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Originally Posted by MattyC
I'd kind of like to poke it one more time. I do agree the "regressive-left" does exist (anti-GMO, Anti-Vax, etc...)
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I'm not sure this actually qualifies. Obviously enlightenment values like reason and evidence, and the value of scientific inquiry, are tied to liberalism traditionally because it took so much effort to get those views equal standing in the face of orthodoxy. But I think being anti-intellectual and anti-scientific is separate. On the other hand, as I'm typing this I'm sort of talking myself into it... I guess if you're generally pro-science, as the left has traditionally been, denying scientists on the basis of anti-corporatism (the whole GMO "it's Monsanto propaganda" or "you're blinded by Big Pharma thing) is pretty much along the same lines. Apply reason and evidence-based decision making across the board, not
just when it comes to ideological safe havens like climate change. Okay, I've talked myself into agreeing with you. Do... do I just delete this paragraph now?
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however, just like we don't want to center health policy around people that have no clue what their talking about, we don't want to center any policy around people that are actually wrong about their points. So while, they are free to express themselves, there is a certain point where you just have to say "Nope, you're wrong. Let the rest of us move on and you can yell at the clouds if you please." to these people.
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Agreed
completely. There is always a bandwidth problem - as the world becomes more complex, the average person (even the average genius) can only have a limited sphere of knowledge where they're totally expert at. Then there's a broader sphere of knowledge where you're not an expert, but you can speak competently, and a broader one still where you're sort of informed but could stand to be more informed. In my view, on most issues, people stand in the third circle but act like they're in the second or first.
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Sorry, but opinions based of incorrect information need to be corrected, whether its a person on the "left" or the "right" or basically any person in general. If you learn the new information, and find a way to ninja your brain into still believing your old way somehow, as long as it's based on the new information, I don't care
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This isn't really the issue - the wrong perspectives should ultimately lose out in a marketplace of ideas. The issue is twofold. First, with respect to identity politics, the notion that some views are inherently more or less valuable on certain topics owing to the
identity of the speaker - in terms of the speaker's inherent characteristics. This isn't to say that a woman might have an important and different perspective on, for example, violence against women in media, but the fact that she's a woman does not
inherently exalt her perspective. Her experience may allow her to express views that a man would be less likely to come to without that experience, and it may turn out that those views are right or valuable and we wouldn't have gotten them if she hadn't been given equal opportunity to voice them. The result is that the determination of what ideas win out in the long term is determined solely on the merits of the ideas themselves, ideally.
The second issue, which is the problem with "ideally", is that human beings aren't designed very well and we have a very strong censorship urge. The result is that in many cases, historically, those minority viewpoints are silenced. These days, we have the same problem in the opposite direction: your view may be de-valued if you don't have the traditionally oppressed identity. That's all well and good to some extent, because we have the bandwidth issue described above: we don't really have a lot of time to waste listening to the Westboro Baptist Church and the KKK. But then concept creep happens, and people with reasoned views (which you may or may not agree with ultimately) are not permitted to speak in the first place, because apparently, we're sure they're wrong before they open their mouths. Concept creep allows this to be extended not just to the people from whom we've heard everything they have to say - like the WBC and KKK - but
everyone we disagree with. They don't get to be heard at all.
I annoyingly keep having to post Milo Yiannopoulos stuff on this because he's such a damned effective troll that he keeps getting the reactions that prove the point perfectly.
Don't watch that if you don't want to be annoyed. Guy just busts in on college republican event with a whistle, sits on the stage and blows it incessantly so that no one can hear the speakers, while his friend in the hat just yells at them. Black republican girl comes up and says that they're not respecting their right to have an event, and gets called a white supremacist.
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If you are operating and basing your opinions on information you believe to be right, but isn't, you are behind and need to be educated or go live in the woods and let the rest of humanity grow without you needlessly holding us back.
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The problem is where people presuppose their own rightness. And everyone does this, particularly when you inject morality into the conversation. Those kids disrupting the event in that video are
sure they're right and that the people who want to have their GOP event are wrong, and not just wrong, but
bad, evil people with
bad, evil views, so it's okay to silence them. Just like the Christian right used to do with anyone who'd say "it's okay to be gay". Well, that resulted in a long and difficult struggle for equal rights... so, now that that progress has been made, it's our turn to use the same illiberal tactics because now
we're sure we have the high ground? #### right off with that.