Momo is Still Not Real (But Memes Are)

pauldanieljohnson said:

Well then, yes. I was drawing attention more to an implication...

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I wasn't implying anything. If you'll follow my posts through the thread, you'll see that I have made formal statements and that further, I even anticipated this particular argument and addressed it before you offered.

Of course I believe that the beliefs and practices I have are generally superior to the beliefs and practices of other people. If I didn't, I'd adopt those beliefs and practices. And of course I am therefore concerned when people who may or who do share beliefs and practices with me, change and adopt different beliefs and practices that I disagree with because I believe that there is something wrong with that. I have never denied any of that.

And likewise, of course I recognize that other people hold beliefs and opinions because they are convinced of the correctness of them for reasons that seem good and valid to them.

What's particularly silly is that you seem to think you are an exception to this general rule. You offer some pabulum about how one cannot say that one belief or practice is better than another, yet in doing so you are at the same time saying that everyone that thinks that their belief or practice is superior is wrong, are themselves wrong and the one true system of thought is your own. This is incoherent at the formal level, illogical in application, and in practice I think we'll find that you don't have the conviction to act on that belief. There will surely be things that you hold as true that you think I ought to believe, and modes of behavior you think are correct which you think I ought to engage in.

Let's consider why the belief logically contradicts itself.

Which is a heck of a slippery slope, because someone from religion/dogma/practice Y could say exactly the same thing about religion/dogma/practice X and be precisely as justified as you are.

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First of all, that's not a "slippery slope". A slippery slope is when it's easier to continue following a path than it is to reverse course. I won't offer examples because that would surely multiply the number of things we would be arguing about. A slippery slope fallacy is when you assert that a slippery slope exists, and therefore that some undesirable thing B will naturally follow from A without first proving the connection between the two. But your use of "slippery slope" isn't either of those things.

Of course the member of religion Y will say of my religion, that is incorrect and these are the valid reasons why I think so. But the existence of an argument does not prove the members of the argument are equally correct, or even that either are correct. It only means at most that the questions being addressed are difficult and reasonable people might disagree over the answers. What is unreasonable and irrational is to assume that since coming up with an answer is difficult, that all answers are equally valid and there is as you put it "nothing wrong with X". One of the most obvious ways that is wrong is that belief systems X and Y generally don't disagree over trivial matters, but have fundamental and opposite takes on the same questions. Without going into the details, because doing so will surely multiple disagreements, it cannot be possible that Satanists and Christians are both equally valid in their claims, since they make opposing claims. They may be both wrong, but on many things they will be wrong in the way that saying the Earth is a sphere is wrong. It's wrong, but it's not nearly as wrong as saying the Earth is flat. One claim will be vastly less valid than the other.

This is reality. You'll need to deal with that. If you can't deal with that, I'm afraid you're tolerance is going to be really weak, because tolerance doesn't require merely that we act in humility toward people who hold equally valid opinions as ourselves, but that we act in humility toward people even when they hold beliefs which we find really wrong and offensive. (And not unsurprisingly, whether we have any real obligation to be tolerant is one of those things that people disagree over.)

And again, I suspect if we dig it will turn out that you don't actually have the strength of conviction to believe what you've just said. For one thing, you are busy trying to correct my assertion of moral absolutism with the claim that your moral relativism... is absolutely correct.

Cosigned. With the Satanic Panic, the harm it caused is not an immaterial thing. In the McMartin Preschool case, innocent people served real jail time. As a result of fear-mongering and hysteria.

Lanefan said:

I have neither sympathy nor empathy for those who promote or support these "moral panics", whether over D&D, Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, or anything else. To do otherwise implies a degree of validation of those views which I categorically refuse to accept.

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Momo, Tide Pods, Jackass movie stunts, Mentos-Diet Coke, chain emails, chain letters, etc. Long line of stuff encouraging/threatening folks to do stupid stuff.

And I don't see how Momo is any more scary then the Tasmanian Devil that Bugs Bunny had to deal with. The Tasmanian Devil was watched by millions of kids that are now parents, grand-parents, great grand-parents, etc. He didn't seem to keep them from having normal lives.

As with almost anything, there will be a few outliers that will have an abnormal reaction.

Celebrim said:

Of course I believe that the beliefs and practices I have are generally superior to the beliefs and practices of other people. If I didn't, I'd adopt those beliefs and practices.

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Yikes. Hopefully one day you can learn that different does not equal inferior.

Celebrim said:

What's particularly silly is that you seem to think you are an exception to this general rule. You offer some pabulum about how one cannot say that one belief or practice is better than another, yet in doing so you are at the same time saying that everyone that thinks that their belief or practice is superior is wrong, are themselves wrong and the one true system of thought is your own. This is incoherent at the formal level, illogical in application, and in practice I think we'll find that you don't have the conviction to act on that belief. There will surely be things that you hold as true that you think I ought to believe, and modes of behavior you think are correct which you think I ought to engage in.

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Well, no, not really. This is a bit of a tired argument I've heard before, usually from bigots; essentially "if you're intolerant of my bigotry, you're just as intolerant as I am, hence you have no moral authority to complain about my bigotry". It's a pretty feeble argument, though. Intolerance of intolerance is a far cry from intolerance of someone's religion.

pauldanieljohnson said:

Well, no, not really. This is a bit of a tired argument I've heard before, usually from bigots; essentially "if you're intolerant of my bigotry, you're just as intolerant as I am, hence you have no moral authority to complain about my bigotry". It's a pretty feeble argument, though. Intolerance of intolerance is a far cry from intolerance of someone's religion.

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All I just heard was, "Everyone who doesn't agree with me is a bigot, and hence I'm not required to be tolerant of them." However, as I just indicated, I'll tolerate your bigotry.

Celebrim said:

All I just heard was, "Everyone who doesn't agree with me is a bigot, and hence I'm not required to be tolerant of them." However, as I just indicated, I'll tolerate your bigotry.

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Cool. As long as you're willing to replace what someone wrote with a quotation of your own invention, you'll never have to worry about what they actually said.

pauldanieljohnson said:

Cool. As long as you're willing to replace what someone wrote with a quotation of your own invention, you'll never have to worry about what they actually said.

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Oh, I'm aware of what was actually said. But since it wasn't a response to what I said and since you continue to refuse to even address the challenges I make to your claims, and since I've also heard your ad hominem response before trotted out in equally inapplicable occasions, I'm willing to risk assuming I know where it goes in practice.... since it's pretty much already gone there.

*sigh*

For those that don't get the above exchange, let me point out that for the claim, "Intolerance of intolerance is a far cry from intolerance of someone's religion.", in point of fact I'm actually the only one in the conversation that has suggested a moral obligation to be tolerant of "someone's religion" and a path to effectively practicing that.

Why am I being called a bigot in this? Keep in mind, I've suggested an obligation to tolerance of even opposing offensive viewpoints, an obligation that extends to even when those opposing viewpoints are insulting. Only I have openly said that I have to try to be patient with and not hostile to things I actually disagree with. So I'm being called the bigot in this exchange even thought I'm actually calling for the broader and higher standard of tolerance than the person I'm arguing with. (Indeed, it's also been asserted in this thread, I've uncareful with the truth by selectively quoting words where I was being careful with the truth, so we are par for the course.)

Why does pauldanieljohnson think he's less the bigot here? Because I've made the common sense assertion that I actually believe the things I say I believe on the basis that I think that they are right and correct, and that in this I'm no different than pretty much everyone I've ever met. He asserts that this is 'intolerant' and 'bigoted', and thus he's free not to tolerate my position. But in point of fact, in asserting this, he's just freed himself up to have no obligations of tolerance toward pretty much the entire human race, on the grounds he will always be able to assert that they are the bigots.

Religion is a perfect case in point of exactly what he has allowed himself to not tolerate. All religions assert that they have some fundamental truth regarding the big questions of 'life, the universe, and everything', and the followers of those religions follow them precisely because they believe those answers are correct and more correct than the alternatives. Christians, Moslems, Jews, Pagans, Satanists, Buddists, Hindus and every other thing you can name all believe this. They all assert that superiority of their answers to the others, even when and especially when they contradict each other on these big questions. I asserted in several places, that my beliefs dictate that I still maintain tolerance in the face of these disagreements, but pauldanieljohnson has reserved right for himself in the name of being intolerant of the intolerant, to label all these groups are bigots for thinking themselves right, and so removed his obligation to actually tolerate religion in practice.

And, this isn't just limited to religion. An atheist will surely say, "God does not exist. I believe there is sufficient proof in the world to establish the truth that God does not exist. This belief is inherently superior and grounded in more evidence than past superstitions. My belief is correct." If he does not make these assertions, then on what grounds does he call himself an atheist? And if pauldanieljohnson is not a hypocrite, he would say, "How can you assert the superiority of your beliefs like that? You are a bigot and therefore I'm not required to tolerate you!" Whereas I will simply assert, "Well, though I can see why you might think that, I believe you are wrong, and I can't agree with you, in the mean time I will treat you as I would want to be treated myself were I you, I hope we can continue vigorous and respectful debate over these things, and I will extend according to my beliefs empathy and sympathy toward you."

Indeed, following the line of logic above, for any set of beliefs that differ from his own he can quickly label anyone who disagrees with his claim that no viewpoint is superior (except incidentally his own) a bigot, and there after free himself mentally from any obligation to tolerance.

Indeed, he has already done so in this thread.

So, again, of the two of us, only I am asserting the difficult obligation to tolerant of people with different beliefs than my own. Imperfect though I may fulfill that duty, at least I'll try to carry it. Someone who goes around yelling, "Bigot!": he shrugged of that duty already.

Last little bit. I can certainly agree that 'different' does not equal inferior, but that little red herring gets us no where if we try to follow it. The assertion depends on us agreeing to what is subjective, but beyond things like, "What is your favorite color?" and as soon as we hit something even as controversial as "Does pineapple belong on pizza?" (joking), we are likely to have differences of opinion over what is subjective and what is not. Different communities have differences of opinion over what is subjective (what my faith often calls the adiaphora) and what is obligatory.

Oh boy, where to begin. I guess we'll go FILO, in honor of Wizards of the Coast.

Moral relativism is incompatible with moral absolutism, sure; but that doesn't make the reverse true. It all depends on how one approaches "truth" (or "truths") as a universal concept. A moral absolutist definitionally believes in a singular capital-T "Truth", and thus must view moral relativism as false. Moral relativism is a bit broader in its approach. I think there is a misconception that moral relativism is the belief that there is no such thing as truth, which I would argue is actually another shade of moral absolutism. Rather, a more accurate description would be that moral relativists accept that there are multiple truths that can depend heavily on context. Hence, the assertion that the tolerance of morally absolute belief systems immediately and logically invalidates moral relativism falls flat on its face. Your truth can be true for you and someone else's, very different (even incompatible!) truth can be true for them, because what matters are the traits, positive and negative, which flow from those beliefs. That this is logically and philosophically consistent can be hard to comprehend to a moral absolutist (who again, definitionally must reject moral relativism) but it does not make their belief in its own inherent invalidity any more correct.

There is also the misconception that a moral relativist must view all beliefs as equally valid and correct. This is far, far from the truth, and not just because of Popper's Paradox (though largely it is because of Popper's Paradox). While it is the viewpoint that no singular moral belief can be proven superior to one another, it is still possible (and I would argue necessary) to judge certain moral beliefs superior or inferior (notably intolerance) and acting in accordance. I would argue, by the way, that this how our culture (at least in the United States) actually operates. There is no singular moral act, no matter how seemingly objectively morally repugnant when considered in a vacuum, that is not, in certain contexts, seen as justifiable and/or acceptable by a significant enough portion of our population to merit reconsideration of its supposed objective moral truth. Nearly all of them are in fact state-supported, at least again within certain contexts.

Moving on, as a parent I try to muster as much empathy for other parents who are faced with seemingly difficult choices, especially when they are constantly bombarded with misinformation and misguided absolutism. A few years back when I was trying to research whether I should sleep train my child, I learned that I would be engaging in literal child abuse if I tried to sleep train them, and also that it was demonstrably abusive to not sleep train them. It's ridiculous. While internet one-true-wayism wasn't a thing back in the 80's moral (and often overtly Christian) panics were, and so I can't blame somebody for getting swept up in that, especially not somebody who suffered the loss of the child. That would break me. Especially if the child died by suicide; which we knew even less about in the 80's than we do today (but with still a great number of people who insist they have all the real answers).

No, who I save my ire for are those who prey on scared and/or emotionally traumatized parents, either for political or economic gain (or more often than not both). Pat Pulling gets a pass in my book; someone whose life is shattered into pieces like that has to find someway to give themselves meaning again, and if her little club was what gave her meaning, then I'm okay with that. What I don't doubt, though I'd love to see documentation one way or the other about, is how BADD gained steam, because one woman wasn't creating a national movement on her own. There were undoubtedly people behind the scenes who backing her, supporting her, steering her in directions for their own benefits, just like all the Satanic Panics that came before and after. I'm not going to argue that everyone involved was disingenuous in their beliefs; far from it. I'm not even necessarily going to argue that the folks most responsible (and I don't believe Pulling is included in that; if it hadn't been her and her son's death that launched the movement it was going to be somebody else) were entirely disingenuous in their beliefs at all. But I do believe such people were quick to capitalize on peoples' personal tragedies to further their own ends, ends which helped to further persecute those were already being othered and oppressed. That is what bothers me.

I can't say much about the Momo thing, though. I've seen a few references here or there but I've mostly just ignored it; my child is still much too young for social media. As with other such hoaxes as the knockout game "trend", if you're going to pay any attention to it then it's valuable to understand:
1) Who's pushing the narrative?
2) Who benefits?
3) Who's being targeted?
The "Tide Pod" thing was another narrative that was mostly meant to depict young people as idiot sheep, despite the fact that even during the height of the "epidemic" (only 50-some cases in a single year, which represented only a slight up-tick from the previous year, before the "Tide Pod Challenge" even became a thing) young people were far from the most common age demographic (their numbers were dwarfed by the number of the elderly who ingested Tide pods).

Celebrim said:

Why am I being called a bigot in this?

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You aren't. I made a reference to hearing similar arguments to yours originating from people I consider to be bigots, but I never said you were a bigot. You did explicitly state that you feel your beliefs to be superior to others', which smacks of bigotry, but for the record I've never called you a bigot. You seem to be really enjoying this pretend martyrdom of yours, though, so I'll leave you to it.