Subj : Re: Computer Kits
To   : Arelor
From : Jeff
Date : Sun Jan 30 2022 19:49:43

On 30 Jan 2022, Arelor said the following...
 Ar> I think it was Hayek who said that the most important trait of a free
 Ar> society is that you can have an impopular opinion without it ruining
 Ar> your life.

I don't believe that conjecture to be true. Perhaps Hayek was referring to
having one's life ruined by one's government?

 Ar> What we see nowadays is people trying to ruin other people's livemaking,
 Ar> not because they have an impopular opinion, but because they have an
 Ar> opinion they dislike. Even if such opinion has no relationship to the
 Ar> way the target makes his living.

This is true, but is also not anything new.

 Ar> If my boss fired me because I voted for a different Town Hall candidate
 Ar> than he did, he would be frowned upon, but somehow, there is this big
 Ar> mass of people who thinks it is good and righteous to send letters to
 Ar> people's employers and providers and demmand him to be kicked out
 Ar> because of some personal opinion which has nothing to do with his job.

That is up to the company in question, and whether they want to be associated
with that particular employee. The middleman is not even always necessary.

 Ar> The same people who partakes in such destructive behavior are the sames
 Ar> that complain because this or that politician was divisive.

I don't see the contradiction.

 Ar> If you delve deep down into certain echo chambers I can think off, it is
 Ar> very clear that the end goal for a lot of cancellers is for making it so
 Ar> having an opinion they don't aprove off is no longer safe.

Indeed. For a very long time, the opinion that women should be able to vote
or that gay people should be allowed to exist or that black people should be
able to live where they please were not safe opinions to hold. The danger
posed by "cancel culture" is mild in comparison.

 Ar> To claim this is any good, my friend, is the real non-starter.

It is neither good nor bad; it simply is. It can be used for good or bad,
and we may not even agree whether a given application is good or bad, but
that's irrelevant. A means of applying economic pressure to corporations does
not possess its own moral compass.

Jeff.

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