[throwaway75]

> We accept everyone who accepts everyone.

If we were to accept and enforce this rule, billions of followers of some major religions would not be eligible to be part of a free and open society.

[LinXitoW]

"Tolerate" might be a better word to use for their analogy. I can hate you and all you stand for, but I can still tolerate you. Meaning, I let you be and don't try to curtail your actions according to my personal beliefs.

[kubanczyk]

Nah. The error is the royal "we". We tolerate <subjective judgement>, We enforce <subjective judgement>. And above all, We require everyone to be nice and cultured.

The actual power-wielder who regulates these things is a government (or rather its justice system), a warlord, nowadays maybe an AGI, but definitely not society and not "We, users of orange social media". These mechanisms work for thousands of years, paradoxes gonna paradox.

[spiffyk]

Good.

[Brendinooo]

What you quoted is just the person restating the paradox of tolerance. It's totally nonsensical once you get past "one-dimensonal evil" cases (or perhaps cases like software, a category is more narrowly and cleanly delineated).

He's right that freedom requires restriction. The problem with the paradox of tolerance is that it masquerades as a meaningful principle while leaving the actual restrictions unnamed.

P.S. it also is worth noting that, to the extent that the GPL works, it's precisely because it doesn't rely on vague principles. It's specific about what's restricted, when, and how.

[jfengel]

I don't think the Paradox of Tolerance intends to be a principle. It is a statement of the problem, for which principles could be proposed.

If there is anything prescriptive to it, it's the implication that no principles will ever suffice. In which case you need to find a way to reframe the problem.