I don’t care what you believe politically or whatever, I’m here for discussion and advocate free speech, and to do that there are times when you will defend peoples’ right to speak you don’t necessarily agree with, but there’s more to it than this petty arguing, and that’s what I’m trying to get at.
That’s not what you’re going to get.
The ideas of the market of place of ideas and free speech were about deliberation, joint decision making about what to do about issues as they arose. They weren’t valuable in and of themselves, but as a means to the least worst (ideally, the most agreed upon) end.
Of course, abstracting them from their teleology made them valuable in and of themselves. But that abstraction leads to petty arguments. Speech for the sake of speech is empty rhetoric, of which there is so. fucking. much. Political polarization that employs Manichean Us vs Them rhetoric is basically all empty bullshit. And a focus on free speech as* free speech only*, and not an integral part of process of deliberation, reinforces is as the rhetoric of bullshit. Petty arguments abound because arguments can be had about absolutely nothing at all.
Think about it from another person’s angle. If someone you disagree with tries to silence you, I’m sure you would not be okay with that, right? If they said you’re not allowed to have a safe space because your ideas are somehow dangerous from their point of view. They could use the same argument your using, demean your viewpoints by name-calling. In their mind, their opinion is the correct one, much the same as you’re feeling. **Where does it end? **
It ends when we realize that we have shit to do and it needs to get done.
The effectiveness of arguments like “They’re coming for your gas stoves!” is rooted in absolute, totalizing bullshit. The “threat” of “limiting” your “freedom” of house appliances is presented as dire and urgent and personal, conflating regulation designed to limit the adverse of house appliances on climate change with an apocalypse of democracy. That last bit is what I mean by it being totalizing, it’s existential. Meanwhile, while gas stove lovers the country over engage in bullshit politics, climate change has made 2023 the hottest year since global records began.
That’s my solution anyway: focus on institutionalizing a method of getting shit done. Maybe get rid of downvotes and upvotes altogether and make people post emojis to show they’re dis/approval. Make people work to engage in discourse.
Open Empathic’s answer is that because AI is becoming more embedded in our lives, an “understanding” of emotions on AI’s part will help people in variety of ways, both within and outside of industries like healthcare, education, and, of course, general commercial endeavors. As far as they’re concerned, AI is a tool that will help encourage “ethical” human decision-making.
On the other hand…we have a ton of different ethical theories and industries ignore them wholesale to make profits. To me, this looks like your standard grade techno bro hubris. They intend to use “disruptive” technology to “revolutionize” whatever. The exploitative profit-making social hierarchy isn’t being challenged. The Hollywood’s writer strikes have just begun, for example. Once Open Empathic starts making breakthroughs in artificial emotional intelligence, the strikes will return and be even more prolonged, if not broken altogether.
I’d answer your question with people who care about other people should be deeply concerned.
Even without a focus on empathy, ChatGPT’s responses in a healthcare setting were rated as more empathic. At best, empathic AI is used to teach people how to be more empathetic to other humans, eventually needing it less and less over time. Far more likely is that human communication becomes mediated through empathic AI (and some company makes a lot of money off the platform of mediation) and the quality of face-to-face human interaction deteriorates.
Better to look for (and learn from) people who are kind and wise than who are smart. The opposite of a great truth is another great truth, the opposite of wisdom and kindness are substantially less desirable.
I used to think being an asshole was justified if could back it up with the reasoning required to demonstrate you were actually better at reasoning than others.
Then I grew up and had to deal with those folks (and was exposed to Ben Shapiro). Good reasoning is useful in certain circumstances. Much, much better to invest in emotional intelligence and developing the ability to care about other people than not.
Because I can’t see through these god damn LED headlights this F150/Silverado is using to blind the fuck out of my as it barrels down the road to hang out on my ass in the right lane because someone in the left lane is going to slow.
Among respondents who own luxury brands that they themselves bought (e.g., Gucci, Versace, Rolex), 44% prefer to live in a world without any of those brands altogether. Among respondents not owning such brands, the fraction preferring to live in a world without them is 69%.
That’s interesting.
Actually, this is kinda like using fossil fuels. If we didn’t have fossil fuels our lives would be miserable. And while using them adds some utility, burning fossil fuels still leaves us miserable, particularly as climate change grows worse.And so, even though I use fossil fuels to fuel my car, heat my home, and cook my food, I’d still prefer to live in a world where its significantly reduced to phased out altogether.
That’s the thing: there’s nothing to interpret. The movie depicted a intellectual stunted world…and the world has moved toward the movie. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. There’s nothing deep about it.
I don’t understand how you understand my comment and how it refutes the main premise of my post…
For my original post, respect means accepting the beliefs of people at face value.
If someone claims to believe in God, then…why would you argue they shouldn’t? Who cares that they do? Or if they claim to believe in UFOs and the rapture is coming Friday, October 13, 2061 at Point Nemo at 0600, then…okay.
I’m not saying you have to listen to them spout bullshit. Nor am I saying you have to engage with them if you have the option of disengaging. I’m just saying, people’s beliefs are their own, and there’s an infinite amount of reasons to believe any one thing. And people believe a lot of things!
Where does responding in kind to anti-intellectual beliefs come in? The relationship between evangelicals and The Church of Satan is illustrative. Evangelicals insist on having the Ten Commandments in public spaces like courts and school, violating the separation of church and state. They call this religious freedom and use otherwise universal rhetoric to argue that Christianity should be visible everywhere. The Church of Satan takes the evangelical belief in god seriously. Satanists “respect” evangelical beliefs, in the sense of my post. If evangelicals sincerely believe in god, and the courts agree that they should have public representation, then great! But so should other beliefs, like those of the Church of Satan. And then, as if they’re staged Marionette dolls, evangelicals reveal that religious freedom is really about special privilege for their fucked up version of Christianity.
Ultimately, respect is about getting shit done by just believing what others tell you about themselves. If they believe themselves to deserve some special privilege for some reason, then you’re entitled to the same privilege for that very same reason. And if that’s contradictory…well…that’s kind the point.
When a Klansman walks into a room, his wall is up. I’m trying to bring that wall down. I’ve been to 57 countries on six continents. But no matter how far I’ve gone, I’ve observed the same thing: we human beings all want the same things. We want to be respected. We want to be loved. We want to be heard. And we want the same thing for our families as everybody else wants for their families.
This is not the paradox of tolerance. That’s why I suggested reading the article linked by the word ‘here’.
The paradox of tolerance only can only happen in an environment where one side routinely abuses the rule of engagement and gets away with it. A paradoxically tolerant person would be like, “Well…you’re entitled to your opinion that I’m inferior to you because of my skin color, and people less than you should put into concentration camps for our safety…but I disagree.”
The article above denied this had to be the case. If someone believes that I’m sub-human because of my skin color and makes that argument, then it’s perfectly reasonable for me to believe the same of them for the same reason. I don’t actually have to believe this, mind you, but I can argue for policies I want on that basis. So, if someone wants to put me in concentration camps because of my skin color, then I can reasonably argue, on the merits of the stupid argument, that they, too, should be placed in concentration camps to ensure their safety from the riffraff.
As you can see, if people argue for things for stupid reasons, then a lot of stupid things open up. The paradox of tolerance assumes one person is exceptionally aggressive in their stupidity (i.e., intolerant) and the other refrains for some reason.
Fuck that. If someone argues for bad things to happen to other people for bad reasons (racism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc), then it’s perfectly reasonable for somebody else to argue that bad things happen to them for those same reasons.