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Gavin Sheridan @gavinsblog
, 4 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
A note on tolerance. Philosopher Karl Popper in his epic defence of liberal democracy in The Open Society and its Enemies, noted:
"We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant."
Karl Popper is always worth reading. I first came across him as a teenager via his arguments with Logical Positivists. Then his philosophy of science. Then his brilliant and accessible essay Conjectures and Refutations.
I remember as an innocent 17 year old reading Conjectures in a single sitting. And being blown away by his prose. It also helped that he was destroying Plato, whom all my lecturers admired.
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Ah the MANs. It's become a part of my life at this stage. Here's Mark Griffin from @Dept_CCAE at the PAC last month. What are these cost savings you speak of Mark? (Also it's Norcontel not Norcom)
A reminder: the Court of Appeal hearing against the Department is due to start next month with regard to access to the concession agreement under FOI - the Department lost the High Court case.
Anyways! What are these "cost savings" of €22 million? Let's dig for a second.
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Interesting. China says it has tested re-usable rockets and will apply the technology "within 2-3 years"
The Chang'e 4 probe is due to land on the moon this week. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e…
Just before Christmas, China launched the first Hongyun satellite - a 156 constellation to deliver high speed broadband (similar to SpaceX's Starlink) nasaspaceflight.com/2018/12/chines…
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I hope you all have a fabulous 2019.
*including the haters and losers 🤣
x2
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How can we both tolerant and resist harmful intolerance at the same time?

This thought provoked essays from such people as Popper who emigrated to NZ to escape Nazi brutal, unthinkably cruel, life destroying, intolerance.

We need to pay attention. bigthink.com/21st-century-s…
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed-tolerance with them
“We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal.”

Popper.
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"Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant,
"then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check
"by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument;
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I've seen this cartoon floating around for a while.

As someone who knows a bit about Karl Popper, I think it's a massive misinterpretation of his ideas.
Karl Popper wrote 'The Open Society and its Enemies' which is one of the most important texts defending political tolerance and the free exchange of ideas.
When he talks about a 'Paradox of tolerance', what he means is that if an illiberal movement were on the verge of taking power, it may be necessary to use illiberal means to counter them.

He DOES NOT say that all illiberal movements should be censored by the state.
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A crash course on the paradox of tolerance for all the woke people who abuse the term, and employ this poster in defense of their misunderstanding.

Intolerance does not refer, in this context, to viewpoints that are exclusionary and hateful. (1/8)
It refers to an attitude of wanting to suppress people's speech because of an inability to tolerate those forms of expression that they personally find repulsive. It is these people- the censorious opponents of open discourse- who Popper was condemning. (2/8)
As Popper himself wrote, in the very book being referenced by this misleading poster, "I do not imply that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; (3/8)
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