I once talked with an enlightened “pacifistic” centrist.
At some point I used the low hanging fruit - colonialism! do you think both sides were right? I felt kind of silly for not using a more sophisticated argument but- he said “yes, they should’ve just talked and came to some compromise :)”. It didn’t matter to him that one side was clearly an aggressor, because since the native people tried defending themselves that was enough for him to think both sides were bad.
clearly that fruit was a bit too high still, so I went with the good old - what about Jews and hitler? he replied that still, they should’ve tried to come to some sort of compromise- at that point I was very done talking to that guy. How on earth did he see a possible middle ground between “i’d like to live please thanks” and “i want your whole ethnicity eradicated” is beyond me
the lesson is - start with arguments you find simple and straightforward, ones with obvious answers, because some people can and will trip over even the lowest hurdles, and it’ll save you a lot of time lol
“I can alter reality, and there aren’t enough resources to go around. Should I make people requires less resources to survive? Make the resources more plentiful? Naw, imma kill 50% of everybody. I’m so smart!”
The playground metaphor is a great one. And I love this quote:
Paolo Freire said, “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”
It’s not enough to remain neutral in a conflict, be it racism, fascism, colonialism, or otherwise. You have to be actively against it to hold a decent opinion, otherwise you’re assisting the racists, fascists, and colonizers.
I once talked with an enlightened “pacifistic” centrist.
At some point I used the low hanging fruit - colonialism! do you think both sides were right? I felt kind of silly for not using a more sophisticated argument but- he said “yes, they should’ve just talked and came to some compromise :)”. It didn’t matter to him that one side was clearly an aggressor, because since the native people tried defending themselves that was enough for him to think both sides were bad.
clearly that fruit was a bit too high still, so I went with the good old - what about Jews and hitler? he replied that still, they should’ve tried to come to some sort of compromise- at that point I was very done talking to that guy. How on earth did he see a possible middle ground between “i’d like to live please thanks” and “i want your whole ethnicity eradicated” is beyond me
the lesson is - start with arguments you find simple and straightforward, ones with obvious answers, because some people can and will trip over even the lowest hurdles, and it’ll save you a lot of time lol
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The Thanos method
“I can alter reality, and there aren’t enough resources to go around. Should I make people requires less resources to survive? Make the resources more plentiful? Naw, imma kill 50% of everybody. I’m so smart!”
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jeyvzALDbjdjjv5RW/pretending-to-be-wise
The playground metaphor is a great one. And I love this quote:
It’s not enough to remain neutral in a conflict, be it racism, fascism, colonialism, or otherwise. You have to be actively against it to hold a decent opinion, otherwise you’re assisting the racists, fascists, and colonizers.
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