. What bad faith actors do when pretending to debate is just real-time trolling, they’re not interested in debate, and debating lends legitimacy to their idiocy. “Don’t feed the troll.” People need to educated enough that they themselves walk away from disingenuous debates and stop listening.
Watch “thank you for smoking” or read literally anything on persuasive argument. Exposing and publicizing these viewpoints does not make them less popular. Allowing the “alt-right” to have “free exchange in the marketplace of ideas” has only led to there being more Nazis or Nazi adjacent people now than there was before we did that. The “alt-right” isn’t even alt anymore, it’s the mainstream right-wing position.
People that think “oh well that’s only because we haven’t had the right argument” are completely ignorant of history. We didn’t defeat Hitler in “the marketplace of ideas”, and you won’t defeat Putin or Trump there either.
Have you considered that your Overton window has changed and everybody you think is Nazis and Nazi adjacent are just more right of your politics now than before? There hasn’t been a major shift in the public but internet politics has shifted drastically.
Yup. Fascists don’t have the skills to argue in good faith, and no one should listen to anything any of them have to say. I hope no one makes that mistake in this thread by listening to you.
“Never believe that [fascists] are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
We Germans are doing just fine with laws against certain kind of statements since… y’know.
I don’t like the overall trend of restricting certain kinds of language, especially on social media where some concepts are forced to be expressed through some kind of doublespeak to be seen but I think it’s fair game to outlaw the denial of the holocaust.
I don’t like the overall trend of restricting certain kinds of language, especially on social media where some concepts are forced to be expressed through some kind of doublespeak
Saying unalive instead of suicide or censoring words like rape to r*pe.
It’s mostly on TikTok and YouTube but it spilled into other platforms as well since users are uncertain what they can say sometimes.
You can try to drop people in little boxes to suit your ideology, but it doesn’t work well on me. I’ve made it a habit to argue with bigots - particularly at work. There’s a surprising number of people that sound hateful but are just ignorant and curious.
I haven’t defended nazis and I certainly haven’t defended genocidal maniacs. Pretty sure I’ve said humans are humans, even ones with bad ideas and that robust self defense is a basic human right.
He’s not advocating for arguing with fascists. He’s advocating for validating fascists by hearing them out and treating them as though their shit ideas could ever have merit or that any of them have merit as people.
We’ve seen what happens when naive people tolerate fascists. You’re just trying to make that happen again.
I think you can argue with bigots without validating their ideas. I’m not arguing that you should, but I’m comfortable doing it. I’ve tried to cultivate a human first perspective of people and I don’t think I can pull off violence against someone for their words without damaging the compassion and empathy I try to live by.
I think you can argue with bigots without validating their ideas.
I think none of them will ever deserve an audience for their idiotic fascist bigot nazi ideas. Just because your sympathies lie with them, that doesn’t mean everyone else has to enable your bigot buddies to do what you hope they will.
Most nationalists (including Nazi) give no flying fucks about a rational discourse. If 2+2=4 hurts their precious fee fees, they say that 2+2=5 and no matter what you say will change it.
Plenty Nazi capitalise on Brandolini’s Law. They know that it takes far less effort to utter bullshit than to refute it. In effect this means that people fighting against Nazi discourses through words will, as a group, get tired faster than the ones vomiting the Nazi discourse.
Because of those two factors, while I can certainly understand your point, I think that you’re being short-sighted when you say “that’s your problem not theirs”.
I do agree that there’s always a risk that mechanisms used to censor them might get misused against you. However I see this as a second risk that you need to balance out with the first one (the Nazi), and which risk is more relevant is heavily situational.
I’m not a big fan of Poo-per Popper but I think that his paradox of tolerance is spot on about those two things. At least in its original version (not its “Disney version” parroted in social media). I’ll abridge it here:
If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies ; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right even to suppress them, for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument ; they may forbid their followers to listen to anything as deceptive as rational argument, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists.
Emphasis mine. For further context check page 226 of his book. (PDF page 232).
The fact that it takes a lot more energy to debunk a claim is why I said you can take a few and show that they are disingenuous. Spend a bit of energy to show that they always talk bullshit so that they can be proven liars and easily discounted by anybody with a brain. The people you are trying to convince are not the Nazis. They’re basically a lost cause. They are few and far between but if people listen to what they say and nobody is around to disprove it or argue against it they gain a bit of power. They haven’t created more Nazis so you have the same enemies to fight against. Cut off the head of the snake by showing their claims to be disingenuous and lies.
These are all things that do not require the power of law and force of government to silence people.
Taking a few and showing that they’re disingenuous doesn’t work well.
For a less rational audience, all that the Nazi need to do is to relabel their discourse; for example saying that they’re “the alternative right” instead of “neonazi”, or “anti-woke” instead of “alt right”. And, for a more rational audience, the nazi can point out that you’re generalising an attribute to the group based on properties of a few of them (“ackshyually, that guy is bad, but not all of us are like that!”).
In both cases, if you decide to not keep engaging, they can simply claim “see? He was left with no arguments!”. And they do this all the time.
The people you are trying to convince are not the Nazis. They’re basically a lost cause.
Fully agree with that.
These are all things that do not require the power of law and force of government to silence people.
I think that our major point of disagreement is if those things are enough to keep the Nazi at bay. I think that often they aren’t.
We already have a class of speech called true threats. If it is actionable then it is illegal. If they have concrete plans for it then we have laws that criminalize it. If they’re just saying what they want to happen then you can call them monsters and show why what they are saying is wrong and terrible.
If you cannot fight their words with your words that’s your problem not theirs.
People pretend like some perfect argument can defeat Nazis. You cannot fight gut emotions like fear, dread, and hatred with “reasonable” words and “rational” thought.
People aren’t rational, and they are easily pursuaded by things other than “the best possible idea selected by an objective evaluation of all available ideas from the marketplace of ideas”.
People aren’t robots, hatred and fear lean into their base emotions. It’s partially why cults exist.
There’s never really a perfect argument because we’re not beholden to rationality. Utilitarianism comes after treating people well for me, so even if an action would result in a better outcome I may find it unethical.
You might have deluded yourself into thinking fence sitting or becoming a bystander is more ethical but it’s often not.
It’s usually the easier choice and requires the least amount of effort and immediate danger, which is why most choose it, but that is not at all the same thing as ethical.
If you walk away from the trolley lever, that’s still a choice and doesn’t save you from the dilemma.
It’s literally up to you to use your words to fight their words. As soon as you try to ban words and speech it will immediately be turned around against you. If you cannot fight their words with your words that’s your problem not theirs.
That only works with people arguing in good faith…
Fascists never do that.
Neither do red fascists (aka tankies).
A fascist is a fascist, and 99.9999% lie about if they are.
There’s no need to differentiate
In a thread about nazis, you can always count on nazi sympathizers to be like “buh whubbut commies?!?!?”
Sounds like a skill issue.
Skill?? What is this “get on my level” shit? They are trying to kill us.
Even when the phrase is used in gaming, it’s an admission of defeat.
“The game is messed up, but I don’t want to sound wrong.”
There’s a big overlap between gamers and fascists, due to Roger Stone and his WOW gold farming days.
It’s actually pretty interesting read, but I couldn’t find a good article on it now
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The skill is debate and debunking. It should be fairly simple to show a serial lack of honesty and bullshit. If you can show that then it should be fairly simple to get people to stop listening and disconnect. Calling their words mean will convince no one. Do the work if you care so much.
It’s not a debate skill issue, it’s an education issue. What bad faith actors do when pretending to debate is just real-time trolling, they’re not interested in debate, and debating lends legitimacy to their idiocy. “Don’t feed the troll.” People need to educated enough that they themselves walk away from disingenuous debates and stop listening.
You sure like sticking up for nazis.
I don’t know what thread you’ve been reading but I’m sticking up for speech.
But you’re talking like debate will make the bigots stop.
Why would I claim the bigots would stop. I only claim that they would fail. They have the right to continue. They have the right to be wrong.
Watch “thank you for smoking” or read literally anything on persuasive argument. Exposing and publicizing these viewpoints does not make them less popular. Allowing the “alt-right” to have “free exchange in the marketplace of ideas” has only led to there being more Nazis or Nazi adjacent people now than there was before we did that. The “alt-right” isn’t even alt anymore, it’s the mainstream right-wing position.
People that think “oh well that’s only because we haven’t had the right argument” are completely ignorant of history. We didn’t defeat Hitler in “the marketplace of ideas”, and you won’t defeat Putin or Trump there either.
Have you considered that your Overton window has changed and everybody you think is Nazis and Nazi adjacent are just more right of your politics now than before? There hasn’t been a major shift in the public but internet politics has shifted drastically.
Yup. Fascists don’t have the skills to argue in good faith, and no one should listen to anything any of them have to say. I hope no one makes that mistake in this thread by listening to you.
“Never believe that [fascists] are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
L + Ratio + get fucked fascist
You do understand the fascist has a definition right? It’s not just an insult you throw at people with ideas you don’t like.
By being a fascist apologizer, you’re choosing to side with the fascists.
This is your brain on authoritarianism.
We Germans are doing just fine with laws against certain kind of statements since… y’know.
I don’t like the overall trend of restricting certain kinds of language, especially on social media where some concepts are forced to be expressed through some kind of doublespeak to be seen but I think it’s fair game to outlaw the denial of the holocaust.
example?
Saying unalive instead of suicide or censoring words like rape to r*pe.
It’s mostly on TikTok and YouTube but it spilled into other platforms as well since users are uncertain what they can say sometimes.
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You first. Start speaking out against fascists instead of on their behalf.
Why would you assume that someone in support of arguing with fascists wouldn’t argue with fascists?
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You can try to drop people in little boxes to suit your ideology, but it doesn’t work well on me. I’ve made it a habit to argue with bigots - particularly at work. There’s a surprising number of people that sound hateful but are just ignorant and curious.
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I haven’t defended nazis and I certainly haven’t defended genocidal maniacs. Pretty sure I’ve said humans are humans, even ones with bad ideas and that robust self defense is a basic human right.
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I urge you to show me how I’ve defended them. Even in the post comments I’ve called some out. You people are delusional.
He’s not advocating for arguing with fascists. He’s advocating for validating fascists by hearing them out and treating them as though their shit ideas could ever have merit or that any of them have merit as people.
We’ve seen what happens when naive people tolerate fascists. You’re just trying to make that happen again.
I think you can argue with bigots without validating their ideas. I’m not arguing that you should, but I’m comfortable doing it. I’ve tried to cultivate a human first perspective of people and I don’t think I can pull off violence against someone for their words without damaging the compassion and empathy I try to live by.
I think none of them will ever deserve an audience for their idiotic fascist bigot nazi ideas. Just because your sympathies lie with them, that doesn’t mean everyone else has to enable your bigot buddies to do what you hope they will.
There are two important factors here:
Because of those two factors, while I can certainly understand your point, I think that you’re being short-sighted when you say “that’s your problem not theirs”.
I do agree that there’s always a risk that mechanisms used to censor them might get misused against you. However I see this as a second risk that you need to balance out with the first one (the Nazi), and which risk is more relevant is heavily situational.
I’m not a big fan of
Poo-perPopper but I think that his paradox of tolerance is spot on about those two things. At least in its original version (not its “Disney version” parroted in social media). I’ll abridge it here:Emphasis mine. For further context check page 226 of his book. (PDF page 232).
The fact that it takes a lot more energy to debunk a claim is why I said you can take a few and show that they are disingenuous. Spend a bit of energy to show that they always talk bullshit so that they can be proven liars and easily discounted by anybody with a brain. The people you are trying to convince are not the Nazis. They’re basically a lost cause. They are few and far between but if people listen to what they say and nobody is around to disprove it or argue against it they gain a bit of power. They haven’t created more Nazis so you have the same enemies to fight against. Cut off the head of the snake by showing their claims to be disingenuous and lies.
These are all things that do not require the power of law and force of government to silence people.
Taking a few and showing that they’re disingenuous doesn’t work well.
For a less rational audience, all that the Nazi need to do is to relabel their discourse; for example saying that they’re “the alternative right” instead of “neonazi”, or “anti-woke” instead of “alt right”. And, for a more rational audience, the nazi can point out that you’re generalising an attribute to the group based on properties of a few of them (“ackshyually, that guy is bad, but not all of us are like that!”).
In both cases, if you decide to not keep engaging, they can simply claim “see? He was left with no arguments!”. And they do this all the time.
Fully agree with that.
I think that our major point of disagreement is if those things are enough to keep the Nazi at bay. I think that often they aren’t.
So when they call for the mass murder of a group of people the only appropriate response is words?
If someone with a lot of followers said that their followers should kill you then the only appropriate response is to tell them not to do that?
We already have a class of speech called true threats. If it is actionable then it is illegal. If they have concrete plans for it then we have laws that criminalize it. If they’re just saying what they want to happen then you can call them monsters and show why what they are saying is wrong and terrible.
Ahh man! Where were you in 1933 Germany?
People pretend like some perfect argument can defeat Nazis. You cannot fight gut emotions like fear, dread, and hatred with “reasonable” words and “rational” thought.
People aren’t rational, and they are easily pursuaded by things other than “the best possible idea selected by an objective evaluation of all available ideas from the marketplace of ideas”.
People aren’t robots, hatred and fear lean into their base emotions. It’s partially why cults exist.
There’s never really a perfect argument because we’re not beholden to rationality. Utilitarianism comes after treating people well for me, so even if an action would result in a better outcome I may find it unethical.
But inaction is still a choice that may be unethical or not depending upon the results.
Inaction to you might be me choosing a method I think is ethical but isn’t as effective as well.
You might have deluded yourself into thinking fence sitting or becoming a bystander is more ethical but it’s often not.
It’s usually the easier choice and requires the least amount of effort and immediate danger, which is why most choose it, but that is not at all the same thing as ethical.
If you walk away from the trolley lever, that’s still a choice and doesn’t save you from the dilemma.
It’s not fence sitting. I have a very clear ethical position and I’ll argue for it vociferously.
And the closest to moral answer is to kill the one person, but jump in front of the train myself. I don’t see much utility in such an extreme example.
I think we’ve gotten a little vague here.
What’s your “ethical position”? Is it to platform Nazis?
Spoken like a true “both sides are bad” type of person.
What’s that? A nuanced world view? That’s illegal!
If your nuanced world view allows Fascists to spread hate, then it isn’t nuanced at all
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