Reddit: Don’t Be Hateful Toward Most People

Is Reddit concerned about Hate Speech or not? Here's the brand new Reddit hate speech policy. What's next? A new version of the Golden Rule?

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Edit 2020.06.30 11pm: Interesting ... Reddit has now changed the offending paragraph to read: "While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect those who promote attacks of hate or who try to hide their hate in bad faith claims of discrimination."

Continue ReadingReddit: Don’t Be Hateful Toward Most People

Recognizing and Escaping from Kafka Traps

Until now, I didn't realize there was a name a peculiar type of argument, but from now on I will recognize it as a "Kafka Trap":

In The Trial, Kafka presents a totalitarian world where a man is arrested by unspecified authorities and accused of an unspecified crime. Kafka traps occurs when people are accused of something but their denials are interpreted as absolute proof that the accusation is true. For example,

You are an liar!"
"No I am not."
"That proves it. Liars always deny they are liars!"

Kafka Traps seem to work because they are circular, thus evidence-free, thus unfalsifiable. You can expose the fallaciousness of Kafka Traps by making some simple substitutions, e.g.,:

"You are a jelly donut!"
"No, I am not."
"That proves it. Jelly donuts always deny they are jelly donuts!"

Now consider this argument:

" You are a racist!"
"No, I am not."
"That proves it.  Racists always deny they are racists!"

This argument that all white people are racists has been employed by Robin DiAngelo:

Yes, all white people are complicit with racism. There will be umbrage and upset. People will insist that they are not racist. That I don't know them ... 'I've traveled a lot. I speak lots of languages ... I had a Black roommate in college. I'm a minority myself.' This is the kind of evidence that many white people used to exempt themselves from that system. It's not possible to be exempt from it.

These Kafka Traps are fact-free pseudo-arguments that remind me of St. Anselm's alleged proof for the existence of God ("That than which nothing greater can be conceived") and St. Thomas Aquinas' Contingency proof for the existence of God ("even if the Universe has always existed, it still owes its existence to an uncaused cause. The only thing missing from these three fallacious arguments is the word "Abracadabra!"

To escape a Kafka Trap, you can also demand evidence for these extraordinary claims, then (after no evidence is produced) invoke Carl Sagan: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."

If you are facing an evidence-free claim that you are a racist, simply flip the argument 180 by substituting "maker of false accusations" for "racist":

"You are a maker of false accusations!"
"No, I am not."
"That proves it. Makers of false accusations always deny they are makers of false accusations!"

Continue ReadingRecognizing and Escaping from Kafka Traps

To Protest, or Not to Protest, in the Age of COVID-19. A Question of Hypocrisy

I don't agree with everything mentioned in this article or with the way these things are phrased, That said, we do have a big consistency problem with how we treat those who venture out in big groups in the age of COVID.

I'm not speaking as a member of any "team" out there. I'm writing this observation as a deputized member of a group of Martian anthropologists who are visiting Earth.

Continue ReadingTo Protest, or Not to Protest, in the Age of COVID-19. A Question of Hypocrisy

The United States: The Land of Ever-Moving Goal-Posts re COVID 19 . . . and Everything Else.

We should enact a law that when people using social media make bold predictions that turn out to be untrue, they should be required to publicly own their mistakes on social media as loudly and brashly as they originally announced their predictions.

And if they CHANGE their predictions, they will be required to loudly announce that their original prediction was incorrect and that they are changing it. And they will be required to keep a running tab online showing others how often they have been incorrect in their predictions.

Continue ReadingThe United States: The Land of Ever-Moving Goal-Posts re COVID 19 . . . and Everything Else.

How this Grand Experiment Might End

I'm tempted to close my eyes, flip through a dictionary and put my finger on a random word. That single word will be my next Facebook post. I suspect that this single word, no matter what it is, will be enough to trigger a political argument between vocal representatives of the two prominent political teams hurling factually spurious darts and arrows at each other, neither of these teams stopping to consider why people on the other side say those "disagreeable" things. Neither of them will want to take the time to put forth any effort to put the other side's best foot forward before responding. Neither of them will feel compelled to treat members of the other "team" like the human beings they are. Many of them will feel reluctance to ever say the following three magic words, "I don't know." The participants will be oblivious to the fact that many of their own self-evident "truths" are rickety, distorted within the comfy social warmth of their team's moral/political matrix.

I often feel like I'm trapped in the Twilight Zone episode, "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street," where all it took was a few random flickering lights to cause suspicions to ignite, leading neighbors to hate each other and physically attack each other. This episode of Twilight Zone, like so many other excellent episodes, was written by Rod Serling, who ended the show by reading this passage:

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices...to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill...and suspicion can destroy...and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.

Fast forward to a 2016 TED talk featuring moral psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, who stated:

We're really, really good at justifying ourselves. And when you bring group interests into account, so it's not just me, it's my team versus your team, whereas if you're evaluating evidence that your side is wrong, we just can't accept that.So this is why you can't win a political argument. If you're debating something, you can't persuade the person with reasons and evidence, because that's not the way reasoning works.

Why do so many of us treat opportunity to communicate online with each other like a vicious game when our country's existence is at stake?

Continue ReadingHow this Grand Experiment Might End