this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Also, what do you have to be willing to tolerate?
Do you have to tolerate people who are lobbying the government to lower the age of consent to 8 years old? Do you have to tolerate people who insist on having violent sex in public places? How about the local cannibal society that openly eats human flesh, but only from people who are willing to donate their bodies after they die, or who are willing to have limbs surgically removed to donate to the cause? What about the modern-day gladiator arena where volunteers battle to gruesome deaths in pursuit of fame and prizes?
It seems like if you're intolerant of any of those things, you're an intolerant, have broken the terms of the contract, and nobody has to tolerate you. But, while that might "solve the paradox", it doesn't seem like a very good place to live.
For #2, if you aren't involved in the act, but don't consent to witnessing it, then aren't you just being intolerant?
So, you're intolerant of people who draw the line in a different place from you?
Who gets to weigh in? How public does the sex have to be? How violent? Do they have to actually be in the public place, or can it be someone who might think of going to that public place?
Did everyone involved give their informed consent with valid alternatives? Then yeah, go right ahead!
Wanted to reply saying that the consent giver must be able to fully understand what they are consenting to - which children (or animals) are not. but I think this is what you mean by informed consent.
Still posting this, because I think this is an important aspect and it's worth hammering it home
So, that's the kind of world you want to live in?
Having the option is not being forced. Just because some people like spicy food doesn't mean everyone is forced to eat it.
But everyone is required to tolerate people who want to have sex with children, people who want to have sex in public, people who want to eat human meat, etc. You couldn't have laws against those things because that would be intolerant.
It's reasonable to conclude that some people cannot consent to some things, particularly things they don't understand. Sex with children, animals, and adults under some kinds of intoxication fall into this category.
Sex in public can work, if that public consents. Indeed there are some publics that do consent, usually small communities, but it does happen.
Consumption of human flesh is theoretically A-OK, it's the obtaining of that flesh that is difficult. The dealing of human material outside of controlled channels can lead to the killing of people for money or power, which is why it's illegal to buy or sell organs for transplants or research. With stakes this high, any compensation can be twisted into coercion. This, plus the risk of bioaccumulation and parasites, has led the consumption of human flesh to be a taboo, although exceptions do get made in extreme circumstances. As such, if the origin of such flesh can be confirmed to be uncoerced and not used for long-term sustenence, and this can be rigorously enforced, then I have no problem with it.
The allowing of things which may lead to disallowed things does depend on the ability of a community to understand the risks and adapt to reduce them. For example, Canada recently began practicing medically assisted dying for those who choose it, yet some doctors have already been criticised for pushing it unprompted instead of recommending treatment. I shudder to think what could happen if insurance companies could legally consider it a valid alternative.
The issue here is that some things can create an intolerance for some rights, without violating those rights to begin with. Where the line is drawn should depend on how strictly the line can be enforced, so while historically many lines were drawn very broadly, we have stronger social technology now, and we can free up areas near those lines. Should we spend the effort to have those thinner lines is another question, and usually depends on how useful that area is; for example stem cell testing could teach us a lot, but eating human flesh is very inefficient and possibly dangerous long-term.
If something causes intolerance, then we certainly should create laws against that intolerance. It's usually simple to make the laws against the thing itself, but laws could be made that allow more things without allowing the intolerance. It can be a complicated matter, but one worth pursuing, otherwise everything would eventually end up outlawed.
But, where do you draw the line? Historically the age of consent has changed a lot. Maybe it should be that nobody under 30 can consent because their minds are still developing.
How do you determine if the public consents? What if some of the public consents and other public doesn't?
According to whom?
The point is, it's all going to come down to lines a community decides based on a variety of things from religious influence, to culture, to infectious diseases, to healthcare systems, to population density, to all kinds of influences. It will be absolutely fine to be intolerant of someone who crosses one of those lines, because the community has decided that that's where the lines are. On the other hand, it won't be fine to be intolerant of someone who crosses what is a line for another society.
Here we get into the specifics of the social contract. By partaking in society, we are bound to the contract, but we also have a hand in writing this contract. Naturally, the world's largest ongoing set of negotiations has millions of iterations, has started thousands of wars, and will never end. Yet, by choosing more reasonable terms, more people will be content with the contract, leading to larger more stable societies. How we choose where to draw the lines is of course central to this issue. This is one of the social technologies I mentioned; as we gain a better understanding of humans, systems, societies, and legislation, we can negotiate a contract based on more universally applicable facts, stronger predictions, and more objective reasoning. There will always be grey areas though, and that's why it's a negotiation.
If you sup with someone negotiating a change, you admit that the change means less than the meal to you. If that change is to accept pineapple pizza as undeserving of ridicule, then meh, ridiculing a pizza topping isn't as important as sharing that meal. But if that change is to eat poor children, then you have valued the lives of children, classism, and unrestricted cannibalism at less than a meal. You could contest this change to make up the difference, but that is a mountain and a half to talk your way out of, depending on how fervently they support it. Anything short ends up being approval, which is why you don't sup with people who want to take away people's rights.
According to me, but I invite you to find anything intrisically wrong about the consumption of human flesh by humans. Not closely related problems like encouraging killing or an instinctual revulsion, purely the consumption and it's intrisic completely unavoidable consequences. Genuinely curious.
Which means we can advocate for things that cross the line if we think the line is drawn in the wrong place. This would be called "being intolerant". Therefore this solution to the paradox of tolerance is bullshit.
The paradox of intolerance is a property of rules, and a recommendation on how to write them. It simply says that tolerance cannot be enforced absolutely; some intolerance is necessary to maintain tolerance.
It's the same idea as "If you wish for peace, prepare for war". Absolue peacfulness only allows the violent to perform violence easier, so some violence needs to be possible to maintain peace.
Lastly, intolerance isn't simply advocating for new rules. It's not intolerant to say you want to walk to work, or you wish education was free for everyone. Intolerance is an existential problem; "homeless people should not be tolerated in the city", "immigrants should not be tolerated in this country", "homosexuals should not exist". The paradox of intolerance says that these ideas should not be allowed to exist, and that permitting their existence directly threatens the existence of others.
Put into social contract terms; "Advocating for someone to be excluded from the contract is just breaking the contract with extra steps". Same idea, no paradox.