> Laws again libel, for example, exist for centuries in countries where progress grew sometimes faster than in other places.

Ok, I'm not sure what you think this proves. Libel is specifically a charge that's proven using rational argument in a court of governed by rational procedures of evidence. Furthermore, libel is a charge of making false statements that injure someone's reputation. True and false are again established using rational argument, so it seems like you're saying that places that prized rational procedures that enforced the distinction between true and false progressed better than others? That doesn't seem to agree with your thesis.

> On top of that, for your argument to work, saying that progress happened is not enough. You also need to prove that progress happened _better_ than otherwise

Well the entire history prior to the rise of rational argument consisted of religious wars. Were those environments more tolerant?

I don't really understand exactly what alternative to rational argument you're proposing, because it sounds like just another religious war that you're justifying because you are obviously morally superior to everyone else, and this will not at all be like every previous religious crusade in the name "goodness".

> That doesn't seem to agree with your thesis.

My initial point was that some people will not be persuaded by rational arguments, and that therefore, we should account for that and consider that letting any affirmation run freely without some sort of intervention may not be the best.

Libel laws is an example of such intervention. If indeed it's just a matter of "showing the rational argument and everyone will agree with them", then libel laws have no reason to exist: if someone says something incorrect about someone else, the second person will obviously react, show the rational arguments showing that the claim is not proven, and everyone will agree that the first person was incorrect, which means that saying something incorrect was always a bad idea: no gain, only loss. The fact that we need a justice system to judge and statue on libel case seems to show that it is not enough to just let the people decide what is true because they are rational and check the argument of the two persons and will therefore not be convinced by the libelous claim. The reason libel should be settle by laws is because people are giving credit to irrational claims.

I believe that rational reasoning is indeed beneficial. My point is that I think rational reasoning is not able to change 100% of people opinion, and therefore it is legitimate to add some sort of intervention (not a dictatorship, but something that is well balanced, such as "libel laws").

> Well the entire history prior to the rise of rational argument consisted of religious wars. Were those environments more tolerant?

I don't think that humans had somehow the "irrational gene" until suddenly the "rational gene" emerged leading to the rise of the rational argument (not even sure when this "rise" is, the most impressive development of formal logic and rational argumentation was in Ancient Greece, in a society deeply religious, well before the end of religion wars). The reason why there is a change in the usage of rational argumentation is, I think, because we choose at some point to build societies that value rationality. As I've said before, I believe that rationality is a good thing, so, sure, societies that value rationality will develop better. Yet, it does not prove that 100% of the population are convinced by rational arguments. You are saying that they were not in the past (how can a "rise of rational argument" even happen if people were all naturally trying to be rational by nature? why were there religious wars if humans were valuing rationality without needing guidance of the social organization?), so, I think it's legitimate to think they may sometimes not be in the present.

Let me illustrate what I mean.

A society S1 where people are all convinced by rational argument will grow with a speed of, let's say, 20.

A society S2 where there is no value in rationality will grow with a speed of 2.

A society S3 where rationality is valued, but some people are still not sway with rationality alone, and there is not much intervention to stop irrational theories to spread, will grow with a speed of 10.

A society S4 where rationality is valued, but some people are still not sway with rationality alone, but there is some interventions (not a dictatorship, just some interventions) to stop irrational theories to spread, will grow with a speed of 14.

Your previous argument was, I think, "see, there is a speed of 10 growth in S3 (which is much better than S2), so it's the proof it works and some intervention is not needed". Well, no, S4 shows that intervention is needed if we want to get an even better society.

> The fact that we need a justice system to judge and statue on libel case seems to show that it is not enough to just let the people decide what is true because they are rational and check the argument of the two persons and will therefore not be convinced by the libelous claim. The reason libel should be settle by laws is because people are giving credit to irrational claims.

No, it's because people operate rationally on bounded information. Introducing a poison pill into such a bounded context undermines the effectiveness of this type of reasoning. Changing the type of reasoning isn't possible, ergo you should punish defectors to reduce the incentives to introduce poison pills.

> My point is that I think rational reasoning is not able to change 100% of people opinion, and therefore it is legitimate to add some sort of intervention (not a dictatorship, but something that is well balanced, such as "libel laws").

Rational argument doesn't have to change 100% of people's opinions, we just have to ensure that most people share democratic values and the rest will follow.

> I don't think that humans had somehow the "irrational gene" until suddenly the "rational gene" emerged leading to the rise of the rational argument

Actually something like this probably did happen. The field of memetics studies this sort of thing.

> Your previous argument was, I think, "see, there is a speed of 10 growth in S3 (which is much better than S2), so it's the proof it works and some intervention is not needed". Well, no, S4 shows that intervention is needed if we want to get an even better society.

First, you assume that "growth" has some intrinsic value that exceeds the values of freedom of thought, speech and association. I don't see why I have to accept that.

Second, you also neglect to complete your argument: exactly what "interventions" should be permitted and what qualifies as "rational" or "irrational". These are questions that can only be answered by democratic consensus, and democratic consensus implies a rational debate with the intent to persuade.

This demonstrates that your S3 and S4 are not actually distinct. Thus, any S4 would be constrained to grow at exactly the same rate as S3.

> No, it's because people operate rationally on bounded information.

Being able to realize the information is incomplete and should be taken critically is a step of the rational reasoning. When a person who is doing a rational reasoning is exposed to "one side of the story", this person will suspend their judgement until they have heard all the side.

The fact that they swallow the pill is the proof they are not being rational.

And it does not change my argument: if indeed you just need to publish your side of the story to see the public opinion realizing the other person is a loser, NOBODY WILL EVER DO ANY LIBEL. Doing a libel is BOUND TO FAIL, and, if, as you say, rationality wins, then why people will do it.

> Rational argument doesn't have to change 100% of people's opinions, we just have to ensure that most people share democratic values and the rest will follow.

Well, that's the crux of the argument: if you agree that _some_ people don't change their opinions when exposed to rational arguments showing their opinion is not rational, then, we agree on my first affirmation that just exposing rational argument is simply not enough.

The "ensure that most people share democratic values" is exactly my point. This is exactly what "anti-intolerance reactions" are doing. How do you ensure that most people share democratic values if, at the same time, you are just not taking any measures to counter-act people who push for non-democratic values?

> The field of memetics studies this sort of thing.

Well, of course, the "gene" in memetics is not a real gene, but is ... exactly what is transmitted in what I've called "the built society valuing rationality". That's basically my point: the rise of rationality is not "human nature", but a choice of society to counteract human nature. Which means that, yes, human tends to not be convinced by rationality, this is why we needed, in a first step, to "rise it to an important value", and in a second step, to somehow protect the rationality in a more efficient way than the naive libertarian "every social rule is tyranny just because" way.

> First, you assume that "growth" has some intrinsic value that exceeds the values of freedom of thought, speech and association. I don't see why I have to accept that.

What? Why are you saying that? You were the one saying "Seems to be working great actually, we've had centuries of great social progress and increased liberties, an explosion of scientific knowledge, and religious adherence has never been lower". Growth, in what I'm saying, INCLUDES freedom of thought, speech and association.

I have summarized "centuries of great social progress and increased liberties, an explosion of scientific knowledge, and low religious adherence" with one word: "growth". Maybe it was a bad choice of words, but that's missing the point, just replace "growth" by that in my argument and it works as it was intended.

But, no, I'm not saying "growth" is better, I was just answering your argument "growth happened in the past, so it is successful".

> Second, you also neglect to complete your argument: exactly what "interventions" should be permitted and what qualifies as "rational" or "irrational".

I think you put the finger on the problem with people who are rejecting the idea that anti-intolerance interventions may be advantageous. They are basically saying "there is a grey area, so, it's impossible and the best way is therefore to have no structure at all". This is a fallacious reasoning: the existence of a grey area does not mean that no decision can be taken for the full-white and full-black cases.

We can, if you want, have a lengthy debate on "what interventions" and "what is rational and irrational" (a bit of a strange question from someone who says that "rational wins in the long term": how can you say that if now you are saying that "rational" is not so easy to define). The short answer is easy: we have the same problem with "justice" or "good" vs "bad", and yet, we still have a concept of justice system. It does work ok for white and black cases (no concept of justice system is ever saying that plain obvious murder is good), it does not work very well for grey area, but no concept of justice system at all is way worse. I think it's the same with anti-intolerance: it's not smart to refuse to have some kind of intervention to stop crazy ideas (the ideas that can be proven incorrect with basic rational argument) just because you can imagine grey area.

> This demonstrates that your S3 and S4 are not actually distinct. Thus, any S4 would be constrained to grow at exactly the same rate as S3.

Ok, several things.

First, this is a ad-hoc example: I've SET, as an illustration, the level of "growth" (or whatever you call it) to show a fake situation where your logic was incorrect. Your logic was "I see growth of 10, which is bigger than growth of 2, therefore it's the proof that we cannot do better". This is about your first comment that was saying "Really? Seems to be working great actually, ...": the fact that it is working great does not mean that it will work worse if we change something.

Second, neither your "first" or "second" point affects anything on the S3 and S4 distinction. You seems to come up with arguments or questions, some more legitimate then others (the "first", as I've explained, is missing my point, probably because I did not explain clearly). But they have no connection to suddenly imply that "S3 = S4".

And thirdly: if indeed S3 and S4 have the same "growth", what's your problem with S4? I remind you that "growth" refers to all the good things that goes "great" according to you. Even if now you are saying "no but S4 is bad for freedom", then ... what about your demonstration that S3 = S4. You pretended that, for reasons that I don't understand, your "first" and "second" implies that S3 = S4. How suddenly S3 != S4 when we can either take your argument as they are, or in the worst case, modify them slightly so they account the element that you may add to justify that S3 is better than S4.