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by lazyeye 1630 days ago
Exactly.

I'm sure the foot-soldiers of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot had the exact same purity of thought, the exact same infallible self-belief and the exact same certainty they were on the right side of history.

2 comments

So did a lot of the foot-soldiers of Eisenhower. Or like Euclid and Fermi. This is just not informative.
Not really. Just making the point that believing you're advocating for social good does not mean you are doing social good.

I'm guessing Eisenhower, Euclid and Fermi would have had no problem with people disagreeing with them.

Actually what you’re trying to do by picking those examples is affiliate self-assuredness with evil.
Absolutely not. I'm saying believing you are doing good does not necessarily imply you are doing good.

And I picked some extreme examples from the same side of the political spectrum to illustrate that.

It's interesting that you raise totalitarians like Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot in this discussion. What are you trying to imply? Implication isn't a sound argument.
See above.