Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 123: Heather Heyer

(+) Yeah! (+)

Jakyl25 posted...

But it would still be objectively better if there was NO slavery and no one wanted slavery

Two different points to this. The first is one I think we'll find agreement on : this isn't realistic and would have our history be so much more different that it's a difficult claim to say. If there was no slavery, what would societies that used it as an economic engine have been like? Or those that used it as a system of social order? Would they have been beaten down by worse countries instead? Arguing about something being better in history is basically arguing for a lot of "what if?" Examples.

The second point is more difficult, "what if nobody wanted slavery." Well, why did they want it? My assumption is labor and growth. They wanted to focus on everything else and have the basic infrastructure taken care of. This enabled them to get better in other fields, including things like art and military which back then was way more important than today considering diplomacy wasn't nearly as evolved. Please note this is not an argument of morality, not saying that the system they had is right or wrong, but is about the drive that created it. This is the same drive behind the idea of unmanned labor today: something else can take charge of the labor people do. That idea has been displaced from one that was applied in immoral ways to one that is mostly amoral. This, I'm not sure how comfortable you are with. It's more difficult to say that the desire to have slavery was not bad due to the application of it being incredibly harmful.
---

Jakyl25 posted...

Let's harp on anti-vaxx too

I'm pretty sure Wang is on the side of science here. I think he personally believes that there's nothing wrong with our current methodology regarding them. If I am wrong about this then disregard the rest of this post.

Wang's pro-speech ideas at their most extreme would say "hey, I think those anti-vaxxers are loony, but they have every right to spread that belief."

Spreading that belief literally kills innocent people. It does so not through a subsequent action on the part of the believers like with white supremacy, but through an INACTION.

But hey, free speech, right?

Your right to shoot a gun ends once there's a person as the target. Similarly, your right not to take medicine ends once it can kill others. It's the same thing. Your right to propagate Nazi beliefs ends once you've helped murder somebody.
---

I wasn't arguing historically. I meant as of today.

Your argument was "hey, it all worked out with slavery because today there's barely anyone advocating for it!"

I'm saying it would be better if there was literally no one

(Also let's disregard the fact that the idea sometimes got beaten out of cultures by either their enslaved or an outside force, instead of them slowly abolishing it on their own)
---

Peace___Frog posted...

Similarly, your right not to take medicine ends once it can kill others. It's the same thing

It's so not though, at least in the minds of so many people that aren't even anti-vaxx themselves

Regulating against inaction is so much tougher than regulating against actions
---

Corrik posted...

He said, they should be allowed to state their belief for it if they believe it. Nothing more.

Kinglicious posted...

But they are ideas not every generation has heard. If you've heard their taking points before then okay, you've heard out and rejected them already. Somebody else can now too.

That's past why they should be allowed to say it and why people should hear it. That's literally why you're supposed to have history lessons.
---

I lurk these topics all the time and hardly ever post, but I feel the need to now because you guys are being entirely absurd towards wang. His argument is entirely, and only that you should be allowed to openly state your thoughts and beliefs. What are you guys? The ministry from 1984? Thought police? Anyone should be able to express any opinion or belief. That is a moral certainty. And when Nazi's express a disgusting and abhorrent belief, as a moral person is our job and obligation to use our free speech to counter them.

As MLK once said, “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” If all people are allowed the free exchange of thoughts and ideas, we will always bend towards a better future morally because the just and moral stance WILL win. If you force people, if you coerce them in to your beliefs, they will not take. Maybe you'll suppress their evil nature for a time, but It will bubble and froth and boil over and just spill out in the future
---

Samurai7 posted...

As MLK once said, “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Btw, he also argued plenty of other things before we whitewashed his arguments. Same with Muhammad Ali. Anyone have that clip of him laughing at a woman who complained about reverse racism?
---

Another thing I know Wang has argued in the past:

Regarding threats and free speech, he's said that whether they should be allowed should be based on how possible it is that the threat could actually be carried out, which he admits is very tricky to determine. For example, if someone calls a 7/11 store and threatens to nuke them, that's not actionable, unless it's Donald Trump I guess.

Now that modern white supremacists have both threatened to assault those opposed to them, and in one case have actually killed someone, shouldn't their speeches about white purity by now be considered realistic threats?
---

Jakyl25 posted...

I wasn't arguing historically. I meant as of today.

Your argument was "hey, it all worked out with slavery because today there's barely anyone advocating for it!"

I'm saying it would be better if there was literally no one

(Also let's disregard the fact that the idea sometimes got beaten out of cultures by either their enslaved or an outside force, instead of them slowly abolishing it on their own)

Yeah, slavery went away because eventually we learned "hey maybe people who are pro-slavery should be shut down by force".
---

Samurai7 posted...

As MLK once said, “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” If all people are allowed the free exchange of thoughts and ideas, we will always bend towards a better future morally because the just and moral stance WILL win.

1.) I don't believe that

2.) There is irreversible damage done along the way
---

MLK also literally said the White Moderate who sits in the middle is in some ways worse than the outright racists, but yeah let's cherry pick the MLK quote that fits the very specific point we're making.
---

Samurai7 posted...

If all people are allowed the free exchange of thoughts and ideas, we will always bend towards a better future morally because the just and moral stance WILL win

I'd be more likely to believe that if most terrible things in history didn't have to be stopped by force.
---

Samurai7 posted...

What are you guys? The ministry from 1984? Thought police?

uh, there's a lot of space between "completely unlimited free speech" and "orwellian society."

i'm probably more lenient than most people in this topic in what should be allowed as far as free speech goes, but i'm not on the "completely unlimited" side wang is either. completely unlimited free speech is one of many reasons why anarchy doesn't work.
---

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

MLK also literally said the White Moderate who sits in the middle is in some ways worse than the outright racists, but yeah let's cherry pick the MLK quote that fits the very specific point we're making.

This is basically what I was getting at. He called the subtle northern racism in many ways worse than the blatant southern racism.
---

Jakyl25 posted...

Do you believe in objective truths?

Yes.

Jakyl25 posted...

You're treating ideas as if they exist independently, and nature weeds out the bad ones through human experimentation and debate.

No, ideas do exist independently but humans weed out the ideas that best match the societies they're in.


Jakyl25 posted...

Reality is that humans CREATE ideas. They are subservient to us the same way we are hypothetically subservient to an Abrahamaic God.

Natural selection in nature happens because either the creator is hands off, or there is no creator and life is left to fend for itself.

This is not true with ideas. We ARE their gods. They exist because WE ALLOW IT.

Humans creating ideas is something that doesn't match reality, no. Ideas are essentially thoughts and you don't really choose what you think, you choose to expand the number of ideas/different thoughts you're presented and will naturally select the ones that appear strongest to you.

We are absolutely not gods of ideas, we just control which ones we want to implement and use the ones we've implemented to determine what we should do next. All possible ideas already exist, you pick the ones that best apply. That's why different societies can somehow get the same idea to do things like making weapons at the same time or building pyramids, despite being centuries removed from each other. Even if an idea effectively dies it can still come up again in a different society under different circumstances in a different time. It does not truly go away, it's simply rejected to a point where it's incompatible. If we somehow have a global catastrophic event of large enough scale, ideas that were effectively dead would come back. If we were wiped back to the middle ages you'd have ideas and beliefs more in line with the middle ages become a thing once again.
---

Mr Lasastryke posted...

Samurai7 posted...

What are you guys? The ministry from 1984? Thought police?

uh, there's a lot of space between "completely unlimited free speech" and "orwellian society."

i'm probably more lenient than most people in this topic in what should be allowed as far as free speech goes, but i'm not on the "completely unlimited" side wang is either. completely unlimited free speech is one of many reasons why anarchy doesn't work.

Exactly. As we've already discussed with the paradox of tolerance - which was published over 70 years ago, mind you - intolerant ideas have no right of existence.
---

Kinglicious posted...

Some were itching for a fight but generally they were told not to get into any. They knew they had some who were more willing to do that (stickman) but still tried to not go to that level. As for "them looking better," no, they didn't. That wasn't a hypothetical, that was another Berkeley rally I think. They went, cops checked them, cops didn't check antifa because they were too far away, now they had to fight with whatever they could find. Nobody really cared because it was just right wing rally in a brawl with antifa with cops told to stand down. There's a strange amount of non-arrests that happens, ever wondered why? Because cops ain't getting in that. Both groups are hated so really situations like those or this one are more "fuck off, you two fight it out, we'll clean up later" for the most part.

There are... several things off with this paragraph.

First off, they were told not to get into any fights? Who told them that exactly? And if cops checked them for weapons, why did they have any weapons in the first place? >_> And why wouldn't they check anifta once they got there? And you're implying that the cops aren't making many arrest because both groups are hated and they're okay with them causing riots in the streets.

Yet... they were perfectly fine arresting BLM rally members for doing far less? It makes no logical sense.



Kinglicious posted...

Don't hold back your words now that you've said them. It's not critique to call people not even human and being proud of your dehumanizing of them. You aren't talking about a singular specific person, but a group of people who share an ideology are no longer human. None of this is critique. It's simply othering.

It's plenty critique. It's just unrelentingly harsh and unforgiving critique. I'm not "proud" at calling Nazis less than nothing, there's no brownie points for doing the obvious right thing and standing up to evil. Call it "othering" if you wish. I hate them for their actions and beliefs. They hate and kill people for their very birth.

Kinglicious posted...

That's not being "opposed to genocide" either. Quite the opposite - that's a necessary enabler for genocide. For example, the Jews were specifically pushed as not being people in a lot of Nazi propaganda. They were dehumanized, considered monsters, and people needed to get rid of them. Once you start saying they aren't human for their beliefs you open a very, very big can of worms that is exactly the one the people you hate used too. Once you put those labels out, you're saying that you'll abandon your own humanity if it means being able to remove theirs. That's becoming a monster you hate, yes.

The Jews were hated because they were Jews, and they made for a convenient scapegoat. You're trying to compare that to actual Nazis who want to kill people for the fact that they were born "wrong". No one is born a Nazi. They choose to be. When you make a choice to embrace that brand of evil, you've chosen to became an enemy of all that is good in the world.

Kinglicious posted...

Nah, chants just don't really scare me. Don't see why they should. Actions or beliefs do, they matter more than a soundbite.

Actions, like running over someone with a car? Actions like threatening innocent bystanders?
---

Kinglicious posted...

ideas do exist independently

how many ideas are floating around on venus right now
---

Jesus I cant begin to count the number of times I've seen people misrepresent MLK on coddling white supremists

I'd expand on this but I'm on a phone in a plane right now so tag
---

Dark Young Link posted...

Actions, like running over someone with a car? Actions like threatening innocent bystanders?

actions like making racists know that they're racists, apparently
---

Is it seriously being argued that ideas are a thing that would somehow exist on their own in a vacuum with nobody to actually... Have them?
---

I just got back from vacation what is happening
---

Kinglicious posted...

All possible ideas already exist

I don't see how you can say this

And what do you mean be we don't control our thoughts? Sure our brains are often subconsciously crafting them to present to us, but a lot of times we are creating ideas as well.

And our brains are still us.
---

There's.... also this.


Kinglicious posted...

A history lesson will not be very helpful to you, you're in a different time facing new versions of the old ideas. You're too removed from the original to get all the meaning and the idea is now presented in such a way to try to appeal to you in this new time, to make you believe it's possible. If you shut them down at this stage, you give them validity.

But if you let them talk, this incompatibility becomes clear. Everyone moved away from the idea generations ago and basic principles no longer work in the new society, principles they can't hide once a push is made. So they'll get rejected again, by people who reaffirm their current beliefs as they reject the old ones. As they do that, they will also continue to move against these negative beliefs.

Only after generations of rejection from iteration after iteration can you effectively program out these ideas as there won't be anything left to compare. It'll effectively be dead.

So basically, we have to give them a platform to speak(Which ironically goes against the idea of Freedom of Speech/Expression) and that there's apparently no reason to look at history because it was so long ago that the ideas are considered old?

We've let them talk. We've told them to get the fuck out, but apparently that's going too far? After all, only they get to say what they want. We have to be their friend. We rejected them, but we rejected them in the "wrong" way.



After generations of rejection? Well we rejected them in WWII, and I"m pretty sure we rejected them up til today. How many more generations do we have stand idly by and listen to them?

Actually, I have a better question.


Considering their message is a message of hate, that they have no problem wiping out a group of people for being born, and they they're actively trying to accomplish all of this(They won't be satisfied with just "talking" about it)...


How many people are you okay with dying, before we put an end to this? How many lives are you comfortable with ending before you you put your foot down?
---

NFUN posted...

I just got back from vacation what is happening

Ideas are independent of thoughts now I guess
---

CelesMyUserName posted...

Jesus I cant begin to count the number of times I've seen people misrepresent MLK on coddling white supremists

I'd expand on this but I'm on a phone in a plane right now so tag

MLK has been whitewashed by middle of the road cowards like Wang into this innocent childlike figure and it's depressing as hell. Wang is exactly the kind of person King fought against the most.

I'm so tired.
---

We're drifting way too close to Kant here, abort abort.
---

Jakyl25 posted...

I'm pretty sure Wang is on the side of science here. I think he personally believes that there's nothing wrong with our current methodology regarding them. If I am wrong about this then disregard the rest of this post.

We're good so far.

Jakyl25 posted...

Wang's pro-speech ideas at their most extreme would say "hey, I think those anti-vaxxers are loony, but they have every right to spread that belief."

Yes, absolutely true. Are you suggesting that it should be illegal for them to spread their beliefs? That anti-vaxxers should be arrested? Because I'm not seeing a possible alternative here.

Jakyl25 posted...

Spreading that belief literally kills innocent people. It does so not through a subsequent action on the part of the believers like with white supremacy, but through an INACTION.

But hey, free speech, right?

Spreading the belief does not kill anyone, no. If it was spread among doctors and people aware of herd defense, it wouldn't matter, nobody would believe it, and it would not kill anyone. That alone proves this is wrong.

People actively choosing to commit to inaction is a different thing. There's an explicit choice made by anti-vaxxers and that choice is harmful. These ideas were beaten a while ago and vaccination is part of society at every level. Yet it came back, despite being recent history, and people have fought back against it again. The Mercury argument is gone now so they focus on autism through ???, which also has been a long, losing battle. The results of breakouts have occurred and continued to prove anti-vaxxers are wrong. Steadily they will fade out, again, and hopefully the next time you see a rise it gets shut down even faster until it's effectively stamped out.

The only way to have avoided people dying due to anti-vaxxers is by having state sponsored punishment to be one. Are you saying we should do that?
---

Dark Young Link posted...

There's.... also this.


Kinglicious posted...

A history lesson will not be very helpful to you, you're in a different time facing new versions of the old ideas. You're too removed from the original to get all the meaning and the idea is now presented in such a way to try to appeal to you in this new time, to make you believe it's possible. If you shut them down at this stage, you give them validity.

But if you let them talk, this incompatibility becomes clear. Everyone moved away from the idea generations ago and basic principles no longer work in the new society, principles they can't hide once a push is made. So they'll get rejected again, by people who reaffirm their current beliefs as they reject the old ones. As they do that, they will also continue to move against these negative beliefs.

Only after generations of rejection from iteration after iteration can you effectively program out these ideas as there won't be anything left to compare. It'll effectively be dead.

So basically, we have to give them a platform to speak(Which ironically goes against the idea of Freedom of Speech/Expression) and that there's apparently no reason to look at history because it was so long ago that the ideas are considered old?

We've let them talk. We've told them to get the fuck out, but apparently that's going too far? After all, only they get to say what they want. We have to be their friend. We rejected them, but we rejected them in the "wrong" way.



After generations of rejection? Well we rejected them in WWII, and I"m pretty sure we rejected them up til today. How many more generations do we have stand idly by and listen to them?

Actually, I have a better question.


Considering their message is a message of hate, that they have no problem wiping out a group of people for being born, and they they're actively trying to accomplish all of this(They won't be satisfied with just "talking" about it)...


How many people are you okay with dying, before we put an end to this? How many lives are you comfortable with ending before you you put your foot down?

It's quite the Rube Goldberg machine

"We as a society know white supremacy is objectively an evil philosophy, but we have to allow it to affect people to keep proving it to ourselves."
---

Kenri posted...

We're drifting way too close to Kant here, abort abort.

hey, ayn rand despised kant so he must've said some cool things >_>
---

Kenri posted...

We're drifting way too close to Kant here, abort abort.

This is actually quite intentional on my part
---

Dark Young Link posted...

How many people are you okay with dying, before we put an end to this? How many lives are you comfortable with ending before you you put your foot down?

Endless. As long as free speech is upheld, no toll on life is too much. 1 death is no different from thousands, Wang has made it clear that the death of Heather Heyer has had absolutely no effect on his position. He would let them do it again before he accepted anybody lashing out towards then.

I just can't.....accept any truth other than Wang is one of them anymore. He transitioned from a GGer into one of them just like so many others.
---

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/father-denounces-son-identified-participant-charlottesville-rally


The father of one of the nazis has taken a stronger stance against the "rally" than our b8 republicans or president have.
---

Kinglicious posted...

The only way to have avoided people dying due to anti-vaxxers is by having state sponsored punishment to be one. Are you saying we should do that?

State sponsored punishment is preferable to innocent people dying.

A parent who intentionally doesn't vaccinate their child due to anti-vaxx beliefs should have child services called on them.
---

LapisLazuli posted...

CelesMyUserName posted...

Jesus I cant begin to count the number of times I've seen people misrepresent MLK on coddling white supremists

I'd expand on this but I'm on a phone in a plane right now so tag

MLK has been whitewashed by middle of the road cowards like Wang into this innocent childlike figure and it's depressing as hell. Wang is exactly the kind of person King fought against the most.

I'm so tired.

This is the kind of post I see when I venture into Neogaf, where moderates are ridiculed and often banned if they argue too much. They love this MLK quote...basically their justification to being assholes to people with different views.
---

“We have been silent up until now, but now we see that this was a mistake. It was the silence of good people that allowed the Nazis to flourish the first time around, and it is the silence of good people that is allowing them to flourish now,”

---

Also on a side note the mercury argument is not gone. They still insist it's in there
---

EndOfDiscOne posted...

They love this MLK quote...basically their justification to being a******s to people with different views.

Hey I'm never going to apologize for being an unrelenting asshole to anyone who openly self-identifies as a white supremacist
---

I find the "Spread of the belief isn't killing anybody. It's when you take action that does" argument to be incredibly dishonest. The actions are being taken because of the belief.

When you work so hard to separate "It's just the actions of one person, not the belief," you're doing way more harm than good.
---

StealThisSheen posted...

I find the "Spread of the belief isn't killing anybody. It's when you take action that does" argument to be incredibly dishonest. The actions are being taken because of the belief.

When you work so hard to separate "It's just the actions of one person, not the belief," you're doing way more harm than good.

It's so easy to do though from a distance!
---

Jakyl25 posted...

EndOfDiscOne posted...

They love this MLK quote...basically their justification to being a******s to people with different views.

Hey I'm never going to apologize for being an unrelenting asshole to anyone who openly self-identifies as a white supremacist

---

I've never seen someone able to type so much without actually saying shit as Wang.
---

Jakyl25 posted...

Your argument was "hey, it all worked out with slavery because today there's barely anyone advocating for it!"

That's not quite right. It's not "it all worked out," it's "we actively, over thousands of years, managed to stamp it out of a proper, advanced society." It's not coincidence or something that just happened to be it was actively strived for. Nobody advocates for it not just on moral grounds but because it's also woefully ineffective. The industrial revolution was incredible for creating such a different way to advance society that was far, far better to the old one. Nowadays even in third world countries it's looked down on and international organizations offer new, better ways to be without such a system. We have a better idea and can impart it to you.

Jakyl25 posted...

Now that modern white supremacists have both threatened to assault those opposed to them, and in one case have actually killed someone, shouldn't their speeches about white purity by now be considered realistic threats?

That's a conversation worth having and I'll agree in part, sure. You've just gotta be specific here - how do you identify who they are? There's no real way to recognize at a glance or a clear group for the most part. I mean look, if you're suggesting the KKK should be considered a domestic terrorist group, that's got legs to it. But I don't think that covers everyone, nor do I think there's a way to really cover them all. But it's a convo worth talking about.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Yeah, slavery went away because eventually we learned "hey maybe people who are pro-slavery should be shut down by force".

These kinds of comments have the entire conversation going over your heads, why are you assuming the talk of slavery is exclusively American? Because neither Jackyl not I were talking about something that narrow a scope.
---

Words don't exist in a vacuum. All words are actions. Every time you speak is a deliberate action intended to communicate ideas.

(The reverse is true - actions are also a form of communication.)

I was, admittedly, on the fence about punching Nazis. I didn't want to fully stand against it or for it because I was still trying to figure out my personal morality on the matter.

Apparently, tolerating Nazis leads to people getting terrorized, killed, and our nation's safety is threatened by it.

It's clear to me now that Nazis must never be tolerated. The Paradox of tolerance holds true - the only way to maintain tolerance is to intolerate intolerance. This is a fact of society.

Every person who punches a Nazi is no longer ambiguously a hero - they are now a goddamn hero.

(Also, MLK said that riots were the language of the unheard, which is something that white people who say "MLK would hate BLM because of this" don't want to acknowledge)
---

Kinglicious posted...

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Yeah, slavery went away because eventually we learned "hey maybe people who are pro-slavery should be shut down by force".

These kinds of comments have the entire conversation going over your heads, why are you assuming the talk of slavery is exclusively American? Because neither Jackyl not I were talking about something that narrow a scope.

lmao that doesn't even refute what I said?

Where in history has slavery just spontaneously stopped because of talking?
---

I'll let it be known that I personally don't defend the extremists, though I do support their rights from a legal perspective. They don't have any interest in being a part of a functioning society, so I'm okay with them being labeled as an "enemy". I do support the masses with their mainstream views, and I don't think they can be silenced. Most of the millions who voted Trump are not terrible people or white supremacists.
---

To speak is to take action.

To not speak is to take action.

To take action is to speak.

To take no action is to speak.
---

Dark Young Link posted...

To speak is to take action.

To not speak is to take action.

To take action is to speak.

To take no action is to speak.

Exactly.
---

Kinglicious posted...

That's a conversation worth having and I'll agree in part, sure. You've just gotta be specific here - how do you identify who they are? There's no real way to recognize at a glance or a clear group for the most part. I mean look, if you're suggesting the KKK should be considered a domestic terrorist group, that's got legs to it. But I don't think that covers everyone, nor do I think there's a way to really cover them all. But it's a convo worth talking about.

I was thinking to start with "The groups associated with the Unite the Right rally should no longer be granted the right to officially organize on public grounds, because their core message has proven to incite violence."

You'd need a lawyer probably to make the case that the car attack was not a perversion of their message but in fact an extension of it, otherwise anyone who killed someone at any rally could get that cause shuttered.

Yes it's very easy to subvert that but it's a start.
---

EndOfDiscOne posted...

I'll let it be known that I personally don't defend the extremists, though I do support their rights from a legal perspective. They don't have any interest in being a part of a functioning society, so I'm okay with them being labeled as an "enemy". I do support the masses with their mainstream views, and I don't think they can be silenced. Most of the millions who voted Trump are not terrible people or white supremacists.

Right, to be clear I am specifically referring to the groups coming together for this Charlottesville rally
---