Comment on Blocked instances question
fr0g@infosec.pub 1 year agoI don’t understand what point you think you are making here. Me saying bigotry can be objectively indentified and is objectvely bad (although I didn’t even argue for that yet) isn’t invalidated by pointing out society used to think (what we today identify as) bigotry was good. Because past people thinking X was good might just have been a subjective judgement, unless you can provide the reasoning people used to argue for X being good and it objectively holds up. And people subjectively deciding X is good, has asolutely zero bearing on whether X is objectively good or not. People mistakenly thinking the Earth is flat doesn’t meam that we can’t objectively determine that it isn’t.
mwguy@infosec.pub 1 year ago
Bigotry is inherently a thing whose definition changes over time based on the society/person making the decision. As opposed to the flatness or roundness of the earth.
You in 1923, 2023 and 2123 will all decide with the same set of facts that the earth is not flat. That’s objectivity.
You in 1923, 2023 and 2123 will all have different decisions on what is and is not bigotry given the same set of facts. That’s subjectivity.
melmc@freeatlantis.com 1 year ago
@mwguy @fr0g Now, many apply the term bigot to anyone who makes moral judgments concerning behavior that are different than the moral judgments they make. In that context the term is entirely subjective. It's no more than name-calling.
mwguy@infosec.pub 1 year ago
Oh yes the colloquial usage of the term is even more subjective than @fr0g@infosec.pub usage of it. The amphibious one at least attempts to provide a rubric for the definition of bigotry.
fr0g@infosec.pub 1 year ago
Meriam-Webster - bigot: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance
Saying black people deserve to be eslaved and murdered was bigoted 200 years ago, is bigoted now and will be bigoted in 200 years. The fact that it was once widely condoned by parts of society doesn’t make it any less intolerant or hateful. And obviously it was always just parts condoning it. Black people certainly didn’t think it wad okay. And that’s also why these “it was considered good hundreds of years ago” arguments don’t even add up. Because even back then it was only considered “good” if you exclude the opinions of those who were oppressed, which obviously is an incomplete picture.
Also, just go back a couple hundred years more and suddenly even people considered “learned” would say the earth is flat. It’s still objectively not. Because whether people think something is one way or another and whether that changed over time is simply no way to determine whether something is objective or not. I already made that point )ast post.Those things simply don’t have anything to do with another, so I don’t understand why you keep making the same logical mistake.
mwguy@infosec.pub 1 year ago
I think that’s the issue. 100 years ago, this would have described people fighting against racism, segregation and what we would describe today as bigotry in most of the Western world. You forget that the science and academia of the era backed racism. You would be the obstinate one fighting what today we’d call bigotry.
You wouldn’t have said this had you grown up 200 years ago.
That is unfortunately a niave and disappointing assumption. Look up “Blue Vein” clubs from approximately 1920 or so.
In your mind, what is something that is subjective vs. objective?
fr0g@infosec.pub 1 year ago
That makes zero sense. Were the people fighting against slavery also trying to enslave the people arguing for it and deny their status as free people?
Only one of these groups was championing and enacting deeds of maximum intolerance and harm for another racial group. So the very best argument you could make here is that maybe the anti-racism people were also sometimes bigoted, depending on how they went about it. But there’s definitely zero point to be made that the racists were not bigoted.
The rest I’m not going to go into. I’ve made the point several times that what people, scientists, me might have though during any time period has absolutely zero bearing on whether something is objectively the case or not. So I’m genuinely lost in regards to what point you’re trying to make here.
And if you want a definition for objectivity just check wiki: Something is objective if it can be confirmed independent of a mind (its biases, perception, emotions, opinions, or imagination). If a claim is true even when considering it outside the viewpoint of a sentient being, then it is labelled objectively true