Solutions From The Multiverse

Solving Free Speech: The Paradox of Tolerance | SFM E85

Adam Braus & Scot Maupin Season 2 Episode 31

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Have you ever stopped to consider what a world without coffee or sushi might look like? It's not just a caffeine-deprived dystopia we're talking about, but a real consequence of the shifting climate that's threatening the staples we hold dear. As we unravel the threads of climate change's impact, we also tip our hats to cities like Albuquerque for championing free public transit—a move that could ripple through our communities and the environment in surprising ways. Plus, we don't hold back on sharing those personal, rainy-day bike rides that bring a smile, even amid the challenges of our changing world.

Navigating the stormy seas of free speech, we question the line between expression and incitement. The paradox of tolerance takes center stage, scratching at the surface of what we can say, should say, and must curtail in the interest of a harmonious society. Platforms like Twitter find themselves in the hot seat, as we dissect their role in content policing and the intersection with defamation laws. Join us for a deep, spirited discussion that might just redefine your understanding of the words we wield in public discourse.

Wrapping up, we plunge into the debate about same-sex marriage and the expression of views that crash against the societal imperative of inclusion. Our conversation is a call to arms—inviting you, our listeners, to weigh in with well-informed perspectives, especially if you think we're missing a piece of the puzzle. As we sign off with gratitude and a touch of whimsy, we leave you with a challenge: stay informed, stay critical, and above all, stay engaged with the complex tapestry of tolerance, intolerance, and the freedom that binds them.


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Comments? Feedback? Questions? Solutions? Message us! We will do a mailbag episode.

Email:
solutionsfromthemultiverse@gmail.com
Adam: @ajbraus - braus@hey.com
Scot: @scotmaupin

adambraus.com (Link to Adam's projects and books)
The Perfect Show (Scot's solo podcast)
The Numey (inflation-free currency)

Thanks to Jonah Burns for the SFM music.

Speaker 1:

I've got it.

Speaker 2:

I've got some updates, oh, so you have to like from you have to stop for a minute and then, like I'll, wait until your firmware becomes the newest version I'm just got, so I see the spinning circle in front of your forehead, the.

Speaker 1:

I mean, please leave me plugged in while I thought you were a little glitchy up until now and that. I was probably.

Speaker 2:

I'm glad that there are some updates, so there is an update I need to make Bravo for you.

Speaker 3:

No, what are the updates? What do you got?

Speaker 1:

OK, I OK. So a few. A few episodes ago, we talked about a crime concretizing climate change. Yes, by saying exactly what people are going to lose from climate change.

Speaker 2:

Keep it concrete. Is that what we were? Yeah, that's what we said.

Speaker 1:

Right, Keep it concrete and keep it concrete. So I asked Reddit. I went on Reddit and I asked in, like the climate change group, you know, community right, what are we? What are the concrete things we're going to lose? And I'll say two things. One is what they said. The other is they still couldn't get it. Like in that group, which is a lot of environmentalists. They couldn't, they couldn't get it, they, they kept on saying these abstract things. Oh, you're going to lose. Oh, you know the world, a world that you can live in. You know it's like dude, you don't like they, even though I wrote it very clearly, like please share exactly concrete things, like like plastic.

Speaker 2:

They can't do men, they just couldn't do it enough.

Speaker 1:

A few people were, though, and they gave a few things, so people said coffee is one of the most high risk things that we could lose for climate change.

Speaker 2:

We didn't find my me. I don't drink coffee. Let's get.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people drink a lot of coffee. People love their coffee. It would blow people away if coffee cost, you know, $40 a glass. You know because it was so expensive, because it was all destroyed by, by, by droughts and flooding, and stuff If you, if you go to Starbucks, it already cost $40.

Speaker 2:

It's.

Speaker 1:

How I knew.

Speaker 3:

OK, the other one.

Speaker 1:

they said the other one they said was bananas, I guess, are also a high risk because they can, I guess, get plagues, can it can destroy whole crops really easily and if and there's more plagues with more climate change, yeah, the other, they said, is sushi. They said kiss sushi, goodbye. Do you know how?

Speaker 2:

many. Do you have any bananas it's going to destroy. I don't know a bunch.

Speaker 1:

Do you have any sushi? It's going to destroy how many of a carplode.

Speaker 2:

What.

Speaker 1:

No, that OK. Another, another update. Yeah, Albuquerque made all public transportation free, hey yeah, very cool.

Speaker 2:

So now it's.

Speaker 1:

Kansas City and Albuquerque are the two cities in the United States that they have free public transportation. They're going in exactly the right direction. That's the direction all cities should go in, especially the Bay Area.

Speaker 2:

Can I tell you?

Speaker 1:

some purportedly like climate, like environmentally friendly and, you know, care about poor people or something. Progressives, yeah, make public transportation free.

Speaker 2:

Nope, can't do it. Can't do it. It's got to be Albuquerque. No, that's cool, dude. And I, like I was going to say can I tell you something? I like New Mexico. Every time I go through Mexico I'm like it's great.

Speaker 1:

Santa Fe. I would love to retire.

Speaker 2:

Very, very cool. Yeah, I would I retire there.

Speaker 1:

It's a nice place, yeah, climate rules. Yeah, see, it'll be it'll be tough in the climate change but because they'll be short of the water. But, yeah, you could maybe live there in a few years still May is sort of an arid, like a temperate desert, so to speak. Yeah, because the high desert is a high desert, so it stays.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's not so hot and nasty.

Speaker 1:

So look at that, people are listening, they're listening Cool yeah, yeah. I mean I can't get over the free transit thing, man, Like we got a climate crisis on, we're looking for low cost things that would improve the climate the cheapest. I mean I can't think of anything cheaper than making mass.

Speaker 2:

Incentivize people for using lower emissions.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like you could drive your car. That's fine. No one's telling you you can't Right, but the bus is free. It's like well shoot, maybe you just take the bus.

Speaker 2:

Well, and then you get, and then double the cost of parking too.

Speaker 1:

It's like well, why should parking be free? That's housing car I don't want to do that. Well, you have a place. You can park it, though I know, but when? I go into the city, it's like but maybe you should take the bus, god, maybe you should take the bus. That's what I do. I take the train up to you and then I take the bike from the train station to your house. No problem, it's delightful.

Speaker 1:

I know I get a whole workout. I feel I'm biking through the city. I love it. I feel like I'm part of my place, I'm part of my time.

Speaker 2:

Even when it's been, it's been like raining the past like two and a half months. Is that even does that? I like the rain, I think of rain.

Speaker 1:

For me, rain is liquid sunshine. That I, that's my, that's my opinion.

Speaker 2:

It's because I lived in San Francisco, hey.

Speaker 3:

Adam, how's the weather today?

Speaker 2:

So I get sunny and then she goes outside and gets rain. What the hell.

Speaker 1:

You're like what I mean? It's like liquid, it's liquid sunny. Yeah, liquid sunny.

Speaker 2:

You know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

I learned that. I learned that from a, from a pickle suit man, a national park.

Speaker 2:

Excuse me, I'm sorry A pickle suit man. What.

Speaker 1:

The National Park, national Park Rangers. They were pickle suits. I've never heard of this. That are you. It might be my family calls.

Speaker 2:

Is this a literal, like a literal phone pickle suit, or no, no, no like the National Park Rangers.

Speaker 1:

they were full green suits they look like and they're called pickle suits. We call them pickle.

Speaker 2:

They're called pickle my family. Well, we call them. I don't know what you're going to call. Hey, I believe you. I'm not a big national parks guy, so I didn't go to a bunch.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, they're great. So he was walking around in his rain jacket and he was like liquid sunshine and I was like that's the best way to think about it, that's great. And then I lived in Santa Fe for a long time Santa Fe, new Mexico and it's so dry there when it would rain, you would just love it.

Speaker 1:

You would just drink it up because it was so dry. And now, from then on, I was like I just love rain. I don't care. I don't want to live in a rainy place because it's gray and I get depressed with the no sunlight. But if it's sunny a sunny place and then it rains occasionally, I love it. I just walk around in the rain with a raincoat on.

Speaker 3:

OK, I'm happy. Great.

Speaker 1:

Should we do a solution?

Speaker 2:

We should definitely do a solution. Ok, what do you?

Speaker 1:

got OK Last episode.

Speaker 2:

You were just saying I have so many, I have so many. You were pissing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I have so many. It's crazy, but last episode you were pissing me off about free speech. And so I'm bringing something that people might have heard of this because it's not totally new.

Speaker 2:

You tried to use free speech to silence someone from talking.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to do that in this episode too. I'm going to explain how you can silence people while still being what I consider to be a free speech, a free speech, a total free speech. Advocate there. Even if you believe in free speech, there are limits to.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to cancel class with Adam Brouse, for example. Cancel anyone you want, yeah exactly Exactly.

Speaker 1:

Let's do it. No, so I'm getting my PhD in philosophy right now. I can do philosophical things. This is a philosophical solution, but there's so many people out there now these days with Twitter, elon Musk, a free speech, but there are there are things that people don't talk about that I want to talk one thing especially that I want to talk about. I'm doing the Donald Trump hands, sorry. I want to talk about one thing that people don't talk about free speech. That is a plausible, but I'll be it. People don't like it. I think the reason they don't like it, though, is because they don't like the consequences of it for themselves, and so they make emotional arguments against it.

Speaker 2:

What is it?

Speaker 1:

But in the cool, in the cool like with a cool head, I think I believe in it. I think this is the. This is like a justifiable sort of rule about free speech. Ok, so what is free speech saying? Whatever you want, right.

Speaker 2:

No, Clearly free speech. Is the government not putting you in prison for what you say?

Speaker 1:

Well, that's the First Amendment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, first Amendment. Is that now what we're talking about?

Speaker 1:

OK, Well, well, let's talk about it. Yeah, let's figure it out. So free speech on the naive, on the most naive sense is you can say whatever you want Right, ok, ok. But that's, that's clearly not going to work, because there you can yell fire in a crowded room, for example Right, sure, oh, right, ok.

Speaker 3:

All, then there's slander someone or liable.

Speaker 1:

You could slander someone, right, you could say lie, you could spread lies around someone, destroy their life, and it's all lies, right, clearly not acceptable.

Speaker 2:

You could I mean it is free speech, but I mean it's not. Yeah, but it's not. It's the same as if you say well, I'm free.

Speaker 1:

I'm free to drive my car anywhere I want. Yeah, but you have to follow, you have to stop.

Speaker 2:

It's not so yeah, I mean you have to drive in such a way that other people can try. Like the speech is allowed and you just have consequences for it. Right, like they're not shutting down the speech, they're just no no, no, no, no, no, no, no no no.

Speaker 1:

If there's consequences, then it's not free speech.

Speaker 2:

I mean, if there's yeah, even if there's consequences to any speech, if I go up to someone and say I think you're a dumb, dumb, then the consequence might be that they mad at me and they yell at me or whatever you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but if it's procedural, if there's like a law against speaking a certain way that's not free speech right. That's like limit on speech right, Because there are these consequences. Ok so then there is OK. So that's OK. Then there's the free. So then there's first amendment, speech, which is like the government can't regulate your speech about right, whatever. But we see that there is actual limitations on speech. You just listed them liable, slander right, and and and, and I did, you know, yelling fire in a crowded room.

Speaker 2:

So there are one of the limits that's not on free speech. My friend, my very good friend, who happens to just I mean just happens to be a large corporation, he is able to freely donate to a political there.

Speaker 1:

You know that's right, you know him, him, the person, that's the large corporation, who is also a person.

Speaker 2:

he can donate, he has the freedom to you guys have Speech, we donate speech we donate money. Speech to a political candidate.

Speaker 1:

So that's a close thing. I use most of my money speech just to survive, just to like pay my rent and leave.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you're a free. They use their money speech to store for food and for milk and eggs.

Speaker 1:

Spending my free speech all the time and just usually I open my wallet, take a little bit of speech, give it to the babysitter.

Speaker 2:

You know, like I got something to say to you, you just open it. You mean the free speech here?

Speaker 1:

Don't you mean the free speech here? Isn't that who you give your free speech to when you buy things with your free speech at the grocery store?

Speaker 2:

Free speech box.

Speaker 1:

Exactly. That's so funny. Oh my God, citizens United is so stupid. But well, let me just get to the solution and then, and then we'll kind of work back to a rower. So have you ever heard of the paradox of tolerance? Yes, I have heard of this OK this is a good OK, so it's not new.

Speaker 2:

Maybe I'm not allowed to do this, but I think it's important to talk about because I think it's some people know, people know about this, some people, yeah, some people know about it, so tell us OK it's that the paradox of tolerance is that if you are completely tolerant of everything, including intolerance, intolerance then takes over and pushes out tolerance, and the act of being tolerant has fostered an intolerance society. So you need to be tolerant of everything except intolerance. As strangely paradoxical as that seems, that's the paradox, right.

Speaker 1:

Right, there you go.

Speaker 2:

Oh.

Speaker 1:

I would propose this as a solution to all this quote unquote controversy around free speech. I don't think it really doesn't have to be a controversy because the paradox of tolerance is true and therefore you can regulate speech that is intolerant and there's nothing wrong with that and people, people shouldn't like. I feel like a lot of people who want to regulate speech. They do it like behind the scenes or they do it kind of like and they're intolerant speech. Regulate intolerant speech. They kind of are like, they're not like, they don't like wear it on their sleeve as like a badge of pride. I think we absolutely should be proud and promote that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I believe in the paradox of tolerance. We absolutely need to regulate intolerant speech and wipe it out of our society because it's bad and because philosophically and I think we can get into it here we can see why it's actually not overstepping and really has no risk to society and actually bolsters and protects the freedom of society to follow the paradox of tolerance. So we were kind of doing the shrinking circle or the kind of shrinking circle of free speech. Right, naive free speech. You could say anything, clearly not true, slander, slander and defamation, and liable Yelling fire?

Speaker 2:

yeah, liable.

Speaker 1:

and yelling fire in a crowded building.

Speaker 2:

So they're okay, hate speech.

Speaker 1:

So there's some edge, right Even in hate speech. Well, hate speech is an example of the paradox of tolerance.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so hate speech, though, is not illegal. You can go around and say I'm a Nazi, you could kill all the Jews, or something. You can say that that's legal, and actually people will quote unquote defend your right to say that. I've heard many people, even very progressive liberal minded people, say I will defend a Nazis right to walk in the square and say that they hate Jews. And these people are mental. That's not the Nazis are for sure, but also the people who are saying that they'll defend the right for Nazis to say they kill all the Jews. That's crazy. The paradox of tolerance tells you do not tolerate them doing that. Stop them literally pass laws and say you can't do this, and you know where. They have laws, like this Germany. They have laws where you can't say or say not that you're wrong.

Speaker 1:

Famously right, but anyways, so anyways, yeah.

Speaker 2:

But I think the tricky part is who decides what is intolerant. You know what I mean. Like you can have that be a subjective thing, and that's where it gets. The playing field of everything is allowed is not dangerous in the politicized version of it. You know what I mean. If you're like, yeah, the Nazi can say the nasty things, that's allowed because we don't want anyone to decide who the Nazi is when they're in power as the other person, you know, like they might. If you say intolerant views must be silence, then when the other party gets in, the let's say a pro corporation party gets into power, they go. Well, you know who's really intolerant. All these, these wacko environmentalists are intolerant of our corporate rights and our money making. You know divine powers and so this is the danger.

Speaker 1:

So it's right. That's the tricky part. It becomes like a slippery slope, you don't want to.

Speaker 2:

you don't want to give anybody a sword because the trick is that someone later might use that sword in a nasty way. Yeah, so here's what I understand what you say is like is where's the where's the line on these things? Because there is obviously. We don't allow certain stuff. Like we don't allow, like there is a we don't allow certain aspects to get into certain places and take hold where there's like nope, you don't get to do that anymore. And they're like why? And like because it's not allowed. You just can't do that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so this is so. This is exactly right. This is exactly the point that people make. Well, it's a slippery slope If you start to to limit a speech that's not just clear. You know, in accord a law, defamation libel. I mean, first of all, listen to these words. These are made up words that people made up because they found out a type of speech that was dangerous. All we need to do is just make up another word for this. You know we can call it. You know we can call it. You know, whatever you call it, hate speech.

Speaker 1:

I think that was partly what legal people were trying to sort of develop was this hate crime, hate speech, and then create laws against hate speech and define it really carefully and stuff. I don't know if hate is such an emotional thing. I don't think you hate. I mean you could hate something. I hate a lot of things, you know. I hate Adobe software, you know. But I not you know. But there's nothing wrong with me saying Adobe software is total crap.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Speaker 1:

Right. So you know, I don't know, but I don't, I don't like that framing of hate I think it's more about. I think a stronger defense would be violence, right Like violence, violence. So, for example, you could say you could say, kill all the Jews to use an absolutely horrible Nazi idea. That would be not allowed to say Right. And if you said it I would say I would say everything you're saying should be removed from platforms and from and from should be illegal and platforms should be completely defensible. To say we removed you completely from our platform because you said kill all the.

Speaker 3:

X.

Speaker 2:

Well, can't you know? And all the X, it didn't be good. Platforms are already like private. They could just remove people.

Speaker 1:

They can they can they can One. They get criticized, which I think the people I think people should stand up. The strongest arguments I've heard in the Twitter debate about doing limiting freedom of speech, including this kind of stuff like kicking Nazis off and stuff is so that the advertisers don't go away. Right, I'm like what about that? It's wrong to say those things Like what the fuck? What planet are we on?

Speaker 2:

Like we have to say they have to like one remove. They have to one one step remove any moral judgment so that they don't like incur the wrath of whatever.

Speaker 3:

Why? That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1:

The regular people should the regular people, the liberal minded people, should wear this as a badge of pride and say we will shut down intolerant speech. And but I mean to your argument, though, that it's a slippery slope. I just disagree with that argument. I don't think that's true. People often claim things are slippery slopes when they are not. Slippery slopes, like LGBTQ stuff, right. When people are like, oh, you can't just let people be gay, because then everybody will be gay, it's like that's the great, that's the stupidest argument I've ever heard.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, but if you, if you create a mechanism for silencing speech, how do you ensure that that doesn't get misused? We have a mechanism for silencing speech.

Speaker 1:

We already have. What is it illegal to defame people. It's illegal to do libel. It's illegal to yell fire in a crowded right.

Speaker 2:

And if you go on.

Speaker 1:

Twitter and you yell fire. There are a lot Like you will be punished. The laws will come into play. Twitter will take down the tweets and fix everything.

Speaker 2:

I don't think you get there. I don't think I think I could post whatever I want on Twitter. No laws are going to come into play, are they?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, it'll come into play. If you defame someone on Twitter, if I like, those tweets will go on the board in the court case and be like there's the evidence, you know, yeah, yeah. Oh and maybe the maybe the judge will say and Twitter will take down those tweets and Twitter will comply because it's an order from a judge to do a thing. I think Elon would do me like that.

Speaker 2:

He'd stab me in the back like that, my boy.

Speaker 1:

My boy must.

Speaker 2:

He's no way, Pretty sure, Nah, Nah. He'd be like he tell that court he's not even from this country. He'd tell that court to go away. He'd be like like free speech in.

Speaker 1:

South Africa. Yeah, he's from South Africa. He doesn't have a very thick South African exit, does he? But that's more.

Speaker 2:

I don't think he was.

Speaker 1:

You know, I don't think he was rolling in the streets of South Africa Just oh yeah, he was in a solo no floating around in, so it he was talking to his private tutors in his emerald mansion, that's true.

Speaker 2:

If he doesn't have a doubt and dirty South African exit, it does not surprise me.

Speaker 1:

Hey, brew, could you get a South African accent? Yeah, anyways, paradox of tolerance. I want to, I want to, I'm coming out. I'm coming out as a paradox of tolerance supporter. Ok, when people's and I will not defend and I will attack and say that we should make laws against people saying kill all the X.

Speaker 2:

So the idea is kill all the.

Speaker 1:

Jews, or even kill all the, kill all the corporate overlords, I don't know. Kill all the you know, although it should be around defended category.

Speaker 2:

I know actually somebody says it should be around.

Speaker 1:

It should be around defended categories only.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

So if you say kill all the, I mean you say kill all the poor people. That's not a defended category.

Speaker 2:

Oh, so that's. That'd be pretty cool.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's not a defended category.

Speaker 2:

Maybe we should make poor defended category.

Speaker 1:

Now you're picking a future solution that's on my list, oh great. What if we made? Well then, I mean logically then.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, then logically, rich and so eat the rich would be a thing that we could throw people in jail for.

Speaker 1:

Say, if you did, if you said so, see, if you made socioeconomic class a protected category, which it is not, which then you couldn't, then you couldn't say the rich, but you also couldn't say shoot the poor to the moon, to the moon.

Speaker 2:

Oh, perfect. This is a wonderful free speech where we're listing all the things we can't say anymore.

Speaker 3:

Well, we already started with that.

Speaker 1:

You can't liable, you can't defend. Let's not lose. I think the current is that a lot of people are being manipulated.

Speaker 2:

I could say eat the rich and I don't go to jail. And you're telling me that the better world is where I go to jail for saying eat the rich and I don't know if I agree.

Speaker 1:

Well, not to go to jail, but maybe you can't say it and maybe if you do say it, like you know you're in trouble.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

You're maybe guillotine. That's usually what the rich got before before you ate them.

Speaker 2:

And that's also usually how they welled the uprisings of people who wanted to eat the rich after they. Well, this is the thing Social social, social, social.

Speaker 1:

We're not. If we say social economic class isn't a protected category, then maybe it's fine to say, yeah, eat the rich, kill the poor. I mean it's horrible, but it's, but it's, but it's like you know we can also eat the rich.

Speaker 2:

What does?

Speaker 1:

eat the rich really mean? Does eat the rich really mean kill them and eat them? No it means you know, it means like it might take take their take their money. They need distribute money more equitable.

Speaker 2:

I bet they eat such delicious stuff. They probably taste so good.

Speaker 1:

Oh, they're like wagyu beef. Yeah, they're just like marbled, just so marbled. They're not going around eating jack in the box and like filling their body with nitrates.

Speaker 2:

No way, no hot dogs.

Speaker 1:

I think eat the rich means like consume the wealth of the rich, like it means like distribute, that's what I think. I think it means redistribute, but I guess, yeah, I don't know. But you could certainly say thing like here this was the big controversy with the unit, with the universities right, the universities, and this is how the, the, the presidents, got got their heads rolled. You know, they got kicked off. What are you? What?

Speaker 2:

are you talking?

Speaker 1:

I don't know the news was like it's like two months ago, harvard, the Harvard president, got. Well, she got. She stepped down. She didn't. By the way, she still works at Harvard as a tenured professor.

Speaker 1:

She's just not the president anymore, which I thought is totally insane. But she stepped down because of because of plagiarism. But the other woman I think it was the Cornell or one of those things, she, she stepped down because she said that, yeah, it would be allowed in the university for people to say, to say, to say kill all the Jews, to say Holocaust, like stuff. She was like, yeah, that wouldn't be against unless they threatened specifically as an individual student, then it wouldn't, or a threat of violence to actual individuals Falls under protected speech.

Speaker 1:

Then it's just protected speech, because they're filing the First Amendment.

Speaker 2:

Right, but not, not, not. So that's where this. I was kind of wondering where that came from, but I was like that's a pretty harsh example to to throw out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that was the example, that was the current event.

Speaker 2:

I'm just unaware. Okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so the, which, which in Germany totally illegal? Yeah, you can. You can go to jail or going on a college campus and say, right, that's totally legal, and I think it absolutely in Germany if you start to be illegal everywhere.

Speaker 2:

If you start drawing a line in Germany, you start drawing a line, you do a right angle.

Speaker 3:

They're like okay big question marks I think you do another right angle.

Speaker 2:

They're like. Hey, buddy, watch yourself.

Speaker 1:

Time to pump the brakes.

Speaker 2:

Put another right angle in there. They're like get it, get that pencil out of your hand, buddy, get the heck out of here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, three, five rights don't make five marks, five rights make a wrong.

Speaker 2:

Once you get like 70% of a swastika, they just like I'll sprinkle you and they kick you in, the kick you in the head, and they're like get out of here.

Speaker 1:

I thought of this when I learned about the paradox of taunts. I was like this is it, this is the solution. And then I started sharing with people and I got so much pushback. Well, just like you said, a slippery slope If you put that in a place, then the bad guys are going to use it again. I don't think any of that's true. If you say you can't say kill all the X and the X is a protected category, kill the trans people, kill the Jews, kill the whatever you know, then then that's good, that's progress, that's social progress. That's not bad, that's not going to be misused in some way. That's crazy.

Speaker 2:

What you're really saying is that the paradox of the paradox of tolerance is that people are intolerant to the paradox of tolerance when you try to bring it to them and you can't be tolerant of that intolerance.

Speaker 3:

I have to continue to be, a tolerant, oh no.

Speaker 2:

I've lost a shoot.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So somebody tried to refute it to me when they said oh, that doesn't work, because what you think is tolerant is different than what I think is tolerant. I don't, I don't think that's actually true. That's right and tolerance is like pretty clearly easy to define like kill all the X. That's a great example.

Speaker 2:

But kill all the.

Speaker 1:

X, that's a protected category.

Speaker 2:

That's a great example, could fall under it too, like if you're saying you're intolerant of our free business by your economic like or by your environmental regulations, and so you're saying because you say, like I want to, I'm a communist.

Speaker 3:

I want to.

Speaker 1:

I want to make all corporations public.

Speaker 2:

And so then the people who hold those corporations would see like oh, that's, that's intolerant of private property and we are the representatives of private property and therefore, yeah, I know I'm protesting outside of this oil magnate, and I'm talking about how evil and terrible he is and it's like well, this is certainly intolerance of my fossil fuel, fossil fuel given rights, and then I'll have those people all have these protests shut down, Like once you start shifting for example, I can say I can say Elon Musk is an idiot.

Speaker 1:

That's not defamation.

Speaker 2:

Do you think it's intolerant? Right, it's the same thing.

Speaker 1:

There's, there's definitions for these things. So so no, I I don't think. It's just going to be some runaway train oh my God, runaway train. And, by the way, the powerful are already totally in charge. The world is just exactly the way the powerful wanted to be. They're getting $9 of every, you know, 99.999 dollars of every dollar made there. So I mean, like, what's the worry? The worry is that it's going to be even more tilted in their favor, like it's already completely tilted.

Speaker 2:

The worry is that you're giving an extra, another tool of shutting things down. Eventually, I don't think so, but you're using it, you're like, oh, we'll use this tool to shut down the powerful people or the people who are doing the bad things.

Speaker 1:

No, I just want to shut down Nazis.

Speaker 2:

Okay, that's all.

Speaker 3:

And not even Nazis.

Speaker 1:

If Nazis are just national socialists and they're like, hey, let's socialize things and make a strong industrial core, I'm like fine. But if? And they could say we're Nazis, because that's a big part of what the Nazis did, they just they were nationalistic and they did socialized economic plans. There's nothing wrong with that. What's the problem with the Nazis? When we say Nazis are bad, is we're talking about the hate. You know, the intolerance, the hating, various. You know peoples and religions and stuff.

Speaker 2:

I'm just saying what you create the mechanism to shut down whatever it is by defining it as intolerant speech. I think you'll find a lot of people have a lot of interest and a lot of clever ways to repackage something that they don't like as intolerant speech in some way in order to get it through that mechanism and have it shut down Even. How is that?

Speaker 1:

argument. But how is that argument not the same as like? Like, for example, we have libel laws and defamation laws those aren't used that way.

Speaker 2:

I know that's what I mean.

Speaker 1:

So that's exactly the argument that you're making. If we had laws that protected that defense, that we could persecute speech, then it would be this you know, mad Max, immediate, you know devolution into like the powerful controlling all speech. I'm saying we have laws against defamation libel. They are enforced at a level that doesn't turn it into that. I'm saying we could extend, we could say defamation libel and make up a new Latin word that lawyers would make up that would be like intolerant speech and that would become a new court. There would be court cases about it and that those laws would be you know, it'd be illegal to say kill all the X protected category.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a good idea. Why is that? I mean, am I crazy to say you shouldn't go around saying kill all the?

Speaker 2:

you know, I mean that's a very specific, like that's a specific speech pattern, but it's not. I feel like that's the extreme level. That's easy to classify, but there's going to be good, good, good, great area.

Speaker 1:

You know, I mean yeah, but that's what they figure that out in the court cases and lawyers will fight it on both sides and they'll be. But we'll move the line to where people can't say kill all the X. I wanted to defend the right of Nazis to walk in my streets and say hateful things. Those people are crazy. They need to stop saying that. I mean I will never defend the right for.

Speaker 1:

Nazis to go around saying horrible things. Never. I will persecute them to the greatest extent I can, personally and and legally, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

To me, like people just saying stuff to me is never going to affect me, like I just don't. Paradox.

Speaker 1:

This is where you. This is because you're not right. You're not taking historical consciousness. Yeah A popper led the Nazis.

Speaker 2:

The American part of these as a Jewish man.

Speaker 1:

He fled the Nazis. That's why he, Carl Popper, created the this thing right the paradox of tolerance, because he saw what happened in Weimar and after World War One and with the rise of the Nazis he saw exactly what happened and the same thing in in the, in the communists. You know, in the road. He hated communism too.

Speaker 2:

I just I'm trying to think of the logistics of it is like if I say, let's say I'm I, I'm from California, and I say kill all the Texans. Is this now? Is this now fall into that? No good, I would not say that. Well, texan, texan, texan is.

Speaker 1:

Texan a protected category? I don't know, but the protected category is a very clear defined thing right Is that?

Speaker 2:

is it only protected categories that you would have be into this If I say I think to begin with that'd be the clearest thing.

Speaker 1:

Raise color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, age 40 and over.

Speaker 2:

So national origin. So if I say kill all the Canadians, if I say kill all the Canadians unless you said it as a joke.

Speaker 1:

I mean, if you were farcical then it would be farcical, because farce protects a lot of speech.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so kill all the Canadians. I'm in trouble, I'm, I'm, if you literally were like we Canadians should be holocausted then I'm not you, that's flowery.

Speaker 3:

I wouldn't say like that yeah.

Speaker 1:

Like eliminate genocide the Canadians, then that's not then there would be. There would be some. Well, I wouldn't meet you there, not a genocide. But their national nation aside, then then there would be consequences for you. Okay, and I think the consequences would depend on the size of the speech too, like if you said that on national television. You would be like thrown in jail Now if you said that on your podcast, then your podcast should just be shut down and podcast providers the podcast police.

Speaker 2:

Hey, hey, they banged down the door.

Speaker 1:

Get out of the ground A lot of regulators, a lot of. I know the response that this episode is going to have, which is totally negative. There's all these free speech people out there and it's it's everybody, it's it's my friends, it's people I know. It's everybody. I know they all have this free speech and it's just like you said, it's going to be a slippery slope, like we shouldn't let the government get in there.

Speaker 2:

They're going to screw it up.

Speaker 1:

So the powerful going to use it again. And I say defamation and libel. We already do it really well, like the government does defamation and libel really well. Why can't they also govern, kill all the X, protect categories.

Speaker 2:

Why can't that also?

Speaker 1:

be illegal.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So I say kill all the Canadians, I'm in trouble. If I say punch all the Canadians, where am I at?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think I mean. This is where I think there's a problem still.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think it's still a problem, because it's certainly intolerant If I say screw you Canadians, screw all the Canadians, let's let's like, let's like open this up a little bit more and say I'm just trying to figure out the level. What kind?

Speaker 1:

of speech. What kind of speech would you like people to be engaging in? How about?

Speaker 2:

how about, like we have a conflict with the Canadians?

Speaker 1:

and how can we solve that conflict with the Canadians? That sounds to me a lot better. That doesn't. That's not. Nobody's going to jail for that.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, here's, here's the.

Speaker 1:

This is called solutions from the multiverse all day long. All we do is provide solutions to things.

Speaker 2:

Well we did not, we really, we really went after the Canadians. It's the winter Olympics.

Speaker 3:

We're in a hockey match against them, and I have had some sort of inebriating substance which makes me say I feel all the Canadian punch.

Speaker 2:

All Canadians know what I mean Punch. The Canadians have to be real careful now because that's called it.

Speaker 1:

That's called inciting a riot and it's illegal already. You don't need a riot. If a riot starts and you said, and other people say, he said punch all the Canadians and we have a video of him inciting the riot. That's what the word insight means. But you will be fined or go to jail or be in trouble.

Speaker 2:

That's already you just walked right into it. You just already a crime, we don't need an extra one on there.

Speaker 1:

That's what I'm saying, that's what I'm saying in that, in that case, in that case, yeah, somebody's inside to riot. But so I'm saying we govern speech already and it's not a runaway train, it's not some sort of slow, I think, these arguments, these arguments. Yeah, go ahead Sorry.

Speaker 2:

I was saying. I think I feel like we govern the actions that stem from speech, like we, we it's in trouble if there's a riot that springs from incitement. But if you incite, if you're a crazy person out there yelling and nobody listens to you and starts a riot, I mean that's just kind of like what is it? What do they say in the capitalism? They're like the market, the free market dictating it. You know, like you don't have any audience, you have no, you have no persuasion.

Speaker 1:

But I don't know, I just put in the extra.

Speaker 2:

It is kind of like to me. It's kind of like the hate crimes, where it's like, oh, killing someone's already a crime, but now you're going to make it extra crime.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I don't like the whole. I don't like the whole hate thing because it's like that. That's really problematic legally, like, for example, law. The law is never supposed to take into account the internal experience of a person, because it doesn't know what your internal experience.

Speaker 2:

That's where I feel like in tall, so I don't think it lies within.

Speaker 1:

No, no, I don't think so Within your head, right? I don't think so. I don't think so because you say kill all the X. That that's what we mean by intolerance, you know. Ok, if you just say, boy, I just can't stand Canadians, I mean you're technically being intolerant, but that's not what anyone would consider like intolerant speech, right.

Speaker 2:

In the Midwest. I just don't like that. That's the equivalent. That's the equivalent. Or you could say I can't stand them.

Speaker 3:

I'm literally saying I can't tolerate their presence.

Speaker 1:

It still wouldn't be intolerant. Oh those.

Speaker 2:

Canadians bless their heart.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're using the Canadians as a punching bag because they're like punching bag, because they're so nice generally.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, just because it was a, I mean I was picking a group that felt like it was a weird, like a weird thing to do.

Speaker 1:

Punching bag yeah, easier punching bag, you know, like an actual group that's been armed.

Speaker 2:

Yeah that's more likely to be the subject of things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I do want, I do want people. I do kind of want to be, I want to be like loud and proud with this. Ok, I'm not like hiding, I'm not going to hide anymore. Right, I want to make intolerance speech illegal because of the not, not just anything I don't like, that's again. I'm not.

Speaker 1:

I'm not saying, oh, if I don't like it, then it's intolerant, that's crazy, it's just. I can you know that's not true, that's not the way it works. But things that are actually intolerant kill all the X. You know, trans people should be sterilized. All this horrible shit that people say, that is clearly intolerant in the sense of that word, that everyone understands. Yeah, it's bad. And if I say, oh, like I say on this, this podcast, all the time, and in public, in recording, giving and giving it to people to listen to, you know, climate change is a big problem. The people who, who, who cause the climate change should be persecuted by the law, you know, and maybe even sabotaged in some way so that they are stopped. That that I don't think could be guarded as intolerant speech, because, first of all, they're doing it because of their job. It's not a protected category. They're deliberately doing it. They, they, they, could they choose to do it, so you can say well then they should. They should be punished for that.

Speaker 3:

And.

Speaker 1:

I'm advocating for like a legal, historical process to take place, you know. So I mean, I think you can say things that are political, you can say things that are inflammatory, but that's different than just straight up. You know these bank executives.

Speaker 2:

Honestly, they take too much money out of the community and they keep it all in this big, big room that they guard with this like the turning lock thing. So if we put some masks on right, do you follow me? We could go in there and then we can, and we can tolerate it back to us.

Speaker 3:

OK, back to back to our. The yeah, it should rightfully.

Speaker 1:

This is the toleration scheme.

Speaker 3:

It should be OK Mass toleration.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's the thing I think you're making the point. For me, there is no slippery slope here. The idea that the limitation of freedom of speech is a slippery slope, I believe, is like, is like an argument from the right wing, from the extreme right wing, that they make because they know that that's their Achilles heel. If everyone actually realized what, what, what Carl Popper, a Jew who fled the Nazis, was trying to teach us about how totalitarian and horrible things can come about again, he deliberately tried to teach the world that this is a. The real slippery slope is to allow intolerant speech to happen in your society. That's the real slippery slope and that's what pop or Carl Popper is telling us, not not some like I don't know, not not some like right wing person who wants to do the or or or. There are left wing. There's left wing intolerance as well, but, but it's mostly right wing. I mean, that's a historically right wing.

Speaker 2:

It just I mean, like I do believe in the societal consequences to speech where if you say something that's super cringy or bad, everyone's like boo and everyone like massively like, as in mass turns away from you and you're kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just feels like another level when you involve like state violence, in getting somewhat like in in responding to someone's talk.

Speaker 1:

You know well, it's defamation and libel. It doesn't doesn't put people in jail. If you do libel or defamation, you pay fines, you know, and you get de-platformed. But what I'm saying, though, is something to crime.

Speaker 2:

On some level, you're using the violent You're. You're saying OK, we are now going to force you to comply with this thing and if you go no, I don't, I don't agree with that It'll eventually get to the point where people are using violence to like to remove your freedom from you and it's kind of like that's a huge bar and such a bar that I think before we got there, people would just shut up with their intolerant speech.

Speaker 1:

Like I just said, Nazis can go around and say we should have.

Speaker 3:

You could even say the positive side of Nazism, like we should have a white, you should have a white, ok, ok, ok.

Speaker 1:

Well, what, what's an example I can use? Then I mean, I want, I want to, because he's the key example.

Speaker 2:

Any example except no, no. I want to know.

Speaker 1:

Well, I mean, I just want to say this is the thing. What if this happened? What if you said it's intolerant to say hate speech or intolerant speech, so you say so. You said illegal. So you can't say kill all the X, so, which is what the Nazis love to say. Then they can say other things. Fine, it's great. Let people. Because I think I'm I'm a freese, I believe that I'm a free speech absolutist. That's what I believe, that I'm a huge supporter of free speech. I just believe that, just like defamation and libel and yelling fire in a crowded room are legitimate limitations, that are police able, police able and legitimate limitations of free speech.

Speaker 3:

So is intolerant speech.

Speaker 1:

It's just and I just I'm not willing to, I'm not going to hide in the shadows anymore and and and. Let people get away with saying I'll fight to defend Nazis from from saying horrible stuff in my streets. I've just no stop defending them. They should not be allowed to do that.

Speaker 2:

I'm just saying, logistically it feels hard to to like a word or a a series of words in a certain or. I mean let's say that's that's where we get the phrase let's go, brandon, from right. It's because we can't, you know. The other phrase is of fuck Joe Biden. So like oh, I'll say this one, and now everyone knows what I mean, even though I'm not saying the thing yeah, yeah, yeah, don't whistle.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's the same thing.

Speaker 2:

Like I think it just shifts and they, you move one, you move one. I mean if you you can say fuck Brandon or whatever.

Speaker 3:

I mean, that's a little bit you can.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, joe Brandon's got to go. Who is that guy? I think that's him. I think that actually represents improvement to society because, for example, if you're a child, I'm an educator and you're an educator too. If you're a child and you see on the news or you hear people shouting, let's go, brandon, and you're like seven years old, you don't know what the hell they're talking about, you know?

Speaker 2:

and if you're seven years old, your name is Brandon, you're you're like, let's go. Oh, ok, man, I will go right on Right.

Speaker 1:

But if you, but if you say, but if you hear them say fuck Joe Biden, you know exactly what that means. You know that everyone around you hates Joe Biden and you should all and then you will naturally If you're seven years old and your name is Joe Biden, you're like you're like. But, if you're 70 years old. Yeah, so you're like hey, jack, I don't like what you say in that about me.

Speaker 3:

Why don't you?

Speaker 2:

clean up your mouth.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, malarkey, but my point, my point is, if things do go kind of underground, I actually think that's an improvement, because you can't understand that undergroundness until you're like at least a teenager, which means the young are not indoctrinated into intolerance because they don't know what you're talking about because you're not allowed to say it, but I'll just.

Speaker 3:

I'll just be honest.

Speaker 1:

I'll just be honest and be vulnerable here because I want everyone you know to know my background. To my grandpa, who was a German American. I kind of thought Hitler like did what he had to do. Like he kind of thought Hitler was kind of cleaning up the place. Like not a good look right.

Speaker 1:

But you know what he did. He just never said that to anybody after the war. He just stopped talking about that Good Good. He has a lot of other good qualities. He's an amazing, you know. He's a family man and hardworking, great, loves his family, supports the community. Great guy. He has bad political opinions. From being raised as a native German American, you know a German American in, you know in a.

Speaker 1:

German community at the time of World War II, right, so? But what I'm saying is that's progress, because all of his kids didn't, didn't like, they didn't get, they didn't indoctrinate because he didn't say it, because it wasn't allowed to be said. And the same thing with his grandkids. His grandkids never even knew anything about that. I had to learn that second, third hand through learning about my ancestors.

Speaker 2:

How did you find? How did you find that?

Speaker 1:

out. So my one of my aunts knew one of my aunts kind of she was in the 60s, she had like rebellion against her dad, she kind of more intense relationship with her dad. She knew these bad things about him, that he had these bad opinions and she was kind of resentful. But and then she told me, because she was telling me about the family history, she said yeah, like of course you know he's, you know great man in all these ways, great, great grandfather, wonderful, takes care of everybody, whatever works really hard. But he had these political.

Speaker 2:

He walks around like his team lost the Super Bowl. All the time.

Speaker 1:

Well, no, I mean he just you know it's like. It's like what, in 30 years when people were like Trump, supporters will be? It'll be shameful that you were supported such a psycho, terrible person.

Speaker 2:

Well, slightly different, it's slightly worse. Yeah, but you know it'll be like bad, you know, and a Hitler guy was good or not In retrospect, right, I'm just, I'm just saying I'm just saying when people talk about this they might not have anything in their family.

Speaker 1:

Where they have some, I'm I'm like, literally Really speaking from from my background like I don't think people should be allowed to say that if it does go and become, people start saying things sort of code words or dog whistles. I think that's moral progress, because now the children can't understand it, which means they have to make their own decisions. When they turn maybe 12 or 13 or 14, they can start to understand what's going on. Then they can kind of make their own decisions. But if you indoctrinate a seven year old to say the N word or to say you know, kill all the X. Or you know, if you hear, they hear people who are?

Speaker 2:

Are those in the same? Are those in the same category to you now?

Speaker 1:

Sure.

Speaker 2:

Anyone saying the N word.

Speaker 1:

Well, derogatorily, I mean sure, if you're using it non-derogatorily, but if you use it as a derogatory phrase, of course it's intolerant, intolerant speech, you know.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, you know it's a protected category.

Speaker 1:

Race is a protected category, right? Yeah, it's also sterilized trans people. You know, gay people can't get married, gay people can't have children. These would all be intolerant.

Speaker 2:

Anyone saying intolerant things?

Speaker 1:

You can't say that. No, you absolutely can't say that that should be illegal. To say so, certainly to publish, like defamation. If I say this person's dumb or something, that's not a big deal. But if I like say if I am a credible source and say this person is like mentally incompetent and should have their corporation taken away from them, and then people start to actually take that and use that, then that's defamation right. So it's different. It's not like in public you could just say whatever you want, but if you say it in a recorded, you know, blasted out platform, it feels like I mean it does.

Speaker 1:

Defamation and liable. That's what we should keep going back to. We already limit speech it does Defamation and liable. Use that same patterns to govern intolerant speech.

Speaker 2:

But it feels like it makes a mistake of thinking now is the end of enlightenment. Do you know what I mean? It feels like it's like oh, this is, we can now. We can now designate what are like good things and bad things to say. But the hard part is that, zooming backward in time, at any other point in time the people would have had the same good intentions and would have approached the thing, and if they had the same idea, they would have been like okay, we can designate what are the good things and bad things to say. I feel like at this point in time, we would very much disagree with their decisions back then. It makes me think that there's stuff that we're not thinking about now that people in the future would right now look back at.

Speaker 1:

Okay, these guys don't know what you're talking about. Let me try to mount, because I've tried. This is what we keep going back to, and so I want to try to really nail it like right between the eyes with by introducing a concept that's called asymmetry.

Speaker 2:

Well then you've picked the wrong analogy, because right between the eyes would be like a concept of symmetry, right, right? Well, sure, sure, I'm going to put it off to the offside of the temple somewhere, my argument yeah, right in the temple.

Speaker 1:

My argument is that and I don't know how this probably needs to be defended at a higher level. But at this point I'm just trying to tell people to come out of the shadows. If you think it shouldn't be allowed that people say kill all the X, please be loud and proud about that. And I want to be like that more in the future and say I'm a free speech supporter, which means I don't believe in defamation, libel and intolerance speech. But let me explain why that works the vital work, because I'm not just trying to sell society down the river. I don't want the powerful to be able to manipulate and govern speech in ways that is not good for society. So here's the reason Intolerance speech is asymmetrical from tolerance speech. It's not. They can't be confused. There's gray area, but there's huge areas of clarity on both sides.

Speaker 1:

Tolerance speech if you say let's solve this problem, we have a problem. Here's the issue. You guys aren't behaving in a way that's acceptable. It's not going to work because of these things that are facts that you did. That's a tolerant way to speak about problems and about issues. You can be very mad, you can be vitriolic about it, you can even hate the people. Your emotions are your own, but you'd have to talk about it in a way that is productive and constructive, and real and factual. You can't just be like saying psycho, evil.

Speaker 2:

You have to do that now anyway, to have anyone give you any credibility or to be taken seriously.

Speaker 1:

Are you serious? What do you think Ben Shapiro does all day long? What do these people do?

Speaker 2:

Well, he's doing entertainment stuff.

Speaker 1:

No, but it's not entertainment. He presents himself as a news show. It says an editorial news show. He doesn't say hey, welcome to SNL.

Speaker 2:

But his listeners don't think that his content is intolerant. His listeners think that the content he's railing against is intolerant.

Speaker 1:

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because again, it's not a matter of opinion, because of the asymmetry. There's an asymmetry between tolerant speech and intolerant speech. You may say I agree with his intolerant speech, but you can't say it's not intolerant If he says gay people shouldn't be married, that's intolerant, that's bull crap. But he goes gay people shouldn't have kids. If gay people have kids, then those kids will be mentally ill. People are mentally ill. You have to be mentally ill to be trans.

Speaker 1:

So these are false statements that are evil and intolerant.

Speaker 2:

What I'm saying is but protecting categories and it shouldn't be allowed, it should be illegal. Let's role play the discussion where you tell me that that's an intolerant. If I'm Ben Shapiro and I go, well, I don't think gay people should be married and you're now going to tell me I can't say that. But obviously I'm saying that because it comes from my understanding of the Bible and my religion. What I hear you when you tell me that I can't say that is I'm hearing you be intolerant of my religion.

Speaker 1:

See how I'm turning that impulse into yeah right. I'm turning that impulse into yeah right. I'm turning that impulse into yeah right, twisting it into You're being intolerant.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we both think that the other person is being intolerant.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And we both have a sort of solid basis for that argument. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

Okay, except the paradox of tolerance. Okay. So here's how the paradox of tolerance works. Exactly that situation. So I have. So do you agree or disagree that the statement gay people shouldn't be married is an intolerant statement? Even if you agree with it, it is intolerant to say that it's an intolerant belief of your religion of homosexuals if we're using that example.

Speaker 2:

I don't know, because it's a statement of.

Speaker 1:

They know it's not intolerant. It's just a statement of fact or something.

Speaker 2:

It's a statement of opinion, if that's what they think.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But now are you saying that, but it is an opinion about other people, their lives and they are a potential category homosexuals homosexuals you might have opinions about other people Well, but some of them are intolerant, some are intolerant, some are neutral, some are positive, some are negative. Right.

Speaker 1:

Would you say it's a negative, intolerant thing to say. Factually speaking, can we agree that to say homosexuals who want to be married should not be allowed to be married is an intolerant statement? I don't know what the statement of my religion, but it's an intolerant statement. It's an intolerant belief of intolerance in my religion.

Speaker 2:

It very much depends on your point of view.

Speaker 1:

I don't think it does. I don't think it does I think at the same time.

Speaker 2:

You're saying should not be married. You're also saying but I'm not preventing that from happening at all, I'm not doing anything, I'm just stating my opinion, which should be allowed Otherwise. The alternative is that I'm not allowed to state my opinion unless it falls in line with certain societal ideals.

Speaker 1:

I bring you back to defamation and libel.

Speaker 2:

Same thing, but those have to have my opinion that these people are damages, right, and so if I'm just having that opinion, my opinion inside my head, isn't damaging someone else, it's the action.

Speaker 1:

It's some sort of action that I do that creates harm that there is, there is, there is, there is damage, so there there can be damage.

Speaker 2:

What's the damage from just harboring an opinion that's different?

Speaker 1:

Well, the defense. Well, if it in your mind, that's fine. We're talking about speech and public speech and speech with broad reach, not just speak. You know, you say it to your friends and family. It's not illegal If I'm just here, you know.

Speaker 2:

I'm literally saying it to people who have, like, actively consented to downloading my show, and I'm not they're not accidentally there.

Speaker 1:

Nobody's overhearing and he has a huge in the grocery store.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but it's public and it has a huge reach to people who are all going to be popular and it's annoyingly, it's annoying, but you, but you drag.

Speaker 1:

You dragged me off my main point, though, which is which is that, with the paradox of tolerance, yeah, certain types of intolerance, one particular type of intolerance, is allowed and all the other types of intolerance aren't, and the one particular type of intolerance that is allowed is intolerance of intolerance.

Speaker 2:

So yes yes.

Speaker 1:

So in our situation, with the situation you described, I, or whoever would, is intolerant of what Ben Shapiro said, that if he said homosexuals couldn't be married, he's being intolerant, and so am I. But I'm allowed to be intolerant because I'm being intolerant of intolerance. That's the paradox of intolerance. It's the one exception. It's the one exception to being a tolerant person. If you are truly tolerant person, karl Popper says, if you are truly tolerant person, then you have the requirement to still be intolerant of one category which is intolerant people and intolerance. And so, when that so it's not just oh, you're both being intolerant, oh, you're a hypocrite, no, they're being intolerant. I'm being tolerant because part of being tolerant is being intolerant of intolerance.

Speaker 2:

But I just it would. I think it would feel more persuasive to me if it wasn't like we're both doing the same thing. But I'm right because I'm right, no, I'm right because of the paradox of tolerance.

Speaker 1:

You have to understand the paradox of tolerance. You can deny the paradox of tolerance. You can so try to make the make, make the argument to deny the paradox of tolerance. No, but what I'm saying is can you say society's totally safe to allow intolerant people infinite resources and platform to say anything they want?

Speaker 2:

It's not, it's dangerous for society, though that you're dealing, you're you're trying to communicate this idea to people who see the roles flipped in the idea.

Speaker 1:

So it's so flip the roles, flip the roles. Can we flip that example?

Speaker 2:

Can we do an example where I did like if he's like I think gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry, yeah, I think gay people shouldn't marry. Comes from my religion, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1:

It doesn't matter where it comes from, it doesn't matter, because the principle of the paradox of tolerance says there's two. You can only one way, you're allowed to be intolerant. Well then, I would say only one way, and that's against intolerance.

Speaker 2:

Okay, role playing, I would say, okay. So then me as a person who understands religion, that trumps everything. So if your thing says that my religious understanding doesn't matter, then yours is now no, no, your religious your religion has all kinds of beliefs you have a belief.

Speaker 1:

Maybe if you're, maybe if you're Christian, you believe you should turn the other cheek, or I should, whatever.

Speaker 3:

So, but that's perfectly tolerant.

Speaker 1:

You can have all the religious beliefs you want Also the other ones, the other ones you can have you can even have the belief that that gay people shouldn't marry, but you can't say it on a yell, it in a crowded room.

Speaker 2:

If I'm religious I don't. I don't put you as a person who gets to tell me which of my beliefs I'm allowed to have in which I don't. I get to have all of them, and they're all about what you have.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, any of the laws that are going to come after me. So if you're telling me what what I'm saying is, you're saying it's very cut and dry, just be intolerant of intolerance. And I'm saying, yeah, that's the very much not cut and dry, because two different people will see two different things and label them completely opposite as to what's tolerant and what's intolerant.

Speaker 1:

What's an example? I can't think of a single example.

Speaker 2:

I thought I already gave one, but both people which one solid, like if you're saying the gay people lie, if you're saying and I say, if you're telling me I can't say that, that's you attacking, that's you being intolerant of my religion, which is a.

Speaker 1:

I know, and that's allowed.

Speaker 2:

And that's allowed because your religious belief, that singular, one, single religious religious which you can have, you just can't say it in a large religion, in a large public space category, except that part of it, but that's not anything that's intolerant.

Speaker 1:

No, no, I don't you. Okay, let me. Let me make the same exact case that you're, that you're saying, but you'll, you won't believe it. But it's our religion that we do human sacrifice Right.

Speaker 1:

It doesn't matter, it doesn't give a shit. No one gives a shit. That's your religion. You're not allowed to human sacrifice people. Exactly, exactly. Religion's not just some carte blanche. Oh, it's my religion. Therefore, you have to not harm people with your religious actions. You can say our religion believes in human sacrifice, but we don't do it because it's illegal. Exactly, you could say our religion believes homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to be married, but we can't say that because it's illegal to say that, that's exactly what that would be moral progress for society.

Speaker 1:

That would be better.

Speaker 2:

I don't know. Is it better to just say it's illegal to say the things I don't like instead of, yes, talking about why?

Speaker 1:

is better because of children. Again, this is my premise. Children are indoctrinated at very young ages. If they hear things that are totally intolerant, right by the leaders, those children, the rest of their lives, are going to think. I heard the pastor say that, I heard my dad say that, I heard my mom say that that's what I believe Totally. But if it's like I never heard my parents say that, and you know, when I was 12 or 13, I realized they really believe that. But by the time I'm 12 or 13, I can decide for myself and that's better, you know. So I think it's to defend children mostly.

Speaker 3:

I don't know, I mean, I mean why, are we just.

Speaker 2:

you can have whatever you want, I feel like to defend children, you should not expose them to any religion until they reach a certain age of maturity.

Speaker 1:

Maybe that's where yeah sure.

Speaker 2:

Just because I'm like yeah they're young and impressionable and will believe whatever people tell them. So that becomes a problem later on in life.

Speaker 1:

Make sure you expose them to science too, a little bit.

Speaker 2:

Just a tiny bit.

Speaker 1:

A little bit, a little bit. Well, man, we weren't way over, because this is such a passionate topic and it's important. It's important. I'm glad you were pushing back, because I want, because that's the truth.

Speaker 2:

That's what the audience is going to want to hear what I get, and I want to hear what people are to think about this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm loud and proud saying I'm going to take it. I'm taking a controversial view, which is not that I want to limit speech, what I believe, any speech in any way. That shouldn't be limited. I just want to extend defamation libel. We should def, we should also police intolerance speech because I believe, carl Popper, that we will descend, we will more quickly descend into totalitarianism if we allow intolerance speech to happen.

Speaker 2:

So and you're right.

Speaker 1:

It's a big question.

Speaker 2:

But you heard it here. If you have anything you want to say to someone or you want to write on the internet, go ahead, and if you think this is bad and controversial, yeah, please.

Speaker 3:

He'll come I will.

Speaker 2:

I'm happy to.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and if you want to provide really good on this was a kind of crazy argument between two people who don't know what they're talking about. If you have like really good stuff, send it my way. I want to be educated on this if I'm wrong, but I have a suspicion that that I'm not. So Right.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for joining us again.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, everybody Love it. See you next week. All right, everybody, take care, keep it concrete.

Speaker 2:

Concrete, okay, bye, bye yeah.

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