> Liberals (well, the ones who've given it any thought) aren't speaking of tolerance as though it's a value unto itself; they speak of it as the solution to a problem whereby someone who does no harm to others is being targeted and oppressed. > > > > It's a clever rhetorical trick by opponents to obfuscate actual issues by turning the conversation away from their unjustifiable prejudice of innocent people to the liberals' justifiable prejudice of prejudiced people, an argument that obviously falls apart when examined with any depth at all.

It seems to me there's a bit of a rhetorical trick going on here as well, the notion that ~all "liberal" ideas are correct (and opposing ideas are incorrect), and all liberal people are flawless or at least superior thinkers. Of course, this wasn't explicitly asserted, and that's the power/trickiness of it.

Do you have any scientific studies to back up this rather bold and comprehensive claim?

Did the author say anything about how government could be (but is not) a moderating force to minimize the harmful side effects of capitalism? Granted, one can blame the ineffectiveness of government on being compromised by capitalist forces (it seems extremely true to me), but then do the people who continue to unthinkingly support "democracy" have no responsibility here? Do they expect capitalists to suddenly change their character?

/rant

>> In Western countries, certain liberal values have achieved hegemony. > > > > Really?

> Which ones?

Our mainstream culture sits on top of many axiomatic memes: democracy and science are the greatest, "rights" are real/non-imaginary, etc.

Assembling a full inventory would be a very long and emotionally challenging project.

> And how is this hegemony of ideas structured?

As I see it, it tends to be distributed as independent but self-reinforcing memes.

> Who decides where a given value falls within the hegemony?

Media, thought leaders, journalists, politicians, etc don't so much decide maybe, but strongly influence people's "decisions" (formation of beliefs).

> Personally, I find a major problem with conservative and right-wing thinkers is that they tend to assume hierarchies are both natural and inevitable. This leads them to view the world through that rose-colored lens, where everything must be part of a hierarchy and if one group (or their ideas) gains recognition, it must be at the expense of another.

All humans view reality through various biased lenses - for example, when they describe the (imaginary) members of their outgroups. Rare is the person who can catch themselves doing it.

> This simply is not true; but damned if we're going to successfully explain why it's not true to a conservative thinker.

As a True/False binary it is surely not 100% true, but as a spectrum, how true is it (say, in percentage terms)?

And if you are unable to explain it to a conservative thinker, do you know (as opposed to believe) that the problem is 100% on the receiving end?

> Or is the dilemma merely the fact that some people hold certain beliefs that the general public has decided (through their "hegemonic" practices, of course) to be unworthy of respect in polite society?

This seems like part of the problem - take the various "facts" one reads about religion and religious people every day on Reddit as just one example.

> This entire article is a veiled rant about how people are being mean to the author on Twitter.

As the saying goes: Perception is Reality.

> The defining thing about liberals is the diversity of ideas and opinions.

Relative to conservatives maybe, but conservatives aren't exactly known for their deep thinking.

> Is signaling how angry you are at someone accepted as a refutation of their arguments, and the arguments of anyone else who is somehow loosely associated with something named after them?

That seems to be the case as far as I can tell.

> It can count all the resources and possibilities...

Science tends to only study physical matters, whereas many possibilities lie in the metaphysical realm.

I like a big show.

What a weird tangent this took.

> Almost certainly not, but as I pointed out already, it doesn't matter whether there is or not.

In terms of belief, perhaps, but in terms of knowledge there is.

If you were to simply acknowledge that you are expressing your opinion, I think we'd have less disagreement.

> It isn't. The proposition in question is the conditional statement, "IF there is sufficient evidence for a belief, THEN that belief is justified", which doesn't require us to take any position on what constitutes sufficiency.

Vague tautologies are true by definition. They are also an excellent source of delusion (as if consciousness and our piss poor education system wasn't enough!!!).

> Since justification just is having sufficient evidence, then whatever sufficiency might be, IF you have it, THEN belief is justified, regardless of what constitutes sufficiency.

At the object level, how do you determine that you have it though? Belief is powerful, but it has limited ability to transform reality itself, it only changes perception of reality.

> Assume sufficiency to be whatever you like

I cannot, it is against my religion.

>There's nothing subjective about it; epistemic justification for a given belief just is having sufficient evidence for it

For all propositions that exist, is there unanimous agreement on the necessary level of evidence required to meet epistemic justification?

If so, please link to your data source so I can check to see if my name is in the list.

>So if you say that "there is sufficient existing evidence for a certain belief" this is to say that this belief is epistemically justified, since having sufficient evidence =/= the belief being justified/warranted.

Seeing something is true does not cause it to be true though, it only causes it to appear to be true.

>What may be "subjective" (or, at least, open to disagreement) is what one considers to constitute "sufficient" evidence for a given belief... but we don't need to adjudicate the proper criteria for sufficiency for our purposes here

It is a crucially important component of your claim, so yes you do if you want your claim to be epistemically sound.

>if we say that "there is sufficient existing evidence for a belief" then we are by the same token saying that the belief is epistemically justified, regardless of what particular criteria of sufficiency we happen to be using.

Do "we" say that though, or might you have only imagined that?

Also, this runs up against the issue I noted above.

The two ideas are intermingled: there is the degree to which the far right exploits Stochastic Terror, and then there is the degree to which people believe that the far right exploits Stochastic Terror.

There are also many other related ideas, like to what degree is each of us guilty for contributing (via action, or inaction) to the suboptimality that exists in the world, to what degree are people capable of considering such ideas, etc.

Humans are a very curious species - so much potential, but so much hubris, delusion, and folly. What will they get up to next with their fairy-tale-based culture???!!

No, I am referring to the distinction between belief and knowledge/truth. I don't doubt you believe the things you do.

Yours is a bad faith argument (we know this is true by virtue of me saying that it is true), therefore it can be dismissed.

Bye!

> Fact -Testosterone levels are dropping globally every year. Fact- Altrazine is a pesticide that can turn male frogs to females. Conspiracy - liberal govts are putting shit in the water and food to lower testosterone and turn guys feminine, and thats also why gays and trans people are so common now, and men no longer act like traditional make 'me a sandwich bitch' types males. Proof the globalist and liberal elites want to lower the population, and fuck the world. Result- far right, masculine obsessed, christofascist, borderline incel conspiracy theorist. Reality- Testosterone levels dropping is explained extremely easily by obeistity rising, smoking dropping, and more sedentary work + lifestyles. > > > > I've thought a lot about whats the problem with their thinking. I think the problem occurs when biases are stronger than your epistemology.

This comment seems self-referential, and potentially self-refuting (in that you do not have the means to know the quality of thinking of conspiracy theorists, and you give no indication that you realize you are wholesale speculating).

>> If there is sufficient existing evidence for a certain belief, so much so that one can act intuitively as if it is true, then demanding impossible evidence is unreasonable skepticism. Only without this intuitively satisfying evidence can we reasonably warrant suspending disbelief.

> Well, sure. But this is basically just a tautology

tautology: a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form

The proposition is subjective - subjective matters can be framed in a tautological manner, but this does not seem to be an example of that.

> if there is sufficient evidence to warrant a certain belief, then that belief is justified, period. This isn't interesting or controversial.

I disagree with it, because of the subjectivity.

I agree with your other points though.

> there is reasonable and unreasonable skepticism

Unfortunately: opinions vary on what is valid skepticism, because reasoning varies and opinion often appears as fact.

> Because you either didn't understand what I wrote

That is not a good reason for not addressing what I wrote.

Sir: if you do not respond to what I say, I am unable to take your seriously. Sorry!

It's a decent story, I wonder how true it is.

You didn't address anything I said.

There are many unseen opportunities I reckon.

Agree...this, and many other things. It is a complete shitshow. But, I think there's hope... This shitshow has so many holes in it, it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep the story straight, and a lot of young people seem to find the whole thing hilarious. Maybe some day a big meme war will break out!

>I don’t know that there are that many things that the majority of people consider a conspiracy in terms that absolute.

Consider the lab origin theory of covid... the simultaneous claims across supposedly independent media (that it "is" [only] a conspiracy theory) and then the reaction to that by people on social media. I believe that a cause and effect relationship seems obvious.

>Unless you mean why the majority of people discredit some ideas as only being “conspiracy theories” when it’s impossible to know with absolute certainty that there is no actual conspiracy.

I am interested in why journalists are incapable of exercising basic epistemology. It is regularly claimed that they are some of the most competent people on the planet in this regard, and that we should trust their judgment because of it. This is clearly false.

>I would say that the majority of people wouldn’t agree that these ideas are necessarily and only conspiracy theories with zero statistical possibility of truth...

Engaged in highly accurate discussion like this and you will be accused of engaging in pedantry, or various other popular memes.

>I would also suggest that since the overwhelming majority of popular conspiracy theories never actually reveal a conspiracy...

What data source are you using, in fact?

> ...we just label any unlikely claim of conspiracy as such.

But what is the actual(!) reason(s) that people do this the same way? Is mass belief among humans purely organic, without exception?

If you consider how (comprehensively) it came to be that you believe this, what do you come up with?

> Those ideas are often under "conspiracy theories".

The mechanism by which certain ideas "fall under" the conspiracy theory category is interesting, because "fall under" is a cognitive function that occurs within the minds of individual humans. How do tens to hundreds of millions of minds come to believe the same things despite no proof existing? Is it purely coincidental?