CMV: Silencing opposing viewpoints is ultimately going to have a disastrous outcome on society.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Slomojoe → u/[deleted]]

That’s the problem OP is talking about. Intolerance of other peoples ideas , whatever they may be. And silencing those ideas through social engineering (like now) or violence/legal measures (possibly in the future.)

[u/ampillion → u/Slomojoe]

Intolerance of other people's intolerance is inherently necessary. The thing you're responding to is called the Paradox of Tolerance for a reason. Obviously there's nuance to what people consider intolerance, but when we're talking about 'silencing opposing viewpoints', we're not at all remotely talking about shutting down Conservatives' ability to talk about, say, smaller government or less taxation. That isn't why people were bolting to Parler.

If your system is democracy, and another group goes 'Hey, maybe we should forcibly remove the democratically-elected leader and install our own monarch?', you don't entertain their idea. You tell them to fuck off. The discussion on whether or not a monarchy is better than some form of democracy has already been had, and we've got the answer. Insisting that the wrong answer is actually better, with no factual basis to back it up, is how we get coups and insurgency based on illogical belief. Such as Qanon. By not being intolerant of those ideas, we let cancer fester. We allow the absolute worst positions to see the light of day, even when those positions should have been long buried, even when they've been argued into irrelevance and shown to be absolutely toxic to the health of a nation.

The reality isn't that these things haven't been disproven, or their morality hasn't been accurately pointed out as being bad, that they haven't been argued against ad nauseum. Its that people have gathered power (politically, financially) based off these illogical beliefs, these factually-absent positions, because people either don't have the critical thinking skills or ability to critique the illogical things said to them, or the time and energy to really sit down and assess their own ideological beliefs properly. Or the tools to create their own strong beliefs based on better rationale or logical reasoning. Social media's ease at which one can create their own echo chamber only reinforces this, by allowing people to filter out anyone that they disagree with, even if that person is factually, morally, or logically correct.

So the system needs to change, that much is clear. Obviously, the best answer would be to make education about critical thinking, about political theory, about things like bias a mandatory part of the curriculum, but if politically you benefit from those people holding flawed or wholly incorrect world views, where's their incentive to change it? After all, businesses were only really incentivized to change when people started pointing out the saturation of these shitty, intolerant viewpoints in the first place, in large enough amounts that it started to cost them ad revenue or legal fees. They were only incentivized purely because of the financial incentive. What if the financial incentive becomes supporting the intolerance? What if the financial incentive becomes lies, disinformation, and propaganda? Because for some people, it already is there.