You cannot argue against people that believe an entire race or an entire people should be systematically eradicated. There is no rational argument to be had against them because they specifically argue on an entirely different level.

They want you to treat them at equal in the world of debate because that's how their views are legitimized and given power. I find it honestly disturbing that people are more willing to defend the 'ironic' people calling for the death of their enemies than the minorities trying to get them to stop.

> You cannot argue against people that believe an entire race or an entire people should be systematically eradicated.

I think we can, and indeed should argue against such ideas. The goal is not to convince a zealot that his views are wrong, but rather convince the majority of those on the sidelines that those ideas are stupid and will lead to no good. If the ideas are outlandish, arguing against them on merits is easier, not harder. As long as the vast majority of the society sees those ideas as crazy, arguing them stays pretty harmless.

And what is the alternative to arguing on merits? It is tempting to be able to silence unpopular views, but that can backfire -- tomorrow control could change and someone might deny us the ability to speak. "I know the world is flat" needs a better answer than "No! It is round, end of discussion".

If this was honestly the case, then can you explain why we see the rise of neo-nazis as well as the rise in scientific distrust with regards to things like vaccines?

If arguing against those beliefs worked then by your own arguments we should see the amount of believers dwindling over time. Yet as they gain exposure even when people attempt to debate them in good faith, their numbers grow.

How do you explain this?

Arguing in bad faith, and exploiting logical technicalities exist, and are widely used to sway the opinion of the masses. this is something any rational society needs to take into account in my opinion.

Both of those are cases where people tried to suppress movements and legitimate problems via authority.

So to me, your comment comes across as “But what about those cases where what GP said is true?”

I don't think almost anyone has faced consequences for being anti-vaccine. That's been extremely free-speech, and it hasn't helped people come to the right conclusions at all.

That’s just not true — consequences for not having their children vaccinated are legislated lots of places; the arguments against anti-vaxers are often appeals to the same authorities that happily over-prescribed opiates and based around shaming them; etc.

I'm talking about what people say, not what they do with their children.

But can you be more specific? What consequences can you name, especially in the US? I'm not aware of there being almost anything in the US, except that they might not be allowed into some schools, which barely even counts as a punishment.

And yet the idea proliferates wildly.

"Michigan parents are legally allowed to skip or delay their children's vaccinations due to personal beliefs.

But Bredow fell foul of the law because she reneged on agreements with her former spouse dating back to November 2016 to have the boy immunised."

Sounds like an edge case that's more about custody than legal rules over vaccination.

I do hope you realize that people being anti-vaccine can and does result in the deaths of completely innocent parties.

The consequences for people not vaccinating their kids goes beyond just belief. Even then in America we're incredibly lax on those people despite the fact that it seems to be growing movement fueled by quackery.

How do you reconcile your world view with the story of someone like Daryl Davis, who verifiably contradicts what you think?

The argument works better the other way. Do you believe the reason David Duke has 85k YouTube subscribers is because it's difficult to find any rational argument that the KKK is not an unalloyed good?

DD spending a lot of time being personally nice to Klansmen might swing a few of them back the other way, but I suspect making their recruitment harder in the first place might be the more scalable and less risky approach.

Well, I personally believe that the reason David Duke has 85k YouTube subscribers is because any dumb shit in the world with an internet connection and a browser can press a button completely detached from any sort of consequence whatsoever.

I also think that Daryl Davis is one man on a mission. If others were perhaps similarly motivated maybe more progress could be made.

Because while it might persuade a few, the onus is not and should not be on the minorities to convince people who literally want them dead that no, their lives are worth living.

I didn't intend to give the impression that I think that minority groups ought to tackle this problem alone. I certainly don't believe that they should, or that this is their fight and theirs alone. At the same time, I believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant.

It's asymmetric. It takes years to build a skyscraper but seconds to destroy one. Hate, appealing to biases, low-effort ideas, and emotion-based reasoning are much easier to spread than to refute. Is racism common because people just haven't heard a good rebuttal to it?

Those who argue in bad faith will spread viral speech resistant to good faith counterarguments. To assume that these people are just missing the correct information is to assume that we are dealing with purely rational minds. No amount of reasoning will change a bad-faith argument.

I think a lot of the discussion about free speech values need to consider the context of our changing world. The rhetorical battlefield of the modern world is no longer as we know it. Perhaps it made more sense in the past to simply fight ideas with ideas, since schools of thought were more centralized and ideas spread slowly, getting filtered and curated along the way. Today, there is instantaneous spreading of ideas to every corner of the world. The things people hear about are not the best ideas, but rather the most transmittable ideas. Our society has spent billions of dollars cultivating the mind virus industry, and they have discovered very powerful techniques for spreading dangerous pathogens. Facts alone do not cure a mind infected with emotionally-rooted lies. We need stronger immune systems.

And while education is indeed one part of the picture, having more opportunities for empathy and having stronger cultural standards are another. Restricting this kind of speech sets the standard that some ideas are not compatible with a modern society. However, I agree that this method is flawed: it creates the perception of persecution and martyrdom, and uncomfortably concentrates power. I think modern progressive thinking needs to focus more on a sort of empathetic education rather than going all in on an antagonistic shaming approach.

>"Trying to prevent people from arguing for an evil (E) never stops E long term. It should be fought with reason and counter-arguments, not with silencing the speaker. Suppressing the speaker can indicate, especially to those wavering, that there are no reasonable counter-arguments and there must be something true in the message that controlling powers are trying to suppress."

This "marketplace of ideas" and the idea that fascism can be argued away is demonstrably not working. Trying to engage a True Believer in debate simply lets them use the exposure to spread their ideology, they and their adherents simply feed on the controversy.

That's why a large segment of the alt-right run around daring people to "debate" them, because they know all exposure is good exposure, when it comes to the segment they're targeting.

By debating fascists, you implicitly give credence to the notion that their ideology is valid and worthy of civil discourse, when it is in fact the direct opposite of free speech and freedom for all.

Trying to prevent people from arguing for an evil works much better when the primary reason they are arguing for said evil is because your platform makes it insanely profitable for them to do so.

"I disapprove of what you say but will do my level best to ensure it's profitable for you and your copycats to keep saying it in a more and more attention-seekingly extreme manner" sounds suspiciously like the net result is society manipulation of a different sort. Ultimately I think private organizations have a right to have the time, effort and money they invest in growing their platform's reach decoupled from the change in the public profile of evil.