Current Events > Anyone else dislike the "Wrong side of history" argument?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I hear it all the time.

"Oh those guys are going be on the wrong side of history" "Oh you shouldn't believe X because when people look back they're not going to agree with you."

It's just so... pointless....

Go to your local graveyard and ask the dead how much they care about how they are viewed centuries later. The silence is your answer.

And it also pre-supposes that whatever the people of the future believe is correct.

Maybe the people in 2135 will have brought back slavery, hate homosexuals, eat each other and all vote Republican and they will look back at everyone today who doesn't do those things as being on the wrong side.

What matters is here and now and why you believe what you do. If you reached your conclusions by reason and logic, it doesn't matter how many people agree or disagree with you today or in the future

It just seems like a modified mob rule logic, "lots of people agree, therefore it's right." "Lots of people in the future may agree, therefore it's right." that's a fallacy and a pointless one.

It's just seems so poorly thought out as a counter-point.

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mlk said the arc of history bends toward justice

While your premise is valid, your examples are what ruins your concept.

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I agree. Why be right later when you can be right now, then change your opinion and also be right later? Not saying you'd have to lie, but you can reevaluate your position as new evidence comes in.

Also, being right in the future doesn't mean being right forever. There's always someone looking at a later future, so it's more like you'd be right in the slight future and then on the wrong side of history again, not just right forever.

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Yeah its especially toothless when you consider that we already have examples today of people who were on the wrong side of history, like the Confederate States of America, whose actions modern historians still will bend over backwards to justify.

Its all just more neoliberal woke nonsense that doesnt actually have any bearing in materialist analysis.

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Gamerguymass posted...

While your premise is valid, your examples are what ruins your concept.

The most succinct way to /topic

Yeah I don't think assholes winning in their lifetime care how much their beliefs are winning centuries later.

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UnfairRepresent posted...

What matters is here and now and why you believe what you do. If you reached your conclusions by reason and logic, it doesn't matter how many people agree or disagree with you today or in the future

Bin-FUCKING-go.

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Gamerguymass posted...

While your premise is valid, your examples are what ruins your concept.

Wut

My examples were how people in the future might accept horrible things as okay and make that the "right side" of history

Are you arguing my examples weren't horrible? Wow that says a lot about you

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UnfairRepresent posted...

Wut

My examples were how people in the future might accept horrible things as okay and make that the "right side" of history

Are you arguing my examples weren't horrible? Wow that says a lot about you

"In the future people might like to commit mass murder and rape children, therefore we shouldn't judge people who do that today."

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I feel like you couldn't have missed the point harder if you tried.

The point is that murder is wrong. Doesn't matter what people in the futue think or what "side of history" you are wrong. If people in the future disagree, they are wrong, if 98% of people in the future disagree,they are wrong.

But yet people argue "You're on the wrong side of history!" as if it's a valid point

What people in the future think when they look back is irrelevant, what matters is why you reached the conclusions you did right now

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UnfairRepresent posted...

I feel like you couldn't have missed the point harder if you tried.

The point is that murder is wrong. Doesn't matter what people in the futue think or what "side of history" you are wrong. If people in the future disagree, they are wrong, if 98% of people in the future disagree,they are wrong.

But yet people argue "You're on the wrong side of history!" as if it's a valid point

What people in the future think when they look back is irrelevant, what matters is why you reached the conclusions you did right now

Context matters. If something massively cataclysmic happened and it was an "end of the world" type scenario, there would be significantly less judgement on how people managed to survive.