There is a book called “On Being Certain”, by Robert A Burton who’s a neurologist, discussing how we know what we know. He postulates that the sense of “conviction” has less to do with objective reality and far more to do with “a feeling of knowing.” He also suggests that we are far less self-aware than we think we are.

People see a different viewpoint and their body reactively brings up all the conditioning received from popular advice. Instinctively, they hit the downvote button, thinking that they are rightfully decreasing the noise of a dangerous idea and protecting the less aware.

Most people aren’t interested in debate nor challenging the reality they find themselves in, or even the framing and interpretation of that reality.

Is lemmy supposed to be better then other social media?

How do we make lemmy a more thoughtful place? Or how do we create meaningful spaces on lemmy for thoughtful discussion of opposing views?

  • jetOPMA
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    1 month ago

    Paradox of Tolerance

    This is a bit of a bug bear with me, I think the concept of the paradox of tolerance is often misapplied as a leaver for broad censorship and not its more nuanced original usage in the book. I actually printed out the book to figure out the full context of the original usage, and in that context it makes perfect sense.

    Modern usage I’ve seen to justify

    • Paternalistic bad think censorship
    • Denying a moving spectrum of political opponents places to assemble
    • Brigading
    • Federation
    • Vote manipulation
    • Shut down nuanced political conversations about the motives and incentives of real people as indicated in the news.

    What are your thoughts on the modern usage of the Paradox of Tolerance?