Talk:Dalibor Jurášek

For more information, see: RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Dalibor Jurášek

Objections to the article

Dear Rational wiki editors,

I object to this article written about me.

1. I am not a holocaust denier. My stance on the Holocaust is the following: I do not know whether the Holocaust happened. I studied the arguments of both sides and both have strong arguments, but also serious questions that need to be answered. There are almost no discussions on the subject and those that I found did not address the key points. To find out the truth, we need a free discussion and free academic research. This stance is not Holocaust denial.

In 2010 I wrote that I am „leaning towards the revisionist version“ in the discussion you linked. This either does not equate Holocaust denial, as the revisionists question many aspects of the Holocaust which are not central to the extermination paradigm.

To be absolutely true and sincere, I did believe the Holocaust (in the extermination sense) did not happen. When I first learned about the revisionist hypothesis, it seemed very convincing. I was appalled of what serious doubts were being withheld and discussion stifled. However, with time, I learned that the other side had strong arguments as well and concluded I do not have the capacity to study all the facts with sufficient rigor, which led me to my current stance.

I would, however, be very curious to see a well-evidenced, fact-based confrontation of these two camps. That is what free society should be about.

2. You omitted a crucial part of my quotation from the discussion which showed my uncertainty on the subject: „To say with greater certainty, I would need information I simply do not have. Unfortunately, the likelihood of acquiring them given the present legal state is very low.“ This means I could not decide, given the present information.

Based on the points 1 and 2, I demand that you remove the claim that I am a Holocaust denier.

3. You write that „won't publicly identify as a Holocaust denier since denying the Holocaust is a crime in Slovakia“, which is not true. I don’t identify in such a way simply because I am not a Holocaust denier. You have no source for this claim. I thus demand that you remove this claim.

4. The work I presented on the London Conference on Intelligence is not pseudoscientific (which is rather clear from the abstract), as is not the conference itself. The scientists and works presented on the conference (which I attended only once, in 2015) deal with legitimate subjects of study using mainstream scientific methods. Your only source for claiming it is a „pseudoscientific“ conference is the following:

"Science writer, geneticist and broadcaster Adam Rutherford told the London Student that, based on the titles and abstracts from the material presented at the UCL conference, the views being discussed appeared to be a “pseudoscientific front for bog-standard, old-school racism"."

The claim of one person, „based on the titles and abstracts from the material“ (!), does not constitute evidence for your claim. I thus demand you remove the claim that the London Conference on Intelligence is pseudoscientific.

5. There is absolutely no evidence of me being a „pseudoscience promoter“. I thus demand you remove me from the category „Pseudoscience promoters“.

According to Rational Wiki standards “Articles about living people must be handled carefully“, „we need to firmly back our points“ and „if a claim is not solidly referenced, asserts something about the article's subject(s), and the article's subject(s) might object to it, it probably shouldn't be in the article at all. This is not just for legal protection, but because it's the right thing to do.“

I sincerely hope your honest motivation, as rationalists, is to find out the truth. I am being most open and hope you will accept reasonable arguments.

Dalibor.jurasek (talk) 15:06, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Re: the claim that you're not a Holocaust denier: Holocaust revisionism is a form of denialism, if you have read our Holocaust denial page, as well as "not knowing whether it happened". There is no both sides to this issue, what happened in the Holocaust is an established historical fact and the common statistics they teach you is something virtually all historians accept, and the people who deny the Holocaust or the commonly established extent of it are intellectually dishonest because there is mountains and mountains and mountains of evidence that are verifiable and exist, so look them up, maybe starting with, again, reading our Holocaust denial page. If you want further general information, Wikipedia has a great take on Holocaust denial too, but your best sources are academic ones ie the sources Wikipedia uses for their articles. Questioning any of the historian's methodology in favor of more independent, ideologically questionable sources is denalism; I have yet to meet a Holocaust denier who is not an anti-Semite on top of all of that, for starters. The Holocaust did happen, is a historical fact, and it left many specifically targeted people dead, so deal with it. БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 17:25, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Re: By your logic, atheist = agnostic. Also, all true sceptics and all true agnostics are Holocaust deniers. Also, agnostic = believer, because:

• if A = "God does not exist", then non-A = "God exists"
• If I don't know if God exists, then I don't know if non-A; but if I don't know if non-A, then I also don't know if A - so I don't know if God does not exist
• But if non-A is the same as I don't know if non-A (your claim), then "God exists" is the same as "I don't know if God exists"
• So agnostic = believer.
• But if agnostic = believer and atheist = agnostic, then atheist = believer.

From this you can prove that Holocaust denier = Holocaust non-denier. Your logic is simply contradictory. Your logic also indicates that there was no shift in my opinion on the Holocaust in the last 15 years, which there definitely was.

To be fair, in essence I understand your logic. Probably many neo-Nazis are trying to mask themselves as saying they just "don't know" whether the Holocaust happened. One politician from an extreme party is Slovakia is famous by claiming on national television "I do not know whether the Holocaust happened, because I am no historian". But such opinions usually do not rest on a thorough study of the literature – which, many years ago, I delved pretty deeply into. And not only into this literature. I studied many controversial topics, such as UFO, conspiracy theories, parapsychology or race differences in intelligence. Because I was interested on how it really was. You have no idea what opinions and values I have and it seems you do not at all differentiate between people who honestly seek the truth, but are just being "politically incorrect" (factually perhaps even incorrect, but in goodwill and their motivation is humanistic), and people who are extremist and hateful in the real sense of the word and their motivation is inhumanistic. The fusing of these two groups is present in the mainstream media, unfortunately, but I would not expect it on a wiki created by rationalists.

You also did not react to my other points:

• there is no proof that I am a pseudoscience promoter
• there is no proof that London conference on intelligence is pseudoscientific - the statement of one scientist who was not at the conference and did not even see the presented publications (!) does not constitute evidence
• there is no proof that I „won't publicly identify as a Holocaust denier since denying the Holocaust is a crime in Slovakia“

I thus reaffirm my demand that you remove the above mentioned claims.

Dalibor.jurasek (talk) 12:29, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

You're a liar. There's a whole article documenting the fact the London Conference on Intelligence was pseudoscientific, with many sources; it was also attended almost exclusively by far-right individuals and was organised by two far-right individuals, James Thompson and Emil Kirkegaard. You're also not going to convince anyone you're a fence-sitter "who doesn't know if the Holocaust happened", but not a denialist. You're blatantly a Holocaust denier.185.112.82.26 (talk) 12:59, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

An Honorary Research Fellow at University College London, Adam Rutherford, where the LCI conferences took place (without permission) has described the conferences as pseudoscience:

Science writer, geneticist and broadcaster Adam Rutherford told the London Student that, based on the titles and abstracts from the material presented at the UCL conference, the views being discussed appeared to be a “pseudoscientific front for bog-standard, old-school racism.

185.112.82.26 (talk) 13:12, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Simply take a look at who attended them on the London Conference on Intelligence page and you will see the vast majority were far-right cranks and racists.185.112.82.26 (talk) 13:14, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

"By your logic, atheist = agnostic." -> Hold it right there, sunshine. Knowing what the Holocaust is is not equivalent to having a religion or being athiest and agnostic. You can't "believe" in the Holocaust when it's a fact that has occurred that has resulted in many people dead. БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 23:25, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

content not its slant

its one paragraph and a long quote. this is not an article AMassiveGay (talk) 08:13, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

I can't disagree with that. Makes it a stub with a lot of copypasting, doesn't it? Spud (talk) 12:33, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

A few more facts to put in context

Just to put things in context. I actually never published any article regarding whether the Holocaust happened. I never publicly lectured on it or anything. My only public statement regarding revisionism was one discussion post from 2010 (my blog, where the discussion was, was deleted several years ago) where I stated: "I do not have a clear opinion, but rather I tend to favour the revisionists. To say with greater certainty, I would need information I simply do not have. Unfortunately, the likelihood of acquiring them given the present legal state is very low.". From then on, my opinion evolved in that I am fifty:fifty. I know both sides have serious arguments, but also serious questions that need to be answered. What happened to the Jews during second world war, I consider a horrible crime committed by the Nazis. Whether it was 6, 5, 2 or 1 million does not make it less horrible. All of this, of course, needs to be understood in historical context. The Holocaust should not be politicized as much as it is, and other victims should be remembered as well. We need a free discussion of all opinions and sides of view. It is absurd to put into jail someone who simply voices an opinion different from the official version - even if they are utterly wrong.

Since writing my article in 2010, still as a student of law, I have not dealt with the topic of Holocaust. It is not a topic of major interest for me. I thus do not feel obliged to have an exact opinion on it. And I reject being labeled when I do not have a clear opinion. When I have an exact opinion on something, I need to have really clear arguments. It does not suffice to me that something is a mainstream consensus. I need to go deeper to be sure. And that goes for all topics. If I have serious reasons for doubt (which I have in many aspects of the Holocaust), I abstain from a clear opinion. Precise fact-checking usually takes a lot of time and energy, which I invest in topics important for me. There are thus many topics on which I do not have a clear opinion on. I am unlike many other people, who, after reading just one, two articles already have a clear-cut opinion.

According to the logic the author of the article about me used, all true sceptics and all true agnostics are Holocaust deniers. Also, this logic is self-contradictory, as I showed at my talk page.

To sum up: 1. I do not at all deny the Holocaust, I consider it a horrible crime, though I am not sure about how some aspects of it happened. 2. I only stated my opinion on revisionism once, in a discussion post in 2010, to an article which is already deleted for several years. There, I wrote I don't have a clear opinion and I cannot have it because the present legal state makes open and free discussion impossible. 3. I have not dealt with the Holocaust (be it publicly, or personal study) since. It is ludicrous in this context to lump me in one category with people who are hateful, truly deny the Holocaust and have not event studied the literature extensively. This reminds me of Orwellian newspeak.

Also, your article about me pops up very high in the search of my name. In our society, when one is labeled as an "extremist" or "Holocaust denier", it might be problematic for them to study, find a job or even a living contract. I am aware that my activities (sometimes "politically incorrect") can put me in this position. But I refuse to be in this position as a result of a false accusation, repeatedly proven untrue, only to be labeled as a liar, on a wiki supposedly run by people favoring critical thinking.

Moreover, the article still claims I am a pseudoscience promoter, which has absolutely no basis in fact. Nobody on the discussion has shown any argument for this, despite my repeated requests. --Dalibor.jurasek (talk) 12:01, 31 December 2018 (UTC)