Re: [luv-talk] Linux != Poltics
Message: 4 Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 12:17:57 +1100 From: "Lev Lafayette"
Arendt's general principle, and one that I agree with, it is societies that do not discuss politics, that destroy their public sphere of critical debate and disagreement, that end up sliding into totalitarian and simplistic authoritarian societies. Even with the trappings of a trivilised happy consciousness where any disturbing matters are pushed out-of-sight, out-of-mind, and preferably somewhere else.
Lev Lafayette
Excellent post Lev. The question is how do we have such discussions in a way that generates more light than heat? One can exclude people who don't play by the rules of civil debate but the resisting the temptations of the power of censorship seems beyond most people. You often end up with a boring echo chamber. I had some success with a fervent but poorly informed global heating sceptic by agreeing to do a deep dive on some specific aspects of the question.. Issues such as the alleged bad faith of scientists lusting after grant money$ and the alleged bad faith of carbon industry lobbyists lusting after profit$ at any cost were out of scope. We worked through things like the history of the global climate and the temperature record, including things like the heat island effect, the effect of CO2 on the earth's albedo, etc. After a few rounds he went quiet on the issue. Tim Josling (with a J)
Quoting Tim Josling (tim.josling@gmail.com):
Tim Josling (with a J)
Yeah, sorry about that. You now have my permission to mangle my name a few times, if you wish. Maybe you don't mind being confused with the author of xemacs, though. ;-> True story: I had dinner with a group that included that evening's speaker, Richard M. Stallman. As I ended up sitting next to Richard, the devil in me impelled me to say 'Richard, I hope you don't mind sitting next to a vi user.' He was way ahead of me. Richard smiled beatifically, and said 'We of the Church of Emacs believe that the use of vi is _not_ a sin... but rather penance.' Points to RMS for that one. (Reputation to the contrary, he's a witty and warm fellow.)
Hi All, Richard M Stallman = RMS. Makes me wish I was born Robert Theodore Frederick Mitchell. Then my initials would be... :-) Carl On 21/04/14 16:58, Rick Moen wrote:
Quoting Tim Josling (tim.josling@gmail.com):
Tim Josling (with a J)
Yeah, sorry about that. You now have my permission to mangle my name a few times, if you wish. Maybe you don't mind being confused with the author of xemacs, though. ;->
True story: I had dinner with a group that included that evening's speaker, Richard M. Stallman. As I ended up sitting next to Richard, the devil in me impelled me to say 'Richard, I hope you don't mind sitting next to a vi user.'
He was way ahead of me. Richard smiled beatifically, and said 'We of the Church of Emacs believe that the use of vi is _not_ a sin... but rather penance.'
Points to RMS for that one. (Reputation to the contrary, he's a witty and warm fellow.)
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Tim Josling wrote:
Message: 4 Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 12:17:57 +1100 From: "Lev Lafayette"
Arendt's general principle, and one that I agree with, it is societies that do not discuss politics, that destroy their public sphere of critical debate and disagreement, that end up sliding into totalitarian and simplistic authoritarian societies. Even with the trappings of a trivilised happy consciousness where any disturbing matters are pushed out-of-sight, out-of-mind, and preferably somewhere else.
Lev Lafayette
Excellent post Lev. The question is how do we have such discussions in a way that generates more light than heat?
As an attendee of many public lecture forums, with a philosophical flavor ; Existentialist Society, Atheist Society, Sea of Faith, Philosophy Forum, Agnostic's Discussion Group can I say 'agreeing to disagree' is the unstated but necessary precursor to peaceful discussion. It seems to me in any world-view one can recognise: 1/ theories; consisting of 'narratives' which are in some way falsifiable ( not necessarily objectively) 2/ standpoints which are a particular selection of a point of view or approach; where many are possible 3/ values ; as beliefs about what should or should not be the case; With regard to 1/ there would seem to be some possibility of reconciling conflict since if two theories seem to disagree; eventually one will be found consistent with all current relevant facts and the other not. With regard to 2/ some-times a standpoint can be shown to be untenable; essentially because the alternatives can be shown to be impossible. But with regard to 3/ (and 'political beliefs' are just a subset of value judgements eg ethics, aesthetics....); whilst it can be a fact, that a particular value judgement is common to most humans; or that a particular value judgement is common to most humans in a particular culture / society; the question: "Is a value in this sense, a fact of existence or a choice of existence ?" does seem essentially irreconcilable .Personally I align with the latter point-of-view ie."Values are existential aka non-contingent choices of existence" regards Rohan McLeod
On Mon, April 21, 2014 5:39 pm, Tim Josling wrote:
Excellent post Lev. The question is how do we have such discussions in a way that generates more light than heat?
One can exclude people who don't play by the rules of civil debate but the resisting the temptations of the power of censorship seems beyond most people. You often end up with a boring echo chamber.
It is very difficult and, as you mention, it requires people to be acting in good faith to begin with. All participants in the discussion must be adhering to discourse ethics, where the subject under discussion is debated by reason alone. There is, however, good arguments that the human brain is poorly suited for such things. There are tendencies towards selection bias, confirmation bias, and an automatic defense towards defending one's opinions rather than admitting that they could be wrong. To quote from a presenting I gave a few months back: "... by default our beliefs come firstly from emotional responses, not the critical reasoning faculties of the recently evolved parts of the brain. These more primal and subconscious emotional reactions provided a mechanism for quick decision-making that is largely adaptive; hate, fear, lust, hunger, disgust and so forth. As a sapient species we have heuristics for pattern-recognition, which also helped our decision-making adaptability. As a conscious species, these emotions and heuristics mix with our socially-derived needs, such as esteem, repute, and actualisation. As a result we become very irrational indeed. Because we have a very visceral reaction against being wrong we protect ourselves against that possibility - and often with even worse consequences."
I had some success with a fervent but poorly informed global heating sceptic by agreeing to do a deep dive on some specific aspects of the question.. Issues such as the alleged bad faith of scientists lusting after grant money$ and the alleged bad faith of carbon industry lobbyists lusting after profit$ at any cost were out of scope. We worked through things like the history of the global climate and the temperature record, including things like the heat island effect, the effect of CO2 on the earth's albedo, etc. After a few rounds he went quiet on the issue.
It would be very hard to defend against such evidence, although they probably wanted to. At the very least you have put a seed of doubt in their minds which may lead to them changing their mind in the future. -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GradCertTerAdEd (Murdoch), GradCertPM, MBA (Tech Mngmnt) (Chifley) mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt
participants (5)
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Carl Turney -
Lev Lafayette -
Rick Moen -
Rohan McLeod -
Tim Josling