Nazis are a lost cause

Well there is the intolerance paradox. So you have to be mindful of that.

Depends on a few things, including the viewpoint in question.

And my patience at a particular time because I’m not 18 and just discovering the world anymore and a lot of shit is the same old shit, even if it’s had a ribbon tied around it.

Some things that I’m more or less out of patience with are bigotry, right wing conservative conformists and supremacists, and monotheism. But I’m open to discussing most other things.

I’d be more inclined to ‘meet in the middle’ politically if ‘politics’ were about say how taxes should be spent, and not about who should have more or less human rights than who.

The notion of a marketplace of ideas selecting the best ideas and rejecting the worse ones is interesting. It suggests that marketplaces always select for quality, especially the more unregulated they are, which is not something I’ve noticed to be true about how any actual marketplaces operate.

The idea that Nazi “ideas” need to be defeated in open debate, which will cause them to lose power, is also interesting. It presupposes that debates are always won by the most correct idea, which I’ve noticed is often the opposite of how debate works.

It also suggest that the Nazis’ plan is to participate in bloodless debate over their ideas, and accept the outcome if their ideas are rejected, which is not a plan I think Nazis have ever pursued, or the sort of arena in which they have ever admitted—much less accepted—defeat.

It also suggests that what Nazis have are “ideas,” when we know that what they actually have are intentions, and those intentions always create real-life violence toward marginalized communities along racial, ethnic, religious, and other lines of bigotry—and they do so the more effectively Nazis are able to gather and organize and promote their “ideas” into the mainstream.

Source: https://www.the-reframe.com/questions-for-substack/

Also, I find the very definition of your “zero point” as a self-contained bad faith argument. It is quite close to notions of “snowflakes needing safe spaces” or sth, but real life anti-nazi tactics are, and should be, more militant. To this bad-faith zero point my position is either a -10, or on another axis entirely lmao.

Depends on the viewpoint.

My brother is a conspiracy theorist, it’s absolutely impossible to talk to him about anything. No matter what evidence you produce, he’ll just ignore it.

The closest I got was when he mentioned the moon landings were faked and filmed on a sound stage. He pointed to the flag flapping “in the wind”.

I asked him why, if NASA had gone to all the trouble and expense of faking the moon landings, would they have installed a giant fan to make the flag flap…

I also won’t have anything to do with anyone who supports the likes of Nigel Farage or Tommy Robinson.

It depends on what those opposing viewpoints are. If they involve actively targeting and harming vulnerable people, I have no space at all for those viewpoints or the people that hold them.

For the other stuff, maybe a 7.

“opposing viewpoints” is too broad a term for the question to be meaningful.

It could mean everything from “Discovery is the best Star Trek series” to “Women aren’t real people”, and the details of the viewpoint in question are EXTREMELY relevant to your ability to empathize with it.

By that criteria, 10. Like, if a Nazi wanted to seriously talk with me, I’d be fine with that. Glad, even. The thing is, they don’t usually do a whole lot of thinking or analysing, or they would have stopped being a Nazi pretty quickly.

It’s usually more about psychoanalysis - trying to figure out how their irrationality works. I spend a shit ton of time trying to get inside the head of the people who maintain the world’s problems. So, still 10.

10 and 1 simultaneously. I’ll sit down. I’ll talk politics with damn near nazis. But I’ll also understand they’re disgusting, their viewpoints are formed through pure idiocy. It can be simultaneously very informing and infuriating to get an understanding of how they come about their viewpoints. Same applies to much less extreme examples as well

I will not listen to or hear out any conservative views. That ship has long sailed.

I won’t go out of my way to defend what I believe, but that doesn’t mean I have to hear your opposing views because I don’t care of what you think.

I am perfectly happy to discuss opposing viewpoints and potentially even be persuaded. Unless the opposing viewpoint can only be achieved with a complete lack of empathy and by not seeing other groups of people as people. Nothing either of us would say or do would change the other person’s opinion then. I can’t argue someone into believing that other people deserve basic human rights and dignity. They won’t convince me otherwise either.

7.5/10. I find that most people I encounter, even if they support causes against those which I support, would agree with my viewpoints, as long as I don’t say “socialism”. That is an unfortunate consequence of being raised in an environment of capitalist realism.

Where’s the other 2.5 points? I’ll happily listen to my opponents recount the life experiences and thought processes that make them oppose my viewpoints. But for my own sanity, I refuse to engage with those who merely throw attacks at me.

I back off from arguing on the internet in general, also for my own sanity.

Unrelated to the specific question you asked but you would probably enjoy reading They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer. The author befriended ten nazis after the war and writes about what he learned from that.

It depends on what you mean by viewpoint.

If they’re disagreeing about objective reality, 0/10. If we can’t agree on an objective level, there’s no point.

If they’re disagreeing about following the social contract of tolerance, -10/10. They break the contract, they aren’t covered by it, they should be removed with prejudice.

If they’re disagreeing about the value of certain concepts, solutions or programs, 3/10? I’d talk to someone about something for a little while, I might give them a reference, but it’s not my job to educate them.

Of course just talking to people, I’m like a 5/10 in general…

One problem with empathizing with others’ viewpoints, truly, is realizing a lot of them have downright evil motivations. So, empathizing should make you despise them.