> If you start talking about your religious beliefs at a social event people treat you like you just farted in their face. They frequently will scrunch up their faces and might ask a question like “Do you REALLY believe all that stuff?” When you tell them that you do they might even go so far as to say “Sorry that’s just not the kind of thing I associate with someone as smart as yourself.”

That does not sound like discrimination to me. It sounds like people have an opinion and they express that opinion. It also sounds like they express their opinion very politely and in a restrained manner.

Having opinions and saying them is a free speech, a cherrised cornerstone of the American culture.

I don’t believe in disrespecting anyone because of their beliefs prima facie. It’s how they react to those beliefs being challenged that I find myself losing respect for them over.

It’s like the difference between “suffer the little children, for they know not what they do” and “ whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble”.

Now I can’t speak for the article’s author or the other replies above us, but to me that is the kind of bigotry I have problems with.

In my experience, people who hold beliefs like “black people innately are more criminal” react more immaturely to discussion than people discussing the underpinnings of astrophysics do.

Also note that my spectrum for respect is orthogonal to my spectrum for love/hate. Just because I don’t respect someone due to their beliefs doesn’t necessarily mean I hate them or think they are evil. But I’m less likely to be influenced by their opinions in the future, or to even give them the time to listen to what their opinions are on other things.

Yes, it does, because the post I originally responded to said "persuading people out of" these beliefs. How is that justified if the beliefs are not known to be wrong? "Prejudice" implies that the beliefs are known to be wrong, so it's justified to try to persuade people out of them. "Strongly held beliefs" does not carry the same implication.

0. Are you sure you didn't just misunderstand what was being said?

there is essentially no evidence that actions are unaffected by beliefs and viewpoints

1. I don't know how you got that from what I wrote. I was responding to a post that specifically refers to "unacceptable viewpoints", not unacceptable actions. It's the refusal to make a distinction at all that is unsettling, especially when it's being described as the proper heuristic for determining whether someone is above scrutiny or not.

and that's precisely what you're asking us to uncritically accept

2. I'm not asking you to uncritically accept anything. I'm stating my personal unwillingness to uncritically accept the notion that thinking the wrong thing or having a minority point of view ought to itself a punishable offense. A person's merit is not the sum of the popularity of his beliefs.

To extend my other comment, which you've read:

Suppose you and I were friends. Suppose further that I discover that you routinely have over Mr Qux, who has an extensive archive of Medium posts suggesting that society would be better off if my ethnic group were to be exterminated.

Mr Qux doesn't say it needs to happen. He spends a lot of time recommending that people not act on his words. But there it is, essay after essay carefully explaining how all of society's ills would be solved if my ethnic group were to just disappear overnight.

Why, you reply, we only ever discuss software architecture. He's charming and effusive, and exceedingly polite whenever in the presence of others of your ethnic group. His medium posts never come up for discussion!

He's a brilliant software engineer, you go on. In fact, I'm sure he'd be a great hire at my company and have forwarded his resume.

It'd be irrelevant to me how pleasant this person is. He considers me unworthy of breathing the same air. Should he ever be in a position of power over me, how could I possibly trust him to be impartial? How am I supposed to believe that his impressively well articulated views on my inferiority would never impinge on his ability to produce an objective assessment of my abilities?

It'd be hard for me not to interpret your behaviour as implicitly condoning that man's views.

--

Nobody's ever threatened to extinguish my ethnic group, tho there are some negative stereotypes. But it's rather easy for me to empathize with the above scenario.

That person who can easily be influenced to be a white supremacist doesn’t feel accepted. I don’t really mind accepting people and opening up to them about my own flaws and ideological inconsistencies. Some people are going to fall into the wrong crowds - you can’t win everyone over, but blocking someone out because they’re superficially racist or they have “regressive” views or whatever else is a great way to get a confused person to be very sure about those views.

Say someone who is very much in favor of legal abortion stays silent as one of their co-workers goes on about how abortion should be banned, for fear of offending said co-worker. Is the fact that this person held back from sharing their beliefs an example of inclusivity? I'd say that this is not only false, it is the opposite of what is true. The fact that this person self-censored out of fear of causing offense is evidence of an environment intolerant of pro-choice people.

Inclusivity is a worthwhile goal. That is why such extensive self-censoring beliefs is a prominent concern, it's strong evidence that we are not being inclusive of people of different beliefs.

> But they don’t choose to believe Nazi ideology or to not believe it.

If one gets new information, one decides whether that information is worth changing their beliefs. That is one important distinction between innate qualities and beliefs. And yes choice is involved.

> You cannot change a single one of your sincerely held beliefs by simply choosing to believe otherwise.

I receive new information, I reevaluate my beliefs. Simple.

> people often believe they’re straight and later believe they’re bi or gay, for example.

That's true and a good point - heterosexuality (which is closely tied with the ability to reproduce) is assumed to be the default. But see the next point...

> Sex and race are externally observable fuzzy characteristics

Agreed that 'race' is a funny concept. Americans mainly seem to use it to refer to skin color vs actual ancestry. That's the sense I'm using it here.

Also sexuality is externally observable. If someone is a man and having sex with (gender here) that's externally visible. You can literally watch it.

A person can change beliefs about how you should treat gay people. A gay person cannot change their homosexuality to accommodate anti-gay people, and trying actively harms them.

" As long as my opinions do not measurably affect my behaviour within a specific community, then it is not relevant."

I am arguing that, in fact, opinions supporting the disenfranchisement of minorities affects the behavior of a specific community. Please see my previous example that someone who believes black people are inherently violent is more likely to view a black coworker asserting that a technical spec is stupid differently than a white coworker doing the same. Also see my previous example that a person who believes women are less capable in code is more likely to overlook achievements of their women coworkers.

I don't understand what you mean by my logic excluded other groups, and then you lumped in inherent traits (race, sexuality) with beliefs about how governments should form (communism). Race, sexuality, and gender are not leanings or passions. They are things that people cannot change about themselves, things that they cannot avoid the brunt of any oppressive belief or behavior regarding.

When we think that either A or B are not super important beliefs, or we are observing from such a distance that the differences between A and B seem small, then we feel the people are narrow minded and prejudiced if they strongly hold on to their belief and are openly discriminatory against the other.

However, when we personally and strongly think that one of the beliefs is completely evil or unacceptable, then we feel that the distinction is justified and that it's okay to not just oppose it, but also feel confident enough to do so openly and with pride.

TLDR; It's much easier to be non-discriminatory if we (or our belief system) don't (doesn't) have any skin in the game.

I think the difference here is that in one case one would be inferring a belief system from membership in a non-belief-related group, while the other would be inferring a belief system from membership in a belief system.

I don't think it's a double standard to treat those things differently (though there are corners of HN that get wildly out of control in either of the aforementioned cases).

  I've never seen anybody suggest that you can't be bigoted against a dominant group.

I would point out that it is the logical extension of what you stated in the first post in this subthread, carried to its extremes. If you don't believe those extremes should hold, I would ask you to consider: what is the limiting factor for you? Where is the line drawn? How far is too far?

If not -- then this doesn't seem possible.

If yes -- then maybe.

.....

That said, from an editorial perspective, I find this very troubling.

More and more in America, we attempt to shame others based on what we perceive as their intentions and internally held beliefs and attitudes.

In objective reality, we can never fully know or understand what someone else is feeling, or what they intend. (At least as far as I am aware.)

Yet many of us still pretend we can, denouncing and shaming others because of their perceived intolerant or hateful beliefs. And, it's becoming socially acceptable, sometimes even encouraged... forgive me, but this whole idea is extraordinarily surreal.

EDIT: What makes this doubly strange - if this were satire, it would be funny.

A person B1 can have a moral compass that people should be treated as they treat others. In which case person B1 may be totally fine being discriminatory/intolerant toward A1 because of A1's intolerant/discriminatory behaviour. Person B1 will be total toleralant towards others and will be considered a tolerant person".

Now is person C1 preaching intolerance/discrimination? Perhaps not, as Person C1 is preaching "treat others as you want to be treated" and may lead to "intolerance toward intolerance only".

Maybe there are logical flaws in the above argument as most spiritual people will not preach intolerance towards even A1. However I assume the spiritual person will not hesitate to point out to A1 about "treat others as you want to be treated".

However if A2 is preaching equality and having a different view on say some other topic and faces discrimination, then people who discriminate should be ready to face "discrimination".

One thing that people are making mistake is if A2 and A1 are similar on many views and even if A2 disagrees with A1 on "equality", A2 gets clubbed with A1 and start being discriminated like A1.

I say this because it's part of my religion of free will. I really wish people would stop mocking my religion and oppressing me:)