TED Wants To Remind Us That Ideas -- Not Politicians -- Shape the Future (qz.com) 263
An anonymous reader shares a Quartz report: Amid global political upheavals, TED curator Chris Anderson argues that ideas have never mattered more. "Ideas changes how people act and [shape] their long term perspective," he said in during a April 17 press briefing. "Politicians come and go and ideas are forever." He said TED -- two segments of which will be broadcast live in movie theaters this year -- wants to re-introduce civility into political discourse. "We want to avoid the zero sum game we see on cable television every day," said Anderson, noting that TED is a non-partisan organization and has historically featured controversial and intriguing thinkers from both sides of the political divide. In place of the shrill, headline-bait tenor of political spectacles, TED wants to take viewers to a place of "reasoned discourse" where big ideas can act as a bridge between opposing views. By creating an eclectic program -- including an entire session delivered in Spanish and another on artificial intelligence -- Anderson said he wants to steer the conversation away from government and politics. "With so much focus in politics, the world is in danger of forgetting that so much of what really changes the future happens outside completely of politics. It happens inside the mind of dreamers, designers, inventors, technologists, entrepreneurs," he said.
Look, its the Rainbow Connection! (Score:4, Insightful)
"It happens inside the mind of dreamers, designers, inventors, technologists, entrepreneurs," and meee.
TED is fucking overrated. Pablum.
Re:Look, its the Rainbow Connection! (Score:5, Funny)
Watching a TED talk is like watching an ugly person masturbate while proclaiming they invented masturbation, or that everyone else is masturbating incorrectly, or some other such nonsense. And they expect you to applaud when they finish.
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And just how many ugly people have you watched masturbate?
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Ideas Worth Censoring (Score:4, Interesting)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The DMCA-censored vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
And an update:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
More Propagandists Claiming to Be Non-Partisan (Score:4, Insightful)
They do not want to start a "civil" conversation or "reasoned discourse" or a "bridge between opposing views" or any of the sounds-good buzzword BS rattled off in the summary; they want start a monologue of approved ideas while everyone else (especially wrongthinkers) has to shut up and unquestionably accept what they're hearing.
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People lose the ability to recognize that they are on an extreme end of a spectrum
I know that my views are way outside of "mainstream" in a lot of cases. Extremism isn't really a problem until people use "emotionalism" and force their views on others. I am an Extreme Libertarian, but my views are that as one of an extreme, I should be able to win my argument using logic and reason, not vain emotionalism. I recognize that my views are on the extreme end of someone else's spectrum, it is what powers me to try to be effective at communicating WHY my views should be compelling.
If only... (Score:2, Insightful)
"With so much focus in politics, the world is in danger of forgetting that so much of what really changes the future happens outside completely of politics. It happens inside the mind of dreamers, designers, inventors, technologists, entrepreneurs," he said.
Until the politicians ban, mandate or regulate the science, technology or business.
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Until the politicians ban, mandate or regulate the science, technology or business.
AGW/Climate Change, Patents and Restrictive laws (DMCA), Licensing and Regulations that do more harm than good.
Too late.
TED abusers of the dmca, and sjw friendly (Score:5, Interesting)
The staff at ted might like lofty ideals but they are to be consumed not discussed - Bearing an Australian youtuber and others have been dmca'ed and Ted lost the fair use test.
To call them communicators is a paradox when they censor too.
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Have the TED talks threatened violence against men? Because googling "TED feminism" just comes up with a bunch of talks about how feminism is good.
If "yay
You mean like? (Score:4, Interesting)
Individual and Inalienable rights?
Personal Responsibility?
Limited Government?
An assertion too far (Score:4, Interesting)
There has been an ongoing debate in history comparing the macroscopic idea of history and the "Great Man" idea of history.
From a macroscopic level, things like the industrial revolution (or more specifically, things like the invention of the Spinning Jenny) made societal changes inevitable. It was only a matter of time before the Monarchies feel in Europe. It could have been earlier or later by a few decades or centuries, but it was inevidible.
From the "Great Man" level... it's hard to imagine if Nepolian didn't exist that "meh, somebody else would have conquered Europe."
It's hard to accept the assertion that politicians have no impact and it is only ideas. Can anybody honestly say, "If George Washington had decided to become King of the fledgling United States, to the applause and approbation of all his contemporaries, the United States would absolutely still have become a republic?"
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Guns -- not people -- are killers (Score:2)
Now all we need is more good ideas! (Score:3)
I think that's the main point of the whole TED thing -- even if it is mostly a bunch of attention-seeking folks and academics desperately trying to promote themselves. The analysis is correct -- there isn't a lot of mainstream substantive discussion of things beyond politics and pop culture. You really have to go seek it out, and things like social media amplify the divide between intellectual and entertaining conversation.
One of the things I really don't like about social media is its tendency to separate the easily led among us into little camps. Because Facebook and other platforms know exactly what stimuli we will respond to, content they know we like is fed our way with little chance to break out of the echo chamber. Add to that the constant drumbeat of bad news, regardless of political side/opinion, and people can't be faulted for assuming the world is going to end tomorrow. It also doesn't help that there's a very strong current of anti-intellectualism among some sectors of the population. For some, universities are seen as bastions of evil, liberal progressive ideas -- not exactly the kind of opinion that fosters the sharing of ideas.
I have mentioned previously on here (and been blasted for it!) that social media is destroying the ability for the average person to relate to others. I've been told I'm too politically correct and everyone should be allowed to shout whatever they want at each other. If politically correct means "I don't want people's default posture to be acting like a bunch of hyenas to each other" then I guess I'm PC. I just want to see my technocratic government implemented at least once before I die -- instead of a bunch of lying politicians, hire the people with the best ideas and make rules based only on facts. Life would be much more peaceful with a bunch of engineers running things. People might actually study things like STEM without thinking about whether their careers will end when they turn 40, or whether all the work will be offshored by the time they graduate.
Re: more good ideas... or to act on them (Score:2)
The big problem that I have with TED talks is that almost nobody who watches them acts on what they learned. Most people will get briefly inspired about some guy making a 10 minute speech about something like making affordable public housing out of shipping containers or using drone technology to stop Elephant poachers, but then 99.9% of the people who watched will do little more than give the video a thumbs up or maybe share it with their friends. And yes... I'm just as guilty of this as everyone else.
Some
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Yay, slacktivism. You didn't expect me to actually do something to feel smug, did you?
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I too wish to be led by this new world man [youtube.com]. Perhaps in the model of the new Soviet Man or the Nietzschean Ubermensch. What could possibly go wrong?
Sorry TED (Score:2)
No matter how much you think this, it shows that you missed the point. The reason that Politicians will ALWAYS shape the future is because there will ALWAYS be two people disagreeing on something. And when that happens, there is always a politician or a hundred just around the corner ready to take the "highest bidders" side.
So until you can find a way to get people or keep people from bringing their problems to a politician, then you can remind us all you like, it will only fall upon deaf ears.
Maybe Not ! (Score:2)
Politicians (Score:2)
He means like as Salafi/Deobandi Islam? (Score:4, Insightful)
An idea which is reshaping the entire Muslim world for the worse and the Muslim communities in Europe with it. Of course not, he thinks social progressiveness is the only way forward as long as white politicians just get out of the way and open the borders.
TED, where PC morons spew pseudo-intellectual bullshit at other PC morons and where they present mundane, pie in the sky and just plain ridiculous technology as revolutionary.
TED curator (Score:2)
Alternative Title (Score:2)
TED Wants to Remind Us that They Still Exist.
Get TED some oxygen (Score:2)
TED remains breathlessly naïve, and seems to want to relegate itself to those facebook posts by people who quote never heard of poets making meaningful comments about the feels.
Ideas are worth precisely shit. Ideas+execution shape the future. Execution is frequently heavily influenced by politicians who make the rules that govern the corporate and legal landscape in which your execution may take place, if it isn't strictly forbidden, construed as patent infringing (esp. by trolls), defunded by competit
The problem with "good" ideas... (Score:4, Insightful)
...is that the first thing people want to do with them - especially in the TED crowd - is use politics to force them on everyone.
And some of the ideas actually are good - for certain people in certain situations. The problem with using politics is that you're applying these ideas to everyone, by force. This usually results in an overall net negative impact.
We live in a world of incredibly diverse values, beliefs, and practices. Much of the goodness or badness in these areas is fairly subjective. For example, some people prefer more leisurely lifestyles and others value high productivity. Some people want to work and function in highly communal environments, and others are more individualistic. None of these things are wrong, but when you start building strict sets of societal rules around them then you create strong and completely unnecessary conflict.
There are less subjective areas that involve hard science and scientific experimentation, but these are relatively rare and usually uncontroversial. There are also plenty of ideas labeled as "science" that do not involve the scientific method; these tend to be extremely controversial and because the "science" label is misapplied their proponents tend to be very quick to pull out the political guns.
In any case, we also live in a world where far too many people want to force their beliefs and lifestyles on everyone else. The political left and right are fairly equally guilty of this - the left from an economic standpoint, and the right from a religious standpoint, and both from an overall values standpoint. It's deeply sad that virtually none of these people are capable of saying "Hey, it's OK that you're different - go be your crazy-ass self over there and as long as you're not in my face about it then we'll ignore each other and everything is fine." But instead, they demand strict enforcement. These days the left demands that we memorize sixty new gender pronouns a week, and the right loses their shit if you don't say "Merry Christmas."
We don't need 50 new TEDxasfaz talks a week. We need a planet full of people to chill the fuck out.
Tell that to the Syrians (Score:2)
Generous Tolerance (Score:2)
When being tolerant, let's be as generous as possible. When we start making exceptions and putting qualifiers on freedom, that's when things start to go belly-up.
There is a part that is forever - bureaucracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Politicians come and go and ideas are forever.
The problem is that while politicians may go, the bureaucracy they create does not. That essentially lasts forever, and has a great impact on what ideas are possible, if for no other reason than it drains funds form making some other idea possible.
Rather than term limits we need the concept of department limits, where each arm of a large bureaucracy must be voted to continue every ten years or so after justifying what it has done.
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Politicians come and go and ideas are forever.
The problem is that while politicians may go, the bureaucracy they create does not.
Also, legislation (in case that wasn't implied already). For instance, the consensus on certain drugs seems to be that drugs are bad, because they're illegal, and they better stay illegal because they're bad. The same goes for things like copyright laws, with some people arguing that we shouldn't allow the Pirate Party in the parliament, because their agenda goes against current legislation. Because obviously the parliament should never do such a thing as change the law.
Ya, kinda? But not really... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideas are great, but in a representative system ("government") CHANGE only comes when people imbued with sufficient power make the effort to evolve an idea into policy. Even if today's politicians/leaders don't like an idea and get removed from office, someone is going to have to take a leadership position to make changes to the official way things are done.
"With so much focus in politics, the world is in danger of forgetting that so much of what really changes the future happens outside completely of politics. It happens inside the mind of dreamers, designers, inventors, technologists, entrepreneurs,"
No. Your personal interpretation and your world view change *internally* with ideas. How you and others are physically affected relies on what "ideas" politicians have and put forth as policy. Politics, however fatiguing, is not unimportant.
we need more H1B's to get the ideas from and the (Score:2)
we need more H1B's to get the ideas from and the min wage is to high.
Tough Talk (Score:2)
Politicians _can_ shape the future (Score:2)
Just not in good ways. The best they can contribute is to not make things worse, although that takes an exceptionally good politician. On the side of making things worse, they sometimes have tremendous potential and accomplishments. Just look at Trump, Erdogan, Orban, Johnson, etc. for a really long list of politicians making things a lot worse and sometimes giving away their peoples future, all because of ego, religious fanaticism, general stupidity and so on.
So while politicians can shape the future, it i
TED: high priced popular science (Score:3)
Frankly, I find the quality and content of TED talks embarrassing. Hmm, why should I feel embarrassed about that? I don't know, but I do. So often verging on intellectual fraud. A venue for self-promotion and mutual intellectual masturbation. Well, I guess it keeps them off the street.
Ideas vs Politics (Score:2)
as if politics can't eliminate great ideas, or at least pester them so that either you or the inventor don't want to use them anymore.
what's the deal with those tesla stores again? or uber & airbnb around the whole world?
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Do you mean that dialogue and not violence is a better way to solve problems? Most intelligent people know this."
Actually, dialogue is the ideal way to solve problems. However, you need to have two parties willing to talk and compromise. When one or both parties are unwilling to compromise violence is likely inevitable. Most intelligent people understand this.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's true.
However, for the most part, the party/ideology from the left in the US that promotes itself as the party of diversity and tolerance, is ONLY tolerant of viewpoints they hold and not only will put you down for what you think (overusing terms like racist, etc) but will try to actively prevent you espousing your viewpoints at all in public (see recent colleges shutting down speakers coming to campus).
How can you have a dialog, when one side tries to actually prevent any opposing views from being presented at all?
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would really like to see someone reply to this with a realistic solution. I don't have an answer to that problem and the only response I seem to be hearing is "Their (read: republicans) viewpoints aren't reasonable or worthy of consideration", which shuts down any kind of dialogue before it starts.
I think the problem has a lot to do with people's background and the expectations (and sometimes prejudices) they bring to the table, so part of the solutions must involve bridging that gap. I am perhaps more acutely aware of this, since I was born at the wrong end of society so to speak, and have had to crawl slowly to where I am now. I grew up knowing for a fact that whatever else I was, I was someone to whom the word 'only' was appropriate: only working class, only worth a low paid job etc. This is somet
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The non-regressive left needs to have a come to Jesus (come to Marx?) chat with the regressive left. What happens is some leftists beat down a right-wing speaker and then the "reasonable" leftists defend it. While yes, it's viscerally satisfying when a particularly obnoxious member of the other tribe gets punched, you still have to insist your people not do that, and be appropriately punished for doing the bad thing. The criticism and threat of expulsion has to come from in your own tribe. Me, a right-winge
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Well, first, if you think that type of thought had gone away or become completely or even largely eliminated fr
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"When does a black man become a n1gg er?
I'm pretty sure the answer today is when another black person enters the room as it's their common greeting
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Well, first, if you think that type of thought had gone away or become completely or even largely eliminated from public discourse, they you have led a sheltered life my friend.
There's an old saying that still holds true to a large part in the US..."When does a black man become a n1gg er? About 30 seconds after he leaves the room.
It is largely true that people freely talk that way still despite you thinking it had disappeared.
But one of your main points was you thought that anything but leftist thoughts on race, religion, sexuality had largely been eradicated, is false.
After the black man leaves the room is not "public discourse" any more than what's said at a klan meeting of any size. I'm under no illusion that such views had disappeared from private discourse. On the other hand, when mainstream politicians publicly spew racism and xenophobia, and people openly cheer them on for it, that's public discourse - that's what I'm talking about.
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On the other hand, when mainstream politicians publicly spew racism and xenophobia, and people openly cheer them on for it, that's public discourse - that's what I'm talking about.
The problem is you're only seeing the other tribe's racism, and ignoring your own, and have actually redefined racism so that you can't be guilty of it. But your side is still spewing "kill whitey" racial hatred, and whitey can hear it. Whitey don't like it.
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I must have missed when Bernie or Hillary spouted anti-white racism and people cheered it on. Care to link me a video?
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I fail to see the outrage. Compare that to actual lynching, none of which have happened at BLM or anything similar.
Your also wrong about the Right disavowing it's far right.
Steve Bannon has been on Sean Hannity. Ann Coulter has been all over fox news and she's a polarizing far right figure if there ever was one.
In my book, the difference between right and left boils down to people who only worry about
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There are people on the Right who are concerned about illegal immigration and crime. These concerns are labeled as "racist".
Anyone concerned about illegal immigration and crime, as a combined subject, is at best misinformed or at worst racist or xenophobic, considering the statistics on the matter. Unless perhaps they're interested in getting the rest of society's crime rates down to those of illegal immigrants.
There are people on the Right who are concerned about biological men using women's restrooms. These concerns are labeled "transphobic".
That label is mostly fair. Considering the current criteria for entering a bathroom I don't think there's any way to keep a person from using the bathroom they look like they belong in that is not openly hostile to transg
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Well, Illegal Immigrant, by definition is someone here by criminal act.
They committed a crime coming here illegally...what part of that do you not understand?
That's not racist or xenophobic.
Most US citizens absolutely do NOT have a problem with people immigrating into this country....
We just want them to sign the fucking guest bo
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We just want them to sign the fucking guest book on the way in, you know?
That's racist because the pen uses black ink.
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Unless perhaps they're interested in getting the rest of society's crime rates down to those of illegal immigrants.
This is one of those cases in which the left is lying with statistics. They compare the crime rates of illegal immigrants to the crime rate of the "native population," as if they're talking about the crime rate of you, the listener, a likely white guy in the suburbs. However the "native population" includes the American black underclass in Detroit, Chicago, etc, which has extremely high crime rates that skew the numbers. So, "illegals have crime rates lower than the native population" might be technically t
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So, "illegals have crime rates lower than the native population" might be technically true, but "illegals are less criminal than blacks" is hardly a selling point for mass immigration.
Holy hell, great job separating the image of the right from frothing racism. Yes the "native population" (as in legal citizens) includes the entire native population which means the criminals of any ethnicity are in there too. This is not lying with statistics. It's simply not being a white nationalist shitbag.
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No, it's absolutely lying with statistics. If the objection to illegal immigrants is crime, responding with "they're less criminal than the native population" is incredibly misleading. If your neighborhood has a rapist and a murderer in it, objecting to someone moving in who's merely a robber is not unreasonable.
Put another way, your street has 4 people on it. 2 of them are both racist and homophobic. A new person wants to move in who's homophobic. How happy are you about that? After all, he's less intolera
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Some topics are to the point where there are no minds to change or anything new to learn. Abortion is one of these. You either believe it's murder or you don't. Does anyone think there's learning left to be done or minds left to change? Open borders is another. You're either idealistic and don't want to hear about the drawbacks or you see the drawbacks and don't want to hear about the idealism. Is there learning to be had? Not really. Minds to change? Unlikely. That's why we're stuck in a two part
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slashdot only indents threads to a certain level, then the conversation continues there. It's a reason people often quote the bits they're responding to. Or at least it used to.. I'll LOL if this one's indented further.
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You're proving my point in a way. Climate change shouldn't be politicized but one side is very wrong and the other not helpful. It's a polite way of calling the ones you don't agree with flat-earthers or idiots or too stupid to be trusted to vote. You have the side you agree with, the other side is wrong.
It's what we do as humans. It's why the middle east will never have peace. It's why gun control is foolish, there are plenty of other ways to kill each other. In order to move forward, we need to acce
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if you think the government should stay out of marriage completely and that expanding the definition is going in the wrong direction you're 'homophobic', .
Would you prefer the more generic term of "BIGOT"? Because many of the individuals arguing against extending marriage equality to the LGBT community are using the same arguments that "BIGOTs" used to argue against mixed race marriages.
Go ahead choose your descriptor of choice and I will gladly use it.
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Sorry, but my parents do not like or support gay marriage because of their religious beliefs. They are not bigots. They are not homophobic. They have their religious beliefs. They treat lgbt just like every other person. They believe marriage is sacred; a belief informed by religion. They are not bad people for having that belief.
This is the point of States rights and the limits of the federal government. You will never get people to agree. Forcing people to accept things they do not want by the government
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>my parents do not like or support gay marriage
>They treat lgbt just like every other person.
So they don't like straight marriage either?
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Because many of the individuals arguing against extending marriage equality to the LGBT community are using the same arguments that "BIGOTs" used to argue against mixed race marriages.
But they actually are different, but there is no charity in the debate. The left has no interest in understanding the difference between positive rights and negative rights, and that in Loving v. Virgina the court ruled against the state because Virginia was throwing people who married across races in jail, thereby denying them their liberty. There's a big difference between "the state will imprison you for doing X" and "the state will not give you a certificate to do X."
There is no interest in understandin
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what term I should use for an individual that attempts to deny rights to an individual based on things that were determined by accident of birth
Illegal immigration is not determined at birth. Legal immigrants of any race or nationality are not being denied their rights.
Do we "deny rights" by arresting someone for shoplifting? Or tax evasion? Race isn't the issue.
Would you deny my son the right to marry because he is autistic?
No one has suggested that; quit trying to change the subject.
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Take the effect of the media into account. They thrive on drama. They're the experts at slanting coverage to make a civil discourse seem as vicious and dramatic as they can make it. Even skeptics have a hard time figuring out what to believe. I have come to realize the media has reported the Right's philosophy in ways that make it appear more extreme and ugly than it really is. Sadly, that hasn't been hard to do, as there seems to be no shortage of lunatics and total hypocrites among the Right. One co
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This denial of fact, science, and climate change, what's with that?
This is not unique to the right. The left denies human biodiversity. The formula is:
1. Divide humans into different groups.
2. Insist despite all evidence that these groups are equivalent and interchangeable. Violently attack anyone who proves otherwise (see Charles Murray at Middlebury).
3. When Group A has a better outcome in society than Group B, insist as the only possible explanation the oppression of group B by Group A.
4. Demand government power to remove property from Group A to compensate Group B.
5. R
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
However, for the most part, the party/ideology from the left in the US that promotes itself as the party of diversity and tolerance, is ONLY tolerant of viewpoints they hold and not only will put you down for what you think
Ah, the old intolerance of intolerance argument. The paradox of tolerance [wikipedia.org] is that if society is tolerant of intolerance, you ultimately allow that intolerance to destroy tolerance in that society. Ultimately tolerance is useless without the right to not tolerate the intolerant. (you might need more than two hands to count the double negatives there)
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Well, that's better than the selective form of tolerance that is practiced today. I'll take the generous form of tolerance any day, thank you. Somehow, I think that being more generous will result in more freedom.
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Ah, the old subversion of tolerance when the tolerated refuse to tolerate the tolerants.
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However, for the most part, the party/ideology from the left in the US that promotes itself as the party of diversity and tolerance, is ONLY tolerant of viewpoints they hold and not only will put you down for what you think
Ah, the old intolerance of intolerance argument. The paradox of tolerance [wikipedia.org] is that if society is tolerant of intolerance, you ultimately allow that intolerance to destroy tolerance in that society. Ultimately tolerance is useless without the right to not tolerate the intolerant. (you might need more than two hands to count the double negatives there)
Yonatan Zunger has an interesting take [extranewsfeed.com] on this question. He argues that the apparent paradox stems from a misunderstanding of why tolerance is good. If you view tolerance as a moral precept, meaning that tolerance is a characteristic of good/moral people, then it's difficult to explain why this should not include tolerance of intolerance. Zunger suggests instead that we view tolerance as a mutual non-aggression pact, not a moral imperative.
If you are tolerant, you should expect tolerance in return. If you
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Except the left's definition of "tolerance" is more like "forced acceptance of." Not stopping gays from doing gay stuff is tolerant. Forcing Christians to bake gay wedding cakes is forced acceptance.
Relevant: I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup [slatestarcodex.com]
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Problem stems from word salad. Everyone spins their garbage. It doesn't matter which side is making the demand or law or restriction, it's a form of "protecting" something. Anything out of the mafiAAs is a good read.
Point is, if you keep shoehorning a word, it's gonna be all bent and weird and useless. If you keep flying a flag that says "Feminism" above your faction or your efforts, flying it over various groups and demands and splinters, everyone doing it to be safely nestled underneath a seemingly noble
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However, for the most part, the party/ideology from the left in the US that promotes itself as the party of diversity and tolerance, is ONLY tolerant of viewpoints they hold and not only will put you down for what you think (overusing terms like racist, etc) but will try to actively prevent you espousing your viewpoints at all in public (see recent colleges shutting down speakers coming to campus).
How can you have a dialog, when one side tries to actually prevent any opposing views from being presented at all?
This is equally true regarding how the political right behaves towards the left - and that's the problem. Currently in the US, both the right and the left see their own beliefs as the One True Truth and are unwilling to even consider that people on the other side of the debate might have legitimate concerns and grievances.
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, for the most part (of course there are always exceptions), I don't see those on the right, have protests that turn violent against the counter protesters, etc. Again..IN GENERAL.
I don't see the right trying to actually shutdown or prevent talks by left leaning speakers at town halls or colleges especially.
Yes, both are opposed to the other, however, I don't see the folks on the right trying to actively suppress the liberal views being presented in public. They may disagree with them, but they don't riot outside the hall where the speaker is supposed to talk and actively try to intimidate the leftist audience or prevent the speech even being given.
This is something that has been happening with greater frequency in the past few years.
None so blind as those who WILL NOT see (Score:3, Informative)
I don't see the folks on the right trying to actively suppress the liberal views being presented in public.
The only way you can't be seeing it is if your head is so far up your ass you'll never see daylight again.
Conservatives are VERY actively trying, in many ways, across many states, to MAKE PROTEST ILLEGAL.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/24/republican-lawmakers-introduce-bills-to-curb-protesting-in-at-least-17-states/
So much for that pesky bit in the constitution about the right to protest.
Re:None so blind as those who WILL NOT see (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for protest but you are missing the context and what some of those bills are outlawing. Namely BLOCKING A HIGHWAY. Is your pet protest more important than the people that lose their job because they couldn't get to work? Or the emergency response team that was delayed because muh protest? Should you be liable because some protestor walked out in front of your car AT NIGHT on a highway when you going high way speeds? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
All of those are in repose to the violence and extreme actions of "protestors" lately. I don't like limiting protest but holy shit do I understand why States are doing it.
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So, it's ok to get people fired and killed so long as there are enough "interested" cylons? Quite the forest you have. It would be a shame if the firetruck couldn't get here on time.
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As a conservative, I would gladly stand up for your right to speak your mind freely, as long as you weren't insighting a riot, or interfering with other's rights. This is where I feel SCOTUS messed up on the Westboro Baptist Church decision...yes, they had a right to protest, but they were interfering with other peoples rights to hold a private funeral.
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Here's a question for you. How many Bernie Sanders rallies were disrupted by protesters? I can't remember any.
Now, how many Trump rallies were disrupted by protesters?
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No. The ideology of the left can be loosely summarized as "live and let live". They simply can't have a dialog with someone who starts with "I can't let you live".
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No, the ideology of the left can loosely be summarized as "you're evil, I'm going to take all of your shit." Hard to have a dialog with that.
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Nice qualification there. Southern European socialism has already failed miserable, so you qualify it. Nicely done.
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When one or both parties are unwilling to compromise violence is likely inevitable
This is why there is so much domestic violence. Don't get married!
Most people are done with political correctness. (Score:2, Informative)
Over the past 10 to 20 years, most Western nations have been subjected to a potent form of political correctness that has stifled free thought and free expression, especially within academia.
We see this in how false accusations of "racism", "sexism", "bigotry", "intolerance", "homophobia", and "transphobia" are used to shut down free and open discussion.
We see this in how "safe spaces" are used to prevent free and open discussion from even happening in the first place.
We've mainly seen this driven by those
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Yes, the people on the right protest responsibly. By taking over the Mlheur Wildlife Refuge. Or shooting Dee Gifford and a bunch of other people. Or bombing abortion clinics
But of course, you're going to play the no true Scotsman card on shit like that, I'm sure. Just like those on the left are going to do the same about the about the things you're pissed off about.
Face it. You're just as much of a problem as the "leftists" because you are busy pigeonholing everyone else to support whatever personal be
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For a start, left = workers vs right = bosses. What has happened is a pack of self serving egoistic asshats have jumped on the left with the backing of corporate owned main stream media, to push a bunch of fringe issues, to fracture and break up the left, the break up the workers. Those arse holes are not the left, the scream with the backing of mainstream media that they are but the fact is they oppose the issues of the workers and have blocked core social equality for worker issues. So no universal health
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Do you mean that dialogue and not violence is a better way to solve problems?
It depends on the problem, right? Imagine you want to kill me, and I want to kill you. There's no way to solve that problem equitably. Now realize this is a problem that people in the real world face. Erdogan had a coup attempt against him, and Assad has half his country wanting to kill him. His solution is to kill them first, which thus far has been effective. Then of course ISIS just wants to kill nearly everyone. In fact, they believe it is the will of God, and he is on their side.
Dialogue is not alway
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Both Erdogan and Assad started out with the problem of most of their respective countries wanting them out of power, which they responded to with oppression and genocide, respectively. Of course after some time of this it's only natural that many would want them dead...
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Do you mean that dialogue and not violence is a better way to solve problems?
No. What they mean is that they don't like the politicians who were elected so we should all pretend the election doesn't matter.
Re:TED ideas = super obvious ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
You should try TEDx, it's a bold new direction for their brand.
The format is a bit different. Instead of curating the speakers, they just rent a room with a microphone and send a guy with a gopro there. Said guy then records every homeless person who thinks they have something intelligent to speak about getting up on stage for their 15 minutes of fame.
Gopro guy then emails the raw video to someone at TEDhq who edits "Why farts are oppressing my gender" into Youtube gold.
Re:TED ideas = super obvious ideas (Score:4, Funny)
TEDxx
Hosted by The Most Interesting Man in the World? "I don't always give talks, but when I do, it's at TED Dos Equis."
We'll leave TEDxxx for the obvious porn parody that someone will eventually make of these shows.
I'd be surprised if Japan hasn't done this already. I'm just not sure whether it will be of the "unstoppable public speaker" or "crowd of couples" genre.
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Your pretty dense aren't you? 99% of TEDx talks are just as the GP describes.
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Yeah, I've seen a few of them. Some of them are pretty bad, but not quite as bad as you're making them out to be.
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I was going to mod this troll, but then I started to think about it. When my head started to spin, about 5 seconds later, I figured you must be right.
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I'm yet to see one of their talks where they discuss something actually new or different.
Here you go - a great, informative, and insipring TED talk from a while back [youtu.be].
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Calling BS here. I've seen a few TED talks, and don't know WTF you're talking about. Please point to what makes them in any way elitist, or in an echo chamber.
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A fucking convicted fucking murderer, who was almost certainly a habitual murdering scumbag. Any individual Puerto Rican who wants to improve the view prejudiced people have of Puerto Ricans should not be a complete idiot and not pick this fucking scumbag as a martyr.
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I think the ones with memories of being close to starvation don't really mind Trump's ideas. When your life sucks that much a risk of nuclear war is going to be far less scary if it offers the chance of a better future than for us. It's us and our comfortable lives for which Trump's ideas are truly scary.