[HN Gopher] The Most Dangerous Censorship
___________________________________________________________________
The Most Dangerous Censorship
Author : 0xedb
Score : 184 points
Date : 2021-06-22 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (edwardsnowden.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (edwardsnowden.substack.com)
| longtimegoogler wrote:
| The question is who is the mob. I fear the crazies much more who
| stormed the capital and tried to overthrow our democracy than
| some online SJWs who are going to try and cancel someone for
| having an unpopular opinion.
|
| Not that either are great, for instance I didn't find Damore's
| opinions outlandish although expressed poorly.
| manux wrote:
| What about the self-censorship of our neo-cortex telling us not
| to insult other people? Is that bad too?
|
| Expression, and respectful expression, is a very nuanced and
| complex topic. This dramatic post presents the far end of the
| spectrum where every word can lead one to be fired. The truth is
| somewhere in the middle.
| seaorg wrote:
| Yes, it is bad. Cultures that discourage "rude" comments
| invariably have more corruption than cultures that encourage
| frankness. Take the Netherlands for example. People say they
| are rude. But really, it's just that Americans can't tell the
| difference between objective honesty and malicious insults.
|
| People who say what they mean and call it like they see it are
| brave. They don't cash in tomorrow for a little convenience
| today.
| type0 wrote:
| > Americans can't tell the difference between objective
| honesty and malicious insults.
|
| Sometimes it's actually both when you are speaking with the
| Dutch.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Are you actually arguing that we should always communicate
| every thought that comes to our head? That we should never
| choose to keep a thought to ourselves?
|
| This does not seem like a good idea in practice. There are
| lots of thoughts we should keep to ourselves. If you see a
| friend with a new haircut, and you think it looks ugly,
| should you immediately just blurt out "hey, your new haircut
| looks awful"? Why? Just because it is how you feel doesn't
| mean you need to tell everyone.
|
| I find the people who insist on "telling it like it is" and
| who are "just being honest" are often just being assholes.
| ishiz wrote:
| > If you see a friend with a new haircut, and you think it
| looks ugly, should you immediately just blurt out "hey,
| your new haircut looks awful"? Why?
|
| My friends would expect me to say this, yes, and I have the
| same expectation. If everyone thought my haircut looked
| bad, I would want to know.
| ben_w wrote:
| For what it's worth, "radical honesty" does exactly that.
| Best done with the consent of those you're being radically
| honest with, because without that one definitely comes
| across as a dick.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_honesty
| seaorg wrote:
| Yeah except that countries that lean closer to what you're
| talking about are universally better than countries that
| lean in the direction of politeness. Lower corruption,
| happier by all metrics and so on. Should you let your
| friend walk around town and become a laughing stock of the
| community just because you were too afraid to tell him the
| guy at Supercuts must have had a hangover? Like I said,
| you're trading in tomorrow for today. Trading in the big
| picture for short term gain or convenience. Ultimately it's
| a net loss and it's societal poison that, if left
| unchecked, leads to corruption and stagnation.
|
| The emotional reaction to harmless words is not an
| intrinsic aspect of human biology. If someone says mean
| things in a malicious attempt to hurt you, it is natural to
| be emotionally disturbed or upset at the fact that someone
| has malicious intent toward you. But in some cultures you
| can tell someone their haircut is messed up and they
| understand that you don't have malicious intent. It's a
| cultural artifact, albeit a widespread one. It tripped me
| up for a long time too because I was born in a country that
| doesn't know any better.
| longtimegoogler wrote:
| Any evidence of this claim? It hasn't been my experience.
| For instance, I believe that politeness is more valued in
| Asian countries like Japan and Korea and I would disagree
| with your assertion.
|
| Anecdotally, I've found Russians to be the frankest and
| corruption is rampant there, so I am not sure what the
| basis of your assertion is.
|
| Politeness is about respecting others. You can
| communicate difficult things while still being polite.
| throwaaskjdfh wrote:
| > What about the self-censorship of our neo-cortex telling us
| not to insult other people? Is that bad too?
|
| Sometimes it's bad. Insults are an occasionally useful tool,
| and can be wielded to diminish the standing of adversaries who
| might otherwise be more powerful.
|
| EDIT: speaking of insults, this is on the HN front page right
| now:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27595429
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reply_of_the_Zaporozhian_Cossa...
| overgard wrote:
| I think it's different on the internet though. Like, if we
| state an opinion in person, there's a few key differences:
|
| - People are likely to respond in a much more civil manner,
| they're not just going to yell at you
|
| - A lot of complex intonation and nuance gets across a lot
| easier
|
| - Any misunderstandings can be quickly corrected
|
| On the other hand with the internet, you lose all those things,
| so IMO it's more up to the receiver to give the speaker the
| benefit of the doubt, unless it's clear the speaker's intent is
| to insult.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >- People are likely to respond in a much more civil manner,
| they're not just going to yell at you
|
| While I think that's true to a certain extent, I'd also say
| that the internet selects for the loudest, rudest voices.
|
| Example. I was reading this this morning. (this this? English
| is an odd language).
|
| https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-bret-
| weinste...
|
| Fine. I get it. Look for the first response (and others) from
| some guy named Thom Prentice. That's what the internet is all
| about. 10 second of research shows you that he's That Guy who
| goes to all the city council meetings to yell, continuously
| runs for office, has restraining orders. Every town has them.
|
| That Guy has come to their full potential on social media.
| overgard wrote:
| I love taiibi's substack! As to that comment, WOW. There's
| this weird internet hate for guy's like weinstein or jordan
| peterson when, even if you happen to disagree with them
| they're incredibly tame about what they say.
| nraynaud wrote:
| slight tangent, but as a teenager we had to read a Danilo Kis
| book: "Early Sorrows" (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Sorrows ), that was quite a
| jolt.
| quaunaut wrote:
| What happened to the concept of being proud of your beliefs and
| ensuring they align with the lifestyle you lead?
|
| The nebulous fear so many have seems rooted either in not
| thinking through the problem of so-called "cancel culture", or in
| people thinking they shouldn't suffer the consequences of their
| decisions.
| syshum wrote:
| What happened is that any minor offense, misunderstanding,
| obtuse comment or joke is taken to nth degree by a permanent
| victim culture that is looking to be offended at everything to
| highlight how oppressed they are by society.
|
| as to "Suffer the consequences", when a single tweet results in
| your complete ostracization from society, your lively hood
| terminated, your safety put in danger, etc well I think the
| punishment does not fit the crime. I dont care how offensive
| that tweet was. Doubly for those that have had this happen for
| comments made 10, 20, or even 30 years in the past.
|
| Neither proportionality of punishment nor forgiveness seem to
| be concepts that are entertained in cancel culture.
|
| As I was told many times growing up, Sticks and Stones can
| break my bones but words can never harm me. It seems today we
| have replaced that valid and correct axiom with "Words are
| violence" which is a most dangerous precedent indeed. Further
| here lately I have begun to see an even more dangerous one that
| is being put forth "Silence is Violence"..
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > that valid and correct axiom
|
| There is nothing valid and correct in the saying "words can
| never harm me". Repeated insults and threats can lead to
| psychological harm (even if they are never followed up with
| physical violence) and a concerted effort to misinform
| someone can cause them to make physically harmful decisions.
|
| This should be particularly obvious in the case of children,
| and as you mention, the saying is generally used to influence
| that group in particular (which is ironic, given the harm the
| saying ends up doing).
|
| The more pertinent debate isn't whether words can harm, but
| whether censorship is likely to do more harm than the words
| it would prevent being spoken.
| breuleux wrote:
| I would be careful about accusing anyone of indulging in a
| victim culture, because it's a very easy script to flip.
|
| The common "leftist" perspective is that "cancelling" is a
| rare occurrence, mainly targets the rich and is not
| particularly effective in the grand scheme of things given
| that politically incorrect speakers routinely reach hundreds
| of millions of people. They would also argue that it can be
| tricky to tell whether someone is "cancelled" because
| primarily because of their views, or because they are
| insufferable and people were already looking for excuses to
| get rid of them. In other words, they don't think it's a big
| deal.
|
| Now, if the leftist is correct (I'm not saying they are),
| then your post ironically becomes a textbook example of
| victim culture: you're blowing up a relatively minor
| phenomenon out of proportion, painting yourself as being
| oppressed. The only reason you don't see it that way is
| because you think you're right and that the problem you see
| is truly serious. But obviously the people you think indulge
| in a "victim culture" also believe that the problem they see
| is serious. You should be more understanding of their
| mindset. Otherwise, all I'm seeing here are victims screaming
| past each other.
| slver wrote:
| Honestly I'm not sure being "proud of your beliefs" is a great
| advice. I'm trying to think of beliefs I'm proud of. Can't
| recall any in particular.
|
| The phrase communicates lack of flexibility, because if they're
| "beliefs" they're firmly held, and if you're "proud" you won't
| have an open mind ready to change those beliefs in face of new
| evidence.
|
| In fact I very often see beliefs and pride be exploited to push
| propaganda where you get to defend someone else's interests
| without even realizing it.
| syshum wrote:
| I am proud of my belief in Philosophy of Liberty[1], and the
| principle of self ownership[2].
|
| You are also correct as I am inflexible in this belief, as
| they are foundational ethical beliefs for which there can be
| no new evidence for me to change my mind over
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9srplWe_QQ
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ownership
| quaunaut wrote:
| I'd disagree on both notions- while my beliefs are firmly
| held, I also try to question them regularly. The reason
| they're firmly held is that they've managed to stand up to
| what scrutiny I've tried them against, repeatedly, for years.
|
| On other things, I simply haven't spent a lot of energy
| thinking about it, and as a result am more than happy to
| apologize if I'm even slightly in the wrong. Generally, I'm
| quick to apologize if someone's made a good reason for me to,
| as I don't regard the need to apologize necessarily with me
| being a worse person.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| That worked as long as both sides ran by the gentlemans
| agreement that you debate and let the best argument win.
|
| As with many things, that worked until people forgot why the
| argument (or indeed why it is called a gentleman) was created
| in the first place and so tore it up for political points.
| quaunaut wrote:
| I mean, if you're somehow under the false impression that
| people were more cordial in these disagreements in the past,
| I don't know what to tell you.
|
| One of the largest popular phenomenons in the new millenium
| is a musical based on a politician being shot by another
| politician. Fist fights have been a regular occurrence by
| members of congress since our inception. We show pictures to
| every schoolchild in the US of violence used during the 1960s
| Civil Rights movement.
|
| I'd also wonder, how the concept of "cancel culture" impacts
| that at all. Not once have I seen someone getting
| "cancelled"(which itself is nebulous enough that more than
| half of those it is perpetrated against have better careers
| after than before) remove any inability for public discourse
| to continue about what they did.
|
| Even the article from yesterday, about a man who experienced
| harassment for admitting to a problem he'd supposedly fixed
| long ago, largely became a conversation about the issue at
| hand.
|
| Essentially, I'm wondering why so many are convinced that
| someone else's use of their free speech so negatively impacts
| their own.
| reggieband wrote:
| I very often type out comments on HN and then delete them. As
| Snowden alludes to, everything we submit to public forums is
| logged and stored. There is no doubt in my mind these comments
| are easily associated to my real identity with very little
| effort.
|
| Another side of censorship I consider often is signal to noise.
| There is no reason to prevent people from saying whatever they
| want if no one will ever see it. I recall a stat I heard that
| YouTube receives ~400 hours of content uploaded every minute to
| their site. Or the long-tail of Twitch streamers with 0 viewers.
|
| Finally, there is a threat of violence. We all know what happens
| to high-profile journalists because of their high profile. I
| often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of
| comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs.
| RIMR wrote:
| You seemed fairly reasonable up until you revealed that you
| believe in some paranoid conspiracy to disappear internet
| nobodies for their social media comments...
|
| >I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of
| comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs.
|
| The answer is zero. I hope this helps.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| I post and edit. It's become an obsession frankly.
| slver wrote:
| > I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of
| comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs.
|
| Maybe a bit conspiratorial. Even dictators need to prioritize
| their actions. And they'd go for speech that has impact (like
| said high-profile journalists), and less so for random noise on
| no-traffic forums with anonymous authors.
|
| A lot gets lost in the internet noise. Nobody cares about it.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| > Even dictators need to prioritize their actions.
|
| A bastardization of Andy Grove's famous words: "Only the
| paranoid [dictators] survive".
|
| You'd be surprised at how paranoid dictators get. Every
| little sign of disobedience is magnified into a "threat".
| This is the reason why almost all autocratic systems end up
| devolving into police states with (usually) multiple large
| intelligence agencies keeping each other in check.
| reggieband wrote:
| I try not to be paranoid about it, but there are several
| governments that I just don't talk about online. They are
| known for aggressive Internet task forces and have histories
| of taking actions. I don't see any benefit publicly voicing
| my opinion on them.
|
| All it takes is for them to indefinitely store all content
| posted to certain sites (and you can bet reddit and hacker
| news are on that list), then run algorithms to de-anonymize
| it. Then they can score you.
|
| Maybe in the future you get a promotion. Maybe you're
| crossing a border. Maybe a YouTube video you post goes viral.
| Suddenly that scored record of you sets off an alarm.
|
| The digital history you are creating today isn't going away
| for the rest of your life.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I'm haunted by Roko's Basilisk.
|
| The story in it's original incarnation may be a bit outlandish.
| However, dial it in a few notches and you get a powerful AI
| that can associate you with anything you have ever left a data
| trail for, in the hands of an unknown future bad actor. In fact
| I wouldn't be surprised if that was the thrust for the initial
| conception of it.
|
| Given that, the Basilisk may already be in it's infant stage.
| e40 wrote:
| I had never heard about this. Interesting. Sounds like the AI
| in _A Fire Upon the Deep_. Awesome hard SciFi by Vernor
| Vinge.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Tangent: You have nothing to fear from Roko's Basilisk. I
| analysed it from the perspective of four different decision
| theories, and in every one:
|
| * It doesn't make sense to build the evil AI agent; and
|
| * the evil AI agent has no incentive to torture people who
| decided not to build it (unless its utility function relates
| to such torture, but it doesn't make sense to build that AI
| agent unless you want to torture people - in which case, you
| should be scared of the mad scientist, not the AI).
|
| I didn't publish because I find my essays embarrassing, but
| if you have specific worries I can assuage them.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought the point of the
| thought experiment was that the Basilisk builds itself?
| handoflixue wrote:
| I think you've got an interesting idea there, but I'm not
| sure why you'd associate it with Roko's Basilisk given that
| people who are aware tend not to take it very seriously. It
| seems like you'd be better off just presenting your own idea,
| and maybe gesturing that it was "inspired by other ideas from
| LessWrong" if you really feel the need.
| wcarss wrote:
| I do the same. I write tweets, or facebook notes to family or
| friends -- argumentative or loving. Or hacker news comments, or
| blog posts, or whatever. I often spend a surprising amount of
| time in editing, re-reading, and honing them out.
|
| Then, I tap `CTRL+A, delete, CTRL+W`.
|
| Many times I have sat down for a 'writing project', and found
| it a struggle to decide out what to write about, or write
| something and feel it is not really something I need to say out
| loud.
|
| I have an old draft post where I mused about a coworker's
| hamfisted and awkward attempts to magnify the voices of those
| around him whom he felt were under-represented. He, a cisgender
| cissexual 30s-ish white tech guy, would often single out
| individuals and loudly try to cajole them into giving opinions
| on topics when he felt they were being "too quiet" or
| "unheard". It was surely coming from a good place, but it
| almost without fail made his targets and everyone else around
| uncomfortable. It was interesting, and I wrote about it.
|
| Then I didn't post it, because I really don't know if 'my take'
| as a 30s-ish cisgender cissexual white tech guy on some other
| same dude's hamfisted attempts to be an ally would really read
| well at the time, or especially, years later. He was trying.
| Should he not have tried? I wasn't trying enough. Should I
| have? I'm still not sure. I didn't have a great answer then, or
| now. But I wrote it and stashed it -- part of that chilling
| effect, right?
|
| I also wrote a big 'intro to contributing to open source' post,
| but I felt it was too long and rambling, and I worry I'm
| unqualified to post it, so I stashed that too.
|
| Was I self-censoring in _the most dangerous way_ in the first
| instance, but not in the second? What brings about the
| distinction? I felt in both cases that the post might reflect
| poorly on me, so I didn 't post it.
|
| Snowden's post, to me, reads like a 'writer' writing about
| having writer's block. He sat down to write something, because
| he has this big new writing project he has to do, and he came
| up with 10 ideas. Then he crossed them all out as he thought
| about really seriously trying to write about and grapple with
| each one. Who is he, after all, to write about topics X, Y, Z?
| Just some guy! He just did a great thing, not become an expert
| on most info-sec/cultural/political topics.
|
| So what's left? He can write about what he's going though! And
| 'how bad it is to censor yourself' is a pretty elevated take on
| writing about... how hard it is to figure out what to write.
|
| (For the record, my desire to just delete this rather than to
| post it is _strong_ , as it's so long and convoluted, but, this
| case merits an exception.)
| strogonoff wrote:
| I wonder how Snowden reconciles his position on self-censorship
| with his current country of residence. Is it meta, in the sense
| that he too has to self-censor out of fear for own life? Does he
| consider it a necessary move, presuming any country with stronger
| freedom of speech is also a country that would extradite him to
| the US?
| emsy wrote:
| How do people reconcile that Snowden, who should be lauded as a
| hero finds refuge at a country where Vladimir Putin is
| president is frankly a much more interesting question.Btw: He
| doesn't need to be a martyr to be a hero.
| throwkeep wrote:
| Because he didn't have much of a choice? I have a feeling
| he'd much prefer being back in the US or somewhere in Europe
| or any other number of places, but all of those lead to a
| jail cell.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| You misread that question.
| mdoms wrote:
| Dude it's not like Snowden is stoked to be living the dream in
| Russia. He's an exile.
| strogonoff wrote:
| Not blaming him and not sure whether he had a choice. Just
| noting a certain dissonance in reality, which I'd assume he
| also experiences, and wondering how he frames it in his mind
| (e.g., does he think "yes, my writing is affected by the very
| thing I describe, but I currently have no other choice", or
| "I'm not self-censoring since somehow I have a deal that I
| can write anything I want, as long as I'm not trying to
| disseminate it in Russia", or "self-censorship is a thing
| happening everywhere now, so Russia or not there's not much
| difference where to reside", or something else entirely).
|
| It's not quite an elephant in the room, but IMO if he went a
| bit meta on this it could make for an interesting read (maybe
| he does elsewhere--I'm not using Substack and not following
| his writing very closely).
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| It's not like he had a huge amount of choice in where he ended
| up. Putin allows it because he can point to Snowden and say
| "see, he uncovered programs in the American system that are
| doing things they accuse me of". And likely also because Putin
| sees Snowden as a potentially valuable bargaining chip.
| h2odragon wrote:
| "with his country of residence" wtf? ... he prefers Russia to
| "suicide" in an American jail, and this is supposed to
| negatively impact his credibility?
|
| Or should he martyr himself to integrity and start calling
| Putin and the leaders of Russia out for their bad behaviors?
|
| I honor the man as a hero; but if I was him I'd STFU and try to
| live a quiet life in the woods somewhere, never attracting
| public attention again. Lest the end be messy and spectacular
| like Assange is being treated to.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > I wonder how Snowden reconciles his position on self-
| censorship with his current country of residence.
|
| By remembering that he got only got stuck in Russia because the
| United States revoked his passport while he was on an
| international flight that was to make a connection in Moscow?
| strogonoff wrote:
| While it's a good point, it doesn't really explain anything
| here.
|
| I don't have the details, but isn't there a way to apply for
| an asylum, say, in neighbouring Georgia, Ukraine or Finland
| (by walking into an embassy or even straight to a land
| border)? Is he being held against his will? Does he not
| desire to move? Is it because he's thinking those countries
| would be likely to deport him at the request of the US? Is it
| because he doesn't believe living in a country which regime
| is closer to one's own philosophy is worth the hassle of
| moving there? Or he doesn't consider those countries any
| better than Russia in this regard? Etc.
| ben_w wrote:
| He applied to 27 countries including Finland. Apart from
| Russia, the ones he could actually reach turned him down.
|
| I have no doubt Russia is milking this for all it's worth
| (wouldn't you in their place?) but Snowden really didn't
| have a totally free hand in where he ended up after his
| passport was cancelled -- just America or Russia.
| strogonoff wrote:
| If he did apply for asylum and was refused, that explains
| the situation to me personally. I never thought all of
| the (admittedly, quite few) directly adjacent to Russia
| democratic countries would do that to him. I hope he
| continues to write on these topics from wherever he is.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > directly adjacent to Russia democratic countries
|
| I wonder how necessary the "directly adjacent" criteria
| is. Couldn't he sail from Russia to Iceland, for example?
| Perhaps if he was wanted by Interpol he would find it
| hard to travel through the territorial waters of European
| nations (assuming their coast guards would intercept a
| vessel carrying him).
|
| In practice, though, I assume that Putin's government has
| made it very clear to him that his safety relies on him
| remaining a useful propaganda piece for the regime, so he
| wouldn't even get as far as Russian waters.
| randompwd wrote:
| American operatives cant move freely in Russia as they
| can in any other European/Western country.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| > For fear of losing a job, or of losing an admission to school,
| or of losing the right to live in the country of your birth, or
| merely of social ostracism, many of today's best minds in so-
| called free, democratic states have stopped trying to say what
| they think and feel and have fallen silent.
|
| There are a lot of topics I won't touch any more, more every
| year. Accounts - can't stay anonymous, ml systems working around
| the clock to identify posters. My social justice focused friends
| have it worse, their online "friends" attack them publicly over
| every single little thing. They go quiet or form a tiny invite
| only groups to hide after an attempt to do something good that
| backfired because their skin is the wrong colour or they aren't
| trans. They have panic attacks over the guilt and stress
| throwkeep wrote:
| When I worked at a FAANG, anti-censorship and pro free speech
| was normative. What happened? Why have we let a small number of
| intolerant activists scare us into silence?
| wutbrodo wrote:
| I left Google in 2015, and I started to notice the flip from
| liberalism to illiberalism around 2012-2013. I still remember
| how weird it was the first time I heard someone on Memegen
| say that due process (ie, trying to understand whether a
| complaint occurred) was a legal constraint that Google didn't
| need to adhere to when adjudicating intra-employee complaints
| (eg harassing comments).
|
| IMO it's pretty straightforward, in Google's case at least.
| They scaled wildly in terms of headcount (I think they have a
| bit under 10x the headcount they had when I joined), right
| when competition for the best tech employees exploded. They
| obviously had to lower their bar[1] significantly to keep
| growing, and they ended up scooping up masses of coastal
| urban[2] midwits, precisely the population that was most
| susceptible to and hit hardest by the religious awakening
| that occurred in the early 2010s. A bit more speculatively,
| there's some evidence that higher cognitive ability is
| correlated with support for free speech[3] and other tenets
| of liberalism, so any company going from a highly-selected-
| for-intelligence employee base to a dumber one has a built-in
| backlash against liberalism/pluralism/open-mindedness/etc.
|
| [1] I'm not suggesting that a binary switch was flipped, and
| that I personally made it in right before they started
| dumbing down their hiring. I wouldn't be surprised if the bar
| was higher a few years before I joined, and I can't say
| whether I would've met that bar. It's an iterative process
| that sped up over time and the company started to suffer the
| cumulative effect in the quality of their employee body.
|
| [2] This isn't implying that being coastal and urban makes
| you stupid. I myself am very much coastal and urban and have
| been my entire life. These are just the areas that were hit
| hardest by these ideologies, and "midwits" (to borrow a term
| from Taleb) are fertile ground for new mass movements.
|
| [3] https://www.psypost.org/2020/05/higher-levels-of-
| cognitive-a...
| cnvml wrote:
| Truth is downvoted. There are tons of people hired after
| 2012 who aren't that great and survive on being political
| losers.
|
| The politician needs a framework to control other people
| and fake enforced wokeness serves that purpose quite well.
| nightski wrote:
| Part of it is being scared. But in the world of 24/7
| surveillance I think it's more that anything you say can
| haunt you for the rest of your life. It's not OK to make
| mistakes or slip up because it's captured and stored forever.
| People aren't allowed to debate, learn, and change.
| pianoben wrote:
| Anecdotally, most of my interactions with friends has moved
| offline. I wonder whether that's a broader trend, and
| whether it will be sustainable?
|
| Like, in the same way I learned not to post personal stuff
| on Livejournal (then MySpace and Facebook), will we just...
| log off half the time, and treat the rest as a resume? Or
| will we hole up in private discords/IRC/Matrix/etc groups?
|
| (* and for anyone wondering, we're all fairly left-leaning,
| pro-social-justice people. we're not hiding from Cancel
| Culture, we just feel more free in smaller groups.)
| slver wrote:
| The flip side is what exactly do you need to say that you're
| silenced from saying. Our natural instinct to enter debates
| and "win" them really leads otherwise smart people astray as
| well.
|
| Let the activists yap. And you do what you want to do.
|
| We've evolved to speak not to win arguments, but to
| coordinate our actions better. And actions still speak
| loudest.
| Siira wrote:
| > We've evolved to speak not to win arguments, but to
| coordinate
|
| Extraordinary generalizations require extraordinary
| evidence.
| [deleted]
| slindz wrote:
| For me, it's less about having things I need to say and
| more about endlessly analyzing what I'm about to say.
|
| There is little, if any, forgiveness for the well-
| intentioned mistakes.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| College's changed; It used to be free speech focused with
| debates and exposure to a wide set of ideas being seen as
| critical to a well rounded education. Now you can't even get
| vaguely controversial speakers on campus.
|
| Tech workers tend to be younger so the more recent changes to
| the political views of colleges effect them first.
|
| Hell famous comedians won't even preform at college campuses
| anymore: https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/jerry-
| seinfeld-reve...
| pope_meat wrote:
| ...I laughed.
|
| Billionaire Jerry Seinfeld can't seem to relate to the kids
| these days, blames the kids.
| throwkeep wrote:
| A couple points...
|
| College campuses are where you are supposed to be
| confronted with challenging ideas and different
| perspectives. That's one of their great gifts. But even
| mainstream Jerry Seinfeld, who created one of the most
| popular sitcoms of all time and doesn't even swear, is
| now considered too controversial?
|
| It's not just him. Dave Chappelle and many other
| comedians have been saying the same thing about college
| audiences.
| pope_meat wrote:
| You living in the wrong decade still.
|
| Jerry Seinfeld was relevant in the 90s, and Chappelle in
| the 2000s.
|
| Jerry keeps dating 18 year old girls, and Chappelle can't
| seem to restrain himself from shitting on trans folks.
|
| Sorry, these heroes suck.
| slibhb wrote:
| People are going to love Jerry forever because of the
| sitcom. His standup isn't a big hit with the kids these
| days but everyone still knows the sitcom.
|
| Chappelle is one of the biggest comics alive. The people
| who are bothered by trans jokes are a small, humorless
| minority.
| delecti wrote:
| The problem with trans jokes is there's basically only
| one of them that most comedians tell. It's just degrees
| of incredulity about the variety of things that people
| identify as.
|
| Patton Oswalt's version got chuckles out of me though.
| His take was basically "I'm on your side, I'm just old
| and don't know what you're talking about", which is at
| least poking fun at the incredulity, rather than the
| variety.
| pstuart wrote:
| Had to google it, but he delivered.
| pstuart wrote:
| I have a good sense of humor. Making fun of a group that
| is persecuted is not funny to me because I don't find
| anything amusing about taunting the disenfranchised.
|
| So tell me so good trans jokes and change my mind, eh?
| [deleted]
| type0 wrote:
| All the trans people I know actually like his jokes, it
| seems that you are living in a wrong decade that doesn't
| exist.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Jerry keeps dating 18 year old girls
|
| AFAIK, he is only know to have done that once (and they
| first met and went out, though Seinfeld said later that
| they weren't "dating" yet, when she was 17, not 18.)
| ryantgtg wrote:
| Plus this was in 1993. So "keep" is inaccurate here,
| unless this person has additional data to provide.
| raclage wrote:
| Consider that maybe people agree that being confronted
| with challenging ideas and perspectives is valuable but
| they don't find the same value in Jerry Seinfeld's comedy
| as they do in, say, a lecture by someone with radical
| beliefs.
| MrRadar wrote:
| Are people on college campuses generally clamoring to see a
| standup routine from Jerry Seinfeld? As the article points
| out, he's 66 years old and his humor is self-described as
| "observational". Maybe today's college students just don't
| connect to the observations of someone two generations
| older than them?
| flavius29663 wrote:
| It's one thing to not enjoy his humor, it's another to
| make it such that nobody can enjoy it.
| delecti wrote:
| But why perform for an audience full of people who won't
| enjoy it? In my experience, performances hosted at
| colleges overwhelmingly attract audiences of students.
| It's nobody's fault that his humor doesn't land with that
| audience, but it is his fault that he's blaming the
| students for it.
| btilly wrote:
| Read https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-
| Ideol.... Then read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_
| Ideological_Echo_Ch... for what happened when a Google
| engineer wrote that.
|
| Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Damore, he
| was engaged in free speech. What he said is supported by a
| significant body of research and researchers. (And opposed by
| others - as it often the case on controversial topics.)
|
| And yet, he was fired and made an example of. Anyone who
| publicly says that he had a point got shot down both within
| companies like Google, and on various discussion forums like
| this one.
|
| I don't know how or when we lost tolerance for free speech,
| both as an industry and as a society. But the Damore incident
| is when I realized that we have.
| Miner49er wrote:
| I don't think this is anything new for society. Companies
| have always fired people for going against the company too
| much or in the wrong way.
| raclage wrote:
| I don't understand why Damore is the hill people are always
| trying to die on. He didn't publish that in the marketplace
| of ideas. He sent it to his coworkers, using company
| resources, on company time. Your workplace has never been a
| free speech bastion.
|
| Any person may or may not like that but it's been true
| forever so I'm not sure how it indicates that free speech
| is now in some sort of novel danger.
| ravel-bar-foo wrote:
| Have you read the Damore memo? It is fundamentally about
| how Google should increase diversity, given the data
| showing that most women are choosing to not go into
| engineering-like fields, rather than being forced out of
| them.
|
| It's a corporate policy proposal, and it was posted to a
| private internal board of people interested in how to
| shape Google corporate policy to increase diversity. Sort
| of a workgroup. In a sane world, that's exactly the sort
| of workplace discussion one would want.
| dgs_sgd wrote:
| It's because he published a memo pertinent to a hot topic
| at the company and rather than engage him on the merits
| of his ideas leadership decided to fire him. Is it
| unsettling that the employees at a company with a global
| monopoly on information retrieval seem to not tolerate
| dissent within their ranks?
| dgs_sgd wrote:
| The irony of the response to that memo, and to cancel
| culture more widely, is that reasonable people who read it
| and don't agree with everything it says, but at least agree
| that some of it is worthy of discussion, are more likely to
| be radicalized than side with the cancelers. The diversity
| and inclusion mob is tolerant of diversity only when it
| satisfies their narrow definition of what that is.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >I don't know how or when we lost tolerance for free speech
|
| I think you're confusing lost tolerance for free speech
| with 'raising the value of the speech of traditionally
| marginalized groups.'
|
| A man at Atari in 1976 who argues women are worse engineers
| than men mostly broadcasts to an audience of empowered men
| and disempowered women. So his 'free speech' is respected
| while those women's is not.
|
| A man at Google in 2018 who argues the same thing has to
| deal with the consequences of women's speech, but to him,
| that feels like a chilling of his free speech.
|
| I'm fine that we are in scenario 2, having listened to a
| lot of other ill-informed white men give heir 'opinion' on
| things for no true reason.
| cnwq wrote:
| LOL, disempowered women in 1976. The real student revolts
| took place in 1968-1970 and produced hippies, free love,
| another instance of feminism (second wave I believe).
|
| It was probably a better time for being a woman in CS
| than now, with disingenuous bros paying lip service to
| SJW causes in order to keep their > 250,000 salaries
| while not having a clue.
| btilly wrote:
| Honest question. Have you ever actually read the memo?
|
| If you have, please tell me what passage makes you think
| that it says that women are worse engineers than men.
| Because as far as I can tell, there are none.
|
| The topic at hand is controversial enough WITHOUT making
| up stuff about what was said.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >I don't know how or when we lost tolerance for free
| speech, both as an industry and as a society. But the
| Damore incident is when I realized that we have.
|
| The tech industry was just an exception for a decade or so
| because it was fairly non-corporate. Go to any conservative
| law firm or traditional management and try to start a fiery
| political debate, and see how that goes. There was never
| any lively democratic discourse or tolerance in any
| corporate environment, or any other private environment for
| that matter, ask any gay person that's older than 25 and
| doesn't live in a liberal state. George Carlin made a
| career of saying 'shit' on television, that's how free-
| wheeling discourse was.
|
| Also as a sidenote on that Damore debacle, he got canned
| because of his presentation. You can cite 100 studies, when
| you start to argue that women drop out of high stress jobs
| because they're neurotic you might as well commit seppuku.
| He should have passed that manifesto by someone who isn't
| on the spectrum because anyone could have seen that
| trainwreck coming a mile away.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| I know several people on the autism spectrum. They say
| Damore was an asshole. It frustrates them so many
| neurotypical people casually equate those things.
| btilly wrote:
| I know people with every combination of on/off the autism
| spectrum, who like/dislike Damore. Given that, anecdotes
| from any particular perspective aren't very telling.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| It isn't about liking or disliking Damore. It's about
| respecting the social intelligence of other people on the
| autism spectrum.
| type0 wrote:
| He got canned because his work place was not-inclusive to
| people on the spectrum despite of the big G claiming
| otherwise.
| cynicalkane wrote:
| > You can cite 100 studies, when you start to argue that
| women drop out of high stress jobs because they're
| neurotic you might as well commit seppuku.
|
| I mean, you could characterize this as a problematic
| _presentation_ , but I'm not sure I'd say presentation is
| the problem with that sort of statement.
| DSingularity wrote:
| The authors underlying point is that factoring in traits
| of the population -- as described statistically and not
| anecdotally - is the way to make social structures more
| inclusive.
|
| For example, let's say that statistically it was
| discovered to be that more women prioritize work-life
| balance over all else. Let's also assume that you want
| women to feel included in that little "meritocracy" you
| created. Is it more or less inclusive that your corporate
| strategy for promoting favored women who sacrificed their
| work life balance by working on weekend?
|
| Show me what is wrong with this line of thinking.
| goldenchrome wrote:
| For people like Damore, the hardest part of being on the
| spectrum is encountering non-autistic people.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| chmod600 wrote:
| Let's say, for the sake of argument, that all the people
| doing the canceling are right and all the people being
| canceled are wrong.
|
| Cancel culture will make racism and sexism _worse_. Even
| the most well-intentioned will fail to learn when they are
| afraid of expressing the wrong answer.
|
| Try to teach someone mathematics where every time they get
| the wrong answer, they get shocked. Not a good learning
| environment.
|
| And that's exactly what we have now. Repeat a few buzzwords
| and you are safe. But when problems manifest in a new way,
| you won't be able to understand or correct them because you
| don't really understand.
|
| Being wrong is part of the path to being right. If you are
| cancelled for being wrong, you'll never be right. You'll
| just have to be quiet.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| > Try to teach someone mathematics where every time they
| get the wrong answer, they get shocked. Not a good
| learning environment.
|
| The problem with the analogy is that the underlying
| assumption is that the people learning math want to know
| the truth and are acting in good faith even when they get
| the wrong answer.
|
| On the other hand, there are people, powerful people, who
| push ideas that don't care about the truth. Here is a
| specific example. As the Republican nominee in 2016,
| Donald Trump tweeted that 81% of white murder victims
| were killed by black people. This is *wildly* wrong. When
| he was corrected, he didn't send out a correction, he
| didn't even remove the old tweet. The point is he was
| sending a message to his target audience that made them
| feel a certain way, and that was his goal ... not
| communicating the truth.
|
| https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/nov/23/donald-
| tru...
| chmod600 wrote:
| Politicians who are crafting policy are certainly a
| different category.
|
| Many well-intentioned people do get stuff wrong when it
| comes to racism or sexism. It's a complex topic with
| shifting definitions and evolving standards.
|
| 100 years ago, academia was at the forefront of racism
| due to some flawed philosophies and bad science. Should
| we really expect the average layperson to be ahead of
| those scholars just because some time has passed and they
| hear "racism is bad" a thousand times? No. The education
| needs to happen, and being wrong is a starting place.
|
| There's also been a general failure by academia to
| explain modern racial concepts. Many people don't
| understand why it's OK to discriminate against asians in
| college admissions, for instance.
| btilly wrote:
| Yes.
|
| The scariest thing about Trump is not that he lied like
| crazy. It is that he really had an audience, and that
| audience is reasonably close to half the country. If
| you're a progressive, it is worth spending some time
| thinking about how to reach out to and get support from
| that half of the country. Because attempting to govern
| without them is a guaranteed disaster.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That ship has sailed. The progressives have been playing
| the strategy 'if we just follow the rules of the game,
| eventually they will play along'. But the populists
| completely threw out the rulebook a number of years ago,
| they no longer want to play the same game. And now there
| is a new breed of younger progressives coming into power
| who recognize that and also want to throw out the
| rulebook. Interesting times coming.
| pstuart wrote:
| > Being wrong is part of the path to being right
|
| Only if one is willing to acknowledge being wrong. I'm
| not seeing that here.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| Even more interesting exercise.
|
| Let's assume - for the sake of the argument - scientists
| have managed to scientifically prove some unpopular
| theory. Pick your favorite one: working women do not
| benefit the society, some races are smarter on average
| than others or - god forbid - vaccines cause autism.
|
| What's next? What are we going to do with these results?
|
| P. S. And for those looking to reply "this cannot happen
| because it can never happen" - remember, this is just a
| mental exercise.
| crocktucker wrote:
| > Being wrong is part of the path to being right. If you
| are cancelled for being wrong, you'll never be right.
| You'll just have to be quiet.
|
| Well put.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >Cancel culture will make racism and sexism worse.
|
| I completely agree with that.
|
| Just to keep an eye on matters, and you never know how
| you need to set up your life going forward, lately I've
| made an attempt to eavesdrop on snatches of private
| conversations.
|
| I'm blown away by how radicalized people are becoming,
| and not in a way that progressives would like. Formerly,
| these people were essentially indifferent. Now, not so
| much.
| mrbadideas wrote:
| Yes 10000x.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Something is asymmetrical here. Those who cancel are also
| communicating things. Why don't _they_ face pushback from what
| _they_ say? Why don 't _they_ face consequences?
| RIMR wrote:
| They do face consequences. Turn on Fox News for 5 minutes and
| you're bound to hear some talking head spreading alarmist
| narratives about cancel culture. Social Justice minded people
| get doxxed and dragged through the mud for their speech every
| day.
|
| You seem to be complaining that "those who cancel" aren't
| being stripped of their voices. That's not a valid complaint
| if you care about free speech.
|
| Free speech means you can say whatever you want about
| anything you like. It also means, that after hearing what you
| have to say, I can say whatever I like about you and your
| opinions. I can disagree with you just as much as you can
| disagree with me.
|
| Disagreement isn't censorship, it's free speech. Social
| consequences are a natural counterpart to speaking your mind.
| People are allowed to draw lines, judge you, and cut you out
| of their lives for what you say.
|
| Free speech applies to everyone with a voice, not just you.
| Censorship is when you aren't allowed to speak, not just
| simply facing consequences for what you choose to say.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Let's say I post something online. And let's say that 100
| people decide, not just that they disagree, but that they
| want to destroy me. They send anonymous rants and threats
| to my employer, my family, my neighbors, and my friends.
| They dox me, so that I have to worry about physical harm
| from any random nutcase who agrees with them and decides to
| bother.
|
| What consequences do they face? Does anyone go to _their_
| boss (times 100) and say, what this person is doing isn 't
| right, and is making your company look bad? Does anyone dox
| the doxxers?
|
| I'm not saying it doesn't happen to Social Justice types.
| I'm saying, whoever it's done to, do the people doing it
| face consequences of their own? (If the Social Justice
| types are doing this themselves, then in their case the
| answer is yes.)
|
| It's easy for a group of 100 angry people to cover one
| person they decide to destroy. It's less easy for the one
| person to return the favor to all 100 of them.
| js8 wrote:
| Power perpetuates itself through incomplete information;
| that's the asymmetry you're looking for.
|
| Those who cancel often mindlessly repeat emotional lies, in
| anger. It takes lot more effort to engage somebody on cool,
| rational level.
| ben_w wrote:
| Likewise. A few weeks ago someone took enough of an exception
| to me writing _here_ that (COVID) masks are trivial that they
| went to my blog and vented quite unpleasantly. I know others
| who have had it much worse than me.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| >They have panic attacks over the guilt and stress
|
| They should get off of twitter
| jimbokun wrote:
| And there you have self censorship at work!
| emsy wrote:
| It's not self censorship, it's mental hygiene.
| ben_w wrote:
| It can be both, depending on the why. Leaving Twitter has
| been great for me, but I didn't leave it because someone
| was threatening me. I do know someone who left Twitter
| for that reason.
| kbelder wrote:
| Soon, nobody will be left on twitter but lunatics and
| journalists. But I repeat myself.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Does avoiding 4chan also count as self censorship?
| malwrar wrote:
| Politicians, journalists, academics, every celebrity
| ever, etc aren't on 4chan (or at least trying to have
| serious conversations there). This isn't a good
| comparison.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| There are multiple other places to get news and academic
| information from.
| malwrar wrote:
| Twitter is the public square more than it a news source.
| The effects of loud voices there lead to global, real
| world change. Journalists talk to and police each other
| there. Celebrities influence millions of people there,
| enough to where people pay them to tweet certain things
| advantageous to them ("buy these cool Nike shoes!").
|
| 4chan is an anonymous, interest-based forum that is more
| or less irrelevant to most non-internet people.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| >Twitter is the public square more than it a news source
|
| ~20% of Americans use twitter.
| (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/10/share-
| of-u-...)
|
| There's definitely some influence there, but the
| twitter's importance and impact on the world is severely
| overhyped.
| Sophistifunk wrote:
| Nobody has tried to have a serious conversation on
| Twitter in 5 years. It's nothing but performance of your
| team allegiance.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >Accounts - can't stay anonymous, ml systems working around the
| clock to identify posters.
|
| Really? Thats fascinating! Anything you can provide that gives
| more insight into this? Has anyone written about this practice?
| f1refly wrote:
| There was a post here a few days ago that would analyze your
| hn comments and output the most identical looking other
| accounts. Lots of people wrote it output their alts and
| throwaways.
| floxy wrote:
| It looks like this was that article:
|
| Show HN: Find Your Hacker News Doppelganger
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27568709
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| > backfired because their skin is the wrong colour or they
| aren't trans
|
| Are cis/white people are often discriminated against?
| leetcrew wrote:
| yes? isn't this why racism is defined as "power + prejudice"?
| anyone can be prejudiced for or against a particular race,
| but only some people are in a position to do something about
| it.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| I don't think anyone escapes some kind of discrimination in
| such a deeply toxic society. It's maybe less obvious for cis,
| straight, white, and otherwise Default people, but it does
| happen. The material effects are usually not as severe as
| they are for anyone else.
| dangus wrote:
| > They go quiet or form a tiny invite only groups to hide after
| an attempt to do something good that backfired because their
| skin is the wrong colour or they aren't trans. They have panic
| attacks over the guilt and stress
|
| This right here is your indicator that this comment is an
| entirely made up story about hypothetical friends, with the
| sole intention of ragging on "liberals."
|
| Basically, it's contrarian conservatism that criticizes not-
| very-controversial values (e.g., general equality) for
| incredibly vague reasons.
|
| It's even more ignorant than plain old bigotry because it's so
| devoid of ideology. It's just contrarianism for the sake of not
| doing what the "liberals" do.
|
| The anti-masking movement of 2020 is the perfect demonstration
| of that contrarian ideology. Conservatives don't even know why
| they oppose masks except that the liberals were putting them
| on.
|
| It's pretty sad considering that the first two sentences about
| ML and online identity were relatively productive conversation
| that could have gone somewhere thought provoking.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| The trick to avoid getting found out online is to change small,
| irrelevant details. Then, when they try to dox you, they will
| be chasing a phantasm.
|
| The NSA already knows, but they don't care about that.
| devenblake wrote:
| > They go quiet or form a tiny invite only groups to hide after
| an attempt to do something good that backfired because their
| skin is the wrong colour or they aren't trans.
|
| It really sounds like they accidentally offended someone, the
| person who was offended was so much so that they couldn't
| communicate why they were offended, and then your friends
| misinterpreted the issue.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| That's an odd reading of what they described. It sounds more
| like there friends did something good in the world but were
| told to sit-down and shut-up because they were the wrong
| race/gender/x.
| devenblake wrote:
| Yes, it sounds that way, but the event you (and they)
| describe has never happened.
| CapmCrackaWaka wrote:
| That seems like a pretty ignorant thing to say, that in
| the sum of all human interactions online, the event OP
| described has never happened (or is even supposedly that
| rare). I would like to know why you think that would be
| true.
| mdoms wrote:
| There's a good example of just this thing happening right
| here[0]. A group of young climate activists disbanded
| because despite the good work they were doing they
| decided their group was too top-loaded with white people
| and should be led by POC.
|
| [0] https://www.facebook.com/schoolstrike4climateauckland
| /posts/...
| [deleted]
| malwrar wrote:
| It certainly exists and I truly envy the fact it hasn't
| affected your life yet. n=1 but it's affected mine as a
| recent college graduate and person who works in FAANG.
| klyrs wrote:
| Telling somebody to sit down and shut up is an exercise of
| free speech.
| RIMR wrote:
| If you try to speak for the Black community, and you aren't
| black, you don't have the "wrong color of skin", you are
| speaking for others without their permission, and they have the
| right to correct the record if they consider your take to be
| inaccurate.
|
| If you try to speak for the trans community, and you aren't
| trans, you aren't being censored, you are being rebutted. Trans
| people have the right to correct the record when someone speaks
| on their behalf in a disagreeable way.
|
| Anyone who sees disagreement as a form of censorship needs to
| take a step back and recognize that the right to disagree is an
| important facet of free speech, and attempting to defeat things
| like "cancel culture" and other vocal forms of public
| disagreement is a demonstrably larger threat to free speech
| than anything the social justice community could ever dish out.
|
| Censorship is largely being redefined as experiencing
| consequences for what one says. This is an extraordinarily
| cowardly misrepresentation of censorship, that tries to
| redefine free speech as _your_ speech, and tries to force the
| narrative that disagreement with _your_ speech is actually
| stripping you of the right to speak.
|
| Sure, public shaming and doxxing may have a chilling effect on
| many people's willingness to speak freely, but a lack
| individual willingness is not equivalent to a lack of
| permission.
|
| Free speech requires bravery. If you are too much of a coward
| to speak freely, you aren't being censored, you're just a
| coward afraid of others' free speech.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| Yeah I think anonymous accounts get a bad reputation and it's
| unfortunate.
|
| Fake bought accounts have a good rep.
| nine_k wrote:
| Theocracy may be bad, but an aggressively religious society is
| worse.
|
| Religious here means that certain things are articles of faith,
| and any attempt to discuss them in any way, let alone disagree
| with them, gets you marked as an enemy who needs to be driven
| away and stripped of any respect or role in society.
|
| I won't even say it's the majority that's so aggressive. But
| the majority of people who are somehow active in the society
| and thus visible outside the circle of their family and
| coworkers, either actively or passively agree. Either they
| share the faith (many do), or they don't want trouble.
|
| What good is the First Amendment if citizens themselves see
| free speech as a dangerous transgression?
| Zababa wrote:
| The big difference is that religion usually believes in some
| kind of forgiveness and repentance. I can't say I see the
| same things in the current society.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| There is no difference. I've heard that Islam and
| Christianity, as _religions_ , are good and forgiving. I've
| also witnessed the behavior of actual muslims and
| christians. I would not call these people good. I certainly
| wouldn't call them forgiving.
|
| My feeling is that the poster is on the right track.
| Ideological groups, (not trying to pick on politics, but
| they are usually political ideologues), have become the new
| pseudo-religions. As people in the West have fallen away
| from church, we've witnessed the rise of ideologue
| communities on the right and left.
|
| You can't argue with them. You can't question them. Some
| want to kill off half the people in the country. Others
| want draconian control over the other half.
|
| And people are surprised that the only option available to
| a reasonable person is to opt-out?
|
| If anything, I think people are being shortsighted in
| viewing the threat. For some people in the US, this
| ideology war is not only about a right to speech, it can
| come down to a right to live. Those people have to oppose
| the ideologues, or die.
|
| I don't claim to know the solution, I do know that it's a
| tough, tough problem.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| Just like with any belief system, there are many more
| moderates than zealots. The problem is, zealots help the
| leaders of those belief systems gain more power.
| Moderates, for the most part, just want things to keep
| working and not to feel the lash on their back. When the
| zealots can't let this happen and the powers that be lose
| control of the zealots, that's usually when revolution
| happens =(
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| The structure of a revolution-- it usually begins when the
| rabble acts up and no authority is willing or able to stop
| them. So, 1 out of 1,000 users seek quasi-religious
| vengeance on Twitter and the mechanisms that used to inform
| the other 999 don't work. The NYT picks up toxic views of
| the rabble and reports them as mainstream, which the rabble
| have converted to a weapon in itself.
|
| Most revolutions I've read about, large and small consist
| of an authentic breakdown in or reorganization of, society.
| Here and now, seems like we're actually discussing an
| antifeature of manufactured social technologies combined
| with capture or weakening of traditional media.
| nine_k wrote:
| I think you mischaracterize these people as "rabble".
| Many of the vocal "woke" figures are highly educated,
| highly intellectual, and well-off. Professors, top
| business officers, high-achieving scientists, writers,
| engineers.
|
| They do it _not_ because they are stupid, for they are
| not. They truly believe that what they do is right, that
| it 's the shining path to the better future.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > I think you mischaracterize these people as "rabble".
| Many of the vocal "woke" figures are highly educated,
| highly intellectual, and well-off. Professors, top
| business officers, high-achieving scientists, writers,
| engineers.
|
| That is the actual structure of a revolution. Your parent
| comment is misguided; revolutions that aren't led by
| elites are rare and, when they occur, generally don't go
| anywhere.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_Revolt
| type0 wrote:
| And most of the worlds biggest atrocities has also been
| done on "the shining path to the better future".
| nine_k wrote:
| Exactly my reference :(
| nine_k wrote:
| Repentance -- yes, galore, it's exactly the expexted action
| from the one accused of transsgression. Write a long blog
| post condemning the bitter mistake, step out from your
| post, if you have any.
|
| But on the banner on this religion is not Love, but
| Justice. So, forgiveness is hard to obtain. It takes either
| converting into a zealot, or hiding in oblivion. "If God
| were to show justice instead of His endless grace, we would
| all end up in Hell", wrote one medieval theologician.
|
| This whole thing is thoroughly medieval, if you look at it
| at a certain angle. While declaring that it stands for
| progress, it rejects the values of the Enlightenment much
| more deeply than many alt-right philosophers who flaunt
| this rejection.
|
| If you ever wondered what highly westernized Iran might
| look like before the revolution, this may provide a
| glimpse. Feeling righteous and rejecting doubt is a
| powerful and addictive drug :(
| Zababa wrote:
| Do you have the source for the quote of the medieval
| theologian? It's very interesting.
| nine_k wrote:
| Apparently it was Isaac of Niveneh, a Middle Eastern
| Christian theoligian from 7th century:
| https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/st-isaac-the-
| syrian...
|
| I think Christ himself pushes this view in a number of
| fables and sermons, right in the canonical gospels.
| Zababa wrote:
| Thanks.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| It's always the loudest few. I've read takes from
| conservatives in favor of BLM, racial justice, queer rights,
| etc _from_ conservative principles. The "conservatives" who
| go feral over any queer representation in media or even
| discussing reparations probably don't represent the majority
| numerically, but the silence of the rest (probably out of
| fear) makes it hard to say they aren't, essentially,
| representatives.
|
| I try to do right from my "side," but sometimes it's scary
| when popular checkmarked people on Twitter call for genocides
| of "red" states, where I happen to live, to thunderous
| applause.
| nine_k wrote:
| I personally am entirely fine with queer people (some of my
| closest relatives and friends are queer), I think that
| racism is wrong due to many reasons, and certainly I'm
| totally fine with immigrants because this is how America
| came to be and later became great.
|
| What I see as troubling is the "cancel culture", the force
| of the righteous mob. I believe that a society with more
| justice and grace than we have now can be built entirely
| without it, and that the intolerant fighters for inclusion
| and tolerance make the prospects of building such a society
| weaker.
|
| You can't force people to be just, loving, and caring. You
| can force them feign that, but I suppose you very well
| understand how fraught such a society would be. There is a
| number of historical examples, all sad.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| At the risk of self-promotion, I found some cause for
| empathy for the crusader types when writing about the
| subject:
|
| "They're mostly people whose elders, the people who might
| guide them to a fierce but strategic advocacy, were
| murdered by police or mob violence, thrown in prison for
| bullshit reasons, or allowed to die in a plague. If you
| can bring empathy for the guy who got fired from Google
| for circulating a paper that made his colleagues
| uncomfortable, you can bring it for people who are
| dealing with a strange world with no one to talk to who
| gets what they're going through."
|
| https://viewfinderfox.com/history-is-canceled/
|
| This is the part where I'd anticipate a crusader type
| accusing me of infantalizing people if I were on Twitter.
| I don't think it's entirely people who have no guidance +
| people taking up their cause (often without asking), but
| I think it's a large part of it. Some of it, maybe most
| of it, is Well-Meaning Allies causing a lot of noise
| while not listening to the people they're trying to help.
| I had a cis woman on Twitter lecture _me_ on nonbinary
| identity because she didn 't realize I was describing my
| own experience. I think that type is what most people get
| annoyed at, and sometimes their anger/fear has splash
| damage on people who didn't ask for that help.
| nine_k wrote:
| Indeed. The fury of revenge is totally understandable,
| but also not very constructive; it did a lot of sad
| things throughout history.
|
| The founders of great spiritual movements, Buddha,
| Christ, Muhammad, all warned against revenge and called
| for forgiveness (even though Quran calls more to the due
| process and justice while gospels call to radical
| forgiveness). This is easy to understand rationally: a
| society with a lot of revenge keeps killing itself and
| keeps nurturing cruelty. Such societies tend to not
| survive for long.
|
| I'm very sorry for all the Black, queer, Jewish, Arabian,
| East Asian, etc people who were victims of bitter
| oppression. I adore those of them who struggle for
| justice, cessation of oppression, peace, and
| reconciliation with the rest of the society. But I would
| not join those of them who strive for a war and a
| revenge.
|
| Fighting against a powerful enemy, it's important to be
| watchful and not become the enemy's mirror image. I hope
| the people among them who possess more wisdom and
| compassion will eventually help most of them choose a
| better path.
| [deleted]
| kradeelav wrote:
| This is possibly a unique angle, but by being in taboo art
| circles (erotic art specifically), I'm struck at how much I see
| this topic resonating with my fellow artists.
|
| I know so many, _too_ many, far more than I can count on my hands
| who have simply given up posting kink art because they keep
| getting mobbed, doxxed, slandered, and harassed simply by posting
| art (or seeing their friends getting shredded as well). I know so
| many that have forced to bounce from platform to platform from
| instagram to tumblr to twitter because either the algorithm
| censors you or the mob abuses the "report user" button if they
| simply don't care for your art.
|
| I know so many who have had to host on friend's servers because
| big-name hosts ban erotic art and kinks in tiny print in the TOS
| and it's just not worth it to fucking bounce from host to host
| unless if it's an actual friend who supports true artistic
| freedom.
|
| I know so many who are winding up in making zines as a last
| resort, because zines can be printed at the home computer, so
| they're one of the last truly uncensored artistic mediums in
| comparison to the internet. And yet - how many trailblazing
| artists have we lost from that crushing top-down censorship even
| with that one meager avenue open?
|
| So yes, this is relevant and urgent, and in more ways than it
| appears.
| username91 wrote:
| "Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter" are not moral highgrounds for
| free speech - they're engagement-driven platforms that thrive on
| drama and conflict.
|
| Posting on these platforms is not real human communication.
|
| If you can't calm down and remove yourself from an online
| argument before posting something that is almost guaranteed to be
| misunderstood, you're not evading self-censorship, you're feeding
| an addiction.
|
| I'm probably doing it right now.
| tsegratis wrote:
| Powerful comment on how we cancel ourselves, before we let others
| do it to us
|
| --
|
| Just observing today my favourited and most impactful (to me)
| articles on HN were all flagged
|
| Why do we do this to ourselves?
| paganel wrote:
| What articles were those? Was on my phone for most of the day
| (i.e. not in front of my work desktop) and I couldn't catch
| them as easily.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Because most people don't want to be tracked down, harassed, or
| forced out of their job because they said something someone
| took as offensive to the wrong people.
|
| People use twitter as their personal army and no one is worse
| than people who think they are morally just.
|
| C.S. Lewis articulates this well.
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/19967-of-all-tyrannies-a-ty...
| RIMR wrote:
| Free speech includes calling your employer and telling them
| what you said online.
|
| Your employer doesn't have to listen or do anything about it.
| Should they choose to fire you, it's because whatever you
| said online was deemed worth firing you for.
|
| If the things you want to say online could get you fired,
| find a new job before opening your mouth. If you like your
| job, don't do things that will get you fired.
|
| Free speech doesn't mean that people have to be forced to
| tolerate what you say. If your words make it to your
| employer's ears, and they decide to terminate your
| employment, that's because your employer no longer views your
| employment as worthwhile, which is entirely their choice to
| make.
|
| Most of America is at-will employment. If you want to
| establish the right to work, fight for that - otherwise,
| accept that your employment comes with certain terms.
| goat_whisperer wrote:
| This is pretty rich. I'd argue the worst kind of censorship is
| getting murdered/disappeared by a totalitarian government for
| speaking out against them. Kind of like what happens to critics
| of Putin, Snowden's current patron. But hey, I guess getting some
| mean tweets directed at you is pretty bad too.
|
| Anyone appreciate the irony that Snowden's posts are probably
| monitored/vetted by the KGB?
| neonate wrote:
| https://outline.com/TeXdAx
| [deleted]
| type0 wrote:
| Here's a good and poignant clip about "mail snooping" from Little
| Murders (1971): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g16InStip5k
| overgard wrote:
| I think we need to let go of the idea that offending people is
| harmful. It's fine to take offense, we are all free to do that,
| but I don't think there should be any expectation that people do
| anything to avoid offending you other than practicing basic
| civility. You are likely not harmed just because I believe
| something different from you. Frankly, if you feel like you need
| a safe space to hide from ideas that you disagree with, the world
| is too sharp for you to handle.
| RIMR wrote:
| On that same note, if you decide to express offensive views,
| you should be willing to accept the social backlash for doing
| so.
|
| Your right to speak isn't infringed by allowing others to
| exercise their own right to speak against you.
|
| Letting go of the idea that offending people is harmful is
| probably a good thing, but you will also need to let go of the
| idea that people aren't permitted to be offended by what you
| say.
|
| If you cannot accept the consequence of offending others, you
| should keep your mouth shut. Free speech doesn't mean you get
| to say whatever you want and hear nothing in return.
| dooglius wrote:
| Snowden's publisher was sued and prevented from paying him for
| the work. What's the deal with the paid subscription option then?
| Will substack end up just pocketing the money, or is there some
| legal workaround? For that matter, could the government try and
| go after any paying subscribers?
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Stripe probably has better lawyers with more experience dealing
| with payments than the publisher. They might even be the same
| lawyers Substack has since they're both YC companies.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Not sure about substack, but usually the Fed won't chase small
| time subscribers. They are more likely to yank the money at the
| payment processor.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| This is why I delete all my old tweets, posts and comments on all
| sites with a passing link to my actual profile.
|
| Nothing good has ever become of people's old tweets popping up
| years later. Ever.
|
| I think HN has the longest history of my comments, just because
| it's not possible to delete or anonymize comments without
| creating a bunch of throwaway accounts.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| "I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what
| makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn't
| believe anything."
|
| - David St. Hubbins
| zuminator wrote:
| In one sense, I'd argue that the feeling of censorship is
| misguided. People are more free to communicate now with a larger
| audience than ever before in history. Before if you had something
| controversial to say, unless you were an extremely well-known
| academic or politician, it didn't get any further than your
| barstool or bridge club. Now your thoughts can be instantly
| transmitted to an audience of literally millions. Ideas are being
| hyper-amplified, not hyper-suppressed.
|
| However, it comes with a catch. In pre-Internet days, when your
| verbal blurts potentially reached dozens, you felt fairly free
| and unimpeded to reach the limits of your communication bubble,
| tiny as it was. Even if you were roundly condemned, the area of
| effect was likely small and the duration transitory. Now that
| your verbal blurts can reach millions, so many more people can
| take issue with your words, and they remain part of your dreaded
| "permanent record" forever. Consequently the stakes have become
| much higher. Speech doesn't feel free and unimpeded, even though
| in practice structural impediments have been greatly reduced.
|
| It seems to me unfortunately that the lowering of structural
| impediments to communication ineluctably goes hand in hand with
| the raising of social impediments. People are becoming cautious
| because we simply can't take for granted that any speech we
| generate will stay safely within its intended audience. Private
| emails can be dredged up years later. Screenshots can be taken
| without our knowledge. Phones can record videos of us saying and
| doing things we thought were personal and confidential.
| Information just wanted to be free, and got its wish, but it's
| turned people into prisoners in a panopticon. My point being,
| these are two sides of the same coin. Blaming "Marxism" or
| "cancel culture" and the like isn't going to change that fact.
| raclage wrote:
| I think this is a good analysis and I think too few people
| consider it this way. I'm not convinced that changes in culture
| are driving this as much as changes in how information is
| shared and spread and I'm disappointed how few people, even on
| Hacker News, seem interested in this angle.
| ckemere wrote:
| When I think back to the me of my teenage years or early
| twenties, I recognize that I had many strong beliefs that were
| probably wrong. I think that modern requirements of self-
| censorship have at least one really valuable outcome. They force
| people (with jobs, reputations, etc) to think carefully before
| posting online. I suspect that many people may be like me - they
| are hesitant to click "add comment" not out of fear of having a
| mob come after them, but rather because (a) they have realized
| that their own current opinions may be wrong, and recognize that
| there is harm that comes from an abundance of wrong opinions or
| (b) the cost in time of careful self-editing is too high. Maybe
| the author of this piece would argue that this is a bad thing,
| but my impression is that it's almost universally the case that
| if you can't be careful in speaking/writing there will usually be
| less harm from silence than from blurting out whatever comes to
| mind immediately.
| overgard wrote:
| Conversely though, if you're afraid to express an opinion that
| may be incorrect, then you're likely to hold that opinion much
| longer because nobody will be there to tell you you're wrong.
| waterhouse wrote:
| There are plenty of people that cheerfully post extreme
| opinions, even under their own names on Facebook. I get the
| impression that these people are some combination of:
| reckless/impulsive, in a social bubble, "got nothing to lose",
| or not very careful thinkers. I think that the effect of more
| careful and cautious thinkers self-selecting out of the
| conversation is often just to make the conversation dominated
| by the above sorts of people, and I don't think that's an
| improvement.
| haecceity wrote:
| Free Snowden. Free Hong Kong. Why do we care more about Hong Kong
| than Snowden? Snowden needs to work on his marketing.
| thekyle wrote:
| > Why do we care more about Hong Kong than Snowden?
|
| Well, Hong Kong is an entire city of people, while Snowden is
| just one guy.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Are you seriously asking why we care about 7.5 million people
| more than we care about one person?
| runbathtime wrote:
| We can't say the truth/opinion about certain topics because it
| will offend certain people and the mob will exert its power to
| take something from you by threatening you or an employer.
|
| Could it be considered blackmail to get someone fired from their
| job for outing something they said to an employer?
| captainoats wrote:
| Blackmail as a crime requires the blackmailer trying to get
| money or something of value out of their victim to prevent them
| from exposing some sensitive information. Would be interesting
| if someone could argue the outcome of cancelling someone fell
| within that definition.
| jfengel wrote:
| The most dangerous censorship is the one that is happening to
| you.
|
| We used to have a policy literally called "Don't Tell" in the US.
| People who "told" (or were outed) were fired... assuming they
| weren't killed for it, by somebody who would claim that they
| "panicked" (a defense still legal in 38 states[1]). That wasn't
| the most dangerous censorship.
|
| Women are commonly told that if they wear the wrong thing, then
| they deserve to be raped. Clothes are a form of self-expression
| -- but shutting that up isn't the most dangerous censorship.
|
| A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist was denied tenure because one
| donor didn't like what she said. But that's not the most
| dangerous censorship.
|
| We all watched a videotaped murder last year, and when the police
| were sent in to beat up peaceful protesters -- including
| journalists -- that wasn't the most dangerous censorship.
|
| A lot of censorship goes on, and has gone on. As far as I can
| tell, this one rises to the level of "most dangerous censorship"
| because he thinks it's the one that's happening to him. I hear
| not a peep about any of the others.
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/virginia-
| becomes-12t...
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