^ It's just a meme, meant to be funny..
The land of Steemville is a strange and interesting place, some days I am excited to be here and other days I sit rocking and wondering why I've spent so much time here. (I don't rock or cry, . . . much)
I've talked about it before, but one of the first things I learned when I arrived here is I have no idea how Freedom functions. I've given it lip service my entire life, but I've never had much of a chance to practice it. I assume overtime and with practice we would get better at it. Many of you are like me, we were raised in families with Authority figures, went to schools with Principals and Teachers, and moved into a workforce with Bosses. In some ways we are out of our element.
How does a community without leadership, elected or otherwise make decisions? I guess we talk/fight it out.
My instinct is to let everyone find their own niche and when it comes to the the reward pool to use the tools the site gives me to curate up and down to the limits of my voting power after that I hope for the best.
Lately, I am feeling a bit frustrated and I guess if I were to be honest I'm surprised that a community filled with so many people who believe in Freedom having so little ability to let some of that play out, without trying to judge, critique, and moan about what others are doing!
I went to look for topics on Freedom, Tolerance, and Personal Responsibility and I ran into the Paradox of Tolerance, which is...
Ehhh.. such a paradox. lol
Reading it just made me feel more justified in being frustrated.
The paradox of tolerance was described by Karl Popper in 1945. The paradox states that if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.
A link to an article discussing the idea on LIBERTARIANISM.org
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; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
After pondering and reading this a bit, I felt my frustration melt away, and the pleasure of the "Experiment" came back. (That is utter bullshit, I just got distracted)
These ideas have more meaning when trying to apply them to real life situations vs. when they are just a theory.
Are you here to practice Freedom? It's not a requirement it just seems we do have a lot of people who talk about it, and after all it is a nice fit.
If you answered yes to the previous question go on:
How should we handle intolerance? Should we tolerate it?
How would we define intolerance in this space?
Light Heartedly Serious
@whatsup