[HN Gopher] Heresy
___________________________________________________________________
Heresy
Author : prtkgpt
Score : 618 points
Date : 2022-04-10 14:25 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (paulgraham.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (paulgraham.com)
| tlogan wrote:
| By reading comments here it seems like racists and sexists think
| this blog is written with intent to support their agendas.
|
| I wish PG clearly spell out that is not ok to say that other
| people are less of a human. And with "heresy" he meant "vax
| mandates", "gun control" and other general issues.
|
| I'm ok dicusssing gun control, taxes, etc. but I (and anybody I
| know) are really not ok when somebody says "evolution does not
| end at neck".
| morelisp wrote:
| > I (and anybody I know) are really not ok when somebody says
| "evolution does not end at neck".
|
| Given how often Claire Lehmann and her coterie show up as a
| reviewer of his essays and their Twitter interactions with
| Graham, it's easy to figure out he's talking about exactly such
| a statement.
| tlogan wrote:
| And Claire Lehmann seems to be anti-gay and anti-transgender?
|
| I was not aware who that person was but by reading her blog
| posts it seems to be way too anti-gay and racist to be
| considered serious.
| b0rsuk wrote:
| honkycat wrote:
| This is pathetic. Why is multi-millionare Paul Graham bothering
| to write trite generalizations about "the left's cancel culture?"
| It is boring and tired no matter now pretentiously you dress it
| up. At lest Tucker Carlson knows how to deliver the goods in less
| than 500 words.
|
| And I'm sorry but: what specific opinions does this guy hold that
| he is so angry about? It feels dishonest to whine like this
| without expressing any of the heresy himself.
|
| Also, it isn't "cancel culture" if your belief system is trying
| to dispossess and devalue people I care about. It is self
| defense. 30 years ago you could wear blackface and speak open
| hatred towards non-binary people. I think it is a good thing we
| don't tolerate hate anymore. Apparently Paul Graham disagrees.
|
| > For example, when someone calls a statement "x-ist," they're
| also implicitly saying that this is the end of the discussion.
|
| I can't think of the last time a thing like this happened to me.
| I seriously doubt it has ever happened to Paul Graham outside of
| social media. If you are being kind and honest, I can guarantee
| someone will be interested in having a conversation with you
| about the subject. Unless they are an asshole.
|
| I get the feeling Paul is main-lining Fox News and not actually
| having discussions with that many people. The TV man is making
| him angry about dumb culture war issues.
|
| I've spoken before about how I feel the left can have shitty
| priorities and be extremely whiny. But here is the thing:
|
| There are a lot of mentally ill people on social media who do
| nothing but harass and terrorize others based on their narrow
| world-view. This happens on both the left AND the right. It is
| impossible to know if these people are acting in good faith, or
| trying to give the left/right a bad name by being annoying and
| reactionary.
|
| Every time you see someone say something controversial, they
| complain about "death threats on social media." While that IS
| vile and disgusting, it happens all the time. Every time. You can
| get death threats for saying Super Mario World is overrated.
|
| Why are we still taking these pathetic social media people
| seriously?
|
| Answer: Because they are a useful tool for the opposite side to
| use as a cudgel to while about "cancel culture."
|
| You don't need a straw man anymore. You can always find an idiot
| or crazy person to represent an insane world-view and present it
| as if this person is The Pope of Leftists/Conservatives.
|
| Candice Owens is a great example. She doesn't exist for
| CONSERVATIVES. Sure, they like her ( maybe ), but that isn't why
| she is famous. Her job is to have reactionary takes that gets
| picked up by centrist / left leaning orgs so the TV man can make
| the TV viewers angry.
|
| "Cancel culture" is a TV show that has been doing nothing but re-
| runs since the 80s when it was called "political correctness."
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Graham has forgotten his own essays if he thinks that this is a
| rebirth.
|
| "What you can't say" [http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html] is one
| of the first of his essays I ever read. It eventually directed me
| to this site.
|
| At the time, I thought it was brilliant. 18 years on, I think
| it's a good piece of writing but he's only got half the story.
| Sadly, today's essay suggest to me he hasn't found the other half
| in the intervening nearly two decades.
|
| Taboo is a powerful tool. Some taboos, to be sure, outlive their
| usefulness. But some compress lifetimes of experience into easily
| remembered lessons for people who have not yet had that
| experience so that we can ever progress... If every generation
| has to keep relearning the same lessons over and over, there's no
| time for more.
|
| The counterweight to the philosophy Graham is espousing here is
| this one (https://www.ted.com/talks/ernesto_sirolli_want_to_help_
| someo...). A taboo is a social analogy to a fence. Someone built
| it at some point for a reason. That reason might be gone, in
| which case the fence is unnecessary. But if you're going to tear
| down a fence, understand why it's there.
|
| 18 years on, I don't think Paul is wrong, but the repeated
| mistake I see people in my field make is assuming that they're
| the smartest person in the room when they encounter a heresy or
| taboo and falling right into the consequence that taboo was
| intended to protect against.
| nitrogen wrote:
| _smartest person in the room ... falling right into the
| consequence that taboo was intended to protect against._
|
| I think you've made an interesting argument, but isn't this
| evidence that the taboo mechanism is failing at its job and
| needs to be replaced with something better?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Every system has weaknesses.
|
| The advantage to the taboo system is that if it's the smart
| folk who are getting themselves into sticky situations
| jumping fences, at least they're smart enough to have a fair
| shot at getting out.
|
| Anything we replace it with needs to maintain the feature of
| protecting the most vulnerable... Taboos have the advantage
| of being simple, so you don't _have_ to be smart to adhere to
| them.
| kijin wrote:
| Graham didn't say it's a "recent" rebirth in the sense that we
| often use that word in the technology sector. It's "recent" in
| the sense that historians use it, i.e. sometime in the last
| generation or two. In TFA he places the cultural shift
| somewhere in the late 80s, long before his 2004 essay on the
| matter.
|
| I've read both essays and it seems that Graham's opinion on the
| topic hasn't changed much over the last 18 years. We can
| probably all guess which "recent" event prompted him to revisit
| the topic, whether we agree with him or not.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| Sorry, can't guess, not in the US. Care to enlighten us?
| Koshkin wrote:
| > _Graham has forgotten his own_
|
| "If a person is not a liberal when he is twenty, he has no
| heart; if he is not a conservative when he is forty, he has no
| head."
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I've heard that, but it doesn't apply here... Graham's
| position doesn't appear to have changed. Indeed, he seems to
| be retreading old ground like he forgot he wrote the other
| essay.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've also noticed that these things are taking on the aspects of
| religion, i.e. they are faith-based.
| pkulak wrote:
| When you say or do socially unacceptable things, there can be
| consequences. Is that "heresy"? I always associated that word
| with religion, myself, but it's interesting that religion is so
| out of favor right now that you can use it as a comparison to
| argue that any action not explicitly illegal should be free of
| negative consequence.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > Is that "heresy"?
|
| Depends on whether you get put to the stake for this socially
| unacceptable thing.
|
| At some point it was socially unacceptable/heresy for a woman
| to float when thrown in a pond.
| evocatus wrote:
| Let me dust off my copy of the Malleus Maleficarum.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Yes, heresy by definition is an opinion that is deemed socially
| unacceptable.
| pkulak wrote:
| Not any definitions I can find:
|
| > belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious
| (especially Christian) doctrine.
| skellington wrote:
| It doesn't require a great intellectual jump to see how the
| word 'heresy' which has a tradition of being applied
| towards organized religion is an appropriate description of
| people that behave in a religious way in general.
|
| Religion is just a belief system. So is Marxism.
| Libertarianism. Etc.
| pkulak wrote:
| > Religion is just a belief system.
|
| Hard disagree. I see this idea a lot, and it drives me
| nuts. This is how you get to silly takes like "atheism is
| just another religion", "science is just another
| religion", and all that. I get that religion can be hard
| to nail down (belief without evidence maybe?), but it's
| no use just giving up and defining it so broadly that it
| means nothing.
| Supermancho wrote:
| > "science is just another religion",
|
| This does not broaden the concept of religion, but
| narrows the idea of science as something sacrosanct
| (ironically).
|
| There is a belief that the scientific methodology will
| lead to truth. This is the same as any other religion who
| is steeped in ceremonial practices. The issue of how
| practically applicable and successful at producing
| models, science has been, is incidental. As a religion,
| the concepts fit together nicely.
| Koshkin wrote:
| > _There is a belief that the scientific methodology will
| lead to truth._
|
| Except scientists themselves do not espouse such belief.
| They _know_ what they know, and also they know what they
| don 't know; the scientific methology, too, is also based
| on knowledge; there is no place for "belief" in
| scientific research.
|
| When a scientist puts forward a hypothesis, which is not,
| strictly speaking, knowledge (yet), it does not mean that
| they "believe" in it, either; it's remains just that - a
| hypothesis, which gets thrown away as soon as it is
| disproven.
|
| One could argue that knowledge requires some kind of
| faith - you have to _believe_ that you know something
| (while in reality you may or may not); but much of the
| knowlege we possess is "hard knowledge" - the kind that
| prevents us from taking actions that would definitely
| hurt us, for example; scientific knowledge is just as
| "hard," and so is the scientific method.
| geodel wrote:
| > belief without evidence maybe?
|
| Huh, "religious" people also like give plenty of evidence
| before they burn/shun/deplatform anyone. Evidence can be
| a thing whatever mob tries to enforce. Main thing is
| people look evidence in support and not contrary to their
| beliefs.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| Religion isn't out of favour. We are currently in one of the
| most religious periods of human history but the gods and
| authorities have just changed.
| frazbin wrote:
| This is a crappy hot take. Monetary and labor contributions
| to religious endeavors are way down and have been for a
| while. I understand the desire to call any strongly held
| organized belief 'religion' but you're misrepresenting most
| of human history when you do so.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| tedivm wrote:
| This thing where people want to say horrible things without
| consequence is just so weird. I have the right to judge your
| statements just as much as you have a right to say them. I have
| the right to leave jobs when it turns out the people working
| there hate people like me, and companies have the right to hire
| people who aren't going to alienate future potential employees.
|
| When people bring up posts like this they never say what the
| "heresies" are. People aren't getting "cancelled" for their takes
| on taxes. People aren't getting fired for picking nomad over
| kubernetes. People are getting called out for denying the
| existence of people who aren't like them. When someone gets fired
| for, as an example, purposefully misgendering their colleagues-
| that isn't getting fired for having a bad opinion, that's being
| fired for making a hostile work environment.
|
| What's always interesting to me is that these "free speech
| absolutists" are explicitly calling out the left here, when the
| right is the one passing "don't say gay" legislation and refusing
| to allow trans children the healthcare needed to save their
| lives. The right is also kicking everyone out of their party who
| doesn't bow before Trump. To say that the left is creating
| heresies while ignoring that the right is literally creating new
| dogma is just delusional to me.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid
| concept. Does that make for a hostile work environment or "deny
| the existence" of anyone? I submit to you that the answer is
| no, except for die-hard adherents of the new ideology. Well,
| that simply isn't my religion, and I resent attempts to force
| it on me.
| eganist wrote:
| > Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid
| concept. Does that make for a hostile work environment or
| "deny the existence" of anyone? I submit to you that the
| answer is no, except for die-hard adherents of the new
| ideology. Well, that simply isn't my religion, and I resent
| attempts to force it on me.
|
| Here's the question:
|
| Are you tolerant of people who do? Or do you make the lives
| of those people (who viscerally feel their gender identity to
| be true) more difficult than those who share your belief?
|
| The line is crossed with the latter.
| kijin wrote:
| The latter is a fairly broad concept with multiple shades
| and blurry lines within. Which is why people with good
| intentions can still disagree badly on whether something
| someone did was okay or not.
|
| Has GP crossed the line merely by expressing his/her/their
| opinion? This probably depends on his/her/their social
| status as well. The CEO of a company saying something in an
| official meeting carries a different weight for all
| employees than some random employee saying the same thing.
|
| Or does GP need to say or do something personal to someone
| in order to be considered to have crossed the line? Be
| careful there: add too many constraints and we will end up
| giving a free pass to people who genuinely offend and cause
| serious discomfort to those around them.
|
| These are the kinds of issues about which we as a society
| need to have reasonable discussions and make consensus-
| building efforts, but it all descends into name-calling too
| soon.
| mcronce wrote:
| Yes, it does. You don't get to decide for other people who or
| what they are.
| 5560675260 wrote:
| But I do decide how I view people and what kind of
| identities I construct for them in my mind.
| mcronce wrote:
| You have every right to think whatever you want. You,
| again, don't get to decide for them who/what they are.
| [deleted]
| pjbeam wrote:
| But other people get to demand positive affirmation? This
| doesn't sit right.
| ruined wrote:
| you wouldn't consider it "positive affirmation" of most
| people to simply accept the name and gender they provide,
| it is simply the bare minimum for normal interaction.
|
| why do you consider it beyond reasonable accommodation
| for some people? do you think you know some deeper truth
| about these other people than they know about themselves?
| why do you think you can reliably identify that case?
| couldn't you simply leave them alone, and not make a big
| deal out of it?
|
| if you think it doesn't matter, prove it. refuse to
| recognize _anyone 's_ identity. start misgendering and
| misnaming people you wouldn't do that to before. see how
| far that gets you.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > do you think you know some deeper truth about these
| other people than they know about themselves? why do you
| think you can reliably identify that case?
|
| I think the debate is less about what someone's inner
| life is like, and more about whether gender words (like
| man, woman etc) refer to inner feelings or to someone's
| physical sex. Historically they have been used to refer
| to both, and many people. use their own gender label to
| refer to their physical sex rather than any inner
| feelings.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| Everyone demands positive affirmation... that's a nothing
| burger comment mate.
| pjbeam wrote:
| Big difference between "yes I'll call you Sarah" and
| "trans women are women".
| tomrod wrote:
| Elaborate?
| eadmund wrote:
| > You don't get to decide for other people who or what they
| are.
|
| Yeah, but neither do they. There is such a thing as
| objective truth. I have no right to be treated as four-
| legged, because _I do not have four legs_. Neither can I
| claim a right to be treated as the Queen of Englang,
| because _I am not the queen of England_. Nor do I have a
| right to be treated as a member of the opposite sex
| _because I am not in fact a member of the opposite sex_.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I agree with this, but I do think that there is a genuine
| debate to had about:
|
| 1. Whether people of different sexes ever ought to be
| treated differently (and if so, in which circumstances).
|
| 2. Whether people of different gender identities ever
| ought to be treated differently (and if so, in which
| circumstances).
|
| My own view is that in the vast majority of cases we
| shouldn't be treating people differently on the basis of
| _either_ sex or gender identity, and that identity-based
| gender and sex-based gender are about as bad as each
| other!
| Aeolun wrote:
| > because I am not in fact a member of the opposite sex
|
| Does this change when it legally changes? Or does the
| gender you were born with forever stay the same?
| samatman wrote:
| In many normal circumstances, I am entitled to disagree
| with people about who or what they are.
|
| Someone might think they're charming, and I might find them
| a great bore.
|
| It's obvious in this example that equivocating that with
| deciding _for that person_ , anything at all, is asinine.
|
| Most social settings, and all professional ones, require
| that I be more polite to this "charming" person than I
| would otherwise be inclined to, given my own feelings on
| that subject.
|
| There is something to be learned here.
| edent wrote:
| That's fine. You are welcome to believe that.
|
| What you can't do is harass people, deny them service, or
| make their lives a misery.
|
| No one is forcing you to believe in something. They're asking
| you not to be an arsehole about something which doesn't
| affect your life.
| SaintGhurka wrote:
| >> No one is forcing you to believe in something.
|
| But they are forcing you to pretend to believe in something
| by dictating what you are allowed to say about it.
| fosefx wrote:
| It does not really matter what your stance on that topic is.
| If your co-workers don't what to be called a certain way,
| just respect that. E.g. I don't want to be called by my full
| first name but rather a short version of it. If you
| deliberately disrespect my request that is simply hostile.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Somehow Gen Z gets a free pass to refer to everyone as
| they, regardless of that fact that some of us would rather
| not be referred to that way.
|
| The norms are not as straightforward as you claim.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I have taken to referring to everyone as "they". It's
| much easier than trying to remember individual pronouns
| for everyone. It doesn't really seem reasonable to me for
| people to be bothered by this. Your view is that people
| must refer to your gender when speaking about you?
| bradleyjg wrote:
| It doesn't seem reasonable to me for people to get
| offended if I use the pronouns that best match the gender
| presentation I see. This is what English speakers have
| been doing since there have been English speakers.
|
| But there are people out there that tell me it is
| bothersome. Out of respect, I modify how I speak and
| write. Why shouldn't I get the same courtesy?
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> I have taken to referring to everyone as "they". It's
| much easier than trying to remember individual pronouns
| for everyone. It doesn't really seem reasonable to me for
| people to be bothered by this. Your view is that people
| must refer to your gender when speaking about you?
|
| What is the point of specifying pronouns then? Isn't this
| just a lazy form of misgendering?
|
| Instead of using someone's name you could just refer to
| everyone as "Hey You", but that seems discourteous and
| disrespectful. Why not just use their preferred name and
| pronouns?
| nicoburns wrote:
| > Isn't this just a lazy form of misgendering?
|
| No, because "they" isn't gender-specific. It's not
| referring to someone by the wrong gender, it's not
| referring to them by their gender at all.
|
| > What is the point of specifying pronouns then?
|
| I'd argue that there probably isn't much point. Why do we
| refer to people by their gender? No idea. It doesn't make
| any sense to me.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| _No, because "they" isn't gender-specific._
|
| When used as a singular it's the pronoun for people that
| identify as non binary. You are absolutely misgendering
| people but you get a free pass because contra fosefx this
| whole pronoun thing is about power and who has it, rather
| than universal respect.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> this whole pronoun thing is about power and who has
| it, rather than universal respect.
|
| That is my point.
|
| If I provide my name and preferred pronouns, if you
| respect me and my wishes, why not use my name and
| preferred pronouns when addressing me or referring to me?
|
| Using "they" when I don't want it as a pronoun is
| misgendering.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > When used as a singular it's the pronoun for people
| that identify as non binary.
|
| It can be used for this, but it's also used for someone
| of indeterminate gender or if you simply don't want to
| mention their gender. For example:
|
| "Oooh, that's such a beautiful baby, are _they_ a boy or
| a girl "
|
| "Does your friend want to buy my phone? You said _they_
| were interested? "
| bradleyjg wrote:
| But I am not an unknown person. If you know who I am and
| you've had an opportunity to see my preferred pronouns
| but choose to disregard those preferences you've
| misgendered me the same as if you'd referred to a
| transwomen as he.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > you've misgendered me the same as if you'd referred to
| a transwomen as he.
|
| I think it's more analogous to referring to a transwoman
| as "they", which I also do. "They" does not gender you at
| all, so it can't misgender you. I don't think you (or
| anyone else be they cisgender or transgender) have a
| right be referred to by your gender, whether you prefer
| it or not. I think that's different to be referred to by
| a gender you consider worng. In that case someone is
| actively labelling you as a gender. By calling you "they"
| I'm saying I think you're genderless, whereas by calling
| someone "he" I think you are saying you think they're
| male.
|
| If you had a strong preference to be referred to by your
| gender then I probably would make an effort to do that,
| but I don't think you are owed that (to be honest I wish
| trans people weren't so hung up on pronouns too - I think
| it's silly to be so fussy about language - but I have
| seen cases where they're used maliciously so I can
| somewhat understand why they are).
| bradleyjg wrote:
| _I 'm saying I think you're genderless, whereas by
| calling someone "he" I think you are saying you think
| they're male._
|
| Right. As it turns out, I identify as male not
| genderless. But this is not something you are obligated
| to honor under threat of being fired for some reason.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Gah, typo. That was meant to to say I'm _not_ saying I
| think you're genderless.
| mcronce wrote:
| How is this a gen Z thing? Singular "they" has been
| around as a gender-neutral pronoun for, literally,
| hundreds of years.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| This is a commonly made point, but is misleading. The
| historical usage is for a hypothetical or unknown
| referent not a specific, known person.
|
| Furthermore, generic he has also been around for hundreds
| of years. So we should keep using that too, right?
| mcronce wrote:
| > This is a commonly made point, but is misleading. The
| historical usage is for a hypothetical or unknown
| referent not a specific, known person.
|
| This seems less like a material distinction and more like
| something that transphobic people would bring up to
| support their ideology.
|
| > Furthermore, generic he has also been around for
| hundreds of years. So we should keep using that too,
| right?
|
| My point was that it isn't new or somehow "a gen Z
| thing", not "all old things are good"
| bradleyjg wrote:
| _transphobic people transphobic people would bring up to
| support their ideology_
|
| No one has said anything about trans people, we were
| talking Gen z butchering the English language. Also, is
| it a disorder ("phobic") or an ideology? Or do you not
| understand that distinction either?
| tomrod wrote:
| It sure would be great if English could be simplified to
| remove gendered pronouns.
|
| In Tagalog, it/she/he is a simple word, "siya"
| (pronounced "sha" if said quickly).
| eppp wrote:
| How far does this extend in reasonableness though? If my
| co-worker asked me to refer to them as "your highness" for
| example?
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Has that ever happened? What is the point of this
| hypothetical?
| Aeolun wrote:
| I think the idea is that you do not believe your coworker
| to be royalty, in the same way you do not believe them to
| be male/female.
|
| Even if there is no harm in calling them 'your majesty'
| it doesn't feel right.
| eppp wrote:
| I think my point is more that there are tons of various
| requirements that people have that are at best
| unreasonable and as a society we don't indulge every
| request that people make. One day someone comes in and
| says I must now refer to them as xe or emself after years
| of knowing them without mistake is not reasonable. I
| still refer to lots of women as their maiden names
| because that how I remember them. It isnt out of meanness
| or vitriol. That is just the label my brain still applies
| to them because I knew them for many years as that.
|
| I dont care if you are male or female or whatever you
| want to be. I just want everyone to be happy to the
| extent they can be, but be tolerant of those who remember
| you as you were to them as well. It isnt just a switch
| you can turn off instantly.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| _> One day someone comes in and says I must now refer to
| them as xe or emself after years of knowing them without
| mistake is not reasonable._
|
| This seems to be a common fear, but it's not rooted in
| reality. As long as you make a good faith effort, no one
| is going to get mad at you for messing up their pronouns.
| You might get corrected; just apologize and move on. It's
| not a big deal.
|
| If someone suspects you're messing up in _bad_ faith,
| they might be harsher with you. Which is, I think,
| entirely reasonable.
|
| Maybe you have friends who wrongly assume bad faith when
| you mess up. I've never seen that happen, but that's not
| to say it doesn't! You could have some shitty friends who
| don't give you the benefit of the doubt. But comments
| like that "your highness" hypothetical really aren't
| doing you any favors.
|
| (People on Twitter probably assume drive-by repliers are
| speaking in bad faith by default; that is, unfortunately,
| just a feature of the Internet)
| jleyank wrote:
| s/gender/religious/g and see how well things go down.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Difference being that you cannot see what someone's
| religion is, nor are there only two variations.
| jleyank wrote:
| Often you can see the religion, or at least the outward
| sign. This is the basis for laws about large-scale
| religious display such as head scarves, turbans, ... It
| seems that groups of people don't like seeing differences
| no matter what they are.
| ryanobjc wrote:
| So, your new colleague says their name is Richard. You decide
| it's hilarious to call him "dick" and refuse to stop even
| after he's asked you multiple times.
|
| Pronouns aren't any different - if you had a masculine
| looking female coworker at work - say she was into
| bodybuilding - and you keeping calling her "he" as a
| "joke"... persisting when you were asked not to, by your
| boss, by hr perhaps even. What kind of person are you being
| here?
|
| You can not believe in gender identity, I don't care. But be
| respectful to your colleagues at work. Is that so much to ask
| for? To literally not be as asshole? Is that what you're
| defending - your right to be a flaming asshole to your
| coworkers without any consequence??
| pjbeam wrote:
| You've picked the worst interpretation of the above.
| Addressing people how they'd like to be addressed is basic
| decency. Demands for affirmation beyond this is how I read
| the comment you're replying to.
| ryanobjc wrote:
| The poster perhaps should have noted how they intended on
| treating their coworkers. Instead we are left to infer
| that their intent was to lean into their ideology against
| basic decency.
|
| And in the end this is what the "culture wars" are about:
| the right to not be decent to certain people.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I think the problem is more in people automatically
| assuming the worst possible interpretation of any remark
| as soon as it is about race/religion/gender.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| Your supposition that it does not make for a hostile work
| environment is a privilege you should examine.
| ratww wrote:
| It depends.
|
| I know people who thinks like you, but they don't shut the
| fuck about these things, and take every possible the
| opportunity to proselytise about it.
|
| I've seen it happening in workplaces, for example. But also
| parties, random people on the street.
|
| Not shutting the fuck about it is fucking annoying and if
| it's in the workplace I'll be complaining the fuck about it
| until you stop and/or looking for another job.
|
| Now, I'm a 100% neutral part on this, and even me don't wanna
| hear about your bullshit. Imagine now if you were to use this
| to actively hurt people.
| em-bee wrote:
| the question is how you go about it.
|
| what do you do when you are asked to respect someone else's
| choice of gender identity? do you go along with it, while
| quietly keeping your own opinion? or do you complain and
| purposefully ignore their request? or maybe do something else
| entirely? how do you keep a friendly work environment when
| the mere questioning of someones gender identity can be
| considered hostile?
|
| you ask that your rejection of the idea is considered not
| hostile, yet you consider the enforcement of rules of
| interaction as something hostile.
| tomrod wrote:
| > Here's one: I don't believe that gender identity is a valid
| concept
|
| One funny thing I learned from studying high demand
| religions: you don't have to believe something for it to be
| true. It's existence is entirely orthogonal to a person's
| opinion.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I think Graham's essay conflates two phenomenon when he
| describes heresy as thought that people equate to a crime. In
| fairness to him, societies have conflated them also. But if
| we're talking about modern American society, they are
| fundamentally different but can smell the same to somebody who
| doesn't see the distinction.
|
| A heresy is a position that damages trust. When someone
| publicly espouses a heretical position, they damage other
| people's trust in them to make good decisions and have good
| judgment. Now, you can also breach trust via committing a
| crime, so the overlap is clear. But nobody is going to jail for
| their heretical opinions. They _can_ have privileges revoked or
| be passed over for promotion or advancement, but that 's how
| organizing people to do hard things has always worked. Somebody
| who says women don't belong in space is going to end up as
| unqualified to be director of NASA as somebody who
| fundamentally and with great conviction mis-states the tyranny
| of the rocket equation. Both mark the person as a poor fit for
| a high-trust job were there opinion on those topics matters.
|
| And people who believe themselves against "canceling" seem to
| often be in agreement even if they don't realize it of
| themselves. A talk was famously pulled from a security
| conference several years back because after the talk, people
| concluded that the speaker didn't know what they were talking
| about. The difference in opinion is on what constitutes a
| breach of trust, not on whether people can respond to such
| breaches by routing around other people.
| skibob1027 wrote:
| "But nobody is going to jail for their heretical opinions."
|
| This is not true. You don't have to look hard for examples of
| people being jailed in the US for holding unorthodox
| positions.
|
| Defining heresy as "a position they damages trust," implies
| that an accused heretic is at fault for believing something
| that "damages trust." That is entirely subjective relative to
| the one whose trust was damaged.
|
| Society has claimed heresy to suppress political and
| religious opponents since the beginning of human history. We
| have also shown a track record of being very wrong with
| regard to how we define heresy in the past.
|
| Why should we believe that we are any better than our
| ancestors on this front?
| Karunamon wrote:
| > _This is not true. You don't have to look hard for
| examples of people being jailed in the US for holding
| unorthodox positions._
|
| This rings alarm bells for me. Could you give an example of
| someone jailed in the US for the mere holding of an
| unorthodox position, rather than a concrete action, in the
| last, say, 30 years?
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> nobody is going to jail for their heretical opinions. They
| can have privileges revoked or be passed over for promotion
| or advancement, but that's how organizing people to do hard
| things has always worked.
|
| That's because no trials are held in modern mob justice for
| heretics. The mob justice punishments are more like
| lynchings.
|
| Medieval heretics could at least expect a "witch hunt"-style
| trial. The monarchy or church was the authority and there was
| a semblance of rule of law.
|
| Modern heretics face mob justice by self-appointed vigilantes
| and mob justice punishments. The lack of due process is
| concerning.
| confidantlake wrote:
| They are not like lynchings in one pretty fundamental way,
| ie they are not being lynched.
| lowkey_ wrote:
| > People are getting called out for denying the existence of
| people who aren't like them.
|
| I see this a lot and it makes no sense to me. What does it mean
| to deny the existence of someone? To pretend they do not exist?
|
| People who make that comment usually seem to be falling into a
| trap of viewing a disagreement or difference in opinion as
| something much more extreme.
| malnourish wrote:
| Take this statement: "all trans people are misgendering
| themselves and _should_ conform to the gender assigned to
| them based on the sexual organs they had at birth".
|
| This effectively denies the existence of people who believe
| or desire to be their non-assigned gender. The statement
| tells trans people that in the eyes of the speaker, their
| personal identity is a fabrication.
| trash99 wrote:
| ekianjo wrote:
| > This thing where people want to say horrible things without
| consequence is just so weird.
|
| Define horrible.
| Eli_Beeblebrox wrote:
| >"don't say gay" legislation
|
| Read the bill and quote to me which part forbids any kind of
| speech. You won't, because you can't. It doesn't. The bill
| would prevent teachers from keeping secrets about children from
| their parents. It enforces _more_ speech, not less.
|
| >refusing to allow trans children the right to healthcare
| needed to save their lives
|
| First of all, there's conflicting evidence about this. Those
| who medically transition are more likely to self-delete than
| those who do not according to the National Center For
| Transgender Equality:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20150213054306/http:/transequali...
|
| By DSM IV standards, stats for child trans desistance show
| anywhere from 65% to 94% of children grow out of it:
| https://www.statsforgender.org/desistance/
|
| More modern data is needed but research into desistance is
| furiously suppressed and discredited:
| https://4thwavenow.com/tag/transgender-desistance/
|
| And second of all, how is that a free speech issue?
|
| >The right is also kicking everyone out of their party who
| doesn't bow before Trump
|
| You aren't paying attention to the right and it shows. This
| just isn't happening, by any metric. McConnell for instance, is
| polling as low as Biden among the right in spite of swearing
| he'll support Trump in 2024. He's been labelled a globalist by
| the right, and his sister in law's husband has been
| photographed with Xi Jinping. There's no coming back from that.
| Kasich vetoed the Heartbeat Bill, voted to increase spending,
| and took on a strong anti-gun stance before losing support.
| Christie banned conversion therapy for minors, is wishy washy
| on gun control, and supported Obamacare. Republicans don't just
| magically lose their base for opposing Trump. It takes a
| multitude of sins for Republican voters to hate a Republican
| politician.
| pikma wrote:
| Can you explain what it means to "deny the existence" of
| someone? I see this expression often, but I'm genuinely puzzled
| by what it means in practice.
|
| I agree with you that "purposely misgendering one's colleagues"
| should lead to firing, but I think this article isn't about
| that. It's about people who are tolerant of others and in
| general try to be nice people, but just disagree about certain
| things - for example, how criminal transgenders should be
| incarcerated, or whether affirmative action is a good way to
| help disadvantaged people.
| tedivm wrote:
| >I agree with you that "purposely misgendering one's
| colleagues" should lead to firing, but I think this article
| isn't about that.
|
| I do think the article is about that. I think it was
| purposefully left vague so he could take advantage of people
| giving the benefit of the doubt. I don't think people's
| pronouns should be up for debate, and I believe PG does.
| tlogan wrote:
| This is the problem of this "free speech". They think it is
| "free speechl to call one "he" even if that one prefers
| being called "she".
|
| Anyway, maybe GP is talking about other "heresies".
| Ste_Evans wrote:
| eadmund wrote:
| nicoburns wrote:
| You're simply using a completely different concept of
| gender to this person. I'd argue that not only do you both
| have reasonable points of view, your assertions don't
| actually conflict! You can both be correct.
|
| I don't think it is reasonable for you to hold that your
| definition of gender is the only correct one.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Society deems it so? If you were of the opinion you were a
| cat the diagnosis would be that you are delusional.
|
| Still, if there is no other negative effects, then
| accepting them as a different gender seems like a simple
| way to 'heal' the condition. Certainly in the absence of a
| way to fix it in the other direction.
|
| I don't think a lot of people would be well served by
| accepting that someone is a cat.
| vecplane wrote:
| It is not compassion to lie to people and pretend they
| are what they are not.
|
| Gender dysphoria is real, social contagion is real, and
| we shouldn't accept or embrace a self-destructive
| ideology that radically derails the lives of teenagers
| and younger.
|
| Adults can behave however they want, but it should be
| considered child abuse to foster transgenderism and
| transsexuality in minors.
| vecplane wrote:
| UncleMeat wrote:
| You should be a kind person.
| vecplane wrote:
| It's kind to say the truth. It is unkind to go along with
| an obvious lie.
|
| The best outcome is when people overcome the dysphoria,
| not when we all pretend it's ok.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| If people don't perceive your actions as kind, can they
| actually be said to be kind?
|
| We observe much worse acute and long term outcomes,
| across a variety of dimensions, when transgender people
| are not permitted to transition.
|
| Homophobes insist that they are telling "the truth" when
| they insist that all gay people are going to hell and
| that marriage should not be allowed for gay people.
| Racists insist that they are telling "the truth" when
| they insist that black people are simply more violent
| than white people and that black people should be treated
| differently by the justice system. Sexists insist that
| they are telling "the truth' when they insist that women
| are not capable of holding positions of leadership in
| business or politics and that their role is only to raise
| children.
|
| I see no reason why transphobia would be different.
| vecplane wrote:
| I don't think any of those examples are good analogies.
| None of those involve 'pretending to believe obvious
| lies' or self-mutilation.
|
| The harm of social transition is relatively minor and
| easily reversible. It's not as concerning, but it still
| perpetuates the phenomenon as 'tolerable'.
|
| The harm of physical transition is permanent and
| devastating. We should consider the precautionary
| principle when engaging in irreversible actions.
|
| Puberty blockers, sex hormones, mastectomies, and the
| rest are not compassionate treatments for dysphoric
| youths, but children are being fast-tracked into these
| decisions without much thought for how likely they'll be
| to regret it. Certainly many do, and it's an awful
| tragedy.
|
| As all humans have before two seconds ago, we should let
| children grow into their bodies, and then they can make
| better-informed decisions as adults.
|
| My main point being: this stuff is absolutely
| unacceptable for children, and adults are free to behave
| however they want, but I won't 'accept' it or go along
| with it.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| And I do think they are perfect analogies. I see zero of
| your concerns as any more valid than the ones in my post.
| The same "social contagion" arguments were used against
| gay people, women, and black people, to the same harmful
| effects.
|
| I'm asking you to be kind. I hope you understand why
| people perceive you as unkind.
| vecplane wrote:
| Your argument sounds like 'these ideas are wrong so yours
| is wrong too' without contending with the content of my
| arguments and examples.
|
| I'm totally willing to be kind and treat other people
| with respect. Never claimed otherwise.
|
| But I also hope people see the errors of their ways, how
| harmful it can be, and to not try to indulge children and
| teenagers who get caught up in it. Leave the kids alone.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| There are ample other spaces where people have contended
| with your precise arguments. I am not saying that you are
| wrong _because_ these other people are wrong. I am saying
| that, after evaluating your viewpoint, I find it to be
| equally as wrong as these other viewpoints.
|
| A large number of transgender people will find your
| viewpoint to be _fundamentally disrespectful_. It will
| not be possible for you to come across as respectful, no
| matter how much you insist on it. This is why I ask you
| to consider how the recipients of your words experience
| them as a better judge of whether you are behaving
| kindly.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| In case anyone is genuinely confused: this is the kind of
| bigotry people expect to get away with sans consequence,
| and complain about "heresy" when they're called out on it.
| throwaway385746 wrote:
| Somewhere in the last 10 years a norm emerged that
| transgender identity is sacrosanct and its doubters are
| bigots, but transracial identity is a lie and people like
| Rachel Dolezal are frauds.
|
| GP's brusque language aside, can there be any amount of
| uncertainty on either of these points? Doesn't it seem a
| bit arbitrary that these two new norms are opposite to
| each other?
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Even though gender and race are both social inventions,
| they're not really interchangeable like that.
|
| To cite one example: race is considered heritable, and
| there have historically been harsh consequences of that
| lineage. In the US, the one-drop rule ensured that anyone
| with even a single Black ancestor would be subject to the
| legal discrimination that status entailed (this is called
| "hypodescent"). So the idea of someone saying "I identify
| as Black" is... fraught, to say the least.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Exactly! And the fact that I found GP comment, which is
| discussing this in good faith flagged and dead, proves
| the point being made.
| pikma wrote:
| You can believe that gender is irrelevant and only sex
| matters, but you should still make an effort to be polite
| and nice to your coworkers - for example call them by the
| name they go for even if it is different from the one on
| their ID, use the pronouns that they prefer, etc.
|
| Of course, like all things related to politeness, there is
| no absolute rule - if I change my pronouns every week I
| shouldn't expect people to keep up. But it should not be
| surprising that you can be fired for not making a minimal
| effort to be nice to your colleagues.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > Can you explain what it means to "deny the existence" of
| someone?
|
| Here's an example:
|
| "There's no such thing as a trans person. Trans is not a real
| thing, it's a mental illness and a delusion that needs to be
| cured. "
|
| If you hear that and you are trans, then you are bound to
| feel like someone is denying you actually exist. Its a
| strange feeling that someone whose existence has always been
| validated by society cannot really relate to. I imagine
| that's why you are puzzled by its meaning.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| I mean that hypothetical argument doesn't really make
| sense. Are mental illnesses not real ? And shouldn't we try
| to cure these people, in the most extreme cases by sex
| change surgery + hormone therapy ? (Or what kind of cure
| would that be ?)
|
| (Is it more about denying trans people's suffering perhaps
| ?)
|
| I guess that this dismissal of mental illness (and here
| also of trans people) also comes from equating "anormal"
| with "bad". At least I can see where the conservatives are
| coming from with this, but I have much more trouble to
| understand it when progressives fall into this trap !
| ModernMech wrote:
| Just replace trans with gay. We've been through this
| whole thing before, and the only reason we are having
| this debate about trans people at all is because
| conservatives have so thoroughly lost the culture debate
| over gay rights, yet the animus that motivated the debate
| persists.
|
| But back then we heard all the same things. "Oh, we can't
| have gay men teaching young boys because they are sexual
| predators and they are trying to recruit our young
| children to be gay." Or that "being gay is a mental
| disorder that needs to be cleansed through re-education".
|
| It's just striking to me how similar the arguments are,
| right down to the legislating intimate space use like
| bathrooms and locker rooms, and the moral panic over
| children (who are yet again being used as moral shields).
| It used to be you couldn't even be gay in the military.
| Now they let gays in and it turned out to be not a big
| deal at all. But without missing a beat they've recycled
| the same baseless arguments but crossed out "gay" and
| filled in "trans", seemingly without any recognition or
| reflection about how badly their anti-gay arguments aged.
| rendang wrote:
| Interesting - I would never knowingly refer to someone by
| pronouns other than those which correspond with their birth
| sex, it would violate my conscience to do so. Obviously not a
| majority position in SV but also not an extremely rare
| position to hold in the world more largely. I suppose that
| means you would fire me and others of the same opinion if you
| had the chance.
|
| I don't know whether this is the kind of example Graham had
| in mind, but it does seem that the particular zeal that some
| have to exclude from normalcy even widely-held minority views
| is relatively unique to our time.
| chmod600 wrote:
| If it were only about a hostile work environment, it would only
| be about behavior/speech in the workplace that is not easily
| avoidable.
|
| But a lot of these heresies are about behavior/speech outside
| the workplace, or behavior/speech that you need to actively
| look for.
|
| So I don't buy the "hostile work environment" justification.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > What's always interesting to me is that these "free speech
| absolutists" are explicitly calling out the left here
|
| Looks like someone didnt understand the article, because PG
| directly addressed that point.
| chmod600 wrote:
| "This thing where people want to say horrible things without
| consequence is just so weird."
|
| It's really easy to think/say horrible things. The main defense
| humans have against it is following orthodoxy, which is a
| social construct that imperfectly represents historical
| knowledge about good and bad.
|
| If you think you are naturally good (whatever that means), you
| are wrong. If you think you are good because of your intellect,
| you're also wrong. It takes many generations to build up the
| kind of orthodoxy that keeps humans good. And the lessons
| behind it are too many to learn in a lifetime.
|
| So, we need to mostly follow orthodoxy, at least in our
| actions. But that poses an intellectual problem: orthodoxy is
| imperfect, and to discuss and advance it, or even understand it
| well, you have to challenge it. If merely by challenging it you
| transgress, then it will never be understood very well and
| certainly not advanced.
|
| Granted, there are good and bad places to challenge orthodoxy,
| and the workplace is usually a bad one. But sometimes orthodoxy
| changes very rapidly in certain areas, to the point where
| something orthodox ten years ago is firable today. That's not a
| good situation.
|
| Remember: gay marriage was illegal almost everywhere 20 years
| ago. Imagine the surprise to, say, a 60 year old, that
| "misgendering" (by using pronouns associated with one's
| biological sex) might be a firable offense today.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> orthodoxy, which is a social construct that imperfectly
| represents historical knowledge about good and bad.
|
| One issue is that there are multiple orthodoxies. Each human
| culture has its own orthodoxy which is reflected in the
| culture's norms and practices.
|
| >> there are good and bad places to challenge orthodoxy, and
| the workplace is usually a bad one. But sometimes orthodoxy
| changes very rapidly in certain areas, to the point where
| something orthodox ten years ago is firable today. That's not
| a good situation.
|
| When and why is it right or just to judge one culture against
| another?
|
| We can try to place ourselves in someone else's shoes, but it
| is very difficult to understand without having lived their
| lives and experienced it ourselves. Perhaps the best we can
| do is to be compassionate and tolerant of others who think or
| live differently than us. We can educate, persuade, and help,
| but condemning them and punishing them strikes me as unfair
| and perhaps unjust depending on the circumstances.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Does the right have hold of corporate culture however?
|
| I think the issue is the consequences of speech which are
| permissible themselves -- I think being shunned by a friendship
| group seems always permissible. Being marginalized in one's
| workplace, shunned by one's colleges, and so on -- this seems
| far less permissible.
|
| I dont think this is a strictly left/right issue; and what
| today is called "left" is rather a kinda of corporate politics
| --- "corporate correctness" rather than "political
| correctness". This is about embracing "diversity and equality"
| of your workplace identities (vs., diversity of skills; and
| equality of treatment, for example).
|
| I'd imagine if work/life were better seperated, and the
| workplace better managed, these issues would be felt less
| seriously.
|
| The question of "free speech" is a massive red-hearing.
| Everyone accepts some concequences to some speech in some
| situtations. The only useful conversation to have is: what
| concequences are permissible, and when.
|
| Presumably, likewise, no one believes _abitary ones, whenever_
| -- yet this seems to be the implied position of many who think
| you can just stop the argument at the point where some
| "anarchism of speech" is shown to fail. Nope.
| tedivm wrote:
| I think it's ridiculous to think the left has hold of
| corporate culture. I think a lot of different companies have
| a lot of different cultures, and I think for the majority of
| companies the right holds power. I think that tech companies
| are a major exception to this, in part because it seems that
| a much larger percentage of queer people are in tech (both
| directly and indirectly, via companies that support tech)-
| but if you pick any random company in the US you're going to
| find a fairly conservative culture.
|
| The only reason I brought up left versus right was because
| that's the reductionism PG resorted to here. I also think
| it's a bit more nuanced. I also think focusing on this being
| a free speech issue, as PG does, is a red herring for other
| cultural issues.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Yes, which is why i say "corporate correcntess" isnt
| actually leftwing. But I do think many self-describing
| "leftwing" people are actually, in this sense, just
| peddling a certain corporate respectability ideology. Their
| upper-middle class concerns of who's who in the elite
| culture, is more-or-less just using the trappings of
| leftwing thought to beat a path to the top. And
| corporations gladly play the same game as a branding
| exercise, today ran by the same upper-middle who
| delusionally think their use of "diversity" corresponds to
| something actually morally significant.
|
| As far as where this culture is present, at least: tech,
| academia, etc. Ie., the places where we do see this
| counter-reaction. Though the counter-reaction is dressed in
| the language of free speech -- I think its more just about
| the capture of corporate policy, in these industries, by a
| certain descendent of political correctness.
|
| People have to turn up to work in these industries, or
| otherwise participate in them, whilst holding their nose at
| this mawkish soapboxing display of which rich idiot is
| "changing the world" all the while those who are repulsed
| by this are ever-more seen as inherently immoral for not
| singing from the same hymm sheet.
|
| If we recast this whole issue as one where previously
| _political_ activity has spilled over into _most areas of
| life_ , such that many now cannot espcae it --- then we see
| what the problem is.
|
| It isnt free speech. Its the lack of quiet places. It's
| that if you want to work in these areas, you're bombarded
| with the loud noises of loud opinions that you can't
| escape.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| 1) Whenever people call it the "Don't Say Gay" bill, I ask them
| if they've read the text of the bill. So far it's like 0-8.
|
| 2) I think you're conflating two different groups of people to
| make your argument sound better. I don't like cancel culture
| and I don't like the Florida bill either. People aren't just
| "ignoring" it.
|
| 3) > denying the existence of people who aren't like them
|
| This is such a weird, vague statement and I have no idea what
| it means - which is great because it perfectly captures the mob
| mentality of the far-left cancel culture. The reason everyone
| is so afraid of it is because you never know exactly what you
| can say, and it changes by person by day.
|
| In my professional experience, even "acknowledging the
| existence" of trans people is a minefield. The term to describe
| someone who is transitioning has changed like four times in the
| past five years and using the outdated term is considered
| wildly offensive. Certain people think changes of pronouns
| should be handled differently and if you disagree with them you
| eventually get a meeting invite from your supervisor called
| "Discussion".
|
| Speaking of hostile work environments...
| ModernMech wrote:
| > The term to describe someone who is transitioning has
| changed like four times in the past five years and using the
| outdated term is considered wildly offensive.
|
| I understand the euphemism treadmill can be difficult, but
| understand why it exists: when people in a group use certain
| words to self identify, those words are then coopted by
| outsiders of the group to vilify insiders. Therefore the old
| self-identifying words are abandoned by insiders and left as
| markers of those outsiders who are attempting vilify them.
| Meanwhile new words of self identification are adopted by
| insiders that have no negative connotation.
|
| Take for instance people with mental disabilities. The words
| lunatic, insane, retarded, disabled, mentally disabled,
| special etc. have all been used to describe the same mental
| state, and have all been at times the "correct" way to refer
| to such people, and also the "insensitive" way to refer to
| such people. Calling someone "retarded" used to be clinical.
| Now you say "retarded" and it's a grave insult.
|
| This is just the price of diversity, and existing in a world
| where people want to use powerful words to shame and demean.
| Words have amazing power, and when they are wielded in evil
| ways you have no other choice but to abandon the word and
| move to a next one.
|
| This is why the N-word is so forbidden to say; Black
| Americans took a stand and said: "No more. We are reclaiming
| the power of this word, and you just can't use it anymore,
| period." It took a huge movement to make that social change,
| and it'll take the same similar movement to stop the
| euphemism treadmill for trans people.
|
| In the meantime, try to keep up. If you make a real effort
| people notice and they have tolerance for that. However if
| you make clear that you have no idea why you have to keep up
| with all these words in the first place, and it's really all
| just a bother to you that you'd rather not deal with, you're
| implicitly signaling you're more aligned with someone who may
| use those words in a harmful way, and that may be why you are
| met with hostilities.
|
| [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill
| javajosh wrote:
| _> This thing where people want to say horrible things without
| consequence_
|
| People say horrible things all the time! In fact, I reckon that
| if you said _anything_ , a non-negligible fraction of the
| world's 7.5 billion people would think you horrible for saying
| it. It is not possible to avoid saying horrible things,
| especially out of context.
|
| Even if you limit yourself to racist and sexist speech, how do
| you deal the fact that roughly 100% of the people on this
| planet, of ALL races and sexes, are themselves racist and
| sexist, and say racist/sexist things all the time? What are the
| consequences for a homophobic black person? What are the
| consequences for the Japanese woman who hates the Chinese? What
| are the consequences for the Libyan mother who circumcised her
| 4 daughters, with the support of her government and community?
|
| The culture war that the left has started is an intellectually
| bankrupt grab for cultural power, who's primary effect has been
| to piss off the good people of the left, and to inspire a once-
| in-a-century outbreak of insanity on the right. I get that you
| want to make the world a better place, and it makes sense that
| punishing people for wrong views could make it so, but you've
| done the experiment now. Tell me, how is it going?
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| > When people bring up posts like this they never say what the
| "heresies" are. People aren't getting "cancelled" for their
| takes on taxes.
|
| There are plenty of examples of stuff that is way less clearcut
| "that's bad" than your example. See e.g. David Schor getting
| fired for retweeting a black professor's paper arguing riots
| are bad for black political movements.
|
| See also, e.g. a friend ending our friendship because I gently
| challenged her fat acceptance rhetoric, "Anti-fatness is more
| toxic to women's bodies than fatness has ever been." At best
| it's not falsifiable, but really it is just not a realistic
| statement.
|
| I don't personally spend a lot of time talking to my social
| milieu - left/liberal about the right, because there's not a
| lot to say. Watching my immediate vicinity devolve into...
| whatever you want to call the current moment, is frustrating as
| hell. The left has a lot of cultural power that the right
| simply doesn't, and watching it be wielded by fanatics towards
| ever morphing, questionable goals makes me want to push back.
| ajross wrote:
| > There are plenty of examples [...] e.g. David Schor
|
| I think it's rather the opposite. There are, to be sure,
| tragedies and abuses of woke rhetoric that gets directed at
| the wrong people and/or implemented in outrageous ways. But
| they're pretty rare, and generally get a ton of media
| coverage for exactly that reason. Those are what PG is
| writing about.
|
| But in my experience, the _overwhelming_ majority of people
| entering this kind of argument are actually just wanting more
| cover to say things they used to say that are... well, kinda
| off. Not "lose your job" off, but casually "x-ist" in a way
| that most of us would prefer not to engage with.
|
| And really, that's the rub here, and the biggest problem with
| PG's essay here. Where are the examples? If there's something
| you want to say but feel you can't, _then say it_. This is a
| reasonably anonymous forum. PG is reasonably immune to that
| kind of criticism. But the problem is that when you say it
| the debate becomes a debate about your opinions and not your
| oppression, and that 's ground these folks won't win on, like
| this one:
|
| > I gently challenged her fat acceptance rhetoric
|
| You literally had a friend walk out of your life because you
| couldn't respect her boundaries about something as
| senselessly unobjective as body image, and the lesson you
| seem to have taken from it is that _you_ were the oppressed
| one?
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| Want to note that you're putting words into my mouth:
|
| > the lesson you seem to have taken from it is that you
| were the oppressed one
|
| I never said I was oppressed. You've invented that whole
| cloth.
|
| If you find yourself thinking "they're just using this for
| cover to say bad things", consider that in the context of
| you abjectly misreading/inventing details to what I'm
| saying here. If you fill in details that match your own
| negative biases and then say "wow, these people really live
| up to my negative biases," you're not evaluating evidence,
| you're just testing your own beliefs against your
| projections of your own beliefs. Certainly looks like what
| you're doing here.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > couldn't respect her boundaries
|
| You are making stuff up. The person already said that they
| discussed politics together all the time.
|
| If you are discussing politics with someone all the time,
| it is absurd to claim that a boundary has been crossed.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| _> See also, e.g. a friend ending our friendship because I
| gently challenged her fat acceptance rhetoric, "Anti-fatness
| is more toxic to women's bodies than fatness has ever been."
| At best it's not falsifiable, but really it is just not a
| realistic statement._
|
| Is this really a topic you needed to weigh in on? I'm
| assuming you weren't concern trolling or playing devil's
| advocate, but it's very easy to imagine how a "gentle
| challenge" might get interpreted as such if your relationship
| with the other person doesn't generally include similar
| discussion topics.
| morelisp wrote:
| Also, "I'm not friends with someone anymore after arguing
| with them" has historically not been called "cancel
| culture".
|
| Certainly I wouldn't hang around with someone constantly
| reminding me which of my views they currently think aren't
| falsifiable.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| Right, I'm not claiming it's ~ _cancel culture_ ~, it is
| however anti-heretic behavior. See other comment; she's a
| professor and aspiring public intellectual. This
| combination of "I'm an authority so you have to listen to
| me" and "you can't challenge my beliefs because it's
| oppression" is a recipe for bad thinking.
| morelisp wrote:
| > Right, I'm not claiming it's ~cancel culture~,
|
| You have literally provided it as an example of
| canceling:
|
| > > When people bring up posts like this they never say
| what the "heresies" are. People aren't getting
| "cancelled" for their takes on taxes.
|
| > There are plenty of examples... e.g. a friend ending
| our friendship
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| ... on an article about heretical thought, in response to
| someone asking what the heresies are. :shrug: I'm not
| moving the goalpost here :)
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| She's a professor and aims to be a public intellectual;
| she's written a book. I really think this in and of itself
| is invitation for dialogue. Also, our relationship was been
| fine talking about politics when I agreed with her, but any
| disagreement was treated as hostile/moral failure on my
| part. I'm really pretty good at listening and being
| respectful; these sorts of failure modes in communication
| in my life have come exclusively with dedicated self-
| identified activists.
| throwaway82652 wrote:
| I don't think you can't really blame someone for that
| when their activism is a core part of their identity.
| People wouldn't become activists if they weren't deeply
| affected by these things. It's not their prerogative to
| (in their view) waste time with people who are just going
| to argue and push in the other direction. That's my
| experience from talking to a lot of activists, anyway.
| They have to be very careful to pick their battles.
| fossuser wrote:
| Sure you can?
|
| Someone can be affected by things and still end up with
| false beliefs. It's possible to still be kind to someone
| and argue a belief they hold is wrong.
|
| What's true can be in conflict with deeply held beliefs
| (and often is). Part of the core issue is when one side
| won't engage in actual discussion of the content and only
| argues at the meta level about identity.
|
| I think roflc0ptic's examples are good ones - thankfully
| it seems the discourse around this kind of stuff is
| shifting back to being more moderate.
| throwaway82652 wrote:
| You're absolutely correct, but that still isn't helpful
| to someone who is already committed to being a single-
| issue activist. You're taking completely the wrong angle.
| You have to address the why and not the belief itself.
|
| Edit: It's not particularly important or relevant to
| what's been said here if you see the mainstream discourse
| as shifting to being "more moderate". This is a given
| with any single-issue activist, it's your business if you
| deal in organizing activists. The shift to being moderate
| only happens through this process, there's no other
| process.
|
| If you don't concern yourself with organizing activists,
| then this isn't your wheelhouse, and I don't see why it
| was brought up.
| fossuser wrote:
| Ah I understand - you're commenting more on strategy
| around being able to get through to someone when a core
| value is in conflict with what may be true.
|
| Yeah, on that I agree - requires more deft communication
| skills. I think you can still "blame them" for holding
| false beliefs though (or phrased differently not give
| them a free pass on dogma) while still understanding it's
| going to be an emotional thing for them, but this sounds
| like it might be us just disputing definitions over
| "blame" and we mostly agree.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| > It's not their prerogative to (in their view) waste
| time with people who are just going to argue and push in
| the other direction
|
| I think this is a good point. An issue that coexists with
| this is that activist circles here in the 20x0s, of which
| I have been both a part and adjacent to, are in general
| not open to evaluating the truth value of their beliefs
| under any circumstances, not even around questions like
| "is this tactically/rhetorically an effective strategy?".
| There's also a related issue where basically their only
| tool for communicating across difference is opprobrium.
| You can see this laid out persuasively in this
| (uncommonly good) quilette article:
| https://quillette.com/2021/01/17/three-plane-rides-and-
| the-q...
|
| What you're describing is an activist culture that has
| writ large given up on convincing people of their
| correctness, and functions instead via social coercion.
| And sure, there was a combative element to the civil
| rights movement - we're on the bus, you can't fucking
| ignore us - but it was coupled with cogence and reason.
| I'm pretty sure microaggressions exist, and also think
| they're a toxic framework for evaluating the world.
| throwaway82652 wrote:
| >What you're describing is an activist culture that has
| writ large given up on convincing people of their
| correctness, and functions instead via social coercion.
|
| No, not at all and I'm very confused as to how you
| managed to connect those dots. I'm describing a culture
| where people make their activism an immutable part of
| their identity because it's all they know and they have
| no reason to pursue outside perspectives; if you're in a
| marginalized group it can be very easy to end up in a
| situation where there's nobody to look out for you
| besides yourself. This is not a new happening in any way
| shape or form, from my knowledge it's been this way for
| as long as there's been free societies that allowed
| protesting. This is what the civil rights movement was
| built on. It just doesn't happen if there isn't an
| outside condition to allow activism and protesting in the
| first place.
|
| Can there toxic social pressure in activist spaces?
| Absolutely, but that can be present in any social group
| where there are leaders and followers. That also isn't
| new in any way at all. I take it you haven't spend much
| time on social media in the last decade or so?
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| > I take it you haven't spend much time on social media
| in the last decade or so?
|
| less of this please.
|
| > This is what the civil rights movement was built on. It
| just doesn't happen if there isn't an outside condition
| to allow activism and protesting in the first place.
|
| > >What you're describing is an activist culture that has
| writ large given up on convincing people of their
| correctness, and functions instead via social coercion.
|
| >No, not at all and I'm very confused as to how you
| managed to connect those dots. I'm describing
|
| If you take the "don't listen to other people because you
| don't know who to trust" knob and turn it way up, you get
| to "listen only to people who agree with me", turn it
| farther "anyone who disagrees with me is an enemy." I
| _don't_ think this was the dynamic in the mainstream
| civil rights movement, but even if it was it wasn't the
| rhetorical tactic outside of the black panther/WUG
| fringe. I _do_ think it's the dynamic/rhetorical strategy
| in the current activist milieu which has bled into the
| broader world.
| throwaway82652 wrote:
| >less of this please.
|
| You're right to say this, sorry I just legitimately can't
| understand how you could be extrapolating this if you had
| actually seen a lot of the high profile stuff that
| happened on e.g. facebook in the last decade. There's
| just so much unreasonable behavior and tribal "us vs
| them" attitudes coming from all sides at all times. I've
| seen lots of people do like you're doing now trying to
| blame this on "activists" for no real reason when to me
| it's every group doing it constantly all the time, even
| the ones that you would think would be relatively
| reserved. I honestly think you might be in a activist
| bubble and you need to get out from it, I can't
| understand why you would be otherwise focusing so much on
| the tactics of some "activist milieu".
| throwaway82652 wrote:
| I'm very confused as to why you're suggesting that people
| being disagreeable or unreasonable is a thing that is
| specific to "the current moment" or is specific to any one
| political identity. But please correct me if I misunderstood.
|
| Edit: Another response brought up a good point. Your pushing
| back on body image issues seems pretty tone deaf. Those are
| pretty personal and the point there is that it doesn't help
| to shame people for being overweight. Nobody responds well to
| that, it usually just causes hurt feelings. You can still
| promote healthy lifestyles without making it about "anti-
| fatness".
| NateEag wrote:
| I personally think I owe it to other people to object when
| they promote ideas that seem clearly false to me.
|
| I could be mistaken about their idea's falsity, or they
| could be mistaken about its truth, but we'll never get
| closer to knowing if I don't engage.
|
| Obviously I also owe them kindness and respect.
|
| If they choose to interpret a kind, respectful disagreement
| as oppression or violence against them, they're hurting
| themselves.
|
| In a mildly-related vein, it took me a long time to be able
| to recognize personal criticisms as a gift from the critic,
| and I'm still working on it, but the basics of that mindset
| shift seem to be settling in at this point. When someone
| tells me what they really think of me and my actions,
| they're engaging with me and giving me a chance to
| understand them a little better. I strive to be grateful
| for that even when the delivery is rude or hurts my
| feelings.
|
| Genuine rejection and harm to others looks like physically
| injuring them, verbally abusing them, or barring them from
| societal spaces and services.
|
| Telling someone what you think they're wrong about or how
| they're flawed is not usually doing violence or harm. Done
| in good faith, it's giving feedback and giving them the
| chance to show you how your own perceptions might be wrong.
| throwaway82652 wrote:
| >Telling someone what you think they're wrong about or
| how they're flawed is not usually doing violence or harm.
| Done in good faith, it's giving feedback and giving them
| the chance to show you how your own perceptions might be
| wrong.
|
| You have to earn people's trust and respect in order to
| do that. For an activist in a marginalized group, it can
| be very hard to figure out who to trust.
|
| On the other hand it seems very easy for pg to gain the
| trust of commenters here, probably because he's a rich
| investor offering to give everyone big wads of cash for a
| skill they already possess.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| > On the other hand it seems very easy for pg to gain the
| trust of commenters here, probably because he's a rich
| investor offering to give everyone big wads of cash for a
| skill they already possess.
|
| > You have to earn people's trust and respect in order to
| do that. For an activist in a marginalized group, it can
| be very hard to figure out who to trust.
|
| Sure, same for combat vets. It still incumbent on them
| (and everyone else) to reality test their beliefs.
| Creating social conditions where people say unreasonable
| things and the only acceptable response is to say nothing
| and think to ourselves, "it's okay, she's a
| woman/black/whatever" seems bad to me. I don't think it
| helps anyone.
|
| > On the other hand it seems very easy for pg to gain the
| trust of commenters here, probably because he's a rich
| investor offering to give everyone big wads of cash for a
| skill they already possess.
|
| You make interesting points but mix it in with shitpost
| stuff. Would be great if you chilled on that
| throwaway82652 wrote:
| I don't understand why you think that's a shitpost. Or
| rather, if it is, everything else is here so who cares?
| Look at the rest of the replies in this comment thread.
| It's true, isn't it? I actually can't read pg articles
| without looking at them through this lens, they otherwise
| make no sense to me and there is no other reason for them
| to be posted here and gain 800 replies when they're also
| filled with the same baseless posturing you would
| probably refer to as shitposty. He would just be another
| anonymous nobody with a blog and a chip on the shoulder.
| I'm only saying this because these sentiments ("You can't
| say everything you possibly could ever want to say around
| persons A and B because they'll get offended and mad and
| not want to talk to you anymore, isn't that terrible")
| are so old and tired at this point, but for some reason
| we seem to be giving them a pass here and I would guess
| it's only because pg said them and he is a Famous Person.
| I'm sorry if that seems blunt but is that not what you
| asked for? I'm saying what I really think.
|
| To me it's like, look, do you really want to go to work
| with someone who says things like "you are ugly" and "you
| are stupid" and "your mother is a whore" to everyone
| every day? I know people who would do that even in
| professional settings, it's just as bad as you'd think.
| It's not declaring "heresy" when they get fired because
| nobody wants to deal with that every day. Pg is of course
| entitled to his own opinion of what he wants on his
| startup incubator and forum, which is why there's
| moderation on this site and why he has kicked people out
| of YC before for literally just saying things. It's not
| enacting "heresy" when you ban somebody from YC or hacker
| news for saying stupid and callous things! So why the
| double standard? That's why this whole comment thread and
| article is just absurd to me, I'm so saddened that so
| many people are actually commenting on this.
| NateEag wrote:
| > You have to earn people's trust and respect in order to
| do that.
|
| I would rephrase this to "People are unlikely to listen
| to you if they don't trust and respect you."
|
| Obviously you can tell people when you think they're
| wrong without them trusting or respecting you, but you're
| clearly right that it may not have many useful results in
| that case.
|
| > On the other hand it seems very easy for pg to gain the
| trust of commenters here...
|
| I have a slight bias against pg.
|
| His earliest essays I enjoyed, but his writing in the
| past ten or fifteen years strikes me as suffering from
| the blindness induced by being rich and myopically
| focused on startups and technological advances, with the
| apparent assumption that those things must be inherently
| good.
|
| If I happen to agree with him on this particular point,
| it's not because I'm inclined to like his stances by
| default.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I don't think people want to say bad things without
| consequence. They want to be able to discuss a topic without
| the rabid tone police descending on it.
|
| Like, I say I cannot understand trans people _at all_ , and
| people will jump on me because I'm rejecting them and making
| them feel bad, when I'm just stating a fact.
|
| There's a _lot_ of this stuff.
| lexicality wrote:
| > I say I cannot understand trans people at all
|
| Seems like a weird thing to say. I don't understand FORTRAN
| at all and as such I stay away from people discussing it.
|
| Why do you want to tell trans people that you don't
| understand them? Wouldn't it be easier to read some
| literature so you can gain a basic understanding?
| [deleted]
| UncleMeat wrote:
| "I don't understand it but I'll trust their feelings and the
| recommendations of their doctor" is very different from "I
| don't understand it so I'll call them mentally ill, misgender
| them, or insist that legislation prevent access to medical
| care".
| Aeolun wrote:
| Indeed. But I do not feel like the wolves care about the
| distinction, or they just don't attempt to figure out that
| nuance before they descend.
| ModernMech wrote:
| On one hand, you're right. The nuance is sometimes lost.
| On the other hand, think about what we're talking about:
| a political party is trying to erase the existence of a
| class of people, and they are wielding the power of the
| state to do so, especially in places where there's one
| party control and no hope of electing any opposing party.
|
| When you say "I don't understand trans people", trans
| people have heard this many times before. Unfortunately
| for you, many people who have said this phrase before
| followed it up with "...and therefore I hate them. I will
| legislate against them; I will pass laws against their
| existence in public space; I will demonize them; I will
| jail them; I will murder them."
|
| Those are the stakes, so the pushback is in proportional
| to the life and death nature of what's going on here.
| When you say "I don't understand trans people" they are
| expecting you to follow it up with more of the same. And
| I get that's not great for the general public's
| understanding of trans people. But understand that it's a
| reaction to years and year of abuse from other people who
| also proclaim that they "don't understand."
|
| Your general confusion is being received in an
| environment where people are literally fighting for their
| lives. Maybe in a different time, when people aren't
| facing down the vast power of the state to dictate their
| existence, there would be more room to treat you gentler.
| But the pressure has been ratcheted up to 11 by powerful
| forces bent on a 21st century new moral panic, and that's
| not the fault of trans people and their defenders, but
| the people who are trying to make their lives hell for no
| reason other than intolerance.
| confidantlake wrote:
| This kind of rhetoric doesn't seem true or helpful. The
| state is not organizing a genocide against trans people.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I didn't say anything about genocide, I said they are
| facing down politicians in state legislatures who are
| passing laws that deny the rights of trans people to
| exist in public places and to participate in public life.
| These lawmakers use rhetoric that does indeed question
| the very existence of the concept of a transgendered
| person. They deny that these people exist, and claim they
| are in fact mentally ill and not trans at all. If
| republicans had their way it would be illegal to be
| trans. That's the erasure of a class of people, but it's
| not genocide, I wouldn't go that far.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| My experience has been the opposite. Empathy and
| willingness to learn are treated well, both by activists
| and trans people themselves.
| falcolas wrote:
| If you don't understand, why are you drawing the
| attention of the "wolves" by speaking before _trying to
| understand_?
| philjohn wrote:
| I've seen more than a few posts where people have said "I
| really don't get this whole issue, but live and let live"
| and haven't been descended upon, that's just anecdata
| though.
| jleyank wrote:
| I can't understand bigots at all, particularly things like
| language. Yet Quebec is full of them.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| i000 wrote:
| Perhaps replacing "trans" with "black", "Jew", "Muslim" or
| any other marginalized minority group, would help you
| understand why such blanket "I cannot understand X at all"
| causes people to object?
| nicoburns wrote:
| I don't think that's fair. Nobody is debating what it
| _means_ to be black, jewish or muslim. People 's attitudes
| to people who are those things vary, but for the most part
| everybody is in agreement about which people are black,
| which people are Jewish, etc.
|
| On the other hand, there is no such agreement around
| gender. People are using terms such as "gender", "man" and
| "woman" to refer to vastly different concepts ranging from
| "how someone subjectively feels inside" to "what
| physiological traits someone has" to "how someone is
| treated by society".
|
| To the extent that not understanding someone comes from not
| understanding how they personally define gender and how
| that fits with how other people are using the same term, it
| seems quite reasonable to be confused.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > Nobody is debating what it means to be black, jewish or
| muslim. People's attitudes to people who are those things
| vary, but for the most part everybody is in agreement
| about which people are black, which people are Jewish,
| etc.
|
| If this is the case, it's only the case in the most
| vanishingly contemporary moment of ours. Both the
| Holocaust and the American system of chattel slavery were
| fundamentally predicated on questions of identity ("one
| drop"). Both moments also fundamentally shifted how and
| when people consider themselves Black or Jewish, because
| they are aware that _others_ might consider them so for
| the purposes of persecution.
| nicoburns wrote:
| What I see as different here is that people on both sides
| of the gender debate seem to see differential treatment
| of "men" and "women" as just. The primary argument is
| over which people belong in which group. This is
| different to at least a modern take on slavery where
| we're usually less concerned with people being
| mislabelled as black and more concerned with the
| mistreatment of those who were labelled as black.
|
| Incidentally, my view on a lot of gender issues is that's
| it's not so different, and that the reason trans women
| experience so much pushback as it least partially due to
| stigma which is also directed at cisgender men.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > What I see as different here is that people on both
| sides of the gender debate seem to see differential
| treatment of "men" and "women" as just.
|
| I think this needs qualification: I don't think that
| treatment of individuals on the basis of gender (or sex)
| is just _in the abstract_ , but I do think there are
| social policies that are inequal in scope that are
| _justifiable_ on the basis of making all individuals more
| equal.
|
| > Incidentally, my view on a lot of gender issues is
| that's it's not so different, and that the reason trans
| women experience so much pushback as it least partially
| due to stigma which is also directed at cisgender men.
|
| I think a lot of people agree with this! The tension is
| again in scope: the stigmas and cultural pressures that
| cisgender men are subjected to don't _generally_ induce
| people to kick us out of our homes as teenagers, to
| threaten us in bathrooms, &c.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > I think this needs qualification: I don't think that
| treatment of individuals on the basis of gender (or sex)
| is just in the abstract, but I do think there are social
| policies that are inequal in scope that are justifiable
| on the basis of making all individuals more equal.
|
| I pretty much agree with that. But I think that most
| people _are_ thinking about rights being as assigned to
| gender in the abstract. It seems to me that the reason
| there 's so much fuss about statements like "trans women
| are women" is because the assumption is that "women's
| rights" are assigned to women in the abstract, and that
| who gets them is therefore determined by who counts as a
| woman.
|
| > the stigmas and cultural pressures that cisgender men
| are subjected to don't generally induce people to kick us
| out of our homes as teenagers, to threaten us in
| bathrooms, &c.
|
| That's only true if you accept that cisgender men won't
| want to act in ways that we associate with trans or cis
| women (e.g. wearing dresses or make up (and if you define
| gender in terms of identity then you could even include
| making changes to their bodies here)). And IMO that
| assumption is pretty sexist. I also think that there is a
| tendency to assume that such men _are_ trans women, but
| identity doesn 't work like that, and if we want to talk
| about assigned-gender-non-conforming people in general
| then we should talk them instead of trans people. I guess
| I don't really accept that that trans women are under
| more pressure to behave in certain ways than cisgender
| men are. But if you have a good argument as to why you
| think they are, then I'd be interested to hear it.
| nullc wrote:
| XKCD386-- there is a LOT of dispute over who is
| White/Black, particularly as its become popular in some
| circles to define racism as something which can only
| happen to black people. And thus a discriminatory policy
| against asians isn't racist to those adopting that
| definition when they conclude that asians are "white".
|
| Or see this op-end regarding the ADL changing their
| definition of racism to require it be against "people of
| color" and Whoopi Goldberg claiming the Holocaust was not
| about race: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/
| 02/03/whoopi-go...
|
| The same kind of postmodernist thinking that is
| comfortable redefining well understood biological terms
| like "male" and "female" to be about "not doing the
| dishes" or "liking climbing trees" instead of generally
| unambiguous biological properties is just as comfortable
| deciding that you're "white" on the basis of not wanting
| to extend the protection of anti-discrimination laws and
| norms to you.
| hobs wrote:
| No - there's very much active disagreement on which
| people are black (colorism in general in the black
| community is alive and well) and who thinks you are a jew
| might change a good bit if you ask the local white
| supremacist or a rabbi.
|
| Just because "I know it when I see it" applies to your
| personal lens its an inarticulate way of viewing the
| world.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule
| nicoburns wrote:
| Right, but when we discuss racism we're not discussing
| who is black or not black with the proviso that "of
| course it's fine to treat them badly if they're
| _actually_ black ", whereas it is commonly accepted by
| people on all sides of the gender debate that people
| should be treated differently on the basis of their
| gender.
| erikerikson wrote:
| Many of us believe treatment of people should be
| invariant of who they are.
| seaourfreed wrote:
| * Heresy supporters give themselves a license thinking it is
| about issues of real racism, sexism, and other real bad
| problems, but...
|
| * The tools of censorship are then used for normal speech.
| Proof: Ron Paul had a YouTube channel. He left politics before
| the covid and no videos had been posted since the pandemic
| started. But they censored his YouTube channel full of videos
| by censoring all of the videos and the channel.
|
| * Proof here:
| https://twitter.com/ronpaul/status/1308849979730071554
|
| * This censorship of the political right happens in a long list
| of cases that have nothing to do with racism, sexism, or false
| propaganda. Ron Paul's YouTube channel being censored is one
| example in a list of thousands just like it.
| Osmose wrote:
| The behavior he's calling "heresy" here cannot be evaluated in a
| vacuum; these kinds of statements are all contextual, ESPECIALLY
| hinging on who is saying them. And the reason that is the case is
| because the consequences of saying something are different
| depending on who says them.
|
| Paul Graham is wealthy and influential, and actively tries to
| influence folks with essays like this. So when he says something,
| it is judged in a harsher light because those words have a much
| stronger effect than if, say, some L2 software engineer on
| Twitter said them. If PG says something that _could_ be
| interpreted as racist, it threatens to normalize believing that
| in the minds of the people who follow him. If L2 says something
| that is on the fence, at worst some of their immediate friends
| will pile on to them about how uncool that was (barring the rare
| occasions of people going viral for bad takes, which is an
| outlier).
|
| I think that's reasonable social policing to keep our discourse
| healthy. Having that influence over people demands a price in
| return. If PG wanted to stop getting pushback for approaching
| what society thinks is an acceptable line, he totally can, he
| just needs to rebrand and get out of the startup game.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I read it as he wants pushback--that he wants to engage in a
| back and forth discussion, almost like two people in a fight
| pushing each other, not a fight where people push each other
| for a minute and then the other pulls out a gun. I understood
| his definition of heresy as a tool for wanting to end debate,
| not deepen it.
| alanlammiman wrote:
| Well, to take the analogy a step further, if you go out on
| the street and start pushing people around, and one of them
| pulls out a baseball bat and beats you to a pulp, should you
| really complain that they didn't just push back? Nope. You
| just had it coming, and if you are such a macho street-
| fighter you should accept you got owned that time.
|
| Sure, if you were in a dojo practicing martial arts - an
| environment that is safe where engagement has clear rules and
| often a judge - then it's a fair point to make. So if you are
| in a very specific context that is intended and structured
| for open and fair debate (e.g. a debate club), that's a fair
| argument.
|
| That begs the question of whether a university is such a
| place. Undoubtedly some of it is. But I do not think all of
| the university, all of the time, is. Just as going into a gym
| and doing a judo throw on someone in the middle of their yoga
| class is not right, even if the gym has judo classes.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| James Damore was a lowly software engineer and that did not
| save him from being canceled by the mob and losing his job. All
| the more outrageous because his working paper was an honest and
| forthright - and broadly accurate - response to an express
| request for feedback about how to improve working conditions.
| Shades of "let a thousand flowers bloom".
| ryanobjc wrote:
| His paper was definitively broadly inaccurate. A number of
| dissections online have illustrated at how he grasps at
| evidence that doesn't say what he claims it to say. He over
| emphasizes the nature of statistical evidence, and ignores
| the minimal strength of effect as well.
|
| Besides which this wasn't a "all of a sudden I wrote a paper
| and then I got fired" - he had been posting similar ideas
| into internal forums and was getting push back and
| disagreements. He got his editorial feedback already and he
| ignored it.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Most of these "dissections" online simply omit his
| references, which gives a very misleading impression of the
| actual paper. Strength of effect is always minimal in psych
| and social science: you aren't going to find any seven-
| sigma results. So this is a biased criticism as well.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Authors of papers he personally cited criticized his
| writeup as poor.
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| Is "honest and forthright" really the only qualification for
| working at Google?
|
| What about being professional? Meaning... getting your work
| done in a way that you're not making other people hate you?
|
| I can totally imagine a workplace where "It's not your
| problem if other people hate you" is the norm. And I'm happy
| for people who find an employer like that and enjoy that. But
| does every workplace need to be like that?
|
| What's wrong with a workplace saying "you need to be clued in
| to how your colleagues are affected by you"?
|
| For me, that's table stakes in being a profesional.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Meaning... getting your work done in a way that you're
| not making other people hate you?
|
| "Making other people hate you"? Blaming a victim of vicious
| abuse for what his abusers were doing is very much not
| cool.
| derevaunseraun wrote:
| But they aren't abusers. How would you feel if you were a
| female SWE and had to work with someone who considers you
| "biologically inferior"? IMO Google did right by firing
| him
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > How would you feel if you were a female SWE and had to
| work with someone who considers you "biologically
| inferior"?
|
| A good example of something Damore did not say. Even wrt.
| engineering skills in the narrowest sense, it's quite
| possible for women to meet the same standards as men;
| there will just be many fewer of them since a mixture of
| biological and cultural factors make for a significantly
| bigger pipeline on the male compared to the female side.
| Damore suggested ways to make the job more appealing to
| women and reduce this disparity.
| derevaunseraun wrote:
| Interesting. Do you have a quote of where he said this?
| rendall wrote:
| Read his memo, carefully and charitably. He says it
| entirely throughout, and it is extremely clear.
|
| Do _you_ have a quote where he said women are
| biologically inferior? You do not, because he did not.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I hope this is intentional satire, although I fear it's
| not. Reversing woke discourse to protect the people you
| approve of isn't anti-woke, it's just more orthodoxy
| policing.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > If PG wanted to stop getting pushback for approaching what
| society thinks is an acceptable line
|
| No one appointed you, or some random Twitter mob, to speak for
| "society".
| [deleted]
| teakettle42 wrote:
| You have invented a "harm principle" to be used when evaluating
| _truth_ , and the fact that you think this is a cogent argument
| is scarier than anything Paul Graham might have said.
|
| One's right to say something isn't curtailed just because their
| saying it might intrude on your dogma more strongly than if it
| was said by someone with less social power.
| Animats wrote:
| That's what Graham did say:
|
| "They know they're not supposed to ban ideas per se, so they
| have to recast the ideas as causing "harm," which sounds like
| something that can be banned."
| solatic wrote:
| You're equivocating between rational and emotional truths.
|
| Rationally, only one thing can be true. This is what's most
| useful when applying the scientific method. Scientifically,
| there isn't such a thing as heresy - only rejecting the null
| hypothesis, or failing to reject it.
|
| But _people are not rational beings_. The same message,
| delivered in the same way, can upset some people and not
| others. _People do not react rationally._ Trying to deny this
| (and claim that people are rational beings), in and of
| itself, denies a scientific truth.
| convolvatron wrote:
| no one should dispute that people might react emotionally
| to statements.
|
| that doesn't necessarily imply that all speakers should
| accept the burden to be so inoffensive that _no_ listener
| would react negatively.
| solatic wrote:
| > that doesn't necessarily imply that all speakers should
| accept the burden to be so inoffensive that _no_ listener
| would react negatively.
|
| No, it doesn't imply that. But let's unpack the
| presumption behind your statement.
|
| We all know that there are people in the world with whom
| we have deep and fundamental disagreement. Religious
| people are aware that there are atheists; classical
| liberals are aware that there are autocrats and
| theocrats, etc. Does that, in and of itself, upset us so
| deeply that we take offense at it? I daresay no.
|
| What causes one to take offense is the uttering of
| "heresy" by someone nearby, where such utterance affects
| them personally. Which means that it is incumbent upon us
| to _know who is listening to us_. There is a wide
| emotional gulf between a preacher who preaches to his
| congregation and a preacher who proselytizes and seeks
| converts. Same message, different audience. In the first
| case, the preacher is among fellows. In the second, the
| preacher is among those who may not be so open to what he
| has to say. The preacher who decides to proselytize
| _fundamentally_ accepts an additional burden, if the
| preacher has any hope at succeeding. And a preacher who
| does not accept that burden, does not even recognize that
| such a burden exists, who tries to communicate the same
| message in the same way regardless of who is in the
| audience, well, that preacher should only see his failure
| as foreseeable and expected.
|
| "Preacher", above, if it wasn't clear, is not a religious
| term. It refers to anybody who has any kind of message
| that actually tries to persuade others, rather than
| merely seeking the empathy of like-minded friends and
| family.
| convolvatron wrote:
| ok. yes. we should certainly be cognisant that unless we
| are careful, our message might be not be received in the
| spirit that it was intended. and I am certainly running
| the risk of being dismissed out of hand by saying
| something that is unnecessarily offensive.
|
| but these are pragmatic matters for people who are
| actually trying to proselytize. I fundamentally disagree
| that the speaker is somehow morally responsible to not
| violate the listeners preconceptions - that undermines
| the greatest tool we have as a society.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Not when evaluating truth. When evaluating speech.
|
| Humans don't communicate by simply listing context-free facts
| at one another. Connotation, implication, and context all
| play a major role. The idea isn't that the words themselves
| become evil when said in a different context, but that we
| recognize that they do different things in different
| contexts.
|
| Let's consider a totally different scenario: the justice
| system. In criminal cases, the standard of evidence is way
| higher than in civil cases. This is a recognition of the fact
| that the state is capable of causing far greater harm and it
| should hold itself to a higher standard. Nothing has changed
| about the truth of say, OJ Simpson's actions, that meant that
| he was found not guilty in a criminal trial but was able to
| be punished in a civil trial.
|
| Similarly, we might recognize that somebody with a powerful
| voice and a large following has a greater responsibility to
| careful communication than the person working the counter at
| the local Starbucks.
| Osmose wrote:
| If I'm following you correctly, you're implying that in order
| to debate with others to determine what _truth_ is, you must
| have the freedom to say things without being bound by how the
| act of saying them would affect other people, right?
|
| And I'm disagreeing and saying that, unless you have some
| sort of prior agreement with the people involved (which
| social media/the internet/readers of your blog don't have),
| you don't get to avoid consequences for the potential harm
| saying something might cause. Ultimately you are always
| talking to be heard by someone else, and all human
| interaction involves the risk of harming/angering someone
| else, but every day we control for that risk in how we say
| things and who we say them to.
| bloaf wrote:
| > And I'm disagreeing and saying that, unless you have some
| sort of prior agreement with the people involved (which
| social media/the internet/readers of your blog don't have),
| you don't get to avoid consequences for the potential harm
| saying something might cause. Ultimately you are always
| talking to be heard by someone else, and all human
| interaction involves the risk of harming/angering someone
| else, but every day we control for that risk in how we say
|
| I think this is the crux of the issue. The internet
| (including social media/the internet/blogosphere)
| originated in academia and was first populated by
| academics. People like PG (and myself) who grew up in that
| environment still feel like the internet is-and-ought-to-be
| a free marketplace of ideas, where academically-minded
| people can dispassionately debate on any topic. In our
| view, the Internet's virtues are the age-old virtues of the
| liberal arts, and that it would be a liberalizing and
| liberating force as it spread to the public.
|
| But the internet has grown organically. It has been
| September for almost three decades now.
|
| The internet is more representative of the population at
| large, and we are being reminded why academia is described
| as an ivory tower and concepts like tenure exist.
| Fundamentally, not everyone can be an academic, nor can
| they tolerate the existence of academics. The "towers" and
| "tenure" exist as a two way shield: it both mitigates self-
| censorship among academics by protecting them from mob
| backlash, and it prevents the "think with our gut" mob from
| getting indigestion and hurting themselves.
|
| So I think both that you're right, and that it is a shame.
| The internet has not changed the public's unworthiness to
| engage in academic conversation despite the oceans of
| information it has made available. The public will
| misunderstand and misconstrue and mistrust and misuse
| academic ideas in ways that harm people, and that harm will
| be the fault of the academics for not knowing better than
| to keep their ideas to themselves. Just like it is the
| witches fault for admitting that they thought differently
| than their community.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Academia has never been dispassionate. The very idea of
| an academic conference started because academics _hated
| each other so much_ that they needed a mechanism for them
| to see each other as people.
|
| Further, a marketplace of ideas is a marketplace.
| Marketplaces are not emotionless voids where consumers
| dispassionately select the product that will provide them
| with precisely the best utility-to-cost ratio. They are
| emotional places where concepts like marketing and
| signaling are extremely important. Similarly, we'd expect
| a "marketplace of ideas" to be an emotional place and for
| human emotion to be a consideration when adopting ideas.
| bloaf wrote:
| I agree, certainly not all academics live up to that
| virtue; but it is still a virtue of academia.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I do not believe that it has ever been a virtue of
| academia.
| convolvatron wrote:
| wow. I guess we should just stop speaking altogether
| wrren wrote:
| Your conflating harming people with causing them anger is
| very much part of the problem. 'Harm' used to mean
| something much more severe; now it basically means anything
| at or above pissing someone off.
|
| The same concept creep has occurred when it comes to the
| word 'violence' too. As a society, we long ago drew red
| lines at behaviours that are violent or harm people, but
| thanks to these deliberate redefinitions, extreme responses
| are somehow justified to utterly non-consequential speech,
| because people accept that speech can cause 'harm' or is
| 'violent'.
|
| It's such a cheap rhetorical trick that does nothing but
| chill public discourse while doing nothing to positively
| impact the lives of the people it's ostensibly supposed to
| protect.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Even the absence of speech has also been described in
| those same terms. This category of rhetorical double bind
| is counterproductive to progress.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I'd just note here that 'truth through debate' is an
| ancient concept (Socrates - Aristotle - Plato etc.) that
| has been replaced with 'truth through experiment and
| observation' (Galileo - Newton - Maxwell - Einstein etc.).
| Of course many have attempted to use science to justify
| their behavior or to justify some arbitray human social
| organizations (i.e. Francis Galton and Social Darwinism, or
| Lysenko in the USSR and Phenotypic Modification, or more
| simply, nature vs. nurture).
|
| However, science isn't the final arbiter for marking out
| the optimal societal norms, whatever those may be, although
| this seems to be the meaning of 'truth' as you use it in
| this context. An authoriarian state with zero personal
| freedom might be just as capable of feeding its human
| population as a libertarian state with a minimal set of
| legal restrictions, for example.
| bloaf wrote:
| The courts, to this day, still believe in 'truth through
| debate.'
|
| Science does too, although the debaters are generally
| expected to be working towards developing empirical ways
| of settling their disagreements. I believe it was Gell-
| Mann who famously tells a story of holding on to his
| theory because of its beauty despite several experiments
| indicating it was wrong, and eventually being vindicated.
| the8472 wrote:
| Truth is harmful and people need to be shielded from it? If
| we hold the speakers responsible, rather the people who
| take up their words and turn them into actions? Then isn't
| that incompatible with democracy which relies on informed
| citizens that aren't easily captured?
| twofornone wrote:
| This is carte blanche to silence any opinion you (or your
| mob) doesn't like and its absurd that people think its
| valid. Completely flies in the face of the spirit of
| freedom of expression.
|
| There are arguments that need to be expressed even though
| ideologues may _think_ that they are harmful. That 's the
| point of open discussion. There are questions that need to
| be asked even if others believe they may have inconvenient
| answers. That's the point of objective science. Because of
| sentiment like yours, we increasingly have neither, and we
| are all worse off for it.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Pain is not harm.
|
| Suffering is not necessarily bad.
|
| One can live a full life in the midst of hurting.
|
| The fact that Santa does not exist angers a lot of people
| each year...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Pain is not harm
|
| Yes, pain = experienced disutility = harm.
|
| > Suffering is not necessarily bad.
|
| Suffering is itself bad, but may be an acceptable cost
| for some greater good, sure.
|
| > One can live a full life in the midst of hurting.
|
| Sure, it's possible to do one despite the other, but that
| doesn't negate that the latter is bad compared to it's
| absence, all other things being equal.
| prepend wrote:
| > Yes, pain = experienced disutility = harm.
|
| Exercising is painful, yet it is not harm. There is "good
| pain" (ie, muscles being stretched out and hurting after
| a good workout) and "bad pain" (ie, popping a joint out
| of socket causing an injury).
|
| Not all pain is harmful.
|
| Emotionally, grief is painful, but it's sometimes
| necessary and helpful to grieve over a loss.
| pen2l wrote:
| Is it a good thing that filters of all sorts are eradicated?
| Never before has a thought been able to travel as freely as it
| can now, 5 of the 8 billion people in the world have the
| internet, in a few seconds a thought you utter is potentially
| accessible to half of humanity. But this thought forgoes the
| chance to be interpreted, re-interpreted by mentors and
| participants in your community, your parents, peer-reviewed in
| some manner, honed, reconsidered before meeting the wider
| public.
|
| Tech, reddit/fb/etc enables this in its propensity to reduce
| friction in the path of information's travel, to make sharing
| possible with the least amount of clicks and obstructions, this
| gives way to instinctive and emotional thinking over deliberate
| and logical thought, and indeed the proliferation of those
| thoughts. One would be remiss to look over the role that these
| new-fangled tools play in a discussion of these topics,
| particularly, the formalization of what constitutes as heresy
| and resulting actions of galvanized crowds or institutions when
| being met with heresy.
| [deleted]
| faichai wrote:
| I mean, he didn't say it, but this identity politics driven
| perspective is entirely the current thing wrong with the left.
| I say this as a moderate.
|
| Rather than fall back on broad principles like free speech, you
| concoct evermore Byzantine rules about who can say what, given
| their race, gender, position of power or wealth. It's
| unsustainable. It's the Terror, but using cancellation rather
| than guillotine.
|
| This approach doesn't scale. In order to do as you say,
| everyone apparently needs to have a constantly updated internal
| graph, categorising people across an ever increasing number of
| categories and defining an ever number of allowable or
| disallowable viewpoints. It's way too complex. It starts to
| sound like some kind of a psychosis.
|
| A healthy principle, like Free Speech, espoused in a few words
| wins by being universally understandable. It just comes with a
| flip side that you will hear things that offend you. I think
| this is an OK price to pay.
| ss108 wrote:
| We just had 4 years of an identity politics Republican
| president (which party has totally succumbed to its idiotic,
| tribalist, identity-driven, populist base, discarding a lot
| of good conservative ideas and values in the process), so
| your spin on this as being "entirely the current thing wrong
| with the left" is disingenuous.
|
| Dems are holding the line far better, though they too will
| fail, and the progressive wing will take over the party, and
| I'm personally not keen on that, even though I agree with
| them on some things.
| faichai wrote:
| The left has already gone too far, in my view.
|
| From a free speech perspective the right seems to be more
| pro-principle and less identity-based cancellation
| hysteria, but they do so on the back of white, Christian
| nationalism and rampant hypocrisy which is a slightly
| different problem than heresy as per the original article.
|
| Calling me disingenuous a bit of a reach.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > white, Christian nationalism
|
| How could this possibly not be seen as identity politics?
| ss108 wrote:
| ...so you agree that the Republican Party has morphed
| into an outright White, Christian nationalist, identity-
| based party, but think that identity politics on the left
| is somehow worse?
|
| I would say "disingenuous" is on point here.
| faichai wrote:
| I called the right a bunch of nationalist hypocrites!! I
| wasn't trying to be kind to them, I agree they are doing
| identity politics too.
|
| I am claiming that is the left that more prone to be
| cancelling people for heresy as per the original article.
| The right is more pernicious but there issues are
| different from a free speech/heresy perspective.
|
| It's OK for me to just use one side to make a point you
| know. I'm not the BBC.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| > If PG wanted to stop getting pushback for approaching what
| society thinks is an acceptable line, he totally can, he just
| needs to rebrand and get out of the startup game.
|
| No he doesn't. He can also opt to continue being exactly the
| brand that he is, remain firmly in the startup game, same push
| back against the self-appointed "social police", who only get
| away with their "policing" because people usually roll over.
| Osmose wrote:
| I mean, I agree that practically PG will never feel any
| serious repercussions for saying whatever he wants _because_
| of his wealth and influence. I don't think that's healthy (as
| wealth and influence are often afforded to people due to
| privilege or luck instead of ability, wisdom, or empathy) but
| it is how the world is currently.
|
| The cancel culture boogeyman generally doesn't destroy lives,
| which makes one wonder why people like PG feel it so
| important that they need to write essays decrying it.
| prepend wrote:
| > The cancel culture boogeyman generally doesn't destroy
| lives, which makes one wonder why people like PG feel it so
| important that they need to write essays decrying it.
|
| I don't think that's true as there are many examples of
| people's loves being destroyed, mainly through careers
| ended. For example, Nobel-prize winning scientist Tim Hunt
| [0]. He's famous and lost his job, for saying something
| stupid.
|
| [0] https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/11/8764901/tim-hunt-
| sexist-r...
| teakettle42 wrote:
| > The cancel culture boogeyman generally doesn't destroy
| lives, which makes one wonder why people like PG feel it so
| important that they need to write essays decrying it.
|
| Since only people with wealth and privilege are in a
| position to denounce it, they must have questionable
| ulterior motives?
|
| You argue dishonestly and incoherently.
| lc9er wrote:
| Or more likely, they can't believe mere mortals would
| dare push back against them.
| alfor wrote:
| You can test if it's a boogeyman by saying something awful
| and true about a 'victim' group at your job. For good
| measure you can also say something awful and true about
| white man.
|
| See what is the response.
| pen2l wrote:
| Test. (Please downvote me).
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Heresy! Burn the witch! /s
| pen2l wrote:
| Comment-score of earlier id=30978425 post being stuck at 1
| without deviation on a hot-button post in a frontpage
| article seemed strange, it appears I triggered some comment
| control feature in HN-software.
| j-bos wrote:
| Sorry, don't have enough points.
| skybrian wrote:
| The complete lack of examples means that essay doesn't work very
| well now, and I doubt it would work any better in the future.
| It's an extreme form of watering down your complaints via
| overgeneralization, to the point where it's very difficult to
| "read between the lines."
|
| All that's left is a bunch of bare, generic assertions. It would
| be very difficult to convert them into falsifiable statements.
| alignItems wrote:
| The fundamental fallacy at play here is the human mental bias
| that we are at the peak of ethical advancement - and the
| corollary meta-bias that the historical witch hunters didn't have
| this exact same bias themselves.
|
| It doesn't help that drama likes to portray them as intentionally
| evil.
|
| In reality, most Christian zealots (or any historical enforcers
| of heresy) must have been very confident that they are doing the
| right thing. That their acts are sacred and justified. That they
| are on the right side of history.
|
| Tolerance thrived when people realised that although you feel
| certain in your convictions you should have enough humility to
| let others express theirs, because everyone always thinks and
| always thought that they are right, yet they were obviously wrong
| most of the time. And we are likely to be too.
| [deleted]
| tootie wrote:
| The fallacy that Graham is espousing seems to be that moral
| superiority (or even moral improvement) is utterly impossible
| and any attempt to raise the level of discourse is oppression.
| The change in tone in the 80s he refers to is the ascendance of
| civil rights, feminism and gay rights. All incredibly worthy
| movements. The fact that some adherents make mistakes is human
| nature. The notion that they can't be debated is patently
| false. The anti-progress faction is still very very powerful.
| Plenty of unequivocal sexists and racists face no punishment.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > The change in tone in the 80s he refers to is the
| ascendance of civil rights, feminism and gay rights
|
| Source? These movements are more than 100 years old. (yes,
| even gay acceptance basically got its start in the early 19th
| c.!) Did they really _progress_ all that much from the 1980s
| to the present day? This is very much non-obvious, at least
| to me.
| rayiner wrote:
| The idea that there is an "anti-progress faction" is a self-
| serving delusion. What you have is different people with
| differing views of what "progress" looks like.
|
| For example as to "feminism"--in 2022 nearly all women agree
| it's a good idea women can have bank accounts. But _Roe_
| remains deeply divisive and most women reject the full scope
| of those "rights" (specifically the right to abort in the
| second trimester). Half of women with children at home would
| prefer to be homemakers, and many resent the social and
| economic pressures for mothers to work.
|
| Same thing for "civil rights" or fighting "racism." Does that
| mean Black and brown people being able to order food at any
| restaurant? Virtually nobody disagrees with that. Does that
| mean Black and Hispanic people getting racial preferences in
| college admissions or employment? Most Black and Hispanic
| people themselves reject that. As one of the oft-discussed
| "Black and brown" people, I would say much of what passes for
| "fighting racism" today is more like this:
| https://contexts.org/blog/who-gets-to-define-whats-racist/
| ("Rather than actually dismantling white supremacy or
| meaningfully empowering people of color, efforts often seem
| to be oriented towards consolidating social and cultural
| capital in the hands of the 'good' whites.").
|
| Don't forget that there were lots of ideas advanced in the
| name of "progress" that turned out to be ideological dead
| ends. 60 years after "free love," we have massively
| retrenched, pushing sexuality out of more and more contexts.
| I don't see Malcom X-style racial separatism being the way
| forward in a multi-ethnic society. "Same sex marriage" was
| actually a moderate reaction in it's time--a response to
| those who wanted to use gay rights as a vehicle for a larger
| change in norms around marriage and gender.
|
| Finally, we don't know the ultimate effect of these changes.
| I can't help observing that the countries that initiated
| major shifts in views towards marriage and sexuality in the
| last 50 years have become dependent for their continued
| population stability on immigration from countries that have
| traditional views on marriage and sexuality.
| twofornone wrote:
| >The anti-progress faction is still very very powerful.
| Plenty of unequivocal sexists and racists face no punishment.
|
| If I dared to push back on diversity and inclusion mandates
| in my workplace I'd lose my job. That includes explicitly
| racist talk about not hiring any more white guys. These
| "anti-progress" sentiments may exist but effectively in a
| parallel society, relegated mostly to blue collar work. It's
| dishonest to pretend that this ideology hasn't effectively
| taken over nearly all of our major institutions, and this
| slimy sort of denial is partly how it happened.
|
| And these topics are _not nearly_ as black and white as
| culture warriors make them out to be, but God forbid if you
| express the wrong opinion or even ask the wrong question.
| Progress is great but sometimes you need to stop and listen
| to the people warning you that you 're about to progress
| right off a cliff.
| tootie wrote:
| For one that's a sample bias of HN being primarily affluent
| coastal elites. Half the country voted for the anti-
| progress candidate. Second, I do not at all believe that
| you'd be fired for a reasonable objection to diversity
| policy. Saying "I don't want diversity at all" might.
| rendall wrote:
| > _I do not at all believe that you 'd be fired for a
| reasonable objection to diversity policy._
|
| That's not an argument. Not even really a reasonable
| belief. It happens to people on the regular.
|
| Let me introduce you to Jodie Shaw.
| https://dangerousintersection.org/2021/02/20/jodi-shaw-
| resig...
| rayiner wrote:
| The anti-progress candidate--as defined by "affluent
| coastal elites":
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-
| vote...
|
| E.g. they called Trump a racist for saying things that
| most minorities themselves agreed with.
|
| > We began by asking eligible voters how "convincing"
| they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican
| talking points. Among other elements, the message
| condemned "illegal immigration from places overrun with
| drugs and criminal gangs" and called for "fully funding
| the police, so our communities are not threatened by
| people who refuse to follow our laws."
|
| > Almost three out of five white respondents judged the
| message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same
| percentage of African-Americans agreed, as did an even
| higher percentage of Latinos.
| tptacek wrote:
| And? Minorities are racist just like everybody else. Why
| do we have to triangulate this stuff? Trump was obviously
| a pretty racist guy.
|
| The sneaky lawyer trick in what you wrote is "they called
| Trump racist for saying things minorities agreed with".
| That's true, they did. But they also called him racist
| for a bunch of other reasons!
| oh_my_goodness wrote:
| Points. On the other hand, how carefully did you read the
| comment you're responding to?
| tootie wrote:
| I'm not arguing with the above poster. I'm expounding. The
| confidence people have in their moral compass may be
| overinflated but that doesn't mean it's without value. I'd
| take the judgment of a social justice warrior over the
| Church of England any day of the week. But also you have to
| recognize that not everyone is so self-important and can be
| rational. Modern liberal values are a massive improvement
| over the past even if not everyone applies them sensibly.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Just a quibble, not to argue with your overall point-
| isn't the modern CoE, as a mainline church, much closer
| to the prototypical SJW than a more conservative
| religion?
| jimkleiber wrote:
| How I understood his essay was that he actually wants more
| debate about things and finds statements such as "that is
| X-ist" to end debate.
|
| Did you read that differently?
| codedeadlock wrote:
| "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
| one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore
| all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard
| Shaw
|
| It's difficult to build strong opinions on a topic. Mostly we go
| with the safe opinions that are acceptable by society.
|
| And problem comes up when we mix belief, perspective, facts and
| opinions.
|
| https://binaryho.me/opinion/
| epicureanideal wrote:
| I'm happy to see Paul Graham taking this position.
|
| One of the reasons I haven't applied to YC is that I was getting
| the sense that he and YC might have the opposite opinion.
|
| It seems plenty of SF Bay Area based startup, founder, investor
| networking groups are uncomfortable for people with opinions that
| might be considered heresy.
| hintymad wrote:
| > The clearest evidence of this is that whether a statement is
| considered x-ist often depends on who said it. Truth doesn't work
| that way.
|
| This is such a great summary on the hypocrisy that went rampant
| in the past few years in the US media and US politics.
| [deleted]
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| The issue isn't consequences for speech. Conservatives like Paul
| Graham are perfectly fine with consequences for certain kinds of
| speech (speaking out against a company in his portfolio, for
| instance.)
|
| The issue under debate is what kind of speech merits what kind of
| consequence. The idea that there should be no consequences for
| speech oils only remotely believable when you are a member of the
| white, cis, wealthy class who's lived without consequence for
| speech for their whole lives.
| tlogan wrote:
| Can somebody list "heresies" which we are not allowed to say but
| they are ok? I cannot find a single one. But maybe I'm missing
| something.
| skellington wrote:
| You must be pretty asleep to not be aware of the hot button
| topics now.
|
| How about statements like:
|
| - people should have body autonomy when it comes to vaccines -
| the US does not owe entry to illegal immigrants - there are two
| biological genders - the US is not structurally racist - cops
| don't kill blacks at higher rates than whites - young children
| shouldn't be taught controversial topics (sex, etc.) - math is
| not racist
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| Those aren't really heresies, more like you've been exposed
| to strawmen liberal positions probably from reading too much
| breitbart or something..
|
| - people should have body autonomy when it comes to vaccines,
| never met anyone who disagreed with this, but it doesn't
| really contradict stuff like vaccine mandates.
|
| - the US does not owe entry to illegal immigrants, also never
| met anyone who disagree with this, just that we should do
| more to help refugees.
|
| - there are two biological genders, seems like you're
| confusing sex for gender as gender isn't a biological
| concept.
|
| - the US is not structurally racist, it is but most people
| seem to agree with you, it's rather the heresy to say it is
| than to say it's not...
|
| - cops don't kill blacks at higher rates than whites, not a
| heresy to say, just different interpretations of data.
|
| - young children shouldn't be taught controversial topics
| (sex, etc.) In what world is this a heresy
|
| - math is not racist ??? who said math was racist. There are
| some people who are racist who hide behind math though, but
| it's not the math that's racist it's the person.
| skellington wrote:
| I only listed a few of the hot button heretical positions
| without attempting to prove or disprove them.
|
| You seem to be a very unaware person of the costs of heresy
| today.
|
| 1. Truckers in Canada were labelled as racist, removed from
| donation platforms, de-banked, etc.. because they were
| against vaccine mandates. How does body autonomy not
| contradict a medical mandate?
|
| 2. Much of the left, and leftist orgs say that the US
| should have an open border
|
| 3. Biological sexes then -- many on the left don't agree
| with this and saying it like JK Rowling for example got her
| on the heretic list
|
| 4. LOL you are plain nuts if you think the common position
| from the left is the US is not structurally racist
|
| 5. data is data, blacks are kills by cops at a lower
| proportion
|
| 6. LOL are you even aware of the "don't say gay" stuff
| happening in Florida?
|
| 7. LOL many have said math is racist including BLM and
| other leftist groups. The whole construct of logic, match,
| cause and effect thinking, etc.. You really aren't paying
| attention.
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| 1. Not true, they were de-platformed for the convoy not
| for being against the vaccine mandate, loads of people
| are. Vaccine mandates has nothing to do with YOUR body,
| nobody is going to your home, putting you in cuffs and
| forcibly injecting you. It's about making sure nobody is
| forced to interact with you in public where you may
| infect THEM. People have a right to not be infected by an
| easily preventable disease, this seems to me like also a
| valid right to protect.
|
| 2. Feels like a strawman tbh. Even if there are people
| saying this it's a radical position that's more similar
| to heresy than what you claim is the heresy...
|
| 3. People are really only arguing for gender. JK Rowling
| is arguing for 2 genders and why she is castigated.
|
| 4. Why focused on the left though? Maybe like 60% of
| "left" thinks the US is structurally racist, that still
| means most of the US thinks it's not.
|
| 5. On HN I expect you to know that you can cherry pick
| and slice data in any way to present any conclusion. Some
| people also don't think there's a gender pay gap for
| example. Your conclusion is not a "heresy" so long as
| presented with sufficient context, but it's the process
| of creating that context that betrays racist intent that
| makes you a target for being canceled. For most people
| it's trivially shown that black people are at several
| times risk of being killed by cops.
|
| 6. It's a right-wing legislation. Doesn't it counter your
| own point?
|
| 7. Rather than me not paying attention you read too much
| right-wing propaganda that strawmans issues. There is no
| democrat on an anti-math platform this is nonsense.
| fossuser wrote:
| I'd push back on 3 - I thought it was about gender and
| sex was a strawman, but the Lia Thomas stuff changed my
| mind. There are people arguing about sex in such a way
| that doesn't make sense, has substantial 'heretical
| risk', and hurts women.
|
| JK Rowling is castigated because she makes a distinction
| that the more aggressive people try to pretend doesn't
| exist.
|
| The math thing probably refers to dumb policy in SF to
| remove algebra and standardized tests (the latter spread
| to some universities too which MIT recently reversed).
| It'd take longer to dig into this - but there are nuanced
| non-racist views here that would definitely get you into
| heretical territory pretty fast.
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| How did Lia Thomas change your mind? It's not
| controversial that she was born male. If you just google
| Lia Thomas there's almost overwhelming voices against
| her.
|
| > JK Rowling is castigated because she makes a
| distinction that the more aggressive people try to
| pretend doesn't exist.
|
| She does way more than "makes a distinction". She is
| actively against trans people. If you go on her twitter
| it's almost an anti-trans crusade. This is her main
| preoccupation these days and so will naturally garner
| hate. In practice, most people "makes the distinction",
| and this is normal and isn't heresy.
|
| > The math thing probably refers to dumb policy in SF to
| remove algebra and standardized tests (the latter spread
| to some universities too which MIT recently reversed).
| It'd take longer to dig into this - but there are nuanced
| non-racist views here that would definitely get you into
| heretical territory pretty fast.
|
| I still think it's too much to say it's anti-math, what
| it boils down to is education and access to education.
| Framing it as anti-math is very right-wing. There's no
| way a "pro-math" view would be heretical. MIT paused
| standardized testing because of covid not because they
| were anti-math, that kind of framing is really done by
| media commentators who are more interested in disrupting
| civil society than having honest discussions.
| Unfortunately it seems like people on HN are still
| susceptible to paying attention to those miscreants.
| fossuser wrote:
| It changed my mind because what I thought was a strawman
| is actually what some large group turned out to be
| arguing.
|
| Initially, I thought people were arguing that despite
| biological sex, there is a subset of people that feel
| like they should be the opposite gender (or a lot of
| variance within that) and work towards making that a
| reality. They still recognized the biological distinction
| though and that the groups were different.
|
| To me the Lia case showed a lot of people arguing more
| than that. That sex itself is a social construction and
| Lia _is_ a woman just like a biological woman is and
| there is ultimately no substantive difference (this is
| sometimes argued in a more obfuscated way, but this tends
| to be the core of it). It ends up being a lot of
| disputing definitions to shoehorn trans women in under
| the same word and group (which in the Lia case directly
| affects non-trans women 's ability to compete with other
| non-trans women). With that axiom in place then it's easy
| to argue there's no reason she shouldn't compete
| alongside non-trans women. I think this is wrong. It also
| leads to weird language things like "men can be
| pregnant", referring to the class of biological women as
| "uterus havers" etc. (and then making pedantic arguments
| about this)[0]
|
| JK Rowling seems to have made this her entire thing
| (probably partially in response to the blow back she
| receives from it), but I thought her writing here was
| reasonable: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-
| rowling-writes-about-... and her comments about social
| contagion are definitely heretical but seem to also be
| true? Risks around this are real and I'd be worried about
| a young person regretting transition surgery - this is
| also a heretical view, but seems to happen.
|
| [0]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/watching-lia-
| thomas-wi...
| morelisp wrote:
| Edit: Not worth it, take your transphobic trash articles
| elsewhere. You're ruining kids' lives for some vague
| internet points. That's child abuse.
|
| To be expected from some Palantir/Urbit piece of shit, I
| guess.
| bendbro wrote:
| I support Destiny and the guy you're replying to, please
| append me to your piece of shit list.
| fossuser wrote:
| [Edit] Previous comment was modified to just be a
| straight up attack, kind of proving the heresy point.
|
| Eh you can be pedantic about terminology and use it to
| dismiss me entirely if you want, but I think you're wrong
| about this: https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/top-trans-
| doctors-blow-the-...
|
| Whatever the case, it's more nuanced than you're
| suggesting.
|
| See: https://www.persuasion.community/p/keira-bell-my-
| story?s=r
| morelisp wrote:
| "Cancel culture" and "heresy" is definitely when some
| dude refuses to debate your giant rational brain on a
| forum run by a party who agrees with your side.
| fossuser wrote:
| [Edit] previous comment was edited to just be an attack.
| My response is for what was there before.
|
| I said "young person" which remains true and never said
| or implied forced. The pre-surgery stuff starts before
| 18.
|
| Your vitriol is an example of the issues around this
| topic and why I think it's a problem/example of heresy.
|
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PeSzc9JTBxhaYRp9b/policy-
| deb...
|
| It can be true that some benefit from transitioning and
| should be be able to carry that out and also true that
| some are persuaded to for social reasons and regret it.
| When people pretend it's all or nothing either way is
| when I get worried about bad outcomes.
| [deleted]
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Since when are those things not allowed to be said? I see
| tons of people saying things like that without any
| consequences. Often, it even results in them being elected to
| high office.
|
| If the worst punishment is people yelling at you on Twitter,
| then I think the heresy metaphor has been stretched too far.
| tlogan wrote:
| - people should have body autonomy when it comes to vaccines
|
| Not heresy.
|
| - the US does not owe entry to illegal immigrants
|
| Not heresy.
|
| - there are two biological genders
|
| Bad - this sentence is telling part of population should just
| kill themself since they don't exist.
|
| - the US is not structurally racist
|
| No heresy. This sentence needs to be context.
|
| - cops don't kill blacks at higher rates than whites
|
| Not sure. The sentence needs be in context.
|
| - young children shouldn't be taught controversial topics
| (sex, etc.)
|
| Bad. This sentence is implicitly claiming than being gay is
| not ok (being gay makes you " controversial " human - better
| not exist).
|
| - math is not racist
|
| Bad. This sentence implicitly claims that girls are stupid.
| (Mistake I read this is as "math is not sexist")
|
| As you can see in you cannot say that certan type of people
| are less of a human. But I that think WW2 kinda solved this.
| trash99 wrote:
| skellington wrote:
| You prove my point by most of your answers. You can't say a
| bunch of things without being a heretic. Non of your
| bizarre interpretations are part of the statements. They
| are a weird extended interpretation based on your internal
| fantasies.
|
| You might as well as just pointed to a strange woman and
| yelled WITCH.
|
| You religious fanatics are all the same.
| ss108 wrote:
| ? What "bizarre interpretations" did that person offer?
| Am I reading the wrong comment, or did you accidentally
| reply to the wrong one?
| pjscott wrote:
| I'm confused by a few of your reactions.
|
| > Bad - this sentence is telling part of population should
| just kill themself since they don't exist.
|
| Which part of the population are you referring to? People
| with intersex conditions like Klinefelter syndrome? They
| definitely exist, but I wouldn't say that "there are two
| biological genders" implies that they should kill
| themselves (wtf?) -- it's just omitting some edge cases.
| And it's a descriptive claim rather than a normative one.
|
| > Bad. This sentence implicitly claims that girls are
| stupid.
|
| How so? Saying "math is not racist" makes no mention of
| gender. This seems like a leap in logic, unsupported by any
| good-faith reading of the original text.
| tlogan wrote:
| I misread: "math is not racists" - I read "math is not
| sexist" (implying that girls are naturally not good at
| math).
|
| I'm not aware of "math is not racist" so I do not know
| what it means.
| pjscott wrote:
| Ah, that makes more sense. (And "math is not racist" is
| usually said by people who are claiming that racial
| differences in average math test scores are caused by
| something other than racism in the subject matter or
| teaching style, such as disparate rates of poverty,
| quality of school districts, etc.)
| emerged wrote:
| By saying any of them, commenters must subject themselves to
| the witch hunt panel right here in front of our very eyes. Is
| that what you're hoping for? "Anyone who is sick of being
| called a witch, come forward" (demanded while erecting the
| stake)
| blindmute wrote:
| "Despite making up only 13% of the population, blacks make up
| 52% of crimes."
| leephillips wrote:
| (1) The concept of an inherent "gender" makes no biological nor
| logical sense. You can't have been born in the "wrong body."
|
| (2) Socrates was mostly right about democracy.
|
| (3) Seriously violent criminals, once convicted, should never
| bet let out of prison.
|
| (4) The US (and all nations) should have essentially open
| borders.
|
| (5) The US should make health insurance illegal and provide
| health care as a function of government, the way they provide
| national defense.
|
| (6) All gun control is against the US constitution and poor
| public policy.
|
| These are all my sincere opinions, and, although I think most
| of them are clearly, sometimes self-evidently true, most of
| them are heresies.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Doesn't everybody think their ideas are self evident?
|
| As for the gender one: imagine you woke up in the body of
| somebody of the opposite sex tomorrow. Wouldn't you be in the
| wrong body?
|
| My understanding is that the "wrong body" argument is
| actually not an accurate explanation of trans people's
| experience though.
| leephillips wrote:
| No. I think these are, more or less. But I have other ideas
| that are works in progress, or that I'm not so sure about.
|
| Gender: I was talking about reality, not science fiction
| scenarios. Yes, by definition, in your example, you would
| be in the wrong body.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| In reality, people report not identifying with the body
| they were born in. What more evidence do you need?
|
| I think that's a good example of how people can be
| certain of their beliefs despite flying in the face of
| the evidence.
| leephillips wrote:
| Such self reports are not evidence of the reality of
| inherent gender, and are logically incoherent. They are
| surely attempts to describe an internal state of
| emotional distress, using phrases that the patient has
| overheard used by others. But they are no more "evidence"
| than someone saying "god is love" is evidence that "god"
| is "love", or that the speaker has any coherent notion at
| all of what those words could possibly mean.
| kemayo wrote:
| Doesn't this argument work about as well to deny the
| validity of most psychological conditions? Some have a
| physical basis, but a lot are entirely rooted in internal
| experience.
| leephillips wrote:
| I'm not saying that psychological conditions are not
| real, but I don't know what you mean by "valid". They're
| all rooted in internal experience, and, unless you
| believe in a supernatural soul, all have a physical basis
| of some kind.
|
| But that doesn't mean that the language that the patient
| attaches to the condition needs to be taken literally, or
| even that it has any meaning at all. A clinician treating
| an emaciated anorexic patient who insists that she is
| overweight (a real, well-known condition) may, as part of
| the treatment, interact with the patient avoiding,
| temporarily, contradicting the accuracy of the patient's
| self-description. Her condition is real and "valid"; her
| self-description is just another symptom.
| kemayo wrote:
| I am using the word "valid" about how you're using
| "real", I suppose.
|
| This is probably a dead end of an argument. I think
| you're making a value judgement about what _could_ be
| possible -- you 're entering the question accepting as an
| axiom "sex and gender are the same thing and cannot
| differ", and so naturally the person's reported
| experience must be incorrect. If you instead think "sex
| and gender are different things", you'd reach a different
| conclusion.
| leephillips wrote:
| I'm not accepting that as an axiom. I'm asking you (and
| others) to explain what gender is, in this context, non-
| circularly. So far, I haven't gotten a definition.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity
|
| Basically, it's a set of socially prescribed behaviours
| and expectations based on sex. Men wear trousers and are
| strong, women wear dresses and are graceful. That sort of
| thing. There's a few different concepts mixed up in the
| idea of gender, but it's effectively the social aspects
| associated with sex.
| leephillips wrote:
| No that defines gender role. That's clear. That is not
| the gender-as-inherent-property that make it possible to
| say that one is born in the wrong body.
| kemayo wrote:
| Actually, question to reevaluate: from that answer you're
| okay with the existence of gender roles as distinct
| things from physical sex, right? Do you have any
| opposition to someone presenting as a gender role that
| doesn't align with their physical characteristics? To
| altering their physical characteristics in ways they want
| to pursue?
|
| If so, is your original "(1)" point entirely objecting to
| people saying "I feel I was born in the wrong body"? I,
| and I think others, were certainly reading it as "trans
| people aren't a real thing", with the implied policy
| implications that carries with it...
| leephillips wrote:
| The only things I've objected to today are circular
| definitions.
| kemayo wrote:
| If you're okay with everything I asked about, does
| whether gender is inherent matter?
| kemayo wrote:
| I stand by the non circular definition I put in this
| comment in a different part of this thread, if it helps:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30979465
| leephillips wrote:
| You defined gender there by using the word "gender".
| kemayo wrote:
| No, I said "gender role" in quotes for a reason -- to
| group it together as a concept. If you want I can
| rephrase it to "societal role historically associated
| with a particular set of physical traits", but I thought
| that was apparent.
|
| The argument isn't that sex and gender are entirely
| unrelated concepts. Just that they're not inherently
| equivalent.
| leephillips wrote:
| You still haven't said what gender is, in the sense of an
| inherent, permanent property that allows one to
| coherently say "I was born in the wrong body." We all
| know what gender roles are.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| As I said before, "born in the wrong body" is actually
| not quite accurate, but it's used to approximate an
| explanation for people who aren't familiar with ideas
| like gender roles. Gender isn't a biological concept,
| it's a sociological one. Gender identity is whether you
| identify with the gender roles of male, or female, or
| neither. I didn't mean to imply that it being an
| "internal property" meant it was biological, as I've been
| trying to explain - it's psychosocial.
|
| Edit: I think fundamentally, if you don't object to
| treating trans people decently like using their preferred
| pronouns and name, or getting surgery, I don't think it
| matters too much. I'm not an expert on the definitions by
| any means, my primary concern is opposing justifications
| to mistreat trans people, so if it's just a matter of
| terminology I guess my only suggestion is to read into
| what the relevant fields of study have to say if it's
| something you want clarity on.
| kemayo wrote:
| My understanding, and I'm not a professional here, is
| that child development studies indicate that children
| develop a sense of gender identity by about age three.
| There's a lot of debate about how this gets determined --
| whether it's biological or cultural or both. This is, as
| you might imagine, very difficult to ethically experiment
| with. After this age it's then also very difficult to
| _change_ that gender identity, such that it's
| legitimately easier to treat a sex /gender mixup by
| helping the person involved adjust their gender
| presentation to match their internal sense of their
| gender.
|
| You'd be free to argue that this isn't an inherent
| property, I suppose, given initial probable-fluidity. But
| since it seems to settle into being a largely fixed part
| of your psyche before the point you're likely to have
| permanent memories, I'm inclined to view that as a
| meaningless difference.
|
| It's at about the same level as arguing whether sexuality
| is an inherent property, I think? It's another of those
| "it might be hardcoded or it might be early-development
| cultural, but it's basically impossible to change it
| so..." things.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| > They are surely attempts to describe an internal state
| of emotional distress
|
| Yes, they're distressed because of this mismatch.
|
| > But they are no more "evidence" than someone saying
| "god is love" is evidence that "god" is "love", or that
| the speaker has any coherent notion at all of what those
| words could possibly mean.
|
| You seem to be making an appeal to transcendental meaning
| - evidence isn't based on transcendental meaning or
| equivalence, it's based on observation of material
| reality. "gender" is a term created to describe the fact
| that trans people clearly have a mismatch between their
| sex and an internal property. That's all there is to it.
| leephillips wrote:
| How do they know that there is a "mismatch" between their
| sex and an internal property? What is the internal
| property. What is the material reality that we can
| observe that corresponds to this internal property? FMRI
| and anatomical studies are not able to detect this
| internal property.
| tzs wrote:
| https://www.jsm.jsexmed.org/article/S1743-6095(15)30695-0
| /pd...
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20562024/
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19341803/
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10843193/
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7477289/
|
| http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/201
| 3-t...
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987404/
|
| https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/18/8/1900/285954
| beaconstudios wrote:
| By your framework, we can't assert that minds exist at
| all, let alone anything beyond like thoughts or feelings.
|
| The internal property is called gender.
| leephillips wrote:
| I don't understand why you say that. The fact that people
| can be deluded is not an argument against the existence
| of minds. My position would seem to be insisting that
| there is plenty beyond thoughts and feelings.
|
| What is gender, in the sense of an internal property? How
| do we detect it?
| beaconstudios wrote:
| How do we detect any self belief or self image? They
| don't show up on scans. You have to go by reported
| experience.
|
| If you think that gender dysphoria is rooted in delusion,
| you should probably read into it. There's a reason trans
| people aren't treated the same as people with anorexia or
| schizophrenia - it's because trans people are normative
| outside of being trans. It's the same kind of situation
| as being gay.
| kemayo wrote:
| I think you fundamentally _disagree_ with this, but I 'd
| say gender is your internal sense of how you align with
| societal constructs that we associate with certain
| "gender roles". In our society this is "male" and
| "female", but other societies have done different things
| here with the same underlying biology.
|
| Trans people are, and I'm generalizing here, people who
| feel their biology doesn't match up with the gender role
| they identify with. They often then want to align their
| physical presentation with that associated with the
| gender role, on the belief that societal roles are more
| important than biology. (It's very transhumanist, in a
| sense.)
|
| I'll note a fairly easy example of sex and gender
| differing even in our society, which is intersex people.
| I.e. those whose physical expression lies somewhere
| between male or female (which isn't super-common, but
| certainly happens). They're ambiguous physically, and we
| historically make them pick (or pick for them at birth)
| what gender role they'll perform.
| umvi wrote:
| Maybe what OP was getting at is more like a
| "transgenderism is a mental illness" type of heretical
| statement
| beaconstudios wrote:
| I don't know, I don't like to assume these things.
|
| Either way, some ideas are "heretical" for a reason: they
| lead to worse outcomes. You could argue under the same
| "trans are mentally ill" model that gay people are too.
| But we don't, because letting gay people live their lives
| (or more accurately, not oppressing them) leads to better
| outcomes. That's what it's all about. And it's the same
| with trans people - if they're accepted and allowed to
| present how they want, outcomes are better.
| leephillips wrote:
| So you the person that PG is describing. Someone who
| feels that some things must not be said, even if they
| might be true, because of the outcomes that might result
| if we say them.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| In what sense can "trans people are mental ill" be said
| to be true? Even if we only take gender dysphoria and
| treat it as a medical condition, it's highly resistant to
| therapy and is usually cured by leading the life the
| person wants to lead.
|
| My position is mainly that unethical things shouldn't be
| advocated for. I think there's no good argument for
| stopping trans people for living the lives they want to
| live, and that people will rightly criticise you for
| being opposed to them exercising their freedoms. It's not
| that these things "can't be said" but don't be surprised
| if people criticise you for it. I think people calling
| this heresy are being melodramatic - being ratio'd on
| twitter is not the same thing as being burned alive at
| the stake.
| kemayo wrote:
| I think you're exaggerating what qualifies as a "heresy".
| It's different from people thinking you're wrong, loudly
| disagreeing with you, or even not wanting to associate with
| you once your opinion is known. If we agree with Graham's
| definition, you need to be _fired_ for saying them.
| odonnellryan wrote:
| None of these would get you fired?
| tlogan wrote:
| The first one is problematic and it needs have some context.
| Do you think that person can define its own gender which is
| different that genitalia which define sex?
|
| The other ones are opinions and I'm not aware of anybody
| being canceled or fired for saying those.
| leephillips wrote:
| Can you try to reformulate your question? I can't parse it.
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| About to get this thread detached, but I wanted to take a
| stab at answering your good faith question!
|
| My understanding is there are two groups here, and
| depending on where you live one or the other of them will
| get you into hot water:
|
| Group A-1 believes:
|
| 1. Gendered identities are a social construct, meaning your
| gender is dictated by how you are perceived socially
|
| 2. Gendered expression is good
|
| 3. Every person should have equal access to all social
| structures
|
| 4. Therefore every person should be allowed to access
| whichever gender identity they prefer
|
| 5. Because gender is socially constructed, this requires
| your social group to be on board with assisting in the
| social construction of your gender identity (using the
| correct pronouns, etc)
|
| 6. Therefore it's wrong, and anti-freedom to deny someone's
| gender identity.
|
| 7. Sex is an outdated concept, existing for historical
| reasons to prevent #4, and in the rare cases it might be
| medically or sexually relevant should be replaced by a
| "basket of physical characteristics"... hormone levels,
| genital structure, etc, as the individual situation may
| require
|
| Group A-2 believes:
|
| 1. Most of what A-1 believes, except:
|
| 2. Gendered expression is not good, because it is a conduit
| for misogyny
|
| 3. But it's inescapable in today's society
|
| 4. And people expressing gender outside of their social
| assignments helps break that down
|
| Group B-1 believes:
|
| 1. Sex is still a relevant concept medically
|
| 2. Sex is still a relevant concept because some peoples'
| sexualities are tied to sex not gender identity
|
| 3. Sex is still a relevant concept for understanding
| patriarchy, and it's counterproductive to the goals of
| women's liberation to try to dismantle sex groups before
| dismantling patriarchy.
|
| 4. Encouraging transitioning as a solution to #3 is bad,
| because it reifies gender roles.
|
| 5. Sex is not malleable
|
| 6. Forcing others to reify your gender identity impinges on
| their right to build social groups around sex identities
| (for reasons like #2 and #3)
|
| 7. Gendered expression is not good, because it is a conduit
| for misogyny
|
| 8. People should express themselves however they like, but
| this has nothing to do with sex or "gender"
|
| 9. Gender doesn't really exist
|
| Group B-2 believes:
|
| 1. Most of what A-2 believes, except:
|
| 2. Gendered expression is good, because tradition
|
| 3. Patriarchy is about as powerful as Matriarchy so it is
| not important to dismantle
|
| 4. Encouraging transitioning is bad, because tradition
|
| IMO this debate can rage on forever because whichever side
| you're on, you can pick and choose from the -1 and -2
| variants to concoct an evil version of either perspective.
|
| Also, I truly love all three of: A-1, A-2, and B-1 and I
| think all three of them hold very important kernels of
| truth. As of 2022 I can't see how they could be reconciled
| but it one of my greatest desires that one day they could!
| Save us Gen Z! I don't think I'm supposed to support B-1 in
| public though, so I mostly don't. And from your question I
| think you agree that B-1 is problematic? If I had to pick
| just one for society I'd pick A-2, but I think it misses a
| lot of the picture that B-1 is trying to hold on to.
|
| Anyway, I thought this breakdown might help answer your
| question? Did it?
| maccolgan wrote:
| Post 3, it's quite the inverse in my experience.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| All except the first one (possibly? I'm actually not 100%
| sure what your view is since it's phrased a bit confusing)
| aren't really "heresies" in the sense of "people will
| vigorously attack you for it". They are perhaps way outside
| of mainstream politics, but that's not quite the same thing.
|
| I happen to think that private ownership cars should be
| severely restricted, perhaps even outright banned. I think
| everyone will be better off. It's a pretty hot take and
| something of a "heresy", but no one is going to call my
| employer to get me fired, or round up a gang on Twitter to
| badger me over it. They make thing I'm an idiot, but that's
| perfectly fine.
| noelsusman wrote:
| The only one of these that could fit Graham's definition of a
| heresy is the first one, and even then it would depend on
| what exactly you mean.
| leephillips wrote:
| Some are surely more heretical than others. The reason I
| think most of them are heresies is because of the
| hysterical reactions they cause when I utter them.
| noelsusman wrote:
| Heresies are not merely unpopular opinions. They're
| unpopular opinions that will also get you aggressively
| ostracized and fired from your job.
| [deleted]
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| A simple one is that evolution doesn't stop at the neck.
| 3qz wrote:
| It just means not having the right opinion on the current issue
| of the month. Or anything about the groups of people you're not
| allowed to criticize.
| tlogan wrote:
| Can you please be more specific? I really do not know what
| would be "heresy" now. Maybe I'm tweeting something which is
| "heresy" (and knowing that since nobody reads my tweets).
| darepublic wrote:
| If you use master branch on git you are racist.
| Inexplicably the word is still ok in other contexts like
| chess master. Although maybe that needs to be updated too.
| What's the harm in changing the term to chess expert I ask
| you? Are you going to get so hung up defending the use of a
| word?
| fossuser wrote:
| David Shor's firing is the common example since it's the
| most egregious case (getting fired for retweeting a black
| professor's paper arguing riots are bad for black political
| movements). See:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-
| firin...
|
| Nastiness directed at JK Rowling and Jesse Singal because
| of trans stuff [0][1]. I'd add Bari Weiss to this list too.
| [2] If the mob could destroy these people and get them
| fired they would. As it is the pressure from the mob makes
| things unpleasant for them. Most people would not continue
| to fight back against it.
|
| Sam Harris gets a similar level of hostility for what are
| very nuanced conversations and it's why he has his own
| platform.
|
| James Demore at Google is another more controversial case
| (actually read the memo - it's way more benign then you'd
| think from the meta conversation and imo a reasonable thing
| to discuss).
|
| AGM wrote chaos monkeys and comes across as an ass in it so
| he had his offer rescinded from apple - I personally don't
| care as much about this one since there's some risk here
| with what you write and how it represents you when it comes
| to a hiring decision (though Apple handled it poorly).
|
| Depending on where you work not adhering to Kendi style
| anti-racism can also be heretical.
|
| Then there are pressures for other things like being forced
| to state pronouns in tech interviews or be unlikely to move
| forward. The song and dance around land acknowledgements (I
| think they're dumb, but that's likely a heretical view in
| these circles). Being given side eye or "corrected" if you
| don't say "Latinx" at work. There are lists of stuff like
| this at work, told not to say "sanity check" because it
| offends insane people, don't say "left hand side" because
| it hurts one handed people. If you don't agree you can find
| yourself labeled ableist, racist, transphobe, etc. specific
| arguments from you are then ignored and your job can be at
| risk.
|
| Lots of stupid shit imo and pushing back against it will
| often have harmful career consequences so you have to be
| quiet about it. Most of the people loudly complaining about
| this stuff are on the right, but it affects a lot of people
| across the political spectrum. I suspect the right
| complains the most about it because they paradoxically have
| the least to lose (they're just in a separate tribe anyway
| with their own political support structures). The people
| that get hurt by this the most imo are earnest people that
| are interested in things that are true despite tribal
| affiliation, they're more exposed.
|
| This permeates the culture and makes it hard to have
| interesting conversations about anything that comes
| anywhere close to a third rail topic. It also makes it
| harder to understand what's true.
|
| I find Sam Harris, Bari Weiss, Scott Alexander, Yascha
| Mounk, Andrew Sullivan, Coleman Hughes, Kmele, to be good
| examples of people engaging on this stuff in a nuanced way
| across the political spectrum.
|
| For what it's worth this is a comment I would not have
| historically been comfortable writing before getting a new
| job where the risk from this kind of thing blowing up and
| having career consequences is reduced. That's likely the
| most common negative affect of this kind of heresy. When
| you put penalties on sharing ideas sure you block some
| truly horrible stuff, but you also snuff out anything that
| doesn't align with the current cultural beliefs about what
| is correct and true. The issue with that is what's
| currently believed to be true is almost certainly not 100%
| correct and rigidly enforcing cultural beliefs will slow
| down our ability to struggle closer towards things that are
| more correct. That's why holding free speech up as a virtue
| is better on net (and engaging in in-good-faith discourse
| on difficult topics is a good thing).
|
| When you limit speech you put a subset of people in the
| position to choose which speech to limit - even those with
| the best intentions will do this poorly, it's better to
| have robust systems that don't require this centralized
| speech control. The promise of the web was to enable this
| (and in a lot of ways it has), but the failure of the web
| is that problems with our computing stack incentivize
| centralized services that bring this problem back. Either
| way, mobs pushing to silence/fire people that disagree with
| them is probably something we should work to avoid.
|
| [0]: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-
| about-...
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M18mvHPN9mY
|
| [2]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/watching-lia-
| thomas-wi...
| umvi wrote:
| The following opinions will be labelled as heresy by the
| left (note there are plenty of heresies labeled by the
| right as well):
|
| - Transgenderism is a mental illness
|
| - Trans women shouldn't be allowed to compete athletically
| with cis women
|
| - Kids under age 8 shouldn't be taught LGBT concepts such
| as gender identity in elementary schools (read: "Don't Say
| Gay Bill")
|
| - Code of Conducts in software projects are dumb and
| ineffective
|
| - Biden shouldn't have used affirmative action to assign a
| SCOTUS justice
|
| - Forced corporate DEI is dumb and ineffective
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Which groups are deserving of criticism that they're
| currently protected from?
| 3qz wrote:
| For example, almost everything I've ever heard about white
| privilege is also true for Jewish people but it would be a
| career ending mistake to talk about the over representation
| of Jewish people in positions of power.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Jewish people are white though - and "white privilege" as
| a concept is primarily about how white people don't have
| to overcome racism or adapt their behaviour to the
| dominant culture to get ahead. It does connect with
| issues of diversity but it's not a direct explanation.
| 3qz wrote:
| "In positions of power" is the important thing here. I'm
| not talking about diversity, I mean statements like "a
| small number of extremely wealthy white men have a
| disproportionate influence in the media, government,
| financial system, some specific company, etc" is a common
| left wing opinion for why systems work against the
| interests of racialized people. It's even more accurate
| if you add "Jewish" after the word white, but that's not
| something we're allowed to talk about.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| It's also more true if you put "Irish" in there, but
| people wouldn't object so much to that (probably just be
| confused).
|
| In politics, people are typically arguing for their
| positions, and thus you can't take simple statements of
| fact apart from what the speaker is trying to achieve.
| Basically: why is the speaker talking about Jewish people
| on power so much? Why do alt-right people love to talk
| about black crime statistics? Both of these things can be
| true, but they're not just making random statements,
| they're trying to imply their arguments. It's
| dogwhistling, basically.
| leephillips wrote:
| "Jewish people are white though"
|
| Say what now?
| woodruffw wrote:
| I'm not 100% sure what GP meant, but it's true that there
| are Jews who are white (I'm one.)
| leephillips wrote:
| "A are B" is not usually taken to mean "some As can be
| Bs".
| beaconstudios wrote:
| I was assuming the context that we're talking about the
| US. Did you immediately think of Ethiopian Jews when I
| said Jewish people?
| beaconstudios wrote:
| I meant that most people would say that most Jewish
| Americans are white. Given the US racial categories, it's
| the one that most Jewish people in the US fit into.
|
| Of course, racial categories are made up anyway, but some
| people seem to care about these things.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Yeah, I'd agree with that. There are lots of non-white
| Jews out there, but average American interaction with
| Judaism has probably been through Ashkenazi Jews.
|
| Ironically, the Sephardic and North African Jews that I
| know are more likely to self-identify as nonwhite, but
| are probably still counted as white by the US Census.
| Goes to your point about made-up categories!
| tomrod wrote:
| > Jewish people are white though
|
| No, this isn't true. Jewish is an ethnicity that crosses
| multiple "race" backgrounds.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| I agree, but if we're talking about the Jewish people who
| OP was talking about (in relation to overrepresentation),
| that's white Jewish people.
| woodruffw wrote:
| It's remarkable that this needs saying: _nobody_ gets
| fired for mentioning that Jews are over-represented in
| whatever industry you choose. It 's a plainly verifiable
| fact. What they get fired for is claiming that said over-
| representation is the result of a conspiracy in which
| Jews, by virtue of a mostly amorphous cultural identity,
| are the conspirators and main villains.
|
| Confusing these two _fundamentally_ different statements
| is one of the oldest moves in the reactionary playbook.
| emerged wrote:
| Every single categorization of people other than white
| heterosexual men who are in the country legally?
| beaconstudios wrote:
| What criticisms of these groups do you have in mind?
| That's like 80% of the world population.
|
| Also think its a common misunderstanding to think of
| critical theory issues as relating directly to oneself.
| I'm a straight white guy and I understand concepts like
| privilege, and it's nothing to feel personal
| responsibility or guilt for.
| emerged wrote:
| I don't feel guilt for things I didn't do. I also don't
| have much in the way of criticism for /any/ category of
| people. But the group I mentioned above is the only group
| which is allowed to be criticized. Also the only group
| which is categorically allowed to be punished in the name
| of supporting every other category of people.
|
| That's wrong (evil), full stop. No amount of gaslighting
| will ever change that fact.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| How are white people being categorically criticised and
| punished? I only see this argument made but not
| substantiated.
| emerged wrote:
| I don't believe this comment. I literally don't believe
| you can be unaware of the myriad ways white heterosexual
| males who are in the country legally are portrayed in
| culture and treated in hiring practices. That's not good
| faith debate.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| OK so we're talking about affirmative action then?
|
| I'm talking about interpretation. I think that
| conservative pundits try to get people to interpret
| diversity initiatives as an attack against white people.
| I think people can also come to those conclusions by
| themselves too of course. But that's why I wanted an
| example: there's like a dozen programs you might be
| taking offense to but given that I don't take offence to
| them myself, I'd need an example.
| emerged wrote:
| No, I didn't reduce the scope to affirmative action.
| That's one particular case where people are explicitly
| racist, know that they are being racist, but do it anyway
| and justify it with entirely Machiavellian ideological
| language.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| I object to the idea that it's Machiavellian, but I do
| disagree with affirmative action. I think it's well-
| meaning but a really ineffective and misled concept. I
| think demographic outreach is a better approach.
| Affirmative action tries to solve a systemic problem at
| the hiring pool, which is stupid.
|
| You still haven't given any other examples though. Like,
| I get your concerns and I'm trying to have a genuine
| conversation but I can't discuss pure vagueries. I think
| liberals misunderstand and misapply critical theory as
| much as conservatives misunderstand and decry it, so I
| can certainly agree that some in-world implementations of
| it are bad.
| wooque wrote:
| Some dog breeds are smarter than the others and it's not
| because of purely economic factors
| [deleted]
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Yeah I often see this kind of vague posting about cancel
| culture, but generally speaking people are being cancelled
| (which can either just mean being criticised, or the more
| legitimate problem of people contacting employers) for either
| directly saying things that are offensive (the aforementioned
| -isms) or are implications that directly lead to -ist
| conclusions. My understanding is that the underlying complaint
| is that the social left has cultural power right now -
| conservatives are equally likely to "cancel" people for atheism
| or being gay or having an abortion, but when they are on the
| back foot use the free speech argument as a wedge against the
| same behaviour from the other side.
| tlogan wrote:
| Can you please be more specific? What is said which is
| considered ok but person got canceled? I'm definitely not
| left wing so I'm really confused with this GP post.
|
| Is he defending racists? Is he defending sexists people?
| Nazis? I doubt so.
|
| I understand that you cannot be Republican if you do not
| believe in gun rights. But these are political affiliations:
| nobody forced you to be Rebulican.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| I'm agreeing with you. I think people complaining vaguely
| about cultural issues is unhelpful at best. Equating civil
| rights issues with religious persecution is quite a dodgy
| implication too.
|
| Edit: As for who he's defending: I don't think he's
| defending any of those groups. Honestly I don't understand
| why so many people get upset about the US getting more
| accepting given they don't seem to be socially reactionary
| themselves.
| d--b wrote:
| At some point one has to ask about the coincidentality between
| the rise in "heresy" (since he calls it that way) and the rise of
| social media platforms and new technology in general.
|
| It's one thing to complain that it exists, and another to discuss
| the roots of the phenomenon and how to address it.
|
| Yes, I am implying that the guys at Silicon Valley with all their
| non-evil intentions are a major part of the problem. That the
| incentives of making money off data collection somehow got
| aligned with creating mobs of think-alike people who suddenly
| felt empowered to just shut everyone out of their bubbles.
|
| Ask people to stay off facebook and twitter, Paul. Or are you in
| too deep?
| tptacek wrote:
| _I 've deliberately avoided mentioning any specific heresies
| here_
|
| No, you didn't.
| lekevicius wrote:
| Can you quote any he mentioned? I can't find any specific. Or,
| do you mean just general existence of "anti-vaxx" is a specific
| example?
| Cpoll wrote:
| > I've deliberately avoided mentioning any specific heresies
| here.
|
| Which, looking at the replies, is a mistake, because everyone
| projects the least charitable interpretation and/or assumes the
| article is dog-whistling.
|
| The problem is that there are heresies and heresies, and
| conflating everything together isn't helpful.
|
| To give one extreme of a "heresy": It's reasonable to not want to
| associate with someone if they're (in your perspective)
| ideologically reprehensible. In that sense, it was a bit aberrant
| that in the past most people would look the other way at stuff
| like racism and antisemitism in academia or the workplace ("none
| of my business," "not related to their professional skills,"
| etc.)
|
| But when other people think of "heresies" they might be talking
| about approving of a right-wing policy in a left-wing
| environment, or (moreso in the past) being labelled "communist,"
| or taking contrary stances on things like wage equality.
|
| So to reiterate my point, the article is flawed and can only lead
| to noisy nuance-less arguments until it spends more time defining
| "heresy."
| blockwriter wrote:
| It is the infinite regress of orthodoxy that puts the essay's
| rhetoric in jeopardy. I think the essay is internally
| consistent. American culture has built up an unsolvable Zeno's
| paradox that no one seems interested in thinking through
| because barbarians prefer to live in a state of supernatural
| ignorance. "All conversation about this topic is flawed,
| therefore the original idea and the response is unable to
| influence my priors."
| [deleted]
| CPLX wrote:
| If it's a dog whistle it's the loudest one I've ever heard.
|
| Beginning of the actual framing of the issue:
|
| > There are an ever-increasing number of opinions you can be
| fired for.
|
| > For example, when someone calls a statement "x-ist,"
|
| Is there any genuine confusion what he's talking about here?
| How many commonly used words fit the "x-ist" framing?
|
| I mean he's a white pontificating boomer billionaire active on
| Twitter worried he'll eventually say something dumb and get
| cancelled.
|
| Which, indeed, is a concept that's having a cultural moment
| right now. The problem is he's adding literally nothing to the
| discussion.
|
| I think most sane people can realize that the fringe "woke"
| elements of the discourse can veer into ridiculousness. Maybe
| that matters a lot maybe it matters a little I dunno.
|
| To the extent there's an _actual_ problem here it's really
| focused on those who are potentially at actual risk.
|
| Examples of actual problems that could be created by excessive
| wokeness include the increasing degree to which HR is able to
| divide and control the most vulnerable elements of the labor
| force, or the highly cynical ways in which jargon laden
| intersectional language is used to obscure a hegemony of
| corporate and wealthy donor interests over leftist or activist
| organizations.
|
| Would be interesting if he had opinions on that.
|
| But instead we're again talking about how the most powerful
| economic forces in our culture are being trolled on Twitter.
| That isn't an actual fucking problem. Like really it isn't.
|
| PG is clearly a very smart guy. I've read his books I want to
| like him. Sure is a terrible pity he's not spending his
| twilight years being introspective about the horrifying legacy
| of inequality and misery that's been inflicted on society by
| the tech sector, where he has an actual ability to have a
| positive influence.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| The article isn't flawed; it perfectly shows PGs evolving right
| leaning viewpoints. I used to understand where he came from
| when he originally started to argue about women in tech, but
| the new things he says, can't stay with them anymore.
|
| You're trying to divide two types of heresies because you don't
| want to acknowledge the truth, there's no two types just a
| sliding scale of offensiveness. You want there to be
| repercussions for some heresies (overt racism and homophobia?)
| while others should be let to slide by. But there's no inherent
| difference between the two types. PG is smart and acknowledges
| that, but decides there should be no repercussions as long as
| you state facts. I and I suppose many on the left would say
| there should be. As long as it's not the government that's
| doing the banning in public forums people need to shut up about
| their rights. What's special about the government? As PGs
| friend Thiel eloquently put, government is a monopoly on
| violence, it stands to reason the only entity that shouldn't
| have the authority to shut your opinions and voice is the
| entity with the monopoly on violence.
|
| But I guess once you've stayed rich and influential for long
| enough you're annoyed at this one remaining domain where you
| can't just have everything you wanted yet so you want to change
| the rules to let you do the same. That's what people like Thiel
| and now sadly PG are trying to do. They don't care about any
| real issues, they just want to spend time blasting wokeness and
| actively sabotage all of humanity (in Thiels case) because I
| don't know what their endgame is.
| thematrixturtle wrote:
| > _There should be no repercussions as long as you state
| facts. I and I suppose many on the left would say there
| should be._
|
| So you're saying that there are factually correct statements
| that nobody should be able to utter without facing
| repercussions? Can you offer an example?
| [deleted]
| dwaltrip wrote:
| Saying things that are "true" isn't a guarantee that you
| will get the best possible reaction.
|
| There are infinite true statements. We have to carefully
| pick the most useful and applicable truths to say in any
| given situation.
|
| That's what wisdom and maturity are. Understanding a
| situation and choosing a good course of action. Including
| the truths we choose as the primary descriptors of the
| situation.
| skellington wrote:
| Spoken like a true believer of the one true religion. Thank
| you brother ramraj!
| ramraj07 wrote:
| ??? What does that even mean?
| Beltalowda wrote:
| > Which, looking at the replies, is a mistake, because everyone
| projects the least charitable interpretation and/or assumes the
| article is dog-whistling.
|
| I think _this_ is actually the big problem in the debate, not
| "cancel culture" or "heresies". A lot of people seem gleefully
| enthusiastic about seeing the worst in other people. This is
| not isolated to just one ideological side: people on the right
| engage in it just as much as people on the left.
|
| I've started to seriously dislike "dog-whistling". Often it's
| "yes, what they're saying is looks fine on the surface, but I
| know their _actual_ secret motivations! " Yes, things like
| "14/88" and whatnot really are "dog-whistling" and it's fine to
| call it out as such, but 9 times out of 10 I see it used today
| it's weird assertion about someone's motivations. It's
| essentially a straw-man argument with extra steps (allude to a
| far more extreme position than what was stated, and then attack
| that).
|
| Sometimes this goes so far I wonder if I somehow don't
| understand the English language correctly, or ... something.
| Many times I see people commit a "heresy" it's something fairly
| mild - or even completely benign - taken to far more extreme
| levels than what it seems to mean on the surface.
|
| In this specific article it seems clear to me that Graham isn't
| defending tosspot Nazis or other overt "x-ists", yet here in
| the comments we have people who seemingly take this to mean
| that Graham is defending folks who say that "people with
| different skin colors are dumber" and similar things. You _can_
| read that in his essay, I suppose, but only if you come at it
| with a certain attitude.
|
| Once you eliminate the "this person is x-ist, let's find
| arguments to support it"-attitude the whole "heresy" problem
| goes away, too. I haven't the foggiest how to actually do that
| though.
| skellington wrote:
| This part of his essay addresses your thought:
|
| ...one of the universal tactics of heretic hunters, now as in
| the past, is to accuse those who disapprove of the way in
| which they suppress ideas of being heretics themselves.
|
| Remember, these are religious fanatics not scientific
| objectivists.
| titzer wrote:
| I was nodding along up until this:
|
| > The clearest evidence of this is that whether a statement is
| considered x-ist often depends on who said it. Truth doesn't work
| that way. The same statement can't be true when one person says
| it, but x-ist, and therefore false, when another person does. [2]
|
| I think there is a _ton_ of nuance that contradicts this. For
| example, a white, upper-middleclass college graduate could
| proclaim:
|
| "College graduation rates are lower for black people. It must be
| difficult for them to finish."
|
| And a black person with a low income background who has failed to
| finish college can utter the _exact same words_ and it means
| something _totally different_.
|
| The first might be considered subtly racist, depending on how its
| delivered, who it is delivered to--maybe even flagrantly racist
| under the right circumstances. The second might be considered
| exactly the opposite, _alleging_ racism while not itself being
| racist.
|
| The context and speaker matter a lot for these value judgments,
| not to mention tone, implication, insinuation, etc. Paul is
| bordering on socially crippled here.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| In addition, all communication is context sensitive. When a
| politician who needs nei-nazi votes to get elected says
| something questionable, it's not unreasonable to assume it was
| intentional.
|
| Dog whistles are why we can't have nice things.
| taneq wrote:
| Just struck me that the term 'dog whistle' to the general
| population just means something you toot to get a dog's
| attention, whereas to a select target audience it has far
| more sinister implications and acts as a call to action of
| sorts. Ironic.
| taneq wrote:
| I agree with what you're saying here, just want to add that
| your example also kind of upholds the original line. Delivery,
| audience, tone, implication/insinuation factors all matter a
| ton... but in a text medium, barring access to any of the
| above, we _kinda assume_ that if someone 's white, upper-middle
| class and well educated, they're at least a little prejudiced
| against black people. Which was the original point.
|
| (For bonus points I likewise kinda assumed with nothing to go
| on except the broader context that our "white, upper-
| middleclass college graduate" is going to be male and likely
| middle-aged or older.)
| throw_away_lol wrote:
| throwaway543209 wrote:
| The comment you want to read:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30977924
| [deleted]
| tshaddox wrote:
| I wish he would just give examples or at least speak slightly
| more plainly about his complaint. I would understand his
| complaint more (and be able to decide whether I agree with him,
| although I'm fairly sure I don't) if he would just say something
| very plainly like "I liked it better in 1985 when you could say
| _X_ and have zero risk of losing your job."
| bmm6o wrote:
| There's a quotation that "Great minds discuss ideas. Average
| minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." I think the
| problem is that PG is determined to demonstrate that he has a
| great mind, and must therefore discuss only abstract ideas.
| Lowering the discourse to include events or people is not an
| option. Unfortunately, the essay isn't exactly about heresy,
| it's about accusations of heresy, who makes them, and if the
| incidence is rising. So the essay can't really get to its
| subject.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Lowering the discourse to include events or people would
| probably disgust people. Most of the heresies people get
| canceled for seem to range from pedestrian to absolutely
| vile.
|
| I'm a freedom of speech absolutist, but my only sympathies
| towards anybody who has been canceled have either been
| because the people canceling them were extremely stupid, had
| the facts completely jumbled, and petulantly refused to be
| corrected; or because somebody sheltered had accidentally
| shared some inherited bigoted opinion that they had never
| really thought about in a small, relaxed context, and had
| that mistake blown up by cluster two clout-chasers trying to
| break into the _opinion-haver_ industry.
| batty wrote:
| Relevant tweet:
| https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/105039166355267174...
| tlogan wrote:
| I think by not mentioning examples he clearly communicate them
| to the people who are "x-ist".
| jroblak wrote:
| Genuinely funny coming from the dude who insta-blocks anyone who
| even mildly disagrees with him about _anything_ on Twitter.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ratww wrote:
| I'm really wondering why this is a problem.
|
| Sure, that might insulate him and put him in an echo chamber,
| but blocking is entirely his right, and he's the one who'll get
| the consequences from that.
|
| I also tend to do a similar thing in spaces I curate, and it's
| honestly better for mental health. Someone comes out from
| nowhere with something completely 180 degrees from what I say?
| That's not reality TV, that's my private [social network page].
| I'm not gonna be baited.
|
| Saying someone "can't block" is an asshole move. Nobody should
| be forced to talk and see messages by anyone.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| > I'm really wondering why this is a problem.
|
| To take an example from my own experience, if I automatically
| tuned out anyone who said something bad about the requirement
| to make things accessible for blind people, I would deny
| myself the opportunity to learn how they think and become
| more effective in my advocacy or, possibly, revise my
| position.
| ratww wrote:
| Yes, I mention that in the second paragraph. That's his to
| decide.
|
| If you're interested in hearing the other side in all
| cases, then of course blocking is counter-intuitive. Wether
| he wants or not, it's his choice.
|
| However, even if you were to block everyone, you could
| still curate the experience of hearing from the other side
| in other situations: by consuming articles, by asking
| someone privately, by not blocking some of the replies.
|
| I also would disagree 100% that social networks are a
| proper venue for this kind of exchange.
|
| He still has 100% the right to block and saying this is
| akin to cancellation is bullshit.
| Osmose wrote:
| The problem is that he has way more influence in the world
| than you or I due to his status, money, connections, etc. The
| amount of harm resulting from him being in an echo chamber is
| much larger, especially since he actively posts in order to
| influence large amounts of people.
|
| People judging you for your blocking is one of the prices
| you're socially expected to pay in return for those
| privileges.
| ratww wrote:
| It's not his job to give anyone a larger venue to reply.
|
| Someone popular being in an echo chamber causing problems
| for society is a larger issue that maybe we should address
| separately. It's not on him to solve problems created by
| social media at large. Maybe limit reach of Twitter
| accounts.
|
| Even if it were kind of his responsibility, that doesn't
| preclude him from being fully in his right to block people
| when he doesn't want to interact directly in a social
| network. That should be an inalienable right.
|
| You can criticise anything you want, and I'm not saying
| you're not in the right to do so. But saying this is a
| problem comparable to cancellation is making a gross
| exaggeration.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > who insta-blocks anyone who even mildly disagrees with him
| about _anything_ on Twitter.
|
| Does his block makes you lose your job? If not, you are missing
| the point.
| jroblak wrote:
| I took this essay's main thrust to be around a lack of nuance
| in the discourse. His own behavior indicates he's pretty
| unwilling to have any nuance himself; pot calling the kettle
| black, etc.
| Koshkin wrote:
| "Does losing your job kill you? If not, you are missing the
| point."
| hunterb123 wrote:
| It kills your livelihood. It will make it hard for you to
| get a future job if they don't give you a good reference,
| especially if the industry is close-knit.
|
| It puts your financial wellbeing of you and your family at
| risk.
|
| You and others will probably think twice before dissenting
| otherwise you better dust off that resume and tap into
| those savings.
|
| But I guess people aren't killing people so cancel culture
| is okay, is that your standard?
| ttiurani wrote:
| I'm not a fan of his by any means, but want to still give my
| N=1 counter example:
|
| I have disagreed with PG on Twitter, and also pointed out
| errors in his logic and facts a bunch of times, and haven't
| been blocked.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| When has freedom of expression ever been promised within the
| workplace? Genuinely curious.
| Avshalom wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_Stat...
|
| just sayin'. maybe 1985 sucked a lot for a lot of people that
| weren't paul graham.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Example: More than 1,500 books have been banned in public
| schools, and a U.S. House panel asks why
| https://coloradonewsline.com/2022/04/09/more-than-1500-books...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I'm not pitching in my $0.02 here (although I have plenty to say,
| as I seem to be an irredeemable heretic).
|
| Emo Phillips was never my favorite comic, but he did have one bit
| that dovetails quite nicely, here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANNX_XiuA78
| intrepidsoldier wrote:
| Why does this site not have a SSL certificate?
| giorgioz wrote:
| Paradox of tolerance
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance The paradox of
| tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its
| ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the
| intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical
| idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society
| must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.
|
| Paul Graham is intolerant of intolerants of intolerance. I think
| to solve the paradox the way to go is not to solve by principle
| but weight on how much intolerance you are applying in order to
| prevent some other intolerance to someone else.
|
| "Your freedom ends where someone else begins"
|
| EXAMPLE
|
| Person A: People from group X are more likely to be BAD at math.
|
| Person B: Don't be racist/sexist/x-ist.
|
| Person C (Paul Graham): Hey B, you are using x-ist but is the
| statement true or false? If the statement from A is true, then A
| should be allowed to say it without B calling him/her x-ist.
|
| Well it depends on what's the approximation and opinionated
| consequences. Maybe group X is worse at math by a small
| percentage 1% and A is removing numbers to make a larger
| generalization that loose its context and is just demeaning of
| the group X. This is solvable by stating actual figures without
| implying consequences from it. Person A should have said: The
| study ALFA showed results where group X was 10% more likely to be
| BAD at math than group Y and Z. I will pass you the link to the
| paper of the study so you can review it.
| lil_dispaches wrote:
| What is the name for people who call you a heretic? This forum is
| full of them.
| randcraw wrote:
| I think what Paul is describing is blasphemy more than heresy.
| Blasphemy is a single public statement contrary to official
| doctrine while heresy is the public endorsement of a school of
| thought that contradicts official doctrine in some nontrivial
| way.
|
| Paul's connotation for heresy is: A dismissing B due to a
| specific statement from B (blasphemy) that contradict A's canon
| of orthodox beliefs (religion).
|
| But I think that incorrectly conflates individual opinion into an
| unforgivable sin, punishable only with excommunication or death.
| Historically, cases of heresy arose when someone like Gallileo
| proposed a viable model of the universe that contradicted dogma,
| not when they made a single isolated statement of dissonance. The
| latter were commonplace in secular writing even early in the
| Enlightenment. (Blasphemy did alienate freethinkers like Voltaire
| to the Church and Royalty; but it didn't get him imprisoned or
| killed. It was direct opposition to Royal dogma that did that,
| like Sir Thomas More's excommunication by Henry VIII).
|
| BTW, 1918's Sedition Act was passed _after_ the US entered WWI,
| as an emergency expedient intended to squelch open opposition to
| the war. It isn 't really comparable to the concepts of heresy or
| blasphemy against a canon of beliefs, since Wilson's decision to
| go to war wasn't a persistent dogma that needed protection. The
| Act was a temporary martial law (like Lincoln's suppression of
| the Maryland government for the duration of the Civil War) to be
| lifted after the immediate threat to fighting a war had passed.
| Animats wrote:
| Part of the problem in the US is the decline of routine
| democracy. Democracy works properly when you have a vote, you get
| a decision, and the issue is settled and done. That's rare today.
| It leaves us with no way to settle things and go on.
|
| Useful question: do you belong to any democratically run
| organization, defined as one where the members can fire the
| leadership?
| afc wrote:
| > The clearest evidence of this [that some x-ist statements may
| be true] is that whether a statement is considered x-ist often
| depends on who said it. Truth doesn't work that way. The same
| statement can't be true when one person says it, but x-ist, and
| therefore false, when another person does.
|
| The argument doesn't support it's conclusion: it _could_ be that
| all potentially x-ist statements are false, but they are only
| x-ist when certain people say them. In other words, whether they
| are x-ist depends on who says them, but they may still be all
| false (regardless of who says them).
| kemayo wrote:
| The particularly uncharitable reading of that quote that jumped
| to my mind when I read it is "but why can't I, a white guy, say
| the n-word?" But this probably isn't what Graham actually had
| in mind.
|
| I think Graham is trying to operate in some idealized plane of
| pure logical statements where you can speak truthful axioms and
| reason from them. He misses that in the real world statements
| have a context, are part of an ongoing cultural conversation,
| and imply consequences.
|
| There are things you can say which are "true" but which miss
| the point or suggest that you're pushing for a certain policy
| outcome. There's a lot of situations where you can say "the
| statistics say X and so we should do Y" and the (fairly valid)
| rebuttal is, essentially, "why did you accept the societal
| structure that produced those statistics?"
| alanlammiman wrote:
| This was also the example that came to my mind. It is perhaps
| one of the most iconic examples, and as such, absent a
| concrete example or further clarification, I don't see why
| you shouldn't assume that this is representative of what the
| author had in mind.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| > as such, absent a concrete example or further
| clarification, I don't see why you should assume that this
| isn't what the author had in mind.
|
| Because we shouldn't automatically assume the worst in each
| other?
| skellington wrote:
| You mis-paraphrased the argument. Your paraphrase insertion []
| is incorrect. It should be:
|
| [that such x-ist labels are applied to statements regardless of
| their truth or falsity]
|
| Your conclusion is roughly his point, but his point holds
| independently of the "truth" of the underlying statement.
| mjburgess wrote:
| It's a "truth vs. order" debate. PG is in highly stable
| environments where order isnt an issue, so he is more concerned
| about truth. Generally, when "x-isms" are accused, the issue is
| the break down of social order in the environment in which the
| accusations are made.
|
| It really doesnt matter if your x-ist point is true, if saying
| it, is an action which destabilizes (eg.,) the workplace.
|
| Most spaces aren't for discussing what's true, they're for
| getting-things-done. Stating truths in those spaces may,
| seemingly quite rightly, be prohibited.
| alanlammiman wrote:
| thank you, that seems to be a very useful framework to keep
| in mind
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > It's a "truth vs. order" debate.
|
| > It really doesnt matter if your x-ist point is true, if
| saying it, is an action which destabilizes (eg.,) the
| workplace.
|
| I think this is pretty insightful.
|
| There are two things at play here that I think are being
| conflated - one is challenging certain concepts, and the
| other is challenge the social order that is predicated upon
| them.
|
| Let's take racism as an example.
|
| Arguing that racism doesn't exist, in whole or in part, is
| challenging the concept. Rightly or wrongly, that is one of
| the "heresies" from the article. It's also a very difficult
| thing to discuss respectfully and productively in the
| workplace, and in most every case I can think of off the top
| of my head, unproductive.
|
| Arguing that the actions taken in response to that
| conclusion, in my opinion, is and should be a different thing
| entirely. We have a work environment today that seeks to
| offset historical/systemic racism through positive steps such
| as affirmative action. I believe that challenging the
| implementation, scope, or even the continued existence of
| affirmative action should be acceptable - because it is a
| specific action that is in the scope of the course of
| business and has a demonstrable impact on the work
| environment itself.
|
| From my reading of the article, I think what PG is saying is
| that it should be much more acceptable than it is to openly
| and honestly discuss the system that we have built that
| creates our work environments. I don't believe that someone
| who argues against affirmative action - or any similar
| workplace policy, explicit or implicit - should be anathema.
|
| This example of racism/AA is only one example. There are
| others with similar stigma associated.
|
| Personally, I feel a great deal of social pressure not to
| discuss anything related to COVID in the workplace. I work
| for a company based in SF, but live in a small town in the
| South - very different social environments. I have had COVID,
| have verified that I have demonstrable antibodies on par with
| what is expected from vaccination + boosters. I also have a
| history of systemic inflammation that I've struggled with my
| whole life, and both my GP and the specialist I see agree
| that vaccination poses at least a slightly higher risk for me
| than for the general population. As a result I've decided not
| to get the vaccine. I have absolutely zero desire to try to
| sway anyone to see things my way, and honestly don't want to
| talk about it at work lest it turn into a political argument.
| With few exceptions, I avoid discussing politics with
| colleagues.
|
| A while ago we were planning a team outing in California. I
| wasn't going to be able to attend, but I absolutely didn't
| want to discuss that the reason was that I wasn't vaccinated
| and don't want to be.
|
| _This_ is the kind of heresy that concerns me. I feel like
| it should be reasonable for me to say that I am not
| vaccinated and don't intend to be. I shouldn't have to
| justify that. I may be excluded from some activities, and
| that's acceptable to me - but it's a discussion that I don't
| even feel like I can have. Instead I have to hide this
| decision, avoid discussion of it, and hope I'm not put into a
| position where I'm forced to. If I do have to reveal it to my
| employer I expect that at the very least I'll be viewed
| negatively in their eyes and it will harm my social
| environment.
|
| It shouldn't be seen as heresy to hold a different opinion.
| ss108 wrote:
| W/r/t your medical situation, I'm not advocating for just
| outright telling them, but I would say your trepidation,
| while understandable, may be a bit overwrought. I think
| most people understand that some people are medically
| ineligible for the vaccine.
| blindmute wrote:
| As an aside, I was in your precise situation, but I ended
| up telling my SF company the truth. I'm sure they do view
| me differently now, but it's worth the feeling of value
| congruence to tell the truth and normalize such things.
| breck wrote:
| Its intriguing that PG used the term "anti-vaxers", in this
| article. Being interested in the truth about vaccines will
| get you fired and the term "anti-vaxers" is used by the
| aggressively conventional minded to shut down debate. So I
| wonder if there's subtext and those parts are him not
| meaning what he's saying on the surface?
|
| Anyway, the truth is if you've had COVID-19 you are far
| more protected than someone who got one of these vaccines.
| It is heretical to say that, and I get called an "anti-
| vaxer", but it's true.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| > Most spaces aren't for discussing what's true, they're for
| getting-things-done. Stating truths in those spaces may,
| seemingly quite rightly, be prohibited.
|
| You can not make progress in a land of fiction. Propaganda is
| a stop sign, not a tool for productivity.
| jameshart wrote:
| A statement, on its own, isn't "x-ist".
|
| Choosing to make a particular statement at a particular time,
| in a particular context, in order to promote an "x-ist" agenda
| is "x-ist".
|
| That's the same whether or not the statement is true.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| To lighten up this discussion a bit here's perhaps the greatest
| song written about and against Heresy:
| https://youtu.be/s8leF4zV6lQ
| version_five wrote:
| I think what's missed is that most of the extreme, even if
| common, cases of people demanding heretics be punished, are
| really just trolling. Trolls are continually pushing the
| boundaries, and institutions are afraid to stand up to them for
| fear or being labeled heretical (ironically) so we have this
| feedback of more and more ridiculous stuff that nobody actually
| believes becoming mainstream. By fighting it the way PG is, it
| (trolling) gets legitimized. Feeding the trolls doesn't work, we
| need to to better to collectively tune them out, picking a fight
| with them puts you in their territory and you've already lost.
| javajosh wrote:
| The evidence doesn't support your view that SJWs are "just
| trolls". A lot of SJWs genuinely believe that cancelling people
| for espousing wrong view is a real force for good. And they
| have some superficially good reasons for that belief. Trolls
| will use any weapon they can, so it's less interesting to
| debate them (except, maybe, about the nature of sadism).
| adrianwaj wrote:
| "Thanks to Marc Andreessen, Chris Best, Trevor Blackwell,
| Nicholas Christakis, Daniel Gackle, Jonathan Haidt, Claire
| Lehmann, Jessica Livingston, Greg Lukianoff, Robert Morris, and
| Garry Tan for reading drafts of this."
|
| Why so many people?
| langsoul-com wrote:
| I wonder if people are becoming less forgiving to others. That is
| the concept of redemption doesn't exist for everyone.
|
| Ie, is Harvey Weinstein redeemable? What if he saved 1,000 others
| from sexual abuse, to redeem his sins, in the next year. Can his
| past sons be forgiven?
| ratww wrote:
| I feel like a pariah sometimes in those discussions.
|
| I agree with PG in that I'm also not too happy with the "only X
| can be x-ist", but on the other hand I'm also not a conspiracy
| nut that talks non-stop about "critical race theory". I'm also
| _not_ free speech absolutist, as I 'm ok with things like
| European law criminalizing Nazism or glorification of genocide.
|
| I feel like I'm constantly against three very radical groups, and
| there's nobody representing me.
|
| I'm tired of radicalism coming from three different directions.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| When liberalism, conservatism, and libertarianism have all
| failed you, perhaps the only path left is communitarianism.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Anarchism also remains.
| mordae wrote:
| But we desperately need more anarchists. :-)
|
| Perhaps people should read David Graeber and Cory Doctorow
| more?
|
| The whole culture wars thing is a prime example of
| complementary schismogenesis in action, which was rather
| nicely presented in the Dawn of Everything from Graeber on
| couple thousand years old tribes.
| falcolas wrote:
| Personally, I'd rather not be murdered for my resources,
| thanks.
| [deleted]
| teddyh wrote:
| I'm reminded of Philip K. Dick's _The Chromium Fence_ (1955):
|
| _'I'm not!' Walsh shouted futilely. 'I'm not a Purist and I'm
| not a Naturalist! You hear me?'_
|
| _Nobody heard him._
|
| --
| https://web.archive.org/web/20150419173332/http://american-b...
| mordae wrote:
| Hahaha, same here.
|
| Have you noticed how the discussion here is fairly civil? It's
| very similar to most Reddit places, lobste.rs and other
| *moderated* fora as well.
|
| Most of these extremes only arise in unmoderated spaces such as
| Facebook and Twitter. Or the original /b/.
|
| Similar things are happening in the news comment sections
| wherever they don't care to moderate.
|
| It radicalizes people long-term. I am no fan of censorship, but
| EU will probably step in eventually.
| [deleted]
| Kosirich wrote:
| Does HN community generally agree with a statement that current
| "left x-ist aggressive woke purity ideology" is an extension of
| white puritanism and puritanist like ideology. As portion of
| white protestants lost their faith they found a replacement in
| the "holier than thou" approach of the hippy left? As a non
| american I see Occupy Wall Street as being more of a catholic
| left movement while everything after as protestant left one.
| keithwhor wrote:
| The biggest problem I have with Paul's writing on these topics is
| the misanthropic undertones. The classification of folks as
| "conventional minded" mirrors other socially reductive language
| like referring to people as "simps," "NPCs," and more. Paul
| believes he is partly responsible for engaging a social immune
| response to the intolerance he perceives -- forgetting that
| immune responses are inflammatory by nature and often destroy
| large amounts of healthy tissue and in some cases, entire
| organisms.
|
| I don't think his assertions are wrong but I don't think
| castigating people as "aggressively conventional minded" is the
| right approach. In creating an us-vs-them mentality I think Paul
| may inadvertently be adding to the actual biggest problem in
| civilized discourse these days -- weaponized victimization and
| othering. It's not enough to have an opinion, there has to be a
| bad guy or an evil group of people intent on destroying society.
|
| I'm not sure how to solve this problem -- open to suggestions and
| brainstorming, it's just something that's been on my mind a lot
| recently.
| tptacek wrote:
| Well put. I don't think this is new for him; there's always
| been a vein in his writing of someone scarred, late into life,
| by bad experiences in high school. Maybe it's not deliberate,
| but it is a vibe he sometimes manages to give off.
|
| When he writes about Lisp, or (for the most part) about
| startups, or about being a dad, he seems happy and well-
| adjusted (I'm looking for a better term but let's roll with
| that). When he writes about cancel culture, or maybe really
| culture of any sort: different story.
|
| He should take a break from this stuff and write about teaching
| his kids Lisp.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > When he writes about cancel culture, or maybe really
| culture of any sort: different story.
|
| Is there _anyone at all_ who writes "happily" about cancel
| culture? Even SJW's themselves can only give an impression of
| being perpetually angry and frustrated; they try to present
| their inner frustration wrt. the world at large as some sort
| of zeal for superior justice and universal social liberation,
| but don't quite manage to convince anyone.
| tptacek wrote:
| It's not that his writing is unhappy. It's that when he
| writes about it, he seems like an unhappy person. I don't
| know if that's the case for "SJWs"; I mostly steer clear of
| the "cancel culture" discourse.
| tomcam wrote:
| > It's that when he writes about it, he seems like an
| unhappy person.
|
| I did not get that impression
| tptacek wrote:
| Could just be me.
| foobarian wrote:
| Honestly it reads a lot like something one would write who had
| lousy childhood/schooling experiences. I say that because I had
| one, and recognize a lot of the points as things I idly
| fantasize about in a "revenge of the nerds" rubric.
| tomcam wrote:
| > I think Paul may inadvertently be adding to the actual
| biggest problem in civilized discourse these days -- weaponized
| victimization and othering.
|
| Would you mind giving me quotes from the post to back up these
| assertions?
| FerociousTimes wrote:
| I didn't pick up on any "misanthropic" undertones in his essay
| but I echo your sentiment regarding the labels not for the same
| moralistic reasons you cited but for their weak construction;
| I'd have opted for "collectivist vs individualist" instead of
| "conventional vs independent" and "militant vs casual" instead
| of "aggressive vs passive" but the premise of his thesis
| remains intact which is that we need to counter the pervasive
| nature of these elements not to ruin the public discourse for
| all of us.
| keithwhor wrote:
| Aha. Great observation; what you interpret as anti-
| collectivist / pro-individualist I interpret as misanthropic.
|
| Admittedly this is probably cultural on my part; growing up
| in a working class Canadian family bestows different social
| ideologies. It's a complaint I have about Canadian culture
| (not individualistic _enough_ ) but I do think a problem with
| American discourse is it can err so far on the side of
| individualism as to become misanthropic: the extreme being
| the sentiment, "I, and people like me, are the only group
| that matters."
|
| That's not what Paul is saying here at all. I just think
| discourse about "social heresy" might be more productively
| framed as -- what do we all agree on, how can we focus on
| channeling that energy productively, and how can we
| accommodate the people who disagree? Generally speaking
| capitalism _can be_ a force for good here if you pick big,
| juicy problems everyone is excited to solve. Climate, energy,
| etc. And I think Paul is funding some of those companies!
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I think, in your second paragraph, you kind of contradicted
| yourself. If "weaponized victimization and othering" are the
| problem, well, victimization doesn't weaponize itself. Somebody
| is _doing_ those things. So now we 're at "a group of _people_
| are causing these problems ".
|
| That means that, yes, we kind of do arrive at an us-vs-them
| mentality - even you do, if you think a step or two further.
|
| Now, you could be pleading for the Christian "love the sinner,
| hate the sin" idea - people are doing these things, but we need
| to not "other" the people. And that may be a real point - if
| "othering" is what they are doing, and we think it's wrong,
| then we need to be careful not to "other" them. At the same
| time, while we try to figure out how to help them not destroy
| society, we still need to keep them from destroying society.
| bendbro wrote:
| > aggressively conventional minded
|
| An aside:
|
| One thing I love about VCs is the perfectly fitting, memorable
| terms they coin. This is a perfect example, I can't stop
| laughing.
| rectang wrote:
| > _In creating an us-vs-them mentality I think Paul may
| inadvertently be adding to the actual biggest problem in
| civilized discourse these days -- weaponized victimization and
| othering._
|
| It's just plain old tribalist hypocrisy: people Graham agrees
| with are encouraged to weaponize their victimization, while
| people he disagrees with are denied. First-degree intolerance
| (including but not limited to "x-ism") is acceptable in any
| amount, second-degree intolerance (intolerance of intolerance)
| is verboten.
| tomcam wrote:
| > people Graham agrees with are encouraged to weaponize their
| victimization, while people he disagrees with are denied.
|
| Where do you get that from the original post? I am not seeing
| it.
| rectang wrote:
| People Graham agrees with who are encouraged to weaponize
| their victimization: those supposedly accused of "heresy"
| for their "x-ist" utterances.
|
| People Graham disagrees with who are denied: the "heretic
| hunters" who complain about those "x-ist" utterances.
| choppaface wrote:
| COVID has changed a lot because it brought into public debate
| how to evaluate deeply held beliefs about predicting the
| future. The discussion is high-strung because it covers a life-
| or-death topic, and it's so diverse (e.g. science vs region vs
| conspiracy vs liberty etc) that it forced the quantization of
| opinions. Once you swap an opinion for a symbol, game theory
| takes over the conversation.
|
| What could help solve this? Real reconciliation of the
| different perspectives. There's a common overlap: we all want
| to live, and we all have nonzero ignorance.
|
| The tragedy is that the inordinately rich like paulg continue
| to divide with these self-serving essays instead of helping
| other to grapple with the K-shaped recovery we're in now. The
| place to innovate now is not in blue-sky futurism but to
| innovate the recovery of those who COVID hit the hardest.
| seaourfreed wrote:
| Paul posted this because people are getting fired from their
| jobs now (directly or indirectly).
|
| See his words: "Nowadays, in civilized countries, heretics
| only get fired in the metaphorical sense, by losing their
| jobs. ... You could have spent the last ten years saving
| children's lives, but if you express certain opinions, you're
| automatically fired."
|
| People on the political right have moderate discussions and
| they are banded aggressively. Here are two examples:
|
| * James Woods had 137,000 subscribers removed in two days, by
| twitter admins
|
| * Ron Pauls' entire YouTube channel was censored and removed.
|
| This is the "Heretic hunting" point Paul Graham is making.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| Heresies are inherent to tribalism. Violating the tribes bigger
| rules gets one rejected or killed. This ties into the identity of
| the society.
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| > _For example, when someone calls a statement "x-ist," they're
| also implicitly saying that this is the end of the discussion_
|
| If that's how Graham reads such statements, isn't he basically
| saying "It's heresy to call a statement x-ist" in his presence?
|
| What am I missing, this seems totally hypocritical given the rest
| of his argument?
| rendang wrote:
| Does Graham say people who make those statements should be
| ostracized and fired? I don't see the parallel at all.
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| No, he's not saying that.
|
| I interpreted it as saying, for him, as soon as he hears one
| of those words, the conversation is over.
|
| Which... sounds like... if not heresy, then taboo?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| No, he's not saying that.
|
| He's saying that, when person A says something, and person
| B says that the statement is x-ist, _person B_ intends that
| to end the conversation. In particular, person B intends
| that they not have to actually _refute_ person A 's
| statement.
|
| PG's reaction isn't the point at all. The point is the
| speaker's intent.
| [deleted]
| 3qz wrote:
| > There are many on the far left who believe strongly in the
| reintegration of felons (as I do myself), and yet seem to feel
| that anyone guilty of certain heresies should never work again.
|
| This is a great point. I've seen the same with attitudes towards
| homeless people where they can harass people on the street all
| day long and get treated like they're a poor victim who has no
| agency, but a "normal" person can get fired over an awkward
| compliment. It makes no sense to me.
| [deleted]
| multiplegeorges wrote:
| It makes no sense if you completely ignore context.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I think the author rather exposes his ideological biases in this
| paragraph:
|
| > "The most notorious 20th century case may have been the
| Cultural Revolution. Though initiated by Mao to undermine his
| rivals, the Cultural Revolution was otherwise mostly a grass-
| roots phenomenon. Mao said in essence: There are heretics among
| us. Seek them out and punish them. And that's all the
| aggressively conventional-minded ever need to hear. They went at
| it with the delight of dogs chasing squirrels."
|
| A more balanced approach would have included the rise of
| authoritarian fascism in Germany as an example of the persecution
| of the heretics, namely any who opposed the power of the Party or
| questioned the validity of the 'untermenschen' concept that
| relegated so many groups - Slavs, Jews, homosexuals, political
| dissidents to 'unperson' status. Indeed, Hitler's acolytes - like
| Mao's - also 'went at it with the delight of dogs chasing
| squirrels.' A rather popular book was published about this
| phenomenon that's worth reading, called "Hitler's Willing
| Executioners."
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/784848.Hitler_s_Willing_...
|
| In any case, whenever a commentator chooses to exclusively focus
| on fascist atrocities or communist atrocities when examing '20th
| century atrocities', you can be sure they have a severe
| ideological bias and are hardly honest interlocutors. In this
| context, 'x-ist' could refer to either communist or fascist,
| although I suspect the author is implying 'racist' or perhaps
| 'classist'?
| aaron695 wrote:
| dorianmariefr wrote:
| Isn't grouping people's behaviour as heresy a start to look at
| them as heretic?
| zarzavat wrote:
| This is one of the best reasons to learn a second language.
| Heretical concepts are often wrapped in layers of euphemism. For
| this reason, heresies tend to have problems crossing language
| barriers as that structure of euphemisms hasn't necessarily been
| developed. One of the properties of the euphemism treadmill is
| that the mere existence of softer alternatives makes the original
| seem much worse than it was before.
|
| Speaking another language often exposes you to people expressing
| taboo (to you as an outsider) concepts in a blunt and direct
| manner. This may strengthen or weaken the taboo to you, but at
| least it will make you think.
|
| To give a very mild example, in English it's taboo to mention
| someone's weight. Even if they are a public figure that you will
| never meet. So we have a structure of euphemisms: "overweight",
| "larger", "plus-sized", etc. But there are other languages where
| people literally do call each other fat, to their face, and it is
| not taboo. As you can imagine, this principle extends to
| political and social concepts too.
| [deleted]
| qsort wrote:
| +1.
|
| Another related reason is that zealots love words. Big
| important-sounding words, preferably starting with capital
| letters (which kind of makes sense: arguments low on logic need
| to be high on rhetoric and wordplay to sound convincing).
|
| Useful concepts easily translate: "chair", "sky",
| "screwdriver", "surjective function" are words in any language.
| On the other hand, difficulty in translation is a strong
| indication that the underlying message would be more
| appropriately described as "noise".
|
| There are a few false positives (humor, contextual references)
| but they are fairly easy to spot.
| alanlammiman wrote:
| I have worked as a translator and interpreter, and I agree. I
| have often found translation to be a great way to reveal sloppy
| thinking that is hiding behind a turn of phrase. I promised
| myself that if I were ever became important enough to publish
| things read by lots of people, I would be sure to translate
| them even if it weren't necessary, as a way to review them.
| [deleted]
| derevaunseraun wrote:
| Something that's really interesting: if you are bilingual read
| the wikipedia of the non-English language. Especially topics
| that are more controversial. A lot of the controversies we talk
| about in the US are very specific to the English language
| alanlammiman wrote:
| Well, it doesn't help that Wikipedia doesn't actually have a
| single canonical version that is translated, but rather
| versions that are independently managed by separate
| communities and therefore diverge significantly
| darkengine wrote:
| The exact example you mentioned (a person's weight being taboo)
| was my first "culture shock" when learning Japanese. My mind
| was opened to the multitude of prejudices carried just by
| speaking English many times after that.
|
| At one point I kept a Twitter account where I tweeted random
| thoughts about the world only in Japanese. Even though it
| hardly had any followers, there was something really freeing
| about this. It forced me to choose my words precisely (lacking
| a deep abstract vocabulary, it required careful perusal of the
| Japanese dictionary), and I also didn't feel subject to the
| cultural burdens of English (as for the burdens of Japanese, I
| wasn't yet aware of what they were). I definitely recommend to
| language learners keeping a little diary in their second
| language, once they get to a point where they are able to.
| muglug wrote:
| > Can a statement be x-ist, for whatever value of x, and also
| true? If the answer is yes, then they're admitting to banning the
| truth
|
| I disagree. The statement "very few women are capable of running
| a Fortune 500 company effectively" is factually true, but
| implicitly sexist (very few men are capable either).
|
| By banning those sorts of statements you're not banning the
| truth, you're just quieting assholes.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| These kind of "x-ist" statements are fine for things that are
| overtly x-ist. The problems happen when things are more murky;
| for example when you start exploring the reasons _why_ there
| are few women running Fortune-500 companies. If you start
| shutting down things with "it's x-ist!" then you may never
| find out the reasons (and by extension, how to do something
| about them!)
|
| "It's x-ist" is an assertion, as well as an accusations, and
| not an argument. It's usually much better replaced with "I
| think this will be bad for group x, because reason y". It has
| the same effect, and is actually constructive.
| muglug wrote:
| Lots of people have studied the question of why women aren't
| running Fortune 500 companies, and unsurprisingly the answers
| have a lot to do with sexism.
|
| The average age of a Fortune 500 CEI is 58. Talk to any
| female executive of that age and they'll have many examples
| of opportunities they missed out on because of their gender.
|
| My mum was told explicitly that she wouldn't have got the job
| she was in if they had known she had a baby at home, because
| it was a "high-pressure job". They offered to reassign her,
| she refused, and she didn't tell her colleagues about her
| husband or kids for another year, for fear of having similar
| opportunities denied.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Yeah, the quote is a very fundamental breakdown of logic. It's
| common among Facebook arguments, but very strange to see
| written by somebody at least ostensibly interested in
| rationality. I suppose he's playing a dishonest semantic game
| (I think he's smart enough to know that the world is more
| complex than that).
|
| "13/52" is, I think, one of the most outstanding examples of
| this fallacy ("13% of American are black but they commit 52% of
| murders [or violent crime? I forget]"). Assuming the numbers
| are true, it can be stated primarily for the purpose of
| information, as in an unbiased demographic analysis of crime;
| or it can be stated primarily for the purpose of expressing
| racial hatred, as in 99% (99.9%? 99.999%?) of cases on social
| media. The belief that something being true means it can not be
| used for evil (or even just in an unnecessarily provocative
| context) is categorically _not_ rational.
|
| Even propaganda, which many people correlate with "lies", is
| actually often factually true, or at least subjectively true by
| argument. Cherry-picked truth is perhaps the most effective
| propaganda, because it invites people to feel justified in
| ignoring the big picture and embracing their negative emotions
| that are tangential to that "truth".
| koonsolo wrote:
| I guess the original article didn't take misleading statements
| into account. Because your statement might indeed be factually
| true, but very misleading.
|
| What about "Can a statement be x-ist, for whatever value of x,
| and also true, when the statement is clear in its intentions
| and not misleading?". Would you agree with that?
| happytoexplain wrote:
| An excellent point - see my reply to the parent about "13/52"
| for my personal opinion.
|
| Edit: Note that my post implies that racial hatred/propaganda
| is a subset of racism, which you may or may not agree with
| semantically.
| Eli_Beeblebrox wrote:
| subjectsigma wrote:
| THIS is exactly what some are afraid of. People taking
| statements, interpreting them with their own mental models, and
| coming to the conclusion the person who made that statement is
| x-ist.
|
| Your own comment literally provides multiple interpretations of
| that statement and you chose the "sexist" one to be the
| default!?
| happytoexplain wrote:
| "Implicitly sexist" does not mean "sexist by default".
| "Implicitly" is a reasonable qualifier here. You would
| essentially have to be a robot to make this statement without
| purposefully implying that women are less capable of running
| a Fortune 500 company. In English, "very few" implies "very
| much fewer than the alternative", but in strict logical
| construction, it _does not_ , hence the parent's point and my
| remark about being a robot.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| > You would essentially have to be a robot to make this
| statement without purposefully implying that women are less
| capable of running a Fortune 500 company.
|
| It depends on context. You and I are not robots, so we see
| an individual sentence by itself and add context. But this
| isn't good.
|
| What if the follow is "And that needs to change. Which is
| why I'm proud to announce our first scholarship program for
| female entrepreneurs!" Do you still think the statement is
| sexist? Do you think the _person_ making the statement is
| sexist?
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > You would essentially have to be a robot to make this
| statement without purposefully implying that women are less
| capable of running a Fortune 500 company.
|
| I highly disagree. Imagine this statement in an example
| context:
|
| A: Most fortune 500 companies are lead by men, we need more
| women at the top.
|
| B: Very few women are capable of running a Fortune 500
| company effectively.
|
| B could either be sexist and imply that fewer women than
| men are capable, or they could simply state that selecting
| a _random_ women to promote just because she 's a women
| won't help the situation. The reading you have depends a
| lot on your biases, given that you have no information
| about B at all.
|
| If you need another example, you can replace "women" with
| any other subject in this sentence - even fortune 500
| CEO's:
|
| > Very few Fortune 500 CEOs are capable of running a
| Fortune 500 company effectively.
|
| I bet you can still find people agreeing with that, but it
| reads a lot less like it implies that a random person not
| included in the subject group is more capable.
| trash99 wrote:
| pikma wrote:
| Is the reason it's sexist because it can be interpreted as
| "women are less capable than men"? You would say this other
| statement is false and sexist, correct?
| CrimsonCape wrote:
| "Women are less capable than men" is sexist; "The majority of
| women are physically and mentally incapable of running a
| Fortune 500 company" is a neutral hypothesis that can be
| asserted with anecdotal evidence, sociological studies, and
| if modern corporate leadership wasn't silent on the issue,
| there would also likely be firsthand testimony. <--- heresy
| But on the other hand, you could likely present evidence to
| the contrary. The comparison of the opposing evidence, and
| the careful scrutiny of the facts that provide that evidence,
| is the most truthful approach to the question.
|
| For the record, the commenter above who casually states that
| "most women can't run Fortune 500 companies because most men
| can't either" <---THAT is sexist
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Please try not to misquote people you disagree with. The GP
| did not say most women can't _because_ most men can 't -
| they said most women can't _and_ most men can 't. I.e. most
| women can't because most _people_ can 't, which seems
| uncontroversial. It's a very hard job.
|
| Unrelated: I don't understand what you mean by a "neutral"
| hypothesis. The hypothesis can be made for neutral or non-
| neutral _goals_ , by a neutral or non-neutral _person_ ,
| but that's all true of any hypothesis.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > For the record, the commenter above who casually states
| that "most women can't run Fortune 500 companies because
| most men can't either" <---THAT is sexist
|
| I think you read your biases into that, too:
|
| > The statement "very few women are capable of running a
| Fortune 500 company effectively" is factually true, but
| implicitly sexist (very few men are capable either).
|
| I read the "very few men are capable either" as "the
| problem is that running a F500 is hard, not being a women".
| There's also no "because" in there - they don't imply that
| women can't because men are mostly unable, they just say
| that it's similarly hard for men.
| sithadmin wrote:
| You're giving too little attention to social context. The
| latter statement will rarely be interpreted neutrally when
| uttered in societies where statements denigrating females'
| capabilities has been (or continues to be) a cultural norm.
| jameshart wrote:
| Human discourse does not consist of people stating neutral,
| truthful propositions in isolation. We are not Vulcans.
|
| _When_ someone chooses to say a particular sentence is as
| much a part of communication as _what_ that sentence says.
|
| So when someone says "very few women are capable of running a
| Fortune 500 company effectively," they aren't merely blurting
| out a fact at random, they are _trying to say something_.
|
| And depending on the context, and who they are, and who they
| are speaking to, the thing they are trying to say can be
| different.
|
| In many cases, if someone brings up that particular fact in
| conversation, you would reasonably conclude that they are
| submitting it in support of the idea that it is unsurprising
| that few women are CEOs of F500 companies; that they believe
| that is natural and reasonable.
|
| But in other circumstances, say in a profile of a successful
| female F500 CEO, that same assertion could be being offered
| in support of the thesis that the subject of the profile is
| an exceptional individual, deserving of success.
|
| Or, as in muglug's comment to which you're replying, it could
| be being used to illustrate a point about the fact that very
| few _people_ are capable of running a fortune 500.
|
| So this is the thing: a fact is neutral. But the facts that
| you introduce into a conversation are always selected to
| support a position. And a position can certainly be sexist.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Human discourse does not consist of people stating
| neutral, truthful propositions in isolation. We are not
| Vulcans
|
| Yay.
|
| But also ... there's a sort of idiot's veto over language.
| If people who are racist say "X", and I also say "X", does
| that make me racist? Well, no. But as a participant in a
| society, as a participant in a conversation, I need to be
| aware of the context. If racist people are saying "X", I
| should probably take advantage of the insane level of
| linguistic flexibility in most human languages and find a
| different way to make the point I was trying to make.
|
| Some will protest that this "capitulation" ("I refuse to
| stop saying X just some bad people are saying it too")
| allows the bad people to control our language. I say that
| if you're not a bad person (whatever that might mean), you
| can almost certainly find alternative ways of speaking that
| avoid us wasting time debating whether you're a bad person.
| me_again wrote:
| > We are not Vulcans.
|
| Exactly. Graham gives the impression that he thinks
| conversations are a set of automata exchanging logical
| propositions. Rather makes me wonder if he's ever met a
| human.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I know you didn't ask me, but I just wanted to say that
| language is nothing without context. "Less capable" is very
| subjective and context-dependent, so without more specifics
| it can't really be "true" or "false" except very
| colloquially. As for "sexist" - in a void with no context,
| it's _apparently_ sexist, but that doesn 't mean the sentence
| can't exist in a non-sexist context.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| This can also be interpreted as an interesting piece on perceived
| martyrdom and persecution fetish.
| typon wrote:
| The plight of powerful white men in positions of power is
| nothing to scoff at
| [deleted]
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Another word for heresy is political correctness.
|
| The problem with it is you can attack anybody you dislike with
| very little cost to you because you stand with a large crowd
| agreeing with you. And you don't even have to understand the
| issues since the opinion you put out is commonly accepted. It in
| fact might not be your opinion but you can still use it to attack
| opponents.
|
| Political correctness is a quite naturally occurring phenomenon.
| People oppose other people. There's not much we can do about it
| except try to point it out. But that's not what Paul Graham is
| doing, he's talking about it in the abstract, only.
|
| That is not a bad thing but I see an issue with it: It gets you
| far away from actual issues that harm us greatly.
|
| It is not the biggest problem that political correctness occurs.
| The problem is some of the things it is used for.
|
| For instance in Russia it is the ultimate heresy to say that
| Russia is fighting a war on Ukraine. The war is a real big
| problem. It is not caused by political correctness, supporters of
| the war are simply using political correctness to support the
| war. And state-sanctioned official heresies, yes that's what we
| need to fight and expose in general.
|
| The real problem is not political correctness but using it for
| bad purposes. Like using it to support an unprovoked military
| attack on your neighboring country and putting the "heretics"
| into prison.
| tootie wrote:
| Political correctness was an epithet invented by conservatives
| who opposed things like women's rights, gay rights etc. The
| fact that advocates can be mistaken doesn't overshadow how
| wrong the other side is to be unwilling to acknowledge
| injustice.
| rendang wrote:
| We live in a pluralistic society where there is a great deal
| of disagreement over the fundamental principles of ethics,
| justice and rights. This is not an easily soluble situation,
| it boils down to the is-ought problem.
|
| However it seems that today many want to pretend that these
| differences don't exist, e.g. a progressive talks to a
| conservative as if the latter agrees on fundamental
| presuppositions but only misapplies them. In other words, we
| treat our opponents like they are heretics from our religion
| instead of infidels who belong to a different one.
| lukifer wrote:
| It does not follow that every reaction to injustice is
| inherently justice. As an exaggerated example, if the
| punishment for shoplifting was death, I can oppose that
| punishment without being in favor of shoplifting.
|
| Obviously, those who criticize overreach of responses to
| injustice, will inevitably find themselves in common cause
| with reactionaries who _do_ genuinely oppose progress,
| whether they want to or not. But that 's all the more reason
| to be tolerant of good-faith dissent: the alternative is no
| one trusts anyone, and good-faith dissent itself becomes
| coded as a reactionary trick.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Exactly, it is most likely an attempt to shift the
| conversation to something else. Ad Hominem.
| [deleted]
| ineptech wrote:
| > Up till about 1985 the window [of what you can say without
| being cancelled] had been growing ever wider. Anyone looking into
| the future in 1985 would have expected freedom of expression to
| continue to increase. Instead it has decreased.
|
| I think that whether this is or true or not depends a lot on how
| you define your terms. If cancel culture only means "I expressed
| an unpopular opinion about gay rights on TV and then lost my
| job", then yes, the window is narrower now than in 1985. But if
| it also includes "I expressed an unpopular opinion about gay
| rights in a bar and then got beaten up," it is not.
| prtkgpt wrote:
| It's no longer [flagged]. Thank you.
| [deleted]
| eliseumds wrote:
| It's been flagged again. What a mess.
| prtkgpt wrote:
| Unflagged again. This is super weird.
| tlogan wrote:
| "Heresy" is not when you purposefully say things which make some
| other group a less human. We as a society kinda decided that is
| wrong. But there some people who do not think that is wrong and
| they call it "heresy".
| Koshkin wrote:
| An opinion that is "wrong" from the society's standpoint is
| indeed what is called "heresy."
| anonu wrote:
| The missing component not mentioned in PGs essay is the
| acceleration and amplification of cancel culture via the
| Internet.
|
| Even a decade ago, tribes were geographically local. Today, your
| tribe is literally global. It knows no borders. Thus social media
| amplifies the effect of cancel culture and "same think".
| [deleted]
| oasisbob wrote:
| The internet accelerated and amplifies many other things as
| well, including the free exchange of ideas and information.
|
| I would argue this may dominate over the effect you assume and
| drive the same simply because if one wants to become outraged
| over an act, they need to know it occurred in the first place.
|
| I'm not sure I'd agree that the overall effect of the internet
| is to drive cultural consensus.
| throwoutway wrote:
| > Today, your tribe is literally global.
|
| What's worse is tribes also have strongarms inside
| corporations. If the Internet mob wants to get someone fired
| for saying something, they just reach out to the local chapter
| of strongarms and make demands/walkouts against the company
| until they get their way.
| tomrod wrote:
| I don't read too much of PG's recent work. Does he attack
| classism with the same vigor as he does the left?
| kemayo wrote:
| Mysteriously enough, the rich old man has his priorities
| aligned differently there.
|
| Tangentially, I'd like to note "rich old man" as an example of
| one of those "just speaking an objective truth" things this
| essay supports, and the reason it can be problematic. Because
| objectively, Graham _is_ a rich old man. (You could quibble
| about the precise boundary on "old", but he's 57 currently and
| that counts to me.) However, my saying it and calling attention
| to it certainly _implies_ things, doesn 't it?
| odonnellryan wrote:
| He's insanely detached from reality. Dude should not be making
| social commentary lol
| dasil003 wrote:
| I think this is largely a social media phenomenon. Twitter flash
| mobs can destroy people's lives in a vary offhanded, drive-by
| fashion simply because people with actual power are scared of
| them and capitulate to unreasonable demands. But if you talk with
| people in real life, you'll find much more nuanced thinking and
| willingness to engage in open-minded debate. The problem is
| giving too much attention to extremist views.
| seaourfreed wrote:
| Paul posted this because this has escalated to getting people
| on the political right fired from their jobs (directly or
| indirectly).
|
| See his words: "Nowadays, in civilized countries, heretics only
| get fired in the metaphorical sense, by losing their jobs. But
| the structure of the situation is the same: the heresy
| outweighs everything else. You could have spent the last ten
| years saving children's lives, but if you express certain
| opinions, you're automatically fired."
| kevingadd wrote:
| Fired from their jobs for what, exactly? Being too fiscally
| conservative?
|
| Most people in the US are under at-will employment, so they
| can be fired at any time for almost any reason. So if we're
| going to argue that they are being fired due to political
| persecution from the hard left, you have to make a thorough
| case there because you're saying their employer shouldn't be
| free to hire and fire whomever they like.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| "Political right" is doing a lot of work here. People aren't
| getting fired for supporting lower taxes or environmental
| deregulation.
| kemayo wrote:
| The good old "a state's right to _what_ exactly? "
| comeback. :D
| FerociousTimes wrote:
| I wish he touched on the point of how public discourse on social
| media platforms is inevitably doomed to descend into a cesspool
| of populist rhetoric, and the more masses the platform attracts,
| the more hierarchical it gets, the more emphasis it puts on
| vanity metrics, the likelier it would be a breeding ground of
| populists of all stripes, and that this cancel culture and mass-
| produced outrage is symptomatic of a greater social problem, and
| the witch hunts conducted by the vindictive online mob in pursuit
| of a perverted sense of justice that he so lamented in this essay
| is just one manifestation of the underlying issue of the
| infliction of populism that struck the society in our modern
| times.
| vinceguidry wrote:
| This essay would have been more useful had it included a
| treatment of actual Catholic heresy accusations and trials. I
| could give my own account of how I understand it, but I would
| have liked to have heard PGs characterization.
|
| Instead we're stuck with an modernist take ungrounded in history.
| falcolas wrote:
| Yeah, while I'm not a huge fan of modern radicalization (or
| perhaps just it's resurgence) I still find "cancel culture"
| more tolerable than torture and murder.
| cs702 wrote:
| We should all strive to keep an open mind, especially to ideas
| contrary to our own.
|
| But it's not easy, because every group, in every society,
| organically develops its own heresies - things you cannot say
| without consequences.
|
| For example, here are some heresies common in the Silicon Valley
| startup community:
|
| * Heresy: "Government regulations are, on the whole, a net force
| for the good of humanity."
|
| * Heresy: "All entrepreneurs in the US owe much their success to
| past government spending on infrastructure and education, so they
| should be personally taxed at high rates to repay their enormous
| debt to society."
|
| * Heresy: "High redistribution of wealth via government spending
| is necessary for sustaining economic growth."
|
| * Heresy: "Silicon Valley is an exclusionary club, not a
| meritocracy."
|
| Proclaiming any of these things, say, at a dinner party with
| startup CEOs, is socially equivalent to jumping on top of the
| table, pulling your pants down, and passing gas. In fact, the
| latter may be more socially acceptable -- it's less threatening
| to the startup zeitgeist.
| CPLX wrote:
| The ultimate heresy for SV culture is genuinely attempting to
| address even the _possibility_ that the world is worse off
| because of their existence.
|
| Of course any answer to that question has a lot of nuance to
| unpack. But SV culture I don't think would even accept the
| premise that this question has valid answers on both sides.
| javajosh wrote:
| I bet you could say those things (and other provocative things)
| at a dinner party with other CEOs. It is, after all, what they
| do at Davos: fling socialist talking points at those immensely
| wealthy, smiling, capitalist faces.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| throwaway543209 wrote:
| I wonder what would be his reaction to someone trying to
| unionize in one of his shop. He would probably not call that
| cancel culture but right to work.
| mordae wrote:
| * Meritocracy isn't, because merit cannot be easily measured
| and it is trivial for successful bad actors to build moats that
| prevent anyone else getting as valued as them.
|
| * Higher economic growth can be achieved by investing in
| education, but nobody would do that, because it's (rightfully)
| illegal to sell yourself into slavery in exchange for
| education.
|
| * Regulatory capture sucks and is super hard to work around. It
| should be combated instead of being relied on as a future moat
| against competitors.
| glogla wrote:
| > For example, here are some heresies common in the Silicon
| Valley startup community:
|
| You're basically just saying it is heresy to be moderately
| left-wing in Silicon Valley.
|
| Which I don't doubt is true, even if I hope it is not quite as
| dire. Just wanted to point out the connection.
|
| EDIT: though if we're talking "in front of CEO", that might be
| like talking about French Revolution in front of a monarch, or
| mentioning Mao in front of landlord, so I can understand why
| the CEO would not like it.
| morelisp wrote:
| 1), 2), and 4) are not particularly inherently or exclusively
| left-wing positions. 1) and 2) have been popular with some
| Republicans (and republicans) in the 20th century, as well as
| many traditional and Third Way liberals.
|
| 4) is extremely contemporary, but it's definitely a common
| populist right-wing position these days also.
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| All of those statements can be easily refuted factually, so no,
| they are not heresies.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| This is the thing - everybody thinks the heresies they are
| opposed to are also false. Many of which are based purely on
| ideology.
| skellington wrote:
| There is nothing brave or heretic about holding those views in
| Silicon Valley. SV skews quite left even though most people's
| actions don't match words. You'll find a high degree of
| acceptance of these views at all levels in SV including tech
| CEOs who worship at the altar of pseudo-socialism.
|
| Sometimes, you will get nuanced pushback (since these are very
| old ideas), but I've never seen a person cancelled in SV for
| holding the suburban socialist/communist ideologies that you
| listed. You are more in danger if being labelled alt-right if
| you argue against these things.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| None of these views are socialist or communist - at most,
| they are social democratic, which is a very common and
| moderate position outside the US (and was also common in the
| US before the 80s).
| chasing wrote:
| I'll point out that saying true statements but framing them in a
| racist or sexist way is an extremely common tactic. In fact, it's
| the preferred tactic of many bad actors because it's very easy to
| hide behind the "but it's true!" defence.
|
| Something can be true and also presented with racist or sexist
| intent.
| daenz wrote:
| >intent
|
| assuming you know someone's intent suggests a bias against the
| part that you disagree with. give me an example of a truth that
| can be perceived as racist or sexist, and i'll show you how
| easy it is to ascribe intent to it.
| sitkack wrote:
| Is also a great way to get the other side to rage quit the
| "debate" and then you win by forfeit. Also the bullshit wrong
| thing gets pulled along closer to the truth by standing next to
| a true fact.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| This read a lot like Eric Hoffer's "True Believer". I highly
| recommend the book to anyone who liked this essay.
| MrSlonzak wrote:
| We live in New Middleages. Just substitute religion for ideology
| and suddenly it all makes sense.
| otterley wrote:
| No it isn't. Nobody is literally losing their life over this.
| alexashka wrote:
| You think it is due to some virtue these braindead activists
| possess that they don't kill people?
|
| Sorry, I mean 'intolerant people'.
| otterley wrote:
| I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say. Can you
| rephrase?
| [deleted]
| h2odragon wrote:
| they only burned a few witches, back when. It wasn't _that_
| big a deal...
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| maybe read a book or a wikipedia article about what the middle
| ages were like
| emerged wrote:
| what they ended up like, or how they got there? because I'd
| rather note and correct the trend /before/ we start torturing
| and killing people in public display.
| [deleted]
| otterley wrote:
| The two eras and their initial conditions aren't even
| comparable. We have strong state constitutions and the
| procedural rule of law now. We use science instead of
| religion to explain mysterious phenomena. Those aren't
| being torn down any time soon over spite. We're simply not
| going to end someone's life over a differing opinion; our
| entire system of government would have to change first.
|
| Your argument is basically a "slippery slope" argument, and
| this is a good example of why these types of arguments are
| so weak and problematic.
| emerged wrote:
| Oh ok. I was thinking patterns have occurred throughout
| history and that we could learn to identify those
| patterns to avoid repeating history.
|
| But good point, no two times in history are completely
| identical so we shouldn't bother.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| What we shouldn't bother with is making facile and
| insipid comparisons that disservices both modernity and
| history.
| otterley wrote:
| Of course we can learn from history. But deep and
| thoughtful analysis is important. The time to freak out
| would be when there's a serious threat to our
| constitutions or laws that would enable criminal
| punishment for holding controversial opinions. And we
| just don't see that on the horizon yet.
| emerged wrote:
| The seeds have been sowed into the youth through media,
| technology and educational systems for years now. Do you
| think it stops there?
| otterley wrote:
| Until we see otherwise, yes.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > We're simply not going to end someone's life over a
| differing opinion
|
| Unless that opinion is about who owns a specific piece of
| land.
| otterley wrote:
| Can you elaborate? Are you talking about national
| territorial disputes (i.e., war), or a dispute over where
| two domestic neighbors' land boundaries lie? In any
| event, this feels like an attempt to win an argument by
| stretching it to cover something out of scope.
| voidhorse wrote:
| pg employs this style of argumentation so frequently that it's
| almost time to devise a new term for it; for those sympathetic to
| his argument, realize that it is not an argument for free speech
| but rather an argument for free speech without consequences.
|
| pg likes to do this thing where he takes some noble instance of a
| counterexample (e.g. Newton being declared a heretic for
| important _scientific_ discoveries) and uses it to butter up the
| audience to be sympathetic to what ultimately becomes a defense
| of racism /sexism/whatever-ism you want without consequences
| because, wait a minute kids, the homophobes and racists might be
| right! What he manages to do rather surreptitiously, is attempt
| to get abstract enough that he can bring _all forms of discourse_
| to the same level. He reduces all discourse to the "search for
| truth" but if he had even a passing knowledge of speech act
| theory, any linguistics, Wittgenstein's later philosophy etc.
| he'd quickly recognize that much of the speech and discourse
| human beings are engaged in is _not_ about finding the truth.
|
| Ultimately, we determine our own values, and just because
| something is _true_ does not mean it aligns with our values. Can
| a statement be "xist" and true? (let's call it what it is, pg
| means the negative isms here, racism, sexism, etc. (see how
| suddenly it's hard to agree with him when he says what he means
| and doesn't hedge? he hedges and hides behind abstraction because
| he realizes his position is indefensible to most "conventional
| minded" (read not bigoted) people)) yes of course. a statement
| can be totally racist and somehow true. Does that mean we should
| accept all these statements in all realms of discourse and that
| such the authors of these statements should be free of
| consequences because the statement happens to be true. But we
| don't just live in the world, as humans we have agency and we
| might decide that when truth and morals conflict, we prefer
| morals.
|
| Is calling someone ,e.g. racist an attempt to stonewall their
| speech? Of course it is. People don't like racism. Paul claims
| this is a "wave of intolerance" while conveniently ignoring the
| fact that the positive content of "xism" speech is also a vehicle
| of intolerance, and usually a much more aggressive one at that,
| to the point that your speech is trying to do the work of not
| tolerating the very existence of classes of people in society.
|
| Human society is an amalgam of all sorts of discourse. Even we
| "conventional minded" simpletons can recognize that the intent of
| a "xism" discourse is usually not truth seeking so much as it is
| the active exclusion of certain classes of people from equal
| participation in society. It's nice to think everything is
| reducible to something like "Newton V. the Church" but this is a
| reductive move that ignores all the particularities of such
| discourse and tries to make things that are fundamentally
| distinct (scientific process v. racism, sexism, all manner of
| exclusionary discourse) equivalent. Should scientific exploration
| be punished with the stake? No. Should racism be punished with
| loss of a career? Possibly. As with every _moral_ problem, we
| often need to judge case by case. Can "cancellations" be a way
| too severe given the violation? Of course. Can they also be
| appropriate? Sure. Moral problems are not reducible to a abstract
| mathematics that removes human particulars from the equation or
| to technical description and the part of your brain responsible
| for empathy must be pretty lacking if you think otherwise.
| Morality is not some abstract calculus. That's why we have juries
| and judges.
|
| I'm really sick of pg using his platform to come up with these
| absolutely piss-poor pieces of sophistry that are ultimately
| defenses of horrible shit veiled behind "smart" abstract language
| so that "conventional minded" people are tricked into thinking
| this guy actually has something interesting to say about society
| and isn't secretly a massive bigot. Continue being a great
| capitalist or whatever but keep the pseudo-intellectualism to
| yourself, please.
| rs_rs_rs_rs_rs wrote:
| i000 wrote:
| Yes, calling out a group of people an "insane concept" is a
| form of hostility. The existence of trans people (and children)
| both at the social and biological (even genetic) level is quite
| beyond doubt. One might disagree and discuss how to help and
| live alongside those people, but labeling them an "insane
| concept" is not a worthy contribution tho this discourse.
| [deleted]
| pfortuny wrote:
| "quite beyond doubt", and there you are. The conversation
| just finished. You are right, the rest are wrong.
|
| And that's that.
|
| Or is it?
| dang wrote:
| If any intelligent, caring discussion about this is possible on
| the open internet, it's certainly not going to happen through
| this sort of Molotov cocktail, so yeah, that's a problem. The
| HN guidelines are written specifically to ask people not to do
| this, regardless of which side of a conflict they're holding.
| Would you mind reviewing them and sticking to them?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - note this
| one:
|
| " _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not
| less, as a topic gets more divisive._ "
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30977299 and marked it off
| topic.
|
| p.s. since this kind of mod comment tends to elicit responses,
| I should probably add that I'm in a workshop today and unable
| to do as much as I normally would on HN. So if anyone notices
| something not being taken care of or not getting a reply,
| please don't be quick to draw large conclusions from that--it's
| more likely that I'm not as free.
| vinceguidry wrote:
| You should probably go look at the current state of diagnosis
| and treatment of gender dysphoria before giving your hot take.
| If caught and treated early, gender reassignment surgery can
| work miracles on a child's quality of life. It really shouldn't
| be seen any differently than other treatable birth defects.
| javajosh wrote:
| What is the liklihood of the child being confused, mistaken,
| or later changing their mind? TBH my concern is that liberal
| parents, excited at the prospect that their little white boy
| will avoid a lifetime of abuse by transitioning to being a
| little white girl, will not even preach caution, but will
| hasten the transition to a better, more protected, identity.
| ratww wrote:
| _> What is the liklihood of the child being confused,
| mistaken, or later changing their mind?_
|
| Definitely not 100%, but regardless of that: definitely not
| something I, a neutral part, can answer, let alone groups
| with an anti-trans/anti-LGBT agenda. This is a case-by-case
| thing to be decided by professionals.
| jameshart wrote:
| "a better, more protected, identity"
|
| If you don't recognize that playing life as a middle class
| white, cis, male is still 'easy mode' compared to literally
| any other option... I don't know what to tell you.
| tedivm wrote:
| Most people don't realize this either, but I think it's worth
| mentioning after Alabama passed their new legislation that
| the common treatment for trans teens is puberty blockers to
| delay puberty. These puberty blockers were specifically
| developed for CIS children entering puberty too early (or
| having other medical issues) and have been used for a long
| time. They basically help give the children more time to
| mature before making decisions in either direction.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Yeah, but there needs to be a point where you can trust that
| the child didn't just make it all up and gets fucked for
| life. I think the age where you can reasonably be sure of
| that is probably pretty close to the age of adulthood
| already.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The notion that young kids necessarily have a completely
| formed and stabilized "gender identity" (which is necessary
| for "trans kids" to even be a meaningful concept) is entirely
| driven by ideology. It doesn't even pass the most cursory
| test of plausibility.
| otterley wrote:
| teraflop wrote:
| Of course it's not necessary for gender identity to be
| "completely formed and stabilized" to be able to talk about
| it. Do you think it's meaningless to describe a child as
| "short" or "tall" because their body is still growing?
| Karunamon wrote:
| I think that's a poor comparison, as those things are
| objectively measured, while gender identity exists in the
| mind and cannot be.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| There hasn't been nearly enough time for longitudinal
| studies. We have no idea what treatment, if any, will lead to
| the greatest lifetime quality of life for children expressing
| symptoms of gender dysphoria. Nor for that matter do we have
| any idea why children are experiencing these symptoms are
| much higher rates.
| jleyank wrote:
| Fetal development isn't a perfect process. XXY embryos,
| testosterone insensitivity. There might be other
| manifestations of gender confusion as I'm not a biologist.
| newbamboo wrote:
| Psychiatry once regarded gayness as mental illness. The
| opinions of those who are employed in the industry of trans
| research should be regarded as potentially ephemeral, as was
| prescribing opiates for pain. Science makes mistakes. It's
| part of the process. One should be wary of the new, if one
| cares about their patients.
| indy wrote:
| If misdiagnosed, gender reassignment surgery is disasterous
| on a child's quality of life. So perhaps we should be looking
| at the number of false diagnoses for gender dysphoria?
| [deleted]
| DeWilde wrote:
| But how accurate is that diagnosis, are there false positives
| and how much?
|
| I know, anecdotally, that some homosexual men are gender
| dysphoric during prepubescent age but grew out of it during
| puberty, and feel it would have been a mistake to transition
| at that age.
|
| But this isn't the point of the essay. The point is that
| asking questions like these would get you branded a heretic
| by the far left. And acknowledging gender dysphoria would get
| you branded a heretic by the far right.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| The left's current position is that puberty blockers should
| be available to all kids until they can decide what gender
| they want to be. They claim there are zero (0) irreversible
| side effects to puberty blockers.
|
| No drug has no side effects, least of all one that inhibits
| puberty. Letting a kid make a choice like that - one they
| can't possibly understand the consequences of - is worse.
| Saying we're doing it so that they don't commit suicide in
| the short-term with no regard to their long-term induced
| infertility? That's just irresponsible not to talk about.
| ratww wrote:
| _> The left's current position is that puberty blockers
| should be available to all kids until they can decide what
| gender they want to be._
|
| That couldn't be further from the truth as possible.
|
| It is the right constantly saying they should be 100%
| banned, with the other side wants more nuance in the
| discussion.
|
| You'll sure find some wackos with this position to use as a
| strawman, but that's definitely not "the left". I'm left,
| and I don't know anyone saying it.
|
| TL;DR: You're projecting.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Feel free to provide counterexamples of where you feel
| this not to be true. The link below details that not only
| are they wanting open access, but they want insurance
| coverage as well.
|
| I'm running off of https://aleteia.org/2022/04/06/biden-
| administration-promotes...
| ratww wrote:
| "Access to drugs and procedures" doesn't mean free
| unrestricted access to "all kids". This is not candy
| being sold in the supermarket to kids. This all goes
| trough parents, psychiatrists and other physicians and
| the healthcare system.
| larry_mulgrave wrote:
| Aqueous wrote:
| Thank you for very clearly demonstrating his point, that the
| people who point out these tactics are often accused of being
| heretics themselves.
| [deleted]
| peyton wrote:
| Cut it out.
| alkonaut wrote:
| "Hi, I'm important and I find it's hard to be an asshole these
| days without someone immediately calling me an asshole"
|
| Did I read this right?
| ruined wrote:
| wow, pg banned from his own webbed side
| [deleted]
| marricks wrote:
| He really needs examples provided. Which group do you think is on
| his mind?
|
| - Palestine and how many academics have been fired or silenced
| for supporting them l? Nathan J Robinson was let go form The
| Guardian for a joke about Palestinian treatment.
|
| - The score of labor organizers fired in the tech and food
| service industry for expressing their right to organize?
|
| - Tech workers getting fired for what could be claimed to be
| sexism/sexual harassment?
|
| - People fired because they are extremely right wing?
|
| People who talk about the limiting of free speech almost never
| care about the first two but they sure get high and mighty when
| their friends get cancelled for making off color jokes.
| c1b wrote:
| So you just gave three examples off the top of your head but
| you need to make sure he picked the right one..?
| marricks wrote:
| Sorry, I thought it'd be obvious to everyone reading he
| clearly isn't talking about:
|
| - labor organizers getting fired
|
| - Palestine
|
| - Folks getting sexually harassed
| woodruffw wrote:
| I believe the author was pointing out that pg is selective in
| his application of "heresy."
| stale2002 wrote:
| So you agree that the issue of heresy is a problem, but
| instead of addressing the actual issue, you are more
| interested in knowing which team PG is in, in the ongoing
| pattern of treating politics like team sports.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I am first and foremost interested in _consistency_ , a
| property that is consistently in short supply with pg.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| The thing that makes x-ism x-ism is not truthiness (or the lack
| thereof), but intent and omission and what it implies. The thing
| that is explicitly being said is always accompanied by a lot more
| that is not being said and this makes all the difference.
|
| Let's stipulate that group A has statistically more X than group
| B. This is the truth, measurably.
|
| If we state this fact on public television, but omit, overlook or
| belittle the (also stipulated) fact, that this is due to unfair
| advantage Y (which then accelerates development that furthers the
| unfair advantage of group A) that's X-ism.
|
| The devil is in the cherry picking and context. The outcome might
| not even be intended. Or it might be. The crux is: Saying "that's
| not what I meant" is just as easy as saying "that's what you
| meant" (or "that's sexist") and neither is a sign of sincerity.
| metmac wrote:
| Why was this post flagged?
| falcolas wrote:
| Because many users flagged it.
|
| That's usually all there is to it.
|
| Personally I flagged it because it's conversational flame bait
| where two radicalized groups will argue past each other
| endlessly, which will serve only to reinforce their
| radicalization. (Yes, me too)
| SmileyJames wrote:
| It's heretical
| metmac wrote:
| But like. Seriously @dang, can you provide context here.
|
| Is this a matter of heated discussion or what...
| [deleted]
| Koshkin wrote:
| Is it heretical to call a heresy "heresy"?
| newbamboo wrote:
| Remarkable to see the lack of self awareness in this thread.
| "It's not censorship when I do it!!!!" It scares me to have so
| many educated people that aren't in touch, aren't even in
| control, if their own minds. My faith in free will ever
| diminishes.
| Aeolun wrote:
| The best moment is when you become aware that you aren't
| yourself immune to everything you critize others for.
| osipov wrote:
| native_samples wrote:
| One of the interesting things about this essay is the way it
| criticizes orthodoxy and heresies, then casually throws in people
| who refuse vaccines as "extremists" equivalent to people who
| enforce the concept of heresy.
|
| But that doesn't really make sense because "thou shalt never
| question the divinity of vaccines" is a modern day orthodoxy, and
| those who do in fact question them are the modern day heretics,
| with scientific institutions being the modern Church. Heretics
| aren't actually set on fire these days but they are e.g.
| currently banned from entering the United States and many other
| countries, and just a few months ago they were banned from all
| public places etc.
|
| A man truly dedicated to the abolition of heresy would recognize
| that by calling people as "extremists" is in fact (perhaps
| unrealising) the exact same behavior he is criticizing. After
| all, has he talked to these people to understand their heresy? My
| guess is no. Rather, he just feels in his bones that by Following
| The Science(tm) he is a morally and intellectually superior
| creature.
|
| When an essay that thinks it's arguing for the ending of heresy
| cannot even avoid damning some heretics, I see no particular
| reason for optimism, as Graham does. Rather this problem will get
| worse before it gets better, if it ever does.
| fassssst wrote:
| This is an essay about what is largely a social media phenomenon.
| You can avoid the whole thing by just not participating. Seems
| like a waste of energy to even discuss vs just realizing that
| arguing publicly on a global scale is not a good use of your
| limited time on Earth.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > You can avoid the whole thing by just not participating.
|
| No you can't. If someone records you saying something
| heretical, they can share it on social media and the cancel mob
| will get you fired from your job, even if you don't have social
| media yourself.
| derevaunseraun wrote:
| > You can avoid the whole thing by just not participating.
|
| Except when people don't participate they get nothing out of
| the exchange and there's no discussion or progress
| fassssst wrote:
| Progress happens offline.
| rossvor wrote:
| But you can't deny that Internet is a great multiplier for
| progress. So you are just handicapping yourself. I'd rather
| we figure out how to address the problem instead.
| hansoolo wrote:
| Totally agree. I even think, that the radicalisation
| everywhere directly derives from the all huge social media
| bubbles.
| hansoolo wrote:
| But participating in a Twitter flame war or something related
| mostly just hardens opinions. Everything happening online is
| behind the anonymous mask.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Public policy, and the power stemming from it, is a social
| phenomenon.
|
| Which isn't to say that Twitter is important to the United
| States' future, but also is to say that it's not unimportant.
|
| Commons sway votes, which sway policy in a democracy.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Commons sway votes, which sway policy in a democracy.
|
| Evidence suggests otherwise[1]. In the US (and really
| anywhere else) public policy is elite driven, and if anything
| public discourse and public opinion is amorphous and shifts
| as a response to whatever is passed down by institutions, be
| that corporate, academia, the media or what have you.
|
| This very intuitively is visible in the 'topic of the
| day/week/month' nature of American discourse where everyone
| seemingly synchronized goes into a frenzy only to move on to
| the next thing a while later.
|
| The 'commons' are a giant entertainment machine where people
| who have practically zero influence on anything meaningful
| can spent their time, that's about it.
|
| [1]https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-
| poli...
| FerociousTimes wrote:
| Except that the conversations on social media seeps into and
| spills over into other facets of real life and affects public
| discourse on traditional mass media and public policy in
| general.
| [deleted]
| Biologist123 wrote:
| This essay was somewhat high on opinion, somewhat low on
| evidence. Paul Graham tweets a lot about this issue, and cancel
| culture is something he is apparently very sensitive too. It
| makes me wonder what happened - as given his lack of evidence -
| it appears to be an emotional reaction rather than a logical one.
|
| As an aside, most examples of people being fired for expressing
| opinions seem to come from academia. I've wondered if that might
| be due to a change in the cost of university education, which
| means universities are more akin to businesses servicing clients.
| And the first thing you'll always hear in a client-facing
| business is...
|
| _"Don't piss off your customers"._
|
| A sad commercial reality because a diversity of opinion in
| education is valuable.
| telchior wrote:
| Trying to give it the article a more positive reading: at least
| for myself, I can imagine several opinions I could express in
| the United States which would count as "heresy". I'd imagine
| that if those opinions were said out loud (whether or not I
| really believed them) my employers would fire me, friends would
| unfriend me, etc.
|
| But, I can't really think of any supporting real-world stories
| where that reaction wouldn't be justified. There are two that
| come to mind:
|
| - Justine Sacco, the woman who was fired for tweeting a joke
| that she hoped she wouldn't get AIDS on her trip to Africa. I
| don't think the joke is necessarily indicative of some deep
| inner evil, but the lady was a PR exec; it does tend to
| indicate that she was probably dangerously incompetent at her
| actual job. Firing seems like the right response.
|
| - Amy Cooper, the lady in New York who called the police on "an
| African American man threatening my life" in Central Park. He
| was a bird-watcher asking her to keep her unleashed dogs under
| control. Widely reported that she was fired for racism. But
| again, is this really a case of being fired for heresy? Or
| could it have perhaps just a case of the employer realizing
| their employee is a dishonest sack of crap? God knows what kind
| of havoc a person like this might wreak inside a company.
|
| Those two are probably the most widely reported in the past few
| years. People here are referencing firings in academia; maybe
| those would give more nuance.
| knorker wrote:
| Neither was fired for work performance. I think anything else
| is a distracting justification, not a reason.
|
| James Damore was fired by a mob who boldly proclaimed "I
| didn't read his manifesto. I didn't have to".
|
| None of these firings were for honest reasons, but all just
| to appease the mob. A mob who at least in the last case
| didn't bother to even find out what he said.
|
| There are many more examples. I could list them on and on,
| but I'm surprised you've only heard of the two.
|
| There was the lady who appeared to scream in a cemetery
|
| If those two are truly the only ones you can think of then
| I'd recommend you google this a bit better, and to read "So
| you've been publicly shamed".
|
| Hell, a year ago you'd be kicked off the internet (social
| media platforms) as a racist (wat?) for saying the lab leak
| theory was plausible.
|
| And of course then there's the chilling effect.
| prezjordan wrote:
| James Damore was fired by Google, not a mob. The people at
| Google who made this decision read his "manifesto."
| josephcsible wrote:
| Okay, would saying "a mob bullied Google into firing
| James Damore" instead be better?
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Presumably the executives who fired him are intelligent
| people who can draw their own conclusions about what he
| did or didn't say.
|
| (I find it revealing that the reaction on HN is
| fundamentally that Damore was fired by a conspiracy. The
| executives must actually agree with him but were
| "bullied" by woke people or something, as though it's not
| possible that corporate leadership could find what he
| said problematic).
| ryanobjc wrote:
| I've looked at some of these academic circumstances and the
| ones I looked at were very misleading. Often times the only
| account we have is from the fired person, who is obviously
| going to push the most favorable narrative. When you dig in,
| there is something else amiss.
|
| But this focus - deliberately engineered btw - on right wing
| firing is misleading. There is an order of magnitude more
| firing and suppression of left wing voices at college. It's
| just there is no Fox News of the left to focus culture war
| agitprop on those cases.
| Biologist123 wrote:
| It's a good point you make. I'm thinking of all the heterodox
| economists who don't get hired - ie the throttle is applied
| at a different layer.
| byecomputer wrote:
| > There is an order of magnitude more firing and suppression
| of left wing voices at college.
|
| Unless we're including religious colleges, this seems
| hyperbolic.
|
| While I did find this[1], which appears to support the idea
| that left-wing voices are more likely to get fired/kicked out
| of universities for their speech (though not by a _magnitude_
| ), I have no idea how that study split up which speech was
| 'censored by right'/'censored by left', because when I tried
| to do so myself with the dataset[2], the results were closer
| to 55/45 (left-wing firing/right-wing firing) for 2015-2017,
| which was the years the study chose to focus on, but almost
| exactly 50/50 for the entire 2006-2020 dataset.
|
| [1] https://www.niskanencenter.org/there-is-no-campus-free-
| speec... [2] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eeTHZQOh
| 9faZ2P3C_O3s...
| kemayo wrote:
| > But this focus - deliberately engineered btw - on right
| wing firing is misleading. There is an order of magnitude
| more firing and suppression of left wing voices at college.
| It's just there is no Fox News of the left to focus culture
| war agitprop on those cases.
|
| If you're looking for a parallel that applies to cancelling
| the left, albeit outside the academy, union-busting is very
| common and tends to involve doing your very best to fire
| people who're speaking up about wanting to form a union. Such
| speech is pretty unambiguously treated as a "heresy" (in the
| Graham sense) by business owners.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| I have a far less positive view of education and many of the
| professors who have traditionally occupied it in the US. A
| whole lot of entrenched people with tenure who have formal
| authority over people (grad students) without even a hint of
| manager training and it really shows. Many of these people are
| downright childish, intentionally put blinders on the world
| immediately around them, and cause countless students
| unnecessary pain just so that their own eccentric personalities
| are accommodated.
| sicromoft wrote:
| > This essay was somewhat high on opinion, somewhat low on
| evidence
|
| That's putting it mildly. It's littered with straw men and
| other logical fallacies.
|
| He asserts, without any proof (because it's a faulty
| generalization that can't be proven), 'when someone calls a
| statement "x-ist," they're also implicitly saying that this is
| the end of the discussion'. He then wastes a bunch of time
| explaining the implications of his straw man.
| Biologist123 wrote:
| I do tend to read his essays when I see them circulating and
| I must confess that I find them fascinating. I've wondered if
| Graham himself doesn't entirely understand why he's been so
| successful or what he's achieved in creating - and indeed
| whether he's aware of the deficit. When future historians of
| our increasingly interesting and shocking epoch are trying to
| work out what happened, I feel Graham's essays will provide
| useful insights into the preoccupations and delusions of
| billionaire think: from arguably the most powerful clique
| ever to have lived. In that sense I'm thankful that he
| writes.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| This is an incredibly useful viewpoint to apply to this
| essay.
|
| As the person you are responding to, I also dismissed it as
| fallacy ridden bullshit written by someone who is upset
| that rich and/or conservative people are facing
| consequences for having odious beliefs and stating them
| publicly, but this lens of understanding their delusions is
| a better approach.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Same; thank you both for the insight. This is a better
| way to understand Graham -- without having to roll your
| eyes and point people at the Dabblers and Blowhards
| essay.
|
| edit: missing word
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I always thought that Blub Languages was the most perfect
| distillation, though it doesn't have the additional fun
| of being applied to an ecosystem entirely outside of PG's
| expertise. The essay sets up people he disagrees with to
| be _definitionally_ wrong and sets himself up to be
| _definitionally_ correct and so much more enlightened
| then those pedestrian "blub" programmers.
| ss108 wrote:
| I am not generally pro cancel culture, but a lot of the
| opposition to it is certainly whiney and low on evidence.
|
| For example, there's this notion that the advancement of
| knowledge is somehow being suppressed and that naked, barely-
| regulated free speech has been essential to Western dominance,
| and that, accordingly, to backpedal on the principle would have
| some material affect on society.
|
| However, no nexus between the kinds of speech and people being
| "cancelled" and any sort of practical benefit of the speech is
| ever identified. Nor do they consider the fact that the proper
| result of intellectual discourse is that some ideas get
| discarded, and that to constantly have to rehash debates,
| reestablish the credibility of basic authorities, etc, drags
| down intellectual discourse and in fact moves us backwards.
| waqf wrote:
| But in actual intellectual discourse, if someone presents a
| point of view which is founded on a discredited idea, then we
| just ignore them. We do not show up at their talks and try to
| prevent them from communicating with others.
|
| Firstly because life's too short for that, and secondly
| because who knows, one day they might turn out to have been
| right or mostly right.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| > But in actual intellectual discourse
|
| Well, where is that? I live my life surrounded by
| "discredited" ideas with much popularity and power. I don't
| know shit about intellectual discourse, can it get the
| police to stop killing my friends? Can it get a doctor for
| my impoverished mother in law?
|
| If not then I'm afraid I must oppose some ideas in ways
| other than ignoring them.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| > If not then I'm afraid I must oppose some ideas in ways
| other than ignoring them.
|
| True. But trying to prevent further expression of those
| ideas, or retaliating against those who express them
| ("cancel culture" IIUC), isn't necessarily the best type
| of opposition. For example, disability rights isn't an
| academic issue for me and some of my friends. But when
| someone expresses opposition to the idea that websites
| should be required to be accessible, I don't try to
| silence them; I try to engage with them for the purpose
| of changing either their mind or mine.
| ss108 wrote:
| I'm more on your side here, but in the typical "cancel
| culture" scenario, the type of stuff people are trying to
| silence (e.g. re illegal immigrants) is much less nuanced
| and much more aggressive. The analogue would not be
| "websites shouldn't be _required to_ be accessible ",
| it's more often something like "websites shouldn't be
| accessible".
| ss108 wrote:
| > But in actual intellectual discourse, if someone presents
| a point of view which is founded on a discredited idea,
| then we just ignore them. We do not show up at their talks
| and try to prevent them from communicating with others.
|
| I (for the most part) agree; like I said, I am not
| generally a fan of contemporary cancel culture.
|
| Are you Muslim btw, or is your username a coincidence?
| [deleted]
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Being wrong is not absolute proof that nobody will follow
| or agree with these wrong beliefs. Climate scientists, for
| example, have spent a lot of time arguing in public about
| the merits of climate science and the lies of deniers. That
| is important work because the deniers _do_ convince some
| people and denialism causes real harm.
| nojs wrote:
| > somewhat low on evidence
|
| Paul did address this though:
|
| > I've deliberately avoided mentioning any specific heresies
| here. Partly because one of the universal tactics of heretic
| hunters, now as in the past, is to accuse those who disapprove
| of the way in which they suppress ideas of being heretics
| themselves. Indeed, this tactic is so consistent that you could
| use it as a way of detecting witch hunts in any era.
|
| > And that's the second reason I've avoided mentioning any
| specific heresies. I want this essay to work in the future, not
| just now. And unfortunately it probably will. The aggressively
| conventional-minded will always be among us, looking for things
| to forbid. All they need is an ideology to tell them what. And
| it's unlikely the current one will be the last.
| [deleted]
| dnfa wrote:
| > I've deliberately avoided mentioning any specific heresies
| here
|
| Yeah this bothered me. His stance on this seems so defensive
| and personal and he gives very few examples of heretical ideas.
| It makes this essay more of a boomer diatribe than anything
| else imo.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| It allows anybody who reads the piece to apply their own
| specifics to it. It means that if they hold any "heretical"
| beliefs, they can assume that PG supports them.
| morelisp wrote:
| On the other hand, you can spot Andreessen, Haidt, and
| Lehmann as his reviewers (and similar personalities on
| previous articles) and have a pretty good idea what views
| he's actually talking about.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| Or on the flip side, it means that the reader can assume
| that PG holds whatever unflattering "heretical" beliefs
| they are opposed to.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I'm not sure that's true. There's enough insinuation here
| that I don't think that my grandma would assume PG is
| advocating for anti-religiosity, for example.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/105039166355267174.
| ..
| paisawalla wrote:
| Not even 500px away from here, there's this exchange from
| you, contradicting your clever tweet:
|
| > Can [ignoring ideas I don't like] get a doctor for my
| impoverished mother in law?
|
| > If not then I'm afraid I must oppose some ideas in ways
| other than ignoring them. [Context: "We do not show up at
| their talks and try to prevent them from communicating with
| others."]
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| What's the contradiction here I don't see it?
| Aidevah wrote:
| One of my favourite short stories by Borges is "The
| Theologians"[1], which deals with a contest between two
| theologians in suppressing heresy. It's absolutely wonderful how
| Borges managed to turn dry scholastic debate into a fascinating
| and gripping narrative. It also contains this wonderfully ironic
| scene when one of the theologian's past writings which was used
| to eradicate a previous heresy but have since fallen out of
| fashion was unearthed. The poor fellow insisted that it was still
| orthodox but everyone except him have moved on and under the
| latest opinion the old writing now appeared hopelessly heretical.
|
| I've extracted a paragraph below, but the whole story is quite
| short and well worth reading.
|
| > _Four months later, a blacksmith of Aventinus, deluded by the
| Histriones' deceptions, placed a huge iron sphere on the
| shoulders of his small son, so that his double might fly. The boy
| died; the horror engendered by this crime obliged John's judges
| to assume an unexceptionable severity. He would not retract; he
| repeated that if he negated his proposition he would fall into
| the pestilential heresy of the Monotones. He did not understand
| (did not want to understand) that to speak of the Monotones was
| to speak of the already forgotten. With somewhat senile
| insistence, he abundantly gave forth with the most brilliant
| periods of his former polemics; the judges did not even hear what
| had once enraptured them. Instead of trying to cleanse himself of
| the slightest blemish of Histrionism, he strove to demonstrate
| that the proposition of which he was accused was rigorously
| orthodox. He argued with the men on whose judgment his fate
| depended and committed the extreme ineptitude of doing so with
| wit and irony. On the 26th of October, after a discussion lasting
| three days and three nights, he was sentenced to die at the
| stake._
|
| [1] https://matiane.wordpress.com/2015/08/16/jorge-luis-
| borges-t...
| RichardHeart wrote:
| Mr. Graham writes an essay supporting free speech. Thus the
| comments here, ironically, attack his speech, with tons of words
| found no where in his essay at all. The comments here literally
| prove the spirit of his essay.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| Freedom of speech is the freedom to disagree, including on
| completely irrational grounds (from someone's perspective). You
| seem to hold a common misconception about what it means to
| criticize someone.
| moolcool wrote:
| I don't see the irony. I don't think anyone is denying PG's his
| right to speak freely, they're just disagreeing with him.
| gumby wrote:
| The quotation about Isaac Newton was a poor choice for this essay
| as it was clearly allegorical about _Newton himself_. Even if you
| don't know anything about the man, it should be clear from the
| claim that marriage might be a sin.
|
| In reality, the comment reflects four important things about
| Newton: 1 - marriage: he never married and once complained about
| someone trying to set him up with a woman; 2 - heresy: he was a
| reformation era figure, quite religious in his Protestant
| (heretical to some) beliefs; 3 - crime: as master of the mint he
| bestowed justice high (mostly) and low on forgers and other
| criminals within his authority (and not in Cambridge) which leads
| to 4 - sin: a nice intensifying noun that encompasses not only
| his intense religious nature but the zeal with which he pursued
| and punished criminals and many with whom he disagreed, including
| friends.
| cpr wrote:
| I think it was just a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reference to the
| fact that he was a don, who don't marry.
| gumby wrote:
| Sure, though to be pedantic he wasn't a Fellow during the
| period referred to by the quote.
|
| Was there really a prohibition on marriage, or was that a
| side effect of dons being required to be priests (who in the
| CofE of course can marry).
|
| In general restoration politics were weird.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| The way this post gets flagged repeatedly seems to underline the
| point pg is making. But the repeated unflagging also signifies
| something: that there is strong opposition to branding things as
| heresy in the current landscape.
|
| This is a fault line that roughly follows the main party-lines in
| the US as far as I can see. And so pg can also be interpreted to
| be dog-whistling which side he is on. Which can also be the
| reason why the analysis comes across as a bit shallow; like when
| did we start to interpret historical phenomenon in terms of ad
| hoc personality types? (the "aggressively conventional-minded"
| personality type that supposedly is responsibly for crying heresy
| since time immemorial).
|
| This struggle (between "the guardians of proper speech" and the
| "free speech advocates") has been extremely personal for several
| decades, but by bringing personality into it pg seems to turn
| flip the coin on the opponents; they are inherently bad humans
| (too). So it's perhaps not weird that this post has been flagged
| off and on, for that reason too.
|
| But another take on this is how the political struggle has
| gradually invaded every nook and cranny of human existence, down
| to questioning the "way we are". It is likely a dead end that
| just might be one of the causes for increased mental illness in
| western societies.
|
| I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that we need to take a
| step back and not so easily be drawn into the political talking
| points. Perhaps the answer is: let's not engage in ad hominem
| attacks, not on individual level, not on group level. Easier said
| than done perhaps, but I seriously think we need to get there.
| [deleted]
| NoraCodes wrote:
| > The reason the current wave of intolerance comes from the left
| is simply because the new unifying ideology happened to come from
| the left. The next one might come from the right. Imagine what
| that would be like.
|
| I'm curious how Mr. Graham can look at a country that is in the
| process of reversing much of the last half-century's progress on
| women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and disability rights, and _not_
| see a politics of heresy emerging from the right. I'm curious how
| he can look at anti-"critical race theory" laws and "don't say
| gay" laws, which quite literally restrict freedom of speech among
| academics and teachers, and _not_ view this as a damaging and
| dangerous politics of conventionality. I'm curious as to how he
| can take a religious metaphor like 'heresy' and not apply it to
| the US American right which, in no small part part, advocates for
| a literal theocracy.
|
| These essays often seem very reasonable, to me, when stated in
| the abstract. Of course we should support freedom of speech! Of
| course we should be sure that nobody is fired for expressing
| harmless opinions! But, consistently, the proposed solutions are
| uninformed, unfeasable, ineffective, or even counterproductive.
| The best way to make sure people are not fired for speech is not
| to make it unacceptable for minorities to argue vehemently with
| their oppressors; it is to end right-to-work, end at-will
| employment, and give labor more power. The largest threat to the
| academy is not "mobs" of students expressing their disagreement
| with their schools' administrations' policies, it is the
| systematic defunding and devaluing of the humanities, the pure
| sciences, and the arts.
| rayiner wrote:
| > reversing much of the last half-century's progress on women's
| rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and disability rights, and _not_ see a
| politics of heresy emerging from the right.
|
| Gee, how would anyone look at a Republican administration whose
| first Supreme Court appointee penned a seminal decision on LGBT
| employment protections as not trying to turn back LGBT rights?
| One wonders.
|
| Attempting to argue that the battles being fought today--
| fighting laws regulating private conduct in bedrooms versus
| teaching third graders about sexuality--is disingenuous. So is
| overlooking that the current flash point on "women's rights"
| (Roe) is unpopular with women in its full scope--specifically,
| _Roe's_ guarantee of elective abortions in the second
| trimester.
|
| > The best way to make sure people are not fired for speech is
| not to make it unacceptable for minorities to argue vehemently
| with their oppressors;
|
| Oh please. Social progressivism is an overwhelmingly white
| movement. Elizabeth Warren's voters in the Democratic Primary
| were about as white as Donald Trump's (85%).
| camgunz wrote:
| > Gee, how would anyone look at a Republican administration
| whose first Supreme Court appointee penned a seminal decision
| on LGBT employment protections as not trying to turn back
| LGBT rights? One wonders.
|
| Sure, _Obergefell_ and _Bostock_ were good, but op was
| talking about the country, not just SCOTUS. You can 't ignore
| things like bathroom/locker room bills, the Don't Say Gay
| bill, book banning, etc. You're narrowing to things that
| support your position.
|
| > (Roe) is unpopular with women in its full scope--
| specifically, Roe's guarantee of elective abortions in the
| second trimester.
|
| This is a right-wing talking point that (predictably) ignores
| the facts, narrowing to data that supports their position.
| It's very hard to poll about abortion because it's so
| nuanced, and most Americans are really uninformed. Couple of
| things here:
|
| If you look at Gallup's results (the poll Town Hall et al
| reference) [0], you'll even see majority support for abortion
| in the third trimester. 75% of respondents believe abortion
| should be legal when the woman's life is endangered, and 52%
| when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest. You'll also
| see that 56% of respondents oppose an 18 week ban, which is
| well into the 2nd trimester.
|
| The reason the right centers on the "second trimester"
| talking point is that a different question shows way lower
| support (65% think it should be illegal), but when they drill
| down, support in various scenarios (life of the mother, etc.)
| increases. This is similar to polling about the ACA: if you
| asked people about Obamacare they hated it; if you asked them
| about the policies in Obamacare (no lifetime caps on care, no
| preexisting conditions) they loved it. It's an old,
| disingenuous trick.
|
| > Social progressivism is an overwhelmingly white movement.
|
| This is super untrue, but it's not that surprising since
| you're using Warren's primary campaign which, again, is a
| very narrow measure that supports your position (the
| demographics of the states she competed in are
| "overwhelmingly white" [1], so what you said applies to every
| candidate until Super Tuesday). The quick rejoinder is "then
| explain BLM", but something more substantial is the
| demographic breakdown of the Democratic vote in the 2020
| Presidential election [2]. Quick synopsis is Biden/Harris
| won:
|
| - 63% of Hispanic and Latino voters
|
| - 87% of Black voters
|
| - 68% AAPI voters
|
| - 65% of Indian American voters
|
| - 68% of American Indian and Alaska Native voters
|
| - 43% of White voters (38% men, 44% women)
|
| Maybe you'll quibble on Biden/Harris not being a progressive
| campaign? We can look at the last Quinnipiac poll from before
| the Iowa Caucuses [2] where Sanders' and Warren's non-white
| supporters made up 41% of their vote shares. Sure they don't
| match Biden's 70%, but they're decidedly not "overwhelmingly
| white" (might want to look at the Buttigieg campaign for that
| one).
|
| [0]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
|
| [1]: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-
| avenue/2020/01/31/just-ho...
|
| [2]: https://poll.qu.edu/Poll-Release-Legacy?releaseid=3651
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_preside
| ntia...
| rayiner wrote:
| The right focuses on the second trimester issue because
| _Roe_ mandates the availability of elective second
| trimester abortions, which people oppose. And the left
| demonizes Republican abortion laws like the one in
| Mississippi which contains exceptions for health of the
| mother and the baby. Your polls only confirm that where
| public opinion lies is something close to the Mississippi
| law (which incidentally isn't dissimilar from the law in
| France or Germany).
|
| As to your other point, you can't use support for Democrats
| as a proxy for support for "social progressives." My
| parents vote straight ticket democrat, but they're not the
| least bit socially progressive. I'm not talking about
| democrats who support DACA. I'm talking about the ones who
| say "LatinX." These are the ones driving the ideological
| rigidity PG is talking about. These folks are
| overwhelmingly white: https://hiddentribes.us/profiles/
| ("progressive activists" are 79% white, the same as
| "traditional conservatives").
|
| You have to appreciate that white people vote Democrat for
| different reasons than POC. Matt Yglesias has written about
| this at length. For example, Muslim Americans supported
| Bush in 2000. Post 9/11, Iraq and the anti-Muslim rhetoric
| on the right pushed many to Democrats. But Muslim Americans
| are still very conservative within their own communities:
| https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/us/lgbt-muslims-pride-
| progres.... Additionally, many are alienated by the right
| not because it's religious, but because it's Christian
| specifically. Thus they may support democrats out of
| support for pluralism, not because they agree with Beto
| that we should strip tax exemptions from Catholic churches
| and mosques. Indeed, one of the starkest differences
| between white and non-white democrats is that white
| democrats overwhelmingly believe that religion isn't
| necessary for morality, while about half of non-white
| democrats believe it is: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
| tank/2020/02/27/5-facts-abo...
|
| The right focuses on Warren's primary run because it allows
| them to disentangle the "we like Obamacare Democrats" like
| my parents, from the socially progressive intersectional
| democrats like Warren. Indeed, even Sanders is a bad point
| of comparison because remember the Warren progressives
| attacked him as "racist and sexist." Sanders is popular
| among Hispanics because social democracy is a broad lane
| among Hispanics.
|
| And Warren shows just how unpopular "socialism plus
| intersectionality" is with POC. You cite the Iowa Caucus,
| but 91% of democrat Iowa caucus voters are white. The POC
| there are basically all college students. I don't know why
| you didn't cite the Super Tuesday results, which is when
| the diverse parts of the Democratic Party actually vote.
| Warren got crushed among POC. Among Black people in
| Virginia, for example, she got 7%, losing to Bloomberg:
| https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/super-
| tuesday-14-states.... Among Hispanics in Texas she got 8%.
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latinos-boosted-
| sanders-...
|
| All told, Warren's support in Super Tuesday was 80% white,
| in an electorate that was only 50% white. Warren was, in
| fact, never even a viable candidate in a diverse Democratic
| Party: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/elizabeth-
| warren-boo.... We were subjected to her for a year because
| she's incredibly popular among the highly educated white
| people who run the media and everything else. It hasn't
| been lost on me, as a person of color, how many of the
| loudest voices talking about race over the last year in
| elite circles were both white and Warren supporters.
|
| There's other data points too, such as Eric Adams winning
| Blacks and Latinos in the NYC primaries, and Yang winning
| Asians, while white progressives decried both.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| > how would anyone look at a Republican administration whose
| first Supreme Court appointee penned a seminal decision on
| LGBT employment protections
|
| More recently, the court seems to be looking to overturn
| Obergefell. [1]
|
| > the current flash point on "women's rights" (Roe)
|
| I was referring to the proposed reinstatement of child
| marriage in TN. [2]
|
| 1: https://www.educationviews.org/clarence-thomas-signals-
| willi...
|
| 2: https://www.wlbt.com/2022/04/06/proposed-legislation-
| could-l...
| rayiner wrote:
| > More recently, the court seems to be looking to overturn
| Obergefell. [1]
|
| This is a complete misreading of that opinion. Note that
| both Thomas and Alito _concurred_ in the denial of cert.
| They said nothing of overturning _Obergefell_ , but
| criticized the process by which it was done--by judicial
| fiat rather than legislation. Specifically, this meant that
| the legislature had no ability to consider and address
| religious objections.
|
| Thomas and Alito's opinion not only didn't call for
| _Obergefell_ to be overturned, but are completely
| mainstream compared to other developed counties. The year
| after _Obergefell_ , the EU Court of Human Rights ruled
| that the express right to marriage contained in the
| European Convention on Human Rights did not cover same sex
| marriage. EU countries all enacted same sex marriage
| through legislation--and they included various protections
| for religious liberty--exactly the process that Alito and
| Thomas said should have been followed. Switzerland only
| legalized it last year, and it's still not legal in Italy.
|
| > the current flash point on "women's rights" (Roe)
|
| I was referring to the proposed reinstatement of child
| marriage in TN.
|
| Meanwhile Colorado just legalized killing babies right up
| until birth.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| > Meanwhile Colorado just legalized killing babies right
| up until birth.
|
| Woah, really? Let's see...
| https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/04/politics/colorado-
| abortion-ri...
|
| > The governor emphasized that the new law "does not make
| any changes to the current legal framework," saying:
| "This bill simply maintains this status quo regardless of
| what happens at the federal level and preserves all
| existing constitutional rights and obligations."
| rayiner wrote:
| That's not actually what the law does though. It says:
|
| > A FERTILIZED EGG, EMBRYO, OR FETUS DOES NOT HAVE
| INDEPENDENT OR DERIVATIVE RIGHTS UNDER THE LAWS OF THIS
| STATE
|
| There is no limitation to viability. The defenses I've
| seen of the law (e.g. Politifact's) mistakenly assume
| that Roe makes it impermissible to abort fetuses in the
| third trimester, which is incorrect.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| The GOP's national platform still says that they intend to
| overturn Obergefell. Laws that explicitly target the LGBT
| community (both gay and trans people) are being passed in
| numerous states, which are uniformly red states. And it isn't
| hard to see a partisan split in the Supreme Court on the
| topic of gay rights, even if individual Republican-appointed
| justices have been on the right side of several cases.
| [deleted]
| jacobolus wrote:
| Paul Graham grew up in a time when rich middle-aged white men
| with no relevant experience or credential could spout off about
| whatever topic they wanted, including pseudo-intellectual
| racism/misogyny, and everyone would be forced to listen to
| their nonsense unable to respond with more than an eye-roll for
| fear of reprisals. (For that matter, when Graham grew up those
| powerful white dudes could beat people up, sexually assault
| people, etc. with no consequence.)
|
| Now when they spout similar nonsense, such dudes are publicly
| criticized, and the criticism deeply shocks and distresses
| them, to the point that whiny white/male supremacist grievance
| has now entirely taken over a whole US political party, which
| is trying to outlaw public criticism of white/male supremacist
| ideology.
|
| Edit: Disclaimer to satisfy rayiner: I am a 6'2" married
| 36-year-old straight white male homeowner with 2 kids and a
| car.
|
| Edit #2: Folks may enjoy https://popehat.substack.com/p/our-
| fundamental-right-to-sham...
| ambrozk wrote:
| This is a pretty shocking fairytale version of the past.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| > the criticism deeply shocks and distresses them
|
| This is a really good point. It's frustrating, though
| predictable, to see people arguing about the precise
| threshold of "harm" to which speech should be held in the
| comments here when the harm done to most people Graham seems
| to be defending amounts to "someone was mean to me on the
| Internet."
|
| And - yeah! That sucks! People being mean to you on the
| internet sucks. But until people like this are defending
| every target of KF/ED/4chan/etc hate mobs just as vehemently,
| I'm not really interested in treating them like they're
| neutral, rational parties.
| rayiner wrote:
| NoraCodes wrote:
| How's that? The point being made here is that he is used to
| people in his position in society having a certain freedom
| from criticism, and therefore sees any vulnerability to
| criticism as a loss of freedom. This is an equally valid
| point whether the commenter is white or black, man or
| woman, old or young.
| FerociousTimes wrote:
| Can't you see the irony of your statement accusing PG of
| not tolerating criticism on his business' online public
| forum and under the topic of one of his essays and with a
| thread headed by your unequivocal rejection of his views
| on the issue at hand?
|
| I sincerely can't see your conclusion about the immunity
| from criticism that PG purportedly enjoys in all of this
| and that's the root cause of his disapproval and
| denouncement of cancel culture.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| Your wording is a bit odd, so let me make sure I
| understand what you're saying. You feel that it's ironic
| that, on a post about how Graham doesn't like it when
| people like him are criticized in specific, I criticized
| him, and told someone else that their particular
| criticism - one which is completely different from that
| which Graham is discussing - doesn't make sense?
|
| > your conclusion about the immunity from criticism that
| PG purportedly enjoys
|
| Not "PG ... enjoys"; a kind of immunity that people
| _like_ Graham _used to_ enjoy. That I can call him a
| dickhead on the internet with no repercussions is exactly
| what he doesn't like.
|
| > cancel culture
|
| Saying I don't agree with an essay on HackerNews is not
| "cancel culture."
| FerociousTimes wrote:
| A bit of strawman and moving the goal posts here
|
| Instead of debating whether PG tolerates criticism for
| his views, now it's whether he likes it or not, and
| instead of whether he enjoys immunity from criticism or
| not, now it used to be the case in the past but not
| anymore.
|
| In the spirit of good debate, I will concede on the
| latter and conclude with the advent of social media, this
| renders it a moot point but on the former we can attest
| that he got a thick skin and can take a lot of hits from
| critics, don't you agree?
|
| Now to the strawman, his central thesis boils down to
| this; people shouldn't lose their jobs merely for
| expressing their views, and to show some leniency and
| consideration for people's personal circumstances and
| track record of past good deeds when found guilty by the
| vindictive justice championed by the online mob and not
| to throw the baby with the bathwater.
|
| Is this really objectionable in your opinion?
| NoraCodes wrote:
| > Is this really objectionable in your opinion?
|
| No, and indeed in the root comment I expressed that. My
| beef is with his lack of critical thinking in the
| application of his abstract analysis, and with his
| complete rejection of the idea that people he agrees with
| politically might be guilty of the same thing at the
| moment.
| FerociousTimes wrote:
| 1- You think that his writings are too abstract for you
| and not grounded more in the sociocultural realities of
| today's America, right?
|
| 2. Seriously, I don't know who his associates are or his
| political orientation is (right or left), I just happen
| to agree with his thesis outlined in this essay and
| probably would disapprove of some of his past/future
| views if I happen to find them unreasonable, that's all.
| rayiner wrote:
| White people articulating what they view as universal
| principles is vastly preferable to the current trend of
| white people complaining about other white people and
| speaking on behalf of minorities.
| alanlammiman wrote:
| I am a 35 year old straight married white male homeowner and
| businessowner who identifies as reasonably right-wing and I
| endorse this comment.
| AlexTrask wrote:
| I think that Mr.Graham is not talking about rights and
| progress.
|
| curl -sb -H "http://paulgraham.com/heresy.html" | grep "right"
| one will be the last.<br><br>There are aggressively
| conventional-minded people on both the right come from the
| left. The next one might come from the right. Imagine when,
| like the medieval church, they say "Damn right we're banning
| NoraCodes wrote:
| `grep` is not the solution to every problem, friend. Not
| using exactly the same words does not mean we are not
| discussing the same topic.
| rilezg wrote:
| Great points. I would also highlight the following:
|
| > The clearest evidence of this is that whether a statement is
| considered x-ist often depends on who said it. Truth doesn't
| work that way. The same statement can't be true when one person
| says it, but x-ist, and therefore false, when another person
| does.
|
| I would offer the analogy of a broken (analog) clock. If a
| broken clock says the time is ten o'clock, and the time
| actually is ten o'clock, it is more important to note that the
| clock is broken than that the clock is correct. Similarly, if
| someone says something that is technically true, but they are a
| person who often lies or has goals that harm others, then it is
| more important to note that they should not be trusted than
| that they are correct.
|
| Critics of 'intolerance'/'cancel culture'/'heresy' often invoke
| truth in their arguments. They miss that the phenomenon has
| nothing to do with the truth of an out-of-context statement,
| rather it is about whether a person should be trusted.
| alanlammiman wrote:
| Thank you - I was familiar with 'a broken clock is right
| twice a day', but hadn't considered the analogy with
| prejudiced statements before. Useful
| NoraCodes wrote:
| > Similarly, if someone says something that is technically
| true, but they are a person who often lies or has goals that
| harm others, then it is more important to note that they
| should not be trusted than that they are correct.
|
| This is a great analogy, but I'd go even further than this;
| someone can say something which is true, but in context use
| it to signal harmful intent. Saying "you know, that last
| commit from Jane was awful" while venting about bad process
| over lunch with a good friend is very different than saying
| "the last code Jane committed was awful" in a meeting about
| hiring the team's second female employee - even if it's
| absolutely true.
| rilezg wrote:
| Agreed. I was just imagining people posting publicly on
| social media, but good to say that situational
| context/audience also matters a ton when understanding a
| given statement. There is often much unspoken
| nuance/implications.
| moolcool wrote:
| > I'm curious how Mr. Graham can look at a country that is in
| the process of reversing much of the last half-century's
| progress on women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and disability
| rights, and _not_ see a politics of heresy emerging from the
| right
|
| Good point! The "problem" is often framed that society is full
| of adult-babies who can't be disagreed with without dire
| consequence. But is it at all possible that it's just the case
| that in recent years people have just felt more empowered to
| tout anti-social ideas which are worthy of scorn in the first
| place? There's quite a bit of evidence for the latter (January
| 6, Charlottesville, Flat Earthers, Anti-Vaxxers).
| steve76 wrote:
| wskinner wrote:
| > a country that is in the process of reversing much of the
| last half-century's progress on women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights,
| and disability rights
|
| If this is intended to refer to the United States, it is highly
| exaggerated. I doubt you could find a woman, disabled person,
| or LGBTQ+ person who seriously would rather spend their life in
| 1970s America than 2020s America. The normalization of rights
| and tolerance for these groups has been so total and swift that
| it can be hard to to put things in perspective and imagine what
| life was like in the relatively recent past.
| [deleted]
| UncleMeat wrote:
| "In the process of reversing much of..." does not mean that
| things are worse than in the 70s. It means that things are
| being undone.
|
| The right to abortion has been threatened more now than in
| the past many decades, for example.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| > I doubt you could find a woman, disable person, or LGBTQ+
| person who seriously would rather spend their life in 1970s
| America than 2020s America.
|
| That's not what I meant and, I think, not what I said. I did
| not say that we _had_ rolled back those rights, but that we
| were in the _process_ of doing so. Rather than moving in the
| direction of liberation for these groups, we are moving in
| the opposite direction, at least in some places, and more
| relevantly for this discussion, that politics of oppression
| is normative in the right-wing party here. Graham's essay is
| explicitly aimed at the left, yet effectively elucidates the
| precise tactics and goals of the right.
| temp8964 wrote:
| NoraCodes wrote:
| > pushing back against those dangerous radical ideas are
| not going to lead to "roll back" of any rights.
|
| I am referring specifically to Thomas looking to overturn
| Obergefell [1], TN trying to legalize child marriage [2],
| and current Republican efforts to reduce the
| effectiveness of the ADA. These are concrete examples of
| the right attempting to roll back certain rights.
|
| > do you agree 100% with critical race theory?
|
| It's an academic framework, not a set of policy goals,
| and I didn't study that in my CS curriculum, so I can't
| really speak to it. Can you?
|
| > do you agree 100% with LGBTQ activists?
|
| The vast majority of the policies they propose seem quite
| reasonable, yes.
|
| 1: https://www.educationviews.org/clarence-thomas-
| signals-willi...
|
| 2: https://www.wlbt.com/2022/04/06/proposed-legislation-
| could-l...
| mwcampbell wrote:
| > current Republican efforts to reduce the effectiveness
| of the ADA
|
| Would you mind providing a link for this one as you did
| for the others? This one particularly interests me.
| Granted, maybe the fact that I'm asking means I just
| don't follow the news enough.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> TN trying to legalize child marriage_
|
| I understand that's the view the article is presenting,
| but if you read it closely, it really doesn't sound like
| that's what the TN Republicans are advocating:
|
| _"What in your legislation would stop a 16-year-old from
| going down with someone else to the courthouse and
| getting this done, since there's no age restriction
| within your law?" asked Rep. Harris. "I think it would be
| construed that minors would not be able to enter into
| this," Leatherwood (the Republican proposing the bill)
| replied._
| version_five wrote:
| > I'm curious how Mr. Graham can look at a country that is in
| the process of reversing much of the last half-century's
| progress on women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and disability
| rights, and _not_ see a politics of heresy emerging from the
| right
|
| I see the former (and maybe the latter, I honestly don't pay
| too much attention), but my interpretation is that a major
| culprit for any reversals in rights is the far left, who have
| upped demands from reasonable tolerance (which we had
| essentially achieved) to ridiculous "you're actively protesting
| with us or your against us" proportions that have caused the
| pushback.
|
| Just to add, in principle I'm against
|
| > anti-"critical race theory" laws and "don't say gay" laws
|
| even if they are mischaracterized to a large extent. But I see
| them as the latest escalation in response to provocation from
| the left. They were not written in a vacuum.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| > the far left, who have upped demands from reasonable
| tolerance [...] to ridiculous [...] proportions that have
| caused the pushback.
|
| This is the equivalent of the schoolyard bully saying "I
| wouldn't have hit him if he hadn't asked for his lunch money
| back."
| version_five wrote:
| I don't really want to debate you in analogy space, but
| what I said was equivalent to "the bully already gave you
| your lunch money back, but you're not happy with that
| anymore and stand there continuing to taunt him and asking
| for more money (or to acknowledge his priviledge or
| something)."
|
| My comment was giving my perception, anyway, I'm not trying
| to persuade.
| nabla9 wrote:
| PG's essays have smug 'fleeting above it all' tone. He gives
| the impression that he is not talking about himself or his in-
| group. There is kind of unsaid hint.
|
| More than 1,500 books have been banned in public schools, and a
| U.S. House panel asks why
| https://coloradonewsline.com/2022/04/09/more-than-1500-books...
| hikingsimulator wrote:
| I have nothing to add. Thank you.
| whatever_dude wrote:
| Another day, another PH essay with some kind of defense for being
| an asshole disguised as higher discourse.
| noelsusman wrote:
| >There are aggressively conventional-minded people on both the
| right and the left. The reason the current wave of intolerance
| comes from the left is simply because the new unifying ideology
| happened to come from the left. The next one might come from the
| right. Imagine what that would be like.
|
| The implication here is there is currently no significant wave of
| intolerance coming from the right, which is baffling to say the
| least.
|
| I see this a lot in modern free speech advocates. They seem to
| almost exclusively focus on censored speech that goes against
| liberal dogma and completely ignore similar behavior from the
| right. Is it just because liberals have more cultural power than
| conservatives?
| odonnellryan wrote:
| I know this is going to sound insane, but what is the obsession
| with truth? Things can be true and harmful.
|
| People should be judged for saying harmful things.
| prepend wrote:
| I don't know about obsession with truth, but I think having a
| shared reality is the basis for relationships, trust, and many
| accomplishments.
|
| I don't think truth is something that people should obsess
| over, but it is very important to seek and hopefully gain
| understanding.
|
| I remember reading 1984 and the breaking of people to admit
| that "2+2=5" was an interesting way that people accepting false
| things as true is very bad.
|
| I think intent matters a lot as judging people for being mean
| is different from someone saying "the sky is blue today" and
| the listener is harmed because they hate blue or whatever.
|
| That's a completely made up example, but I think real, although
| dangerous, example is trans issues. There are bigots who say
| things like "women aren't men" or whatever to hurt people and I
| don't think that's right. But then someone will say "men are
| generally stronger than women" to discuss some scientific
| principle and people feel harmed there because they don't want
| any differences to exist.
| derevaunseraun wrote:
| Yeah but how do you get people to form a consensus on what's
| harmful?
| odonnellryan wrote:
| You don't need to. Society will always define this for you.
| javajosh wrote:
| Beltalowda wrote:
| I think this is an important part:
|
| "Fortunately in western countries the suppression of heresies is
| nothing like as bad as it used to be. Though the window of
| opinions you can express publicly has narrowed in the last
| decade, it's still much wider than it was a few hundred years
| ago. The problem is the derivative. Up till about 1985 the window
| had been growing ever wider. Anyone looking into the future in
| 1985 would have expected freedom of expression to continue to
| increase. Instead it has decreased."
|
| Many people proclaim that "free speech is dead" and all of that,
| but it's _still_ at an all-time high if you zoom out a bit. You
| don 't even need to go back a few hundred years; look at the
| number of people persecuted by the government (both through the
| courts and outside of it) for things like blasphemy, subversion,
| civil rights, sexual deviancy (homosexuality, among other
| things), etc. just a few decades ago. In the US burning the flag
| was illegal in many states until the _late 80s_ when the SCOTUS
| declared it was legal under the 1st (and only by a 5-4 majority).
|
| Yes, there are some developments I am not especially pleased with
| either, but it's also important to remember the historical
| context.
|
| Anyway, I liked this piece of nuance.
| amalcon wrote:
| I like to point out the Sedition Act of 1918 here. About 100
| years ago, a law that literally made it a crime to criticize
| the government was not only enacted, but upheld by the courts.
| Can you even _imagine_ that today?
|
| What people are finally noticing now is that non-government
| entities can also have negative impacts on free speech. They're
| not noticing because it just started -- e.g. lots of folks lost
| their jobs for vocally opposing the wars in Afghanistan and
| Iraq in the early 2000's -- but because they're on the
| receiving end for once. This could be a good thing in the end,
| by leading us to a more complete model of civil discourse, but
| it's going to be painful for a while before that even has a
| chance to happen.
| otterley wrote:
| I think most jurists would agree that the Sedition Act is
| dead for all practical purposes. Most modern First Amendment
| jurisprudence only started being written after the Vietnam
| War, commencing with _Brandenburg v. Ohio_ , 395 U.S. 44
| (1969), and the Sedition Act would be unlikely to survive
| scrutiny today.
| infiniteL0Op wrote:
| Ask Thai citizens if they can imagine that. Or Russians.
|
| In democracies, society has moved a bit into a direction
| where many harmless things said will trigger an upset in some
| very uptight people.
|
| It's enforced socially rather than by the government. Back
| when you could not say things openly against governments, at
| least you could speak your mind on anything else.
|
| Today, you can say whatever you want against the government,
| they are so far detached they don't care.
|
| Free speech is a stupid political term, it has never truly
| existed an never will.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Freedom of speech is a principle that transcends political
| policies. In theory, it is a clear and unambiguous concept;
| in practice, governments ruin it with nearly arbitrary
| rules that run counter to that fundamental principle.
| tomcam wrote:
| > I like to point out the Sedition Act of 1918 here. About
| 100 years ago, a law that literally made it a crime to
| criticize the government was not only enacted, but upheld by
| the courts. Can you even imagine that today?
|
| Only in banana republics like the USA. The patriot act went
| quite far in that direction
| sitkack wrote:
| https://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/21/phil_donahue_on_his_2.
| ..
| adolph wrote:
| > Can you even imagine that today?
|
| No need to imagine, the law never left.
|
| https://www.lawfareblog.com/seditious-conspiracy-real-
| domest...
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=sedition+usa&tbm=nws
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Notably, handing out pamphlets arguing against a war isn't
| especially likely to qualify for this law.
| ratww wrote:
| _> Can you even imagine that today?_
|
| Not in the countries I guess we both live, but in some
| authoritarian places, definitely, unfortunately. Your point
| still fully stands though!
| amalcon wrote:
| This is a great point, and I should've made it clear that I
| was only referring to democratic countries that profess to
| value free speech.
| temp8964 wrote:
| > lots of folks lost their jobs for vocally opposing the wars
| in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000's
|
| I am not aware of this history. Is there any data or
| document? What kind of jobs, private? governmental? academic?
| analog31 wrote:
| Indeed, and the very concept of "heresy" has changed over the
| centuries, to the point where the analogy to Newton is probably
| meaningless. "Heresy" was considered to be an immediate mortal
| threat to the eternal life of the soul. It was not just a
| disagreement with social customs. It was the spiritual
| equivalent to yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, or driving a
| truck into a crowd.
| ambrozk wrote:
| Are you telling us that it was _literally violence?_
| naniwaduni wrote:
| When you believe in an eternal soul that can be harmed,
| there are harms that are _worse than violence_.
| [deleted]
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| The problem with the whole free speech is dead argument is that
| it gets tangled into plain stupid lies. Flatearth, holocaust
| denial...
| randrews wrote:
| Conflating a valid point with a bunch of total-nonsense
| points in order to discredit it is an effective strategy.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| True enough, recently my Scottish Parliament pardoned those
| condemned of witchcraft (and fwiw a lot of Scottish ex pats
| formed the US constitution)
|
| I think a lot of the issue revolves around us celebrating our
| differences rather than trying to polarise them.
|
| But clearly scientific evidence (ie lack of witchcraft) also
| play a part.
|
| The vibe I get from the post is just that, being OK with people
| having a different point of view without having an adverse
| reaction. Maybe another component to it is the black box
| algorithms of major platforms that may magnify differences of
| opinion or 'filter bubbles' as it were.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| I think the problem with this argument is the free speech "is
| at an all time high if you zoom out a bit". This is much like
| the argument, "gun violence is at an all time low if you zoom
| out a bit" argument.
|
| Both of these statements are true in the macro, but if you look
| at the trends, they point to a very disturbing line.
|
| The call for the restriction of free speech on the right(1) and
| the left (2) have increased in very different ways and seem to
| be increasing, both legislatively and socially. The same can be
| said of gun violence. We reached an all time low in 2018 (I
| believe - it might have been 2017) but have been trending
| upwards ever since.
|
| Most (reasonable) people agree that an effort should be made to
| curb gun violence, even if they can't agree on the best route
| to get there. The attack on free speech, however seems to have
| cheering sections from all sides. As far as the government is
| concerned, sanctions on the first amendment would be a boon,
| but the groundswell from the populace in the form of right and
| left "cancelation" (or whatever BS term you wish to call it)
| hasn't been seen since McCarthy. Given the rise in the public
| square with social media, and you have national feeding
| frenzies with public "witch trials" to take our minds off of
| inflation, oil prices, pollution and multiple global conflicts
| of questionable national interest.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-free-speech-is-under-attack...
|
| https://thehill.com/opinion/education/566119-for-the-left-a-...
| twofornone wrote:
| These claims that the "don't say gay" legislation stifles
| free speech are dishonest. These are teachers, agents of the
| state, in a professional setting, not private citizens
| expressing opinions off the clock. If I'm paying taxes for
| public education then I should have a say in what gets
| taught, and that includes culture.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| Now, wait a second - either it's bad that people get fired
| for expressing opinions, as Graham states in the essay, or
| it's not and people _should_ get fired for expressing
| opinions that you don't like. I don't think you can have it
| both ways. It's not even as if there's a conflict of
| interest here, as in the case of public officials being
| banned from certain kinds of political speech; these
| teachers are not hurting anyone or disrupting any civil
| processes, so under what principle is it acceptable to deny
| them the same freedoms Graham argues for in the case of
| corporate employees?
| rayiner wrote:
| The difference is that what the teacher says is the
| actual service the teacher is providing pursuant to his
| or her employment. The government has every right to
| decide the content of the material being provided to kids
| in public schools. It's not a free speech issue at all.
| Note that the Florida law applies only to "instruction."
|
| To use a different example: a public bus driver shouldn't
| be fired for an offhand comment. But they have to drive
| the routes the government tells them to drive. That's not
| a "freedom of movement" issue.
| drdec wrote:
| > The government has every right to decide the content of
| the material being provided to kids in public schools.
|
| An interesting nuance to this particular case is that it
| is the state government that is imposing the requirement
| while it is a local (city, town or county) government
| which hires the teachers.
| [deleted]
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Part of the reason this is so prickly is that a huge part
| of what _actually_ happens in the classroom is ancillary
| to instruction. And always has been. And is for the good
| of children.
|
| We expect teachers to be robots when we want to chastise
| them, but we expect teachers to be surrogate parents when
| they're helping turn students into productive members of
| society.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Are you ok with teaching creationism in public schools?
| Being government run schools, the government decides what
| gets taught. It cannot be teachers teach whatever they
| want - they must adhere to the curriculum, which is
| decided by the government.
| Koshkin wrote:
| They might as well teach that Earth is flat - kids are
| smart, and truth will make its way into their heads
| regardless. In this day and age, it is hard for it not
| to.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Why teach them anything at all if the truth will seep in
| anyway?
|
| Besides, I bet I can think of a looong list of human
| beliefs once held dear by many people you'd strongly
| object to being taught in public schools. It's not a free
| speech issue, because it's paid for by taxpayers, and
| kids are forced to attend it.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Teach them reading, writing, and arithmetics. Everything
| else can be learned independently (which is too easy
| these days) or in vocational schools (which surely do not
| care about the origins of the universe).
| [deleted]
| tomp wrote:
| Would you want to take your kid into a kindergarten where
| the teacher would be showing (or reading) them porn?
|
| If "no", how do you square that with "teachers can say
| anything they like"? I mean literally _no_ employment is
| like that (try publicly saying your employer is evil, see
| how long you last...). Private speech != employee speech.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| Right. The argument being had here is about whether or
| not telling children that gay people exist is harmful,
| not over whether or not it's ever okay to tell people
| what they can and cannot speak about. All I'm saying is
| that right-wingers in these comments will tend to agree
| with Graham in the abstract, and because he targets the
| left in the post, but in practice their politics are not
| aligned with what he says in this essay.
|
| To your point, though, the law is not about porn; that's
| already illegal. The law is about literally telling
| children that gay people exist; unless you believe gay
| couples are somehow inherently sexual in a way that
| straight couples aren't, you're off the mark here.
| tomp wrote:
| You're falling for, and perpetuating, left-wing
| propaganda.
|
| The bill doesn't prohibit "saying gay".
|
| The bill prohibits discussing sexual orientation.
| Straight and gay alike. Personally I think that at those
| ages basically _all_ discussion of sex should be off
| limits (except strictly in a biological sense "this is
| where you pee" or "naked boys look like this drawing and
| naked girls like that drawing").
|
| Also your argument is a nasty bait-and-switch. Your
| original comment was about "limiting freedom of speech of
| teachers is bad" but then you switched to "of course we
| should limit freedom of speech for teachers, but not in
| this specific case".
| 0des wrote:
| People with sleeveless shirts exist, who cares? Its so
| normal these days I can't imagine all the things I would
| have to cover first. "Hey son, brace yourself, some
| people prefer broccoli over cauliflower."
|
| It doesn't even make sense. Teach your kid curiosity and
| general respect for those different from you and let the
| rest fall into place. Politics only tarnishes your
| ability to make this common sense observation because
| regardless of truth you have discarded half of your
| audience.
|
| Except pineapple pizza people. They deserve everything
| they got coming to them.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| > People with sleeveless shirts exist, who cares? Its so
| normal these days I can't imagine all the things I would
| have to cover first. "Hey son, brace yourself, some
| people prefer broccoli over cauliflower."
|
| These examples would be relevant if there were factions
| who vehemently oppose people with sleeveless shirts or
| who prefer broccoli, and want to make sure they can pass
| that opposition on to their children.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| I'm currently thinking of trying to get legislation put
| before Congress to have all sleeveless shirts labeled as
| "bras" or "bros", and therefore classified as underwear
| but I need to do some polling first to see if I have
| broad public support.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| > Teach your kid curiosity and general respect for those
| different from you and let the rest fall into place.
|
| It's worth noting that the Florida law, under some
| readings and I think under its intent, would make it
| illegal for a teacher to point to a student and her same-
| sex parents and say "those two women are married and are
| both raising this child." It's perhaps the most absurd
| anti-free-speech law I've ever heard of.
|
| > Except pineapple pizza people. They deserve everything
| they got coming to them.
|
| My boyfriend was a pineapple pizza person and he is now,
| no joke, allergic to pineapple. They're an accident
| waiting to happen.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _Except pineapple pizza people. They deserve everything
| they got coming to them._
|
| As someone who likes pineapple and jalapeno pizza, I find
| this remark _very_ offensive.
| rdiddly wrote:
| According to the Florida bill, it's when the students are
| 3rd grade or lower. The bifurcation point between "OK to
| talk about" and "not OK to talk about" is between 3rd &
| 4th grade.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| For every issue? Or do you feel this should be different
| based on the subject matter at hand?
| rdiddly wrote:
| The bill is not about every issue and I'm not getting
| into what I feel. I don't live in Florida and basically
| am not paying attention.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| What's your argument here, then? Or was this just a
| random fact you wanted to post?
| rdiddly wrote:
| Answering your question, on the point you were asking
| about.
| ambrozk wrote:
| In general, there is nothing wrong with the government
| legislating what its employees may say when acting as
| agents of the government, just as there is nothing wrong
| with a corporation telling its employees what they may
| say when acting as agents of the corporation. Free speech
| does not mean, "Your employer cannot fire you for
| publicly contradicting company policy while on the
| clock." Note that there _are_ limits to what the
| government can mandate with regard to its employees '
| communications, and the Florida bill may run up against
| them.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| You understand that this is contrary to what Graham is
| arguing in the essay, right?
| ambrozk wrote:
| I read the essay and I do not believe it is.
| twofornone wrote:
| > either it's bad that people get fired for expressing
| opinions
|
| They're not merely "expressing opinions", they're
| teaching children "facts" of disputed veracity and
| appropriateness.
|
| >these teachers are not hurting anyone or disrupting any
| civil processes
|
| That's the crux of the whole debate, isn't it? By
| teaching these topics inappropriately or inappropriately
| early, they are potentially harming children, if, say,
| transgenderism is a social contagion.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| So - again - it's okay to ban people from talking about
| certain things, in certain circumstances, especially if
| you believe those things might cause harm, yes? The
| debate is not over the thing Graham is talking about, but
| over whether it's worse to tell young cishet children
| that queer people exist, or to not tell young queer
| children that other queer people exist. You don't seem to
| agree with the essay you're defending.
| pdonis wrote:
| Here is the actual text of the Florida law in question:
|
| https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/
| er/...
|
| It says nothing whatever about "banning people from
| talking about certain things". It says (pp. 4-5):
|
| "3. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third
| parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not
| occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that
| is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for
| students in accordance with state standards."
|
| In other words, it's the government making clear what the
| standards for "classroom instruction" are in schools run
| by the government. Exactly the same as the government has
| always done for schools run by the government. Teachers
| in public schools are _always_ required to conduct their
| classroom instruction in accordance with the rules that
| the government sets down.
|
| Now, let's consider a couple of examples. Suppose a
| teacher of a 3rd grade class happens to mention the fact
| that one of the students has a gay couple as parents. Is
| that violating the law? Of course not. The teacher is not
| conducting "classroom instruction" about sexual
| orientation or gender identity. The teacher is just
| stating a fact.
|
| But suppose the teacher says: "There should be more
| couples like the parents of student A." Is that violating
| the law? It might be. If the teacher was very careful to
| explicitly state that this statement was just the
| teacher's opinion and was not part of classroom
| instruction, and if no student's grade on anything
| depended on whether or not they agreed with the teacher,
| then it would not be violating the law. But if the
| teacher made such a statement part of classroom
| instruction, and gave students assignments based on it,
| and graded them based on whether they agreed with it,
| then that _would_ be violating the law.
|
| Note that this is no different from any other area of
| instruction.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Note that this is no different from any other area of
| instruction.
|
| Allowing parents to sue for DJ, or request a special
| magistrate be appointed, with _reimbursement of attorneys
| ' fees_, is pretty different.
|
| > If the teacher was very careful to explicitly state
| that this statement was just the teacher's opinion and
| was not part of classroom instruction, and if no
| student's grade on anything depended on whether or not
| they agreed with the teacher, then it would not be
| violating the law.
|
| I think this is a very curious and unlikely distinction.
|
| A 1st grade teacher who wants to read "Heather Has Two
| Mommies" to the class because there's been questions
| about April's two moms shouldn't face litigation and
| censure.
|
| Look, there's a lot of benefits to students to mention
| that not all families look the same and to seek to use
| inclusive language. The kids who have an absent dad or a
| parent that has died benefit as much as anyone from kids
| understanding that families may look different ways and
| it's OK.
|
| Another key point is that the law affects other
| situations. Some high school students are experimenting
| with other pronouns at school, and feel _they would be
| unsafe at home_ if this was reported to their parents.
| This law outlaws this practice of teachers respecting
| students ' preference of what they're called and not
| telling Dad, unless we meet a relatively high bar of
| _being able to prove_ that it is likely dangerous.
|
| > In other words, it's the government making clear what
| the standards for "classroom instruction" are in schools
| run by the government.
|
| Yes, and this is clearly a state power that needs to be
| used responsibly. The moment we start prohibiting the
| discussion of certain political and social views, or e.g.
| evolution, we've lost.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Allowing parents to sue for DJ, or request a special
| magistrate be appointed, with reimbursement of attorneys
| ' fees, is pretty different._
|
| First, the parents have to work through the school
| district first. The district has 30 days to address their
| concerns.
|
| Second, giving ordinary people an actual legal channel to
| pursue a remedy, without bankrupting them with legal
| costs, is the sort of thing there should be more of. One
| of the biggest problems with our legal system in general
| is that it is unaffordable unless you're a corporation or
| a wealthy individual.
|
| _> A 1st grade teacher who wants to read "Heather Has
| Two Mommies" to the class because there's been questions
| about April's two moms shouldn't face litigation and
| censure._
|
| First, the teacher won't; the school district will.
| Nothing in the law makes teachers legally liable. All the
| liability is on the school district.
|
| Second, the teacher is not the sole judge of what's
| appropriate in the classroom. Parents have to have a
| voice.
|
| _> This law outlaws this practice of teachers respecting
| students ' preference of what they're called and not
| telling Dad, unless we meet a relatively high bar of
| being able to prove that it is likely dangerous._
|
| Where does the law say that?
|
| More generally, whether the student likes it or not,
| their parents are their parents and are responsible for
| raising them. The right thing for the teacher to do in
| this kind of situation would be to bring the parent into
| the discussion themselves, so the teacher can support the
| student directly in that discussion, not to help the
| student to go behind the parent's back.
| mlyle wrote:
| > The district has 30 days to address their concerns.
|
| Of which the parents are the sole judge of whether their
| concerns were adequately addressed before pursuing
| litigation.
|
| > Second, giving ordinary people an actual legal channel
| to pursue a remedy, without bankrupting them with legal
| costs, is the sort of thing there should be more of.
|
| Or, alternatively, giving nuisance litigators a way to
| make money if they find a plaintiff, which is what laws
| that provide injunctive-relief-plus-legal-costs tend to
| do.
|
| > First, the teacher won't; the school district will.
| Nothing in the law makes teachers legally liable. All the
| liability is on the school district.
|
| The teacher will absolutely face litigation and censure,
| which are the words I used. They won't have any monetary
| liability.
|
| > Second, the teacher is not the sole judge of what's
| appropriate in the classroom. Parents have to have a
| voice.
|
| You're free to argue that with your local school
| district's elected body, etc, instead of putting in place
| legislation which will cow all of these districts into
| preventing any such discussion.
|
| It's funny how people _love_ to move things to more local
| levels of government, until those bodies are not doing
| what they like. Then, it 's time for legislative bodies
| to set standards for the whole state, country, etc.
|
| > The right thing for the teacher to do in this kind of
| situation would be to bring the parent into the
| discussion themselves, so the teacher can support the
| student directly in that discussion, not to help the
| student to go behind the parent's back.
|
| Sorry-- disagree. Students should be allowed to confide
| in educators and expect that those confidences will not
| be betrayed, unless there is an actual acute danger to
| the students in question. If a student wants to talk to
| me about not wanting to pursue the career path their
| parents have in mind, I'm allowed to talk to them,
| provide information on this, and I'm not expected to
| "snitch". But if the student asks me to call them
| "they/them", suddenly things should be super different?
| Spare me the pearl clutching.
|
| Look, social mores about gender are fundamentally
| changing, and this is something that is going to happen.
| You just get to choose how much it sucks for kids in the
| process.
| jacquesm wrote:
| A bigger problem is that all of this is extremely local,
| typically affecting a small fraction of the world population,
| when for the majority the truth is very much different.
| switchbak wrote:
| I think that's something that often gets overlooked in the
| frenzy to tribal defence: this is a sideshow to take the
| spotlight off of the real important issues of the day.
|
| If you really look at it, the left/right dichotomy in US
| politics seems designed (evolved?) to serve much the same
| purpose.
|
| When we all calm down on the partisanship, often it's amazing
| how much shared ground there really is.
| andrepd wrote:
| It's not surprising. Divide and conquer is a millenia-old
| tactic.
|
| Efforts by the ruling class to pit the working classes
| against themselves have been noted in Western capitalist
| societies for at least 150 years.
| bendbro wrote:
| If I said:
|
| 1. "Fuck Jesus, fuck America, kill all men."
|
| 2. "Fuck BLM, fuck diversity."
|
| Which one do you think would get me cancelled?
|
| Conservatives have comically little social power. Further,
| you can basically say anything you want around them, while
| conversations with the average liberal are a careful affair.
|
| Perhaps though I am blind. Are there contemporary instances
| of conservative driven cancellations? The definition I like
| of cancellation is: removing privileges from a person when
| their qualities do not predict harmful use of those
| privileges.
|
| For example, in the CBS article you linked, with regard to
| the parents, schools, CRT issue: I acknowledge the parents
| are restricting speech, but I don't think it violates the
| spirit of free speech. Teachers can say whatever they like,
| and parents are free choose what their kids listen to. On the
| same note, I think it is fine for schools to be forced to
| omit creationism when discussing evolution.
|
| On defining cancellation:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30770206
|
| My personal axe to grind on left driven cancel culture:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25977399
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Are there contemporary instances of conservative driven
| cancellations?
|
| Would teachers being fired merely for being gay count?
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gay-
| teache...
|
| https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2021/10/27/gay
| -...
|
| https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/opinion-teacher-i-
| was...
|
| (three different ones there, there's more in the googles.)
|
| > Teachers can say whatever they like
|
| Except to say that they're gay, it seems.
| bendbro wrote:
| Fired for being gay at public school: absolutely
| cancellation, and wrong.
|
| Fired for discussing sex and gender with students:
| debatable.
|
| Fired for being gay at a Catholic school: much like I'm
| fine with Hasidic Jews, Mormons, or Muslims doing
| "backward" things to maintain their enclaves, so too am I
| fine with Catholics doing it. Do I want all of society to
| be like this: please god no.
|
| Whether all of this changes my opinion: no, but I will
| keep my mind more open. I think more examples, especially
| ones in public schools could change my mind.
|
| I can also hear an argument against enclaves of the sort
| I spoke of above having less freedom. I don't have a
| great one in support of it to begin with. The topic is
| very messy.
| CJefferson wrote:
| The problem with this kind of argument is that it's very
| hard to be sure you aren't trapped in your "bubble".
|
| Fox is comfortably the most popular cable news network in
| America -- and that lends it a lot of social power among
| people who get most of their news from cable. They don't
| care what idiots on Twitter are saying, except as filtered
| through the news they consume.
|
| I talk to conservatives who get furious at the suggestion
| that Joe Biden isn't a pedophile, or trans-women are women
| and not also pedophiles.
|
| However, this is my bubble --I don't know which is "real".
| bendbro wrote:
| > I talk to conservatives who get furious at the
| suggestion that Joe Biden isn't a pedophile, or trans-
| women are women and not also pedophiles
|
| Does their reaction have any odds of extending beyond
| your discussion with them into your friendship with them,
| other relationships, your job, or your public reputation?
|
| > The problem with this kind of argument is that it's
| very hard to be sure you aren't trapped in your "bubble"
|
| It definitely could be my bubble. A lot of the strength
| behind my opinion formed while living in Seattle and
| mingling with the locals.
|
| An anecdote: I once was at a friends birthday, and was
| seated next to a mutual friend I'd had for a year. She
| asked if I had been to the women's march, and I said
| "sorry no, I didn't have the time." She said "everybody
| has the time" and I said "I feel uncomfortable at
| marches." She said that's not a reason. I said "Okay, the
| real reason was I didn't have the hat." After that we
| were no longer friends.
|
| Interacting with the left in the southwest has been a
| significantly better experience.
| ScarletEmerald wrote:
| One thing that muddies the discussion around free speech is
| that some participant confuse platform and audience with
| speech. A speaker isn't entitled to a pulpit in the town
| square, nor are they entitled to have all residents show up
| and pay attention to them.
| tomp wrote:
| For some weird reason, the same people can be OK with
| Cloudflare or Twitter banning someone for their political
| views, but wouldn't be OK with a bank or electricity
| provider banning someone for their political views.
| drdec wrote:
| An electrical provider is typically a government-granted
| monopoly, and given that, it is not unreasonable to
| extend the protection of speech against government action
| to the electrical provider.
|
| Banks are not however, and in fact, banks and the
| financial system do act against classes of people. Visa
| and Mastercard frequently pressure their customers in an
| effort to prevent sex work in the name of preventing sex
| trafficking. If their customers do not do enough they
| will cut them off. This most recently happened with
| OnlyFans. See also PornHub.
| ambrozk wrote:
| If there is a pulpit in the town square, then the 1st
| amendment says that a speaker *is* entitled to that pulpit.
| This is the essence of free speech, and always has been.
| The 1st amendment is very explicit about this: citizens
| have a right to assemble *in public* and air their opinions
| *publicly.* Cordoning off opinions and declaring them unfit
| for certain public squares is a classic form of censorship.
| Communists, Republicans, the KKK, NAMBLA, the NRA, GLAAD,
| Gay Geeks for Bernie and the ASPCA all have the right to
| march on the National Mall.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > If there is a pulpit in the town square, then the 1st
| amendment says that a speaker _is_ entitled to that
| pulpit.
|
| Okay but what about when I want to use the pulpit? By
| your logic, if you're using the pulpit you are
| restricting my speech, because I can't exercise my speech
| while you're exercising yours. And by that token, if
| everyone in the town square wanted to shout you down and
| drown you out while you were at the pulpit, you can't
| really complain on the basis of free speech, right?
| Because any restrictions on their shouting would encroach
| on _their_ free speech rights.
|
| Apparently this is what we call "cancel culture", and the
| reason we're still talking about it today is that people
| complaining about it have no coherent ideas on how to fix
| it without also trampling all over the very free speech
| principles they are decrying have been violated.
|
| This knot people have tied themselves into is
| fascinating.
| ambrozk wrote:
| No, you're imagining complications that don't exist. The
| very boring answer is that if two people (or groups) want
| to exercise their right to free speech at the same time,
| the government is charged with fairly apportioning the
| space to each of them in turn, in such a manner that both
| will ultimately be able to express themselves. If one of
| the parties feels the government is unfairly restricting
| their right to speech, they can take the government to
| court, and the court will adjudicate the dispute.
|
| What people are describing as "cancel culture" is a
| _totally_ different phenomenon.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > the government is charged with fairly apportioning the
| space to each of them in turn, in such a manner that both
| will ultimately be able to express themselves.
|
| But even if you have the space according to whatever
| schedule is set up, I and all my friends can still go to
| the square while you are talking, and we can open our
| mouths to scream at the top of our lungs for as long as
| we like. Right? That's unrestricted free speech, is it
| not? For the government to come along and tell me to
| close my mouth, that would abridge my free speech rights.
|
| > What people are describing as "cancel culture" is a
| totally different phenomenon.
|
| I'm not sure. I've seen the term applied to almost any
| kind of restriction of speech, no matter how benign or
| justified. It's so broad as to be meaningless at this
| point.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Exactly. IMHO, we just need to accept that "public" has
| extended and changed to encompass publicly-accessible,
| privately-owned platforms of a sufficient size.
| otterley wrote:
| That would violate the property and First Amendment
| rights of the private platform owners.
|
| You could, however, advocate for the creation of a
| publicly-owned Internet platform where all speech would
| be acceptable. Why don't you do that, instead?
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _That would violate the property and First Amendment
| rights of the private platform owners._
|
| Much like the Fair Housing Act of 1968 restricts the
| Constitutional property rights of earlier bigots who
| didn't want to sell property to the "wrong" type of
| people, society by and large will likely be okay with
| violating the Constitutional property rights of the
| illiberal who don't want to allow the "wrong" type of
| people to use market-dominant services.
|
| Illiberalism is illiberalism, regardless of whether it
| comes from the right of the left.
| otterley wrote:
| This comes across as a thinly-veiled opinion that
| property owners should be allowed not to sell to a buyer
| solely because they are Black. That's what you mean,
| right? You might as well say it straightforwardly instead
| of attempting to hide behind a veil of logical
| equivalence.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I've never seen a pulpit or a town square in the city I
| live in. Have you?
| ambrozk wrote:
| Yes, though "town square" is a metaphor which typically
| refers to public space generally, and usually includes
| things like streetcorners in its definition.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Ah, then have you seen someone denied from accessing this
| town square?
| Beltalowda wrote:
| Another thing that muddies the discussion is the confusion
| between the legal protection of free speech and the ethical
| value of free speech.
|
| "Free speech" does not equal "freedom from being
| criticized" or "right to an audience". Me making fun of
| your argument or calling your argument stupid and x-ist is
| me exercising _my_ free speech just as much as you are
| exercising yours in making you argument in the first place.
|
| But that being said, I would argue that going on campaigns
| to get someone fired from their job or preventing people
| from making their argument in the first place and the like
| _is_ against free speech the ethical value, even if not
| against the legal principle.
|
| A lot of times what people are really talking of when they
| express concerns about "free speech" is the ethical value.
| This is frequently countered with an argument about the
| legal protection, but that's kind of missing the point
| IMHO.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think of the two sides as "pro-speech" and "anti-
| speech" dissent.
|
| I can disagree and oppose your opinions by exercising my
| own right to free speech. I can afford you your own
| pulpit, air time, and freedom to make your point, and
| then I can take mine and make my point as loudly as I
| can. I can schedule a march or rally the same day, across
| the street.
|
| This is what "pro-speech" dissent looks like.
|
| I can also disagree and oppose your opinion by removing
| your right to free speech. I can contact people who might
| give you a platform, and convince them not to do so. I
| can attempt to impose consequences for you legally,
| socially, or physically that discourage you from
| speaking. I can shout over you from across the street, to
| ensure people can't hear your speech.
|
| This is what "anti-speech" dissent looks like.
|
| And, IMHO, "pro-speech" is more important than almost*
| any consequence of speech.
|
| * The sole exceptions probably being speech that inspires
| imminent action to violate any person's individual rights
| (e.g. violence) or that has an imminent or fundamental
| threat to bring about a change in government to one which
| does not allow, support, and respect free speech.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| People do not evaluate speech based on its truth, they
| evaluate it based on its authority, which is a function
| of many things (including, in eg twitters case,
| popularity). Fighting battles over whos speech should be
| afforded the biggest stage makes a huge difference in
| debate.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > "right to an audience"
|
| If Alice wants to talk but Bob doesn't want to listen to
| her, then he indeed shouldn't have to. But if Alice wants
| to talk and Bob does want to listen to her, then they
| should be able to without Karen being able to stop them.
| tristor wrote:
| "Deplatforming" is anti-freedom. It violates the free
| speech of the speaker, it violates freedom of assembly for
| the listeners, and it violates freedom of association for
| all of the parties involved.
|
| Showing up to shout someone down who had people voluntarily
| show up to hear them speak because you feel like you are
| empowered to unilaterally decide and enforce through
| aggression who is "allowed" to speak in your city or on
| your campus, is inherently an act against freedom of
| speech. It's also the ultimate act of "entitlement",
| getting away with it is the ultimate act of "privilege" to
| be allowed to so utterly disrespect another person's
| rights.
|
| There is no other way to color this and very little nuance
| here. "Platforms" in the virtual space have more leeway as
| they're mostly privately owned and extended as a privilege
| of access, not a right. Shouting down speakers in public
| (or paid and invited) venues though is unequivocally
| against freedom of speech.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Deplatforming does not violate freedom of association for
| _all_ parties: you seem to be forgetting that the
| _platform_ also has the right to freedom of association,
| and would be exercising that right by refusing to
| associate with the individual(s) being deplatformed.
|
| I'm yet to see a convincing argument that broadly, one
| person's free speech right always trumps other's freedom
| of association when the other doesn't like your speech,
| for any reason.
| tristor wrote:
| > you seem to be forgetting that the platform also has
| the right to freedom of association
|
| In the cases I'm mostly referring to in my comment, the
| "platform" was perfectly fine with the speaker, and
| invited them (or accepted their money in exchange for use
| of the venue), so, yes, their freedom of association is
| /also/ being violated when someone comes in to shout down
| the speaker.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Because one party is human (the individual) and the other
| party is corporate (the platform).
|
| Individuals are _inherently endowed_ with inalienable
| rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
| Corporations are _explicitly allowed_ whatever rights we
| choose to afford them, in pursuit of profit and
| maximizing their ability to put capital to productive
| ends.
|
| Saying "an individual speaks" is very different than
| saying "Facebook speaks."
|
| What opinions would Facebook have? And what fundamental
| desires would Facebook's opinions stem from?
| sangnoir wrote:
| ...and yet the Citizens United and Hobby Lobby rulings
| are a thing.
|
| There is no basis (or case law) to say biological
| people's free speech rights overrides legal people's
| freedom of association right everytime - but I've seen
| the "free speech absolutists" take this as a given.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| They are absolutely a thing, and are the current law, but
| I can and do disagree with them from first principles.
|
| A group of individual persons, associated for a specific
| purpose, are not equivalent to an individual person in
| matters of fundamentally-owed rights.
| throwaway82652 wrote:
| So in your ideal world, all you have to do to avoid
| "deplatforming" is to find one other person who shares
| your viewpoint and form a group? Isn't that literally how
| it already is regardless of your "first principles"? Or
| am I misunderstanding?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I'm arguing that platforms (aka groups aka corporations)
| deserve _fewer_ free speech rights than human
| individuals.
| throwaway82652 wrote:
| So if I talk to my neighbor and we agree on something and
| form a group of two, suddenly we deserve less free speech
| rights because technically that is a platform somehow? I
| can't understand what you mean here, please clarify.
|
| If you're trying to say businesses should be required to
| file with the government and get subject to business
| regulation, they already are?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| If you and one neighbor form a group, why should your
| group-of-two be entitled to any more free speech rights
| than those the two of you possessed before forming a
| group, and still individually possess after forming the
| group?
|
| Groups are entitled to greater-than-zero rights, in order
| to support their accomplishing their purpose in an
| efficient manner, but I'm curious why they should be owed
| person-equivalent rights?
| simonh wrote:
| A group of two is not necessarily entitled to more rights
| than individuals, but I don't see why they should
| entitled to fewer rights. The idea that groups and
| associations of various forms can have the same rights as
| individuals has been a legal principle going back to the
| Middle Ages at least in the west, and even further in
| some other cultures. I see no good reason to change that.
|
| It seems to me that any scheme for depriving people of
| the ability to exercise their rights in various contexts,
| for example because they are trying to do so as part of a
| specific group, could be subject to serious abuse.
| throwaway82652 wrote:
| >why should your group-of-two be entitled to any more
| free speech rights than those the two of you possessed
| before forming a group, and still individually possess
| after forming the group?
|
| It's not? If I throw my own party I can decide to
| uninvite the other bad neighbor down the block who always
| gets drunk and trashes everything. If I form up with my
| other neighbor and throw a block party, we can also
| decide to uninvite that same drunk neighbor. Are you
| saying that because it's a block party and not my
| personal birthday party, we should be forced to invite
| this person and have the party trashed, because
| uninviting them is a person-equivalent right? Or maybe
| I'm not allowed to do this at a personal birthday party
| either, because my wife and brother and I all formed a
| group to plan it? Please help me understand here, maybe
| this is a bad analogy.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _Are you saying that because it 's a block party and
| not my personal birthday party, we should be forced to
| invite this person and have the party trashed, because
| uninviting them is a person-equivalent right?_
|
| To use this analogy, yes.
|
| Or perhaps better, the block party shouldn't
| _automatically_ have a right to not invite them, because
| a block party is not a personal party, and the right of
| the block party to not invite them should be weighed
| against other rights before being granted.
|
| Because, as you noted, equating block party group rights
| with your personal rights ultimately leads to "just form
| a group."
|
| Which, in US law, also clashes with the fact that some
| core rights we give legal groups (in corporate form) to
| allow them to operate efficiently are limited liability
| (with respect to their members as individuals) and
| limited transparency (with regards to their internal
| workings and ownership).
|
| So free speech + limited liability + limited transparency
| = problems.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Doesn't this infringe on my individual right to enforce
| my own boundaries?
|
| If I dislike someone, and I host an event, it's by
| definition a "group" thing, there's no real way to
| distinguish a personal gathering from a group gathering.
| But under your proposed system, I, an individual, can't
| exclude any person from a group gathering. Being unable
| to choose who I associate with is a fundamental
| infringement on my right of association. If I'm forced to
| associate with everyone, I'm not free.
| throwaway82652 wrote:
| Ok, to me what you've proposed just means that nobody in
| my neighborhood will throw block parties anymore because
| they don't want to get stuck with the bill when drunk guy
| breaks a window and urinates on the upholstery.
|
| Edit just to respond to something:
|
| >Because, as you noted, equating block party group rights
| with your personal rights ultimately leads to "just form
| a group."
|
| I don't know how you got that, this seems to be very
| backwards. The group was formed before the rights were
| even considered.
| etchalon wrote:
| All of the parties in your equation are human.
|
| Facebook is run by a collection of humans. Those humans
| make choices, as humans, that collectively we think of as
| "Facebook".
| hotpotamus wrote:
| "Corporations are people, my friend" - Mitt Romney
| cortesoft wrote:
| Ok, so what if a platform was owned by just one person...
| it would be totally fine for that one person to refuse to
| allow certain people to post their thoughts on it?
|
| If you accept that, then what about a company that is
| owned by two people? Or three? Ten? 100?
|
| How many people have to own a company before the owners
| are no longer allowed to decide who they allow to use
| their platform to espouse their views?
| godelski wrote:
| > "Deplatforming" is anti-freedom. It violates the free
| speech of the speaker, it violates freedom of assembly
| for the listeners, and it violates freedom of association
| for all of the parties involved.
|
| Is it though? And to what extent? We don't have unlimited
| freedom of speech in the US constitution because we
| agreed that there are limits and realize that words do
| mean things (like a threat).
|
| But on a platform let's be nuanced. Some people believe
| that saying a racist word and having their comment
| removed is deplatforming. Some think they can promote
| violence. Others think getting down voted is
| deplatforming. There's a lot of people getting grouped
| together here and many making claims of being
| deplatformed are not acting in good faith.
|
| So unfortunately we need to define what deplatforming
| means otherwise we'll just be arguing and making
| assumptions because many people will be working off of
| many different definitions pretending that we all agree
| on the definition (or that we hold the true definition
| and others are dumb).
| ethbr0 wrote:
| "Censoring future speech" seems like a decent working
| definition.
|
| I.e. anything that restrains an individual's ability to
| make _future_ speech in a manner equal to that of their
| peers
|
| Another useful distinction in the argument would be
| between "commons platforms" and smaller ones.
|
| It feels like past time that we recognized market
| realities and codified them into law to distinguish
| rights and regulations. If you are Google, Facebook,
| Twitter, Apple, Microsoft, Snap, or ByteDance (or any
| subsequent arising entity with a large enough market
| share in some public/social market) then you the public
| should have different access rights to your platforms, on
| the sole basis of their public ubiquity.
| ncallaway wrote:
| Do you think accounts that post nothing but spam content
| (so, a twitter account that posts an advertisement in
| response to every public tweet on the platform), or
| blatant scams, should not be allowed to be restricted in
| any way (for future speech)?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| What is "free speech"? What are your feelings on
| censoring pornography, gore, or false advertising?
| bb88 wrote:
| Or ... conspiracy to commit murder, fraud, organized
| shoplifting, or an insurrection on the capital, e.g.?
|
| Or ... falsely smearing people and companies, potentially
| anonymously?
|
| Or ... doxxing journalists, government officials
| (including judges), doctors that refused to give
| Ivermectin, or rape victims?
| godelski wrote:
| So you clarify, you are okay with down voting and
| removing comments but are not okay withbanning accounts?
| Bans, even temporary, are crossing the line?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| My feelings on the above are likely contingent of the
| nuances of implementation. Do downvotes ultimately censor
| posts? Are votes equal weight? Etc.
|
| From a higher level, I'd grant that (a) platforms have a
| fundamental right to try to realize their vision, which
| may include promoting and demoting various types of
| content & (b) spam and astroturfing is a constant reality
| in any social platform (and users are better served by
| less of both).
|
| So I think there are justifiable reasons for censoring,
| or at least decreasing visibility. I've been on forums
| long enough and have too low an opinion of the average
| internet denizen to think otherwise. :-)
|
| Hence, to me, the emphasis on ad vs post hoc restraint.
|
| If I allow you to make speech, and then, on the basis of
| that piece of speech and NOT on your identity as its
| speaker, decrease its virality in a way that's still fair
| (e.g. yank it from feed promotion but still allow direct
| linking) and then (in rare cases) absolutely censor it,
| that feels fair. To me.
|
| If I proactively identify you, godelski, as someone
| likely to say *ist things and consequently ban you or
| pre-censor everything you post, irregardless of the
| individual pieces of content, that does not feel fair. To
| me.
|
| As well, and I should have punched this more in my
| comment, as emphasizing "individual." Which is to say "1
| human person, 1 share of public speech rights."
|
| IMHO, if free speech is a right that flows from our
| existence as sentient beings then it's difficult to get
| from there to "you deserve more / less free speech than I
| do."
|
| ---
|
| And finally, because I know I'll get this response
| eventually, yes, I know playing whack-a-mole with bad
| actors on a public platform is a nigh impossible task.
| I've done it. Maybe actually impossible.
|
| Tough.
|
| Uber skirted labor laws in pursuit of profit. Social
| media platforms are doing the exact same in terms of
| nuanced moderation in pursuit of profit. "It's difficult"
| or "It costs a lot to employ and train the headcount
| required to do it" isn't an acceptable defense, and we
| shouldn't accept it.
| efitz wrote:
| I'd grant that (a) platforms have a fundamental right to
| try to realize their vision, which may include promoting
| and demoting various types of content & (b) spam and
| astroturfing is a constant reality in any social platform
| (and users are better served by less of both).
|
| I don't think that platforms should have any such
| fundamental right wrt user produced content. I think that
| platforms should work as either publishers (where they
| produce and are responsible for all the content), or as
| common carriers (where they are forbidden by law from
| interfering with legal content). I think that platforms
| should have to explicitly choose one model once they
| reach a certain number of participants or when they
| incorporate.
|
| I am all for shielding platforms from liability for user
| content if they act like a common carrier and limit
| themselves to removing illegal content. However I don't
| see why we as a society should shield companies from
| liability when they selectively pick and choose which
| user content to promote and which to suppress, according
| to their own preferences.
| ipsi wrote:
| I wonder if you've thought this through properly. I
| suspect that, if your vision were to be enacted, there
| would be no more forums. No more Facebook, Twitter,
| Reddit, Hacker News, niche PHP forums, comment sections,
| etc, etc. Why? Because they'd devolve into spam and/or
| people arguing past each other. For example, given your
| current definition I believe it would be acceptable for
| someone to write a script to post useless replies to
| every single Hacker News post and comment, effectively
| rendering the board useless.
|
| Right now, HN has the right to delete those. If it was a
| common carrier, it would presumably not. Arguably they're
| spam, but I cannot imagine a way you can define "spam"
| that is narrow enough to not be redefined by everyone as
| "things I disagree with", but broad enough to capture
| someone posting excessively to a forum. Note that this
| wouldn't violate the CAN-SPAM act because it's not
| advertising anything commercial.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| This position means that if I create a forum for fans of
| a band, neither I nor anyone else should have the right
| to remove comments trying to sell hair products or
| discussing cooking recipes. Not to mention sharing
| (legal) pornographic images.
| efitz wrote:
| I am ok with downvoting, if I have the ability to change
| my settings so that I can view downvoted comments.
| However, I think that downvoting is a less desirable than
| individual-centric controls.
|
| I strongly prefer to have have the individual ability to
| block/mute/suppress any comment or commenter, and I am ok
| delegating that ability to someone or something else as
| long as I can withdraw my delegation and undo any changes
| that were made. To put it differently- I might decide
| that I trust some organization or individual to build
| block/filter lists and I might consume those lists (as I
| do for spam blocking, ad blocking, etc.), as long as I
| can observe what they're doing and opt out at any time.
| It seems social media is long overdue for that.
|
| I am NOT ok with anyone (or anything) else doing these
| for me without my explicit opt-in, especially if I don't
| have any way to see what decisions they made on my behalf
| or to reverse those decisions.
| fumar wrote:
| What I don't understand is the nuance between freedom of
| speech in public spaces versus privately owned spaces. If
| the US government had a public social network, then
| people would have the right to shout ZYX. It is not the
| same on Facebook or TikTok right? Those are privately
| owned spaces. That would be like you coming into my
| property to shout XYS and I could remove you from my
| land. Am I understanding this correctly?
| ss108 wrote:
| In making this argument, you should clarify that you
| think it's important to not limit "freedom of speech" to
| its legal definition. Currently, you only make an
| allusion to that distinction.
|
| To fully make your argument, you need to convince people
| that the overall philosophical point of "free speech" is
| worth societal value even beyond that which we have
| accorded it via law (assuming you're in the US).
|
| Coming from someone who doesn't agree with you, but who
| doesn't agree with your opponents either.
| lukifer wrote:
| The First Amendment doesn't grant a right to free speech
| as such; such a right is assumed to be pre-existing and
| inalienable (whether one roots such rights in religious
| belief or secular humanism). Rather: the First Amendment
| restricts what laws Congress may pass, which might
| infringe on that right.
| ss108 wrote:
| The "right" only exists insofar as it is legally
| protected.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| The Constitution uses "inalienable rights" for a reason.
| An individual (and c.f. Citizens United and Hobby Lobby,
| corporations) is accorded all rights not explicitly
| circumscribed by a higher form of federal government
| ss108 wrote:
| That phrase is from the Declaration of Independence, not
| the Constitution.
|
| The way the Constitution works is that the Federal
| government only has those powers it is granted, which are
| limited by items such as the First Amendment, which does
| not generally restrict individuals (including
| corporations--there is no "cf" here; corporations are
| simply people, though they are not 'natural persons",
| where that distinction matters).
| lukifer wrote:
| I half-agree: many who lean libertarian like to contrast
| "positive rights" with "negative rights"; and while it's
| an interesting academic distinction, in my view a purely
| negative right is indistinguishable from not having a
| right at all. Perhaps the state cannot proactively ensure
| my survival with 100% certainty, but a "right to life" is
| meaningless without _some_ kind of proactive deterrent
| against violence.
|
| Where I disagree is the "legal" qualifier: while legal
| protections have an important role to play, so do civil
| institutions and social norms. Many forms of suppressing
| free expression are entirely compatible with the First
| Amendment (economic and social sanctions), and instead
| have to be defended in civil society, and the court of
| public opinion.
| ss108 wrote:
| I see where you're coming from. I just think that if we
| have to resort to civil institutions beyond courts to
| enforce something, it's not really a "right". It's some
| other kind of good or value. So maybe my definition of
| "right" is too narrow or legalistic--but it is ofc
| widespread.
| lukifer wrote:
| I don't disagree, my position here is "yes, and". However
| one construes "rights" (it's a thorny topic both morally
| and empirically!), in my view, legal defenses and civil
| defenses are each necessary, but not sufficient.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > In making this argument, you should clarify that you
| think it's important to not limit "freedom of speech" to
| its legal definition
|
| More specifically, to shrink "free speech" smaller than
| it's legal definition, and erase both part of what is
| legally protected and the fundamental premise of the
| legal protection, in that you want it prohibit private
| exercise of free speech rights essential to forcing ideas
| to complete in the marketplace of ideas by compelling
| private actors to actively participate in relaying speech
| that they find repugnant.
| ss108 wrote:
| This is a good point as well.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| It's interesting how "I support rights of private companies
| but only when they do something totalitarian" has become
| such a common position in the US.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I'm confused by what you are saying here. Corporations
| have always been totalitarian in their decision making.
| How often have you heard from your boss "this isn't a
| democracy" when they make a decision that's unpopular
| among the employees?
|
| The more interesting dynamic to me is the free-market,
| anti-regulation, low-corporate-tax capitalist politicians
| arguing we should create regulations to make the market
| less free.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| > I'm confused by what you are saying here. Corporations
| have always been totalitarian in their decision making.
| How often have you heard from your boss "this isn't a
| democracy" when they make a decision that's unpopular
| among the employees?
|
| I am saying that people who are seemingly opposed to that
| stuff are the first to shout that Twitter is a private
| company and thus can manipulate its userbase however it
| wants.
|
| > The more interesting dynamic to me is the free-market,
| anti-regulation, low-corporate-tax capitalist politicians
| arguing we should create regulations to make the market
| less free.
|
| Yeah, and it's good that people finally loosen up their
| radical stances and start to realize that the state isn't
| the only source of oppression.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > I am saying that people who are seemingly opposed to
| that stuff are the first to shout that Twitter is a
| private company and thus can manipulate its userbase
| however it wants.
|
| One thing to consider is that this argument is being used
| rhetorically to force interlocutors into an uncomfortable
| position. If you are a famous politician who has been
| championing the unrestricted free reign of corporations
| to pollute, abuse employees, abuse customers, etc. for
| decades, but now all of a sudden you're upset about
| certain decisions those companies make regarding their
| own products, people are going to throw that in your
| face.
|
| The argument will continue to be made until those arguing
| for tighter controls over corporate free speech agree
| that corporate power in _other_ areas must be checked as
| well. I 'm all for greater oversight of Twitter that
| would lead to more free speech. But I'm not going to
| start arguing for it until there's a broader recognition
| that corporate power _writ large_ needs to be reduced,
| not just at the corporations which make things
| politically uncomfortable for certain politicians.
|
| To me, it seems like some politicians would like to pass
| laws against e.g. Twitter specifically that would help
| them politically, but they would like to preserve
| corporate power in general where it benefits them. They
| want corporations to be people when it benefits them, but
| they don't want corporations to be people when it's
| politically inconvenient.
|
| That's not how this works. Until conservative attitudes
| about corporate power and corporate personhood shift
| generally, Twitter will retain the power they have now,
| since they are people according to conservatives.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| It just puts things in perspective; I'm not saying it's _not_
| something to be worried about, but you can both worry about
| something while also keeping the historical perspective in
| mind.
|
| There is also a lot of hysteria going on; that Maus
| "controversy" which your CVS article cites (among others) is
| a good example. The concerns were over some nudity and
| profanity. You may think that's prudish or a bit childish,
| but fine, it's not really something especially unusual to be
| concerned about, or a very new "taboo" to be concerned about.
| It certainly _wasn 't_ an attempt at removing any education
| about the Holocaust from the curriculum, yet that it often
| how it was framed. With the author of Maus going so far to
| openly question whether these people might have neo-Nazi
| sympathies in an interview.
|
| That there are some instances of unfounded hysteria doesn't
| mean there are _also_ things that are not; but again, it 's
| good to keep some perspective.
| lukifer wrote:
| The _Maus_ case provides an interesting contrast: while I
| agree the reaction was somewhat disproportionate, a
| dissenting view was still permissible within the "social
| Overton window". You might get looked at askance for saying
| "I don't think _Maus_ is appropriate for schools ", but
| you'd be unlikely to be ostracized or fired. The same can't
| be said for some other expressions of heterodoxy/heresy,
| past or present.
| goto11 wrote:
| Censorship is much more visible in modern social media because
| it happens after the publishing. Somebody publishes something,
| and _then_ the platform reviews the material and decides to
| block it. In print media the filtering happened before material
| was published. Newspapers only print a tiny fraction of the
| "letters to the editor" they receive, but it doesn't feel like
| censorship.
| mjburgess wrote:
| The 90s was a strange ideological moment -- the eastern
| religion failed, so the western religion admitted pluralism
| within its own denominations. It was an interregnum in which
| the liberal democratic order was unchallenged.
|
| It is, today, challenged from all sides. What PG et al. call
| "free speech" was just the peace of a political moment. In
| every other era "free speech" is a demand with costs; we should
| expect that to be the default.
| morelisp wrote:
| Another consideration: It is _profoundly_ boring to find
| someone who came into adulthood ca. 1985 complaining the world
| is no longer like it was in 1985, regardless of the specific
| changes decried.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| I don't see how someone's year of birth is related, or
| important?
|
| If anything, I find it valuable to see perspectives that fall
| outside of my own experience. I was born in 1985. I don't
| remember what the world was like in 1985, or 1975, but I'm
| eager to learn about it to see what we've gained since then,
| or maybe lost, to better guide the path we should take in the
| future.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > I don't see how someone's year of birth is related, or
| important?
|
| It's related because people are incredibly biased toward
| liking things "as they were" when growing up. I'd be more
| impressed by accounts of people growing up in a time before
| the one they are praising.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Personally, as someone who came of age during the Bush
| administration and the War on Terror, all of these cancel
| culture wars bore me because it's all I've ever known.
| Since 2003 or so, I've never not seen American politics
| and civil society as a hyper-partisan wonderland of
| information bubbles and people shouting heresy.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210730
| dTal wrote:
| Indeed; those complaining most loudly today about "cancel
| culture" were the first in line to "cancel" the Dixie
| Chicks all the way back in 2003.
| alanlammiman wrote:
| Regardless of whether one agrees, I had to smile at this,
| because it is simply a more formal way of saying 'OK, boomer'
| Ma8ee wrote:
| In 1985 you could say "homosexuality is a disease and all gay
| should be locked up" and you wouldn't have to be too worried
| about your employment. Today you can say "I'm gay" and don't
| have to worry about being fired for it. I like today's freedom
| of expression better.
| gedy wrote:
| People like to bully on the outgroups, now as then. Same as
| ever.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| The speed with which society is moving is also a factor.
|
| Tacitus or Voltaire are variously credited with the notion that
| in any epoch, to know who is in power, ask who you may not
| criticise.
|
| I think Graham is slightly missing the point about our period.
| It's not that heresy is on the up, so much as it's on the move.
| Outrage is a homeless beast. We're in an Orwellian age where it
| changes with the seasons, so what is heresy in one place and
| time is a tepid platitude only next door the following week.
|
| Also it is no longer power that metes out punishment, but the
| fanboi acolytes or loyal minor apparatchik. It would have once
| been "dangerous" (at least in a fairly pedestrian job) to say
| that Google is a crappy old search engine, Facebook is a threat
| to democracy and Microsoft are corrupt criminals. Today it's
| practically _de rigueur_ to cock a snook at jaded icons. It 's
| practically a credential.
| eternalban wrote:
| > Outrage is a homeless beast.
|
| Well said and true.
|
| > it is no longer power that metes out punishment, but the
| fanboi acolytes or loyal minor apparatchik.
|
| Pretty sure this modality of power has been with us since
| ancient days. (The beast may be homeless but there is always
| a beast master.)
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > Tacitus or Voltaire are variously credited with the notion
| that in any epoch, to know who is in power, ask who you may
| not criticise.
|
| The actual source of this quote is a literal Nazi who was
| using this quote to claim that Jewish people run the world.
|
| It is also a silly idea. It is considered rude to make fun of
| autistic people at work, but autistic people clearly aren't
| running the world through some secret cabal.
| Banana699 wrote:
| >The actual source of this quote is a literal Nazi
|
| This is called the Genetic Fallacy, it is completely
| irrelevant who said anything as long as that thing is true
| and/or useful. Nobody owns words. Aristotle supported
| slavery, you don't interrupt every logic lecture with "You
| know the source of those funny terms is a literal slavery
| supporter?" do you?.
|
| >It is also a silly idea. It is considered rude to make fun
| of autistic people at work
|
| This common retort completely misses the point, voltaire's
| rule of thumb is just that, it's a heuristic, an extremely
| good one for detecting and finding hegemonic ideologies,
| but not an algorithm. A necessary but not sufficient
| condition.
|
| The kind of offense is also different, nobody rages at you
| and assembles a mob because you made fun of an autistic
| person, at most you will get a cold stare and get ignored.
| Voltaire was talking about a different kind entirely of
| "Not allowed", the familiar hysteria coming from the
| fanatically religious when you speak ill of their idols, he
| was probably speaking about the church, but the wisdom is
| just as relevant to the new religions.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > This is called the Genetic Fallacy
|
| I'm well aware of the Genetic Fallacy. The post I was
| responding to was falsely attributing the quote to other
| sources. "Hey, somebody else said that" is relevant
| information. Discussion of fallacies is also largely
| worthless in ordinary conversation since we aren't
| actually making formal deductive arguments. It is
| completely reasonable for people to reason through other
| means than pure deductive logic.
|
| And further, my post did not stop there.
|
| > voltaire's rule of thumb
|
| It is not Voltaire's rule of thumb. We just discussed
| this.
| Banana699 wrote:
| >The post I was responding to was falsely attributing the
| quote to other sources.
|
| My point is that is irrelevant, it's the equivalent of
| correcting a misspelled comment in an open source repo
| and calling it a contribution, it is indeed, but a very
| minor one that makes little to no difference.
|
| You also didn't clarify that the quote doesn't belong to
| voltaire, you simply stated that the other quote
| paraphrasing it is from a Nazi.
|
| >"Hey, somebody else said that" is relevant information.
|
| Only if you don't want to discuss the thing that is being
| said itself by vaguely referencing the heretic who said
| it and implying that discredits the thing being said in
| and of itself.
|
| >Discussion of fallacies is also largely worthless in
| ordinary conversation since we aren't actually making
| formal deductive arguments
|
| It's the exact opposite in fact. Fallacies are literally
| called "Informal Fallacies", they are _coined_ to give
| names to common sloppy reasoning tactics and rhetorical
| tricks in informal everyday conversations and arguments.
|
| They are worthless in formal deductive arguments because
| they are completely dependent on content and have no
| syntactical forms, unlike - say - deductive arguments
| like "If P Then Q, P, Therefore Q". Their usefulness is
| entirely in this kind of conversation where charged
| emotional words gets thrown left and right.
|
| >And further, my post did not stop there.
|
| Correct, it continues on to a naive misunderstanding of
| the quote.
|
| >It is not Voltaire's rule of thumb.
|
| I think you established that quite satisfactorily
| already, you can move on to other points.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Ok. Let's discuss the "merits" of this quote then if you
| insist.
|
| Which groups can you "not criticize" in the US? Or, at
| the very least, criticizing which groups will generate
| the most backlash? I have my own perspective on this
| list, but I'm very interested in hearing yours. And then
| I'm interested in hearing you describe how these groups
| _in particular_ are "in power."
| Banana699 wrote:
| >Which groups can you "not criticize" in the US?
|
| I can never answer this question from a personal
| experience because I don't live in the US and never have,
| but I can give a noisy estimate from my experience of the
| (quite US-dominated) internet and global media ecosystem.
|
| Here are groups you're not allowed to criticise on the
| internet without being held to much higher standards than
| most things :
|
| - Gays
|
| - Transgender people
|
| - 'Progressive' ideas in general, which includes the
| above two as special cases but also things like feminism
| and racial minorities.
|
| Those ideas are 'in power' in the sense that they are the
| semi-official ideologies of the public-facing
| institutional machinery of western countries: The EU and
| Euro-American news corporation will worry about the
| bigoted treatment of lgbt individuals even as an entire
| country of millions is threatened with an invasion, the
| UN has specialized bureaucratic organs for "Empowering
| Women" but not so for men, "Kill All Men" is a funny
| ironic joke you can make on twitter but "Kill All Women",
| or even the much milder "Good Morning I Hate Women", is a
| big bomb to blow anywhere, reddit admins - regardless of
| the subreddit - will routinely lock or delete any thread
| that even mentions that trans people are not the coolest
| thing since kittens were invented. I can go on and on.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| But the quote isn't about "ideas" being in power. It is
| about people. I think it is plain to see that gay people
| and transgender people are definitely _not_ "in power" in
| the west in any special way. For somebody to believe this
| is to believe a wild conspiracy based in no facts
| whatsoever. And I think this is a pretty compelling
| argument for why the quote is horseshit.
|
| Unless there is some _actual secret shadow government
| operated by women, gay people, and transgender people_ ,
| the existence of "Kill All Men" as a joke on Twitter is a
| rather intense indictment against the merits of the
| quote.
|
| So in addition to being originally coined by a Nazi to
| argue that Jews secretly control the world, the quote is
| idiotic on its merits.
| dibujante wrote:
| It's also just a stupid idea. You "can't criticize" many
| groups of people who hold no real power. The quotation
| was devised solely to apply to criticizing "the Jews"
| (and by extension implying they "rule over you") and
| laundering it through Voltaire just puts the flakiest of
| intellectual veneers on top of this nonsense statement.
| adolph wrote:
| The political orientation of a thought is orthogonal to an
| honest evaluation of its accuracy. Call it a broken clock
| fallacy if you will. The statement was about criticism of
| the powerful, which is different from ridicule of the
| relatively weak.
|
| The concept seems facially valid to me although incomplete
| in that it seems to have an assumption of singular power
| rather than many different power domains. Taken further, an
| hallmark of power, prestige, might be defined as those
| things which seem so natural that criticism would not occur
| to the larger portion of people.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I'm not sure it was about criticism of the powerful.
| Jewish people _don 't_ run the world via a cabal. The
| original statement was arguing that because denying the
| Holocaust is socially disastrous and often illegal that
| Jewish people must therefore secretly be in charge of the
| levers of society.
|
| Biden is currently one of the most powerful people on the
| entire planet. Yet people happily chant "f--- Joe Biden"
| in public, put stickers saying this on their cars, and
| put up signs on their lawns saying this.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| An alternative interpretation of the apparent
| contradiction about Biden is that the U.S. President
| isn't actually all that powerful, but more of a
| figurehead.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| You are going to start racking up all sorts of
| interesting "apparent contradictions" if you go down this
| route. One would experience some pretty intense social
| ostracism if one loudly criticized interracial couples.
| But I find it hard to believe that interracial couples
| actually run things. Ditto orphans, the disabled, and
| yes, Jewish people.
|
| Down this route is the precise conspiracy that the
| original Nazi who spoke these words was pushing.
|
| The original idea here is that because denying the
| Holocaust is social suicide and illegal in some nations,
| Jewish people must _secretly actually run the world_.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| I agree with you on all of that. I just thought that the
| ability to criticize the U.S. President could be easily
| dismissed.
| kbenson wrote:
| > Also it is no longer power that metes out punishment
|
| There are different types of power, and what I think we're
| seeing is that whip traditionally those different types of
| power have rested in the same individuals, that's not so true
| anymore.
|
| Financial and political power is still mostly where it's
| always been. Social power has been democratized far more and
| far more quickly in recent years, to the point that those
| same groups that have the financial and political power no
| longer mostly control it.
|
| I think the mercurial appearance of how that power is wielded
| is also easily explained. Like any revolutionaries that take
| power, they are often unrestrained in it's use as they are
| not used to the problems of wielding it.
|
| Whether the status quo can ever develop into a more
| restrained arbiter if social justice remains to be seen. As
| long as the young are the majority of the social scenes used
| in the decision process (the social networks of the moment) I
| doubt it, but the demographics of these networks are shifting
| year by year and those that have been using them longer are
| learning the trade and solidifying their bases, and those
| ones making enough money to also join the other power
| structures. Perhaps in another decade or two this will just
| be viewed as another period of large change, like civil
| rights and woman entering the workplace, and the social
| narrative will again be controlled like it traditionally has.
|
| For most I imagine that thought has parts of both comfort and
| dread.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > For most I imagine that thought has parts of both comfort
| and dread.
|
| Yes. What we see as mob rule now may mature into something
| not unlike a real polis. But (see my recent comment on
| vigilante speeding cameras) technology may give us a civil
| arms race that just drives a wedge further down the middle.
| ambrozk wrote:
| I agree with most of what you've written but I don't think
| it's correct to think of social power having been
| "democratized." It seems more accurate to view the
| transformation we've seen as existing mostly at the top of
| society. Highly networked, social-media savvy college-
| educated elites have figured out how exert power on
| structures which were previously by other highly networked,
| college-educated elites.
| Angostura wrote:
| > Tacitus or Voltaire are variously credited with the notion
| that in any epoch, to know who is in power, ask who you may
| not criticise.
|
| That's an interesting, because I suppose at the moment that
| group would include all through have been historically or
| currently disadvantaged or discriminated against.
|
| Today's axiom, at least in liberal countries is 'you can
| punch up, but not down' somewhat different in totalitarian
| regimes.
| randomtwiddler wrote:
| > Tacitus or Voltaire are variously credited with the notion
| that in any epoch, to know who is in power, ask who you may
| not criticise.
|
| That doesn't work if/when a value claimed by those in power
| is to turn the other cheek. At least if it is followed, then
| this wouldn't be accurate.
| dibujante wrote:
| They're credited with it but that quotation is actually from
| neo-Nazi Kevin Alfred Strom and has been repeatedly laundered
| through social media to seem like respectable intellectual
| rigor, instead of an attempt to legitimize the kinds of
| completely insane conspiracy ideology that is present on
| social media today.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| In the 90s and 2000s it would be "heresy" to be a gay or
| transgendered person. I remember sadly how people in hushed tones
| would talk about coworkers.
|
| There was a bro-y norm to engineering culture that you didn't
| defy very easily.
|
| I'm a bit surprised how easily people forget these things.
| vasco wrote:
| > There was a bro-y norm to engineering culture
|
| There _was_? I'm not sure what field of engineering you're in,
| but in software, hardware and electrical engineering which are
| the ones I have the most contact within 3 countries in Europe,
| this is the norm today. Through friends in mechanical and civil
| engineering I get the sense it's even worse there.
| catears wrote:
| I also thought about transgender and gay rights.
|
| Heresy to me sounds like it comes from an intolerant society.
| At least in regards to LGBTQ+ rights it feels like society has
| (thankfully!) become more tolerant. How many people would be
| fired from their job today if they said they are gay compared
| to 30-60 years ago?
|
| Maybe PG is talking about specific contexts like academia,
| media, or tech companies though?
| odonnellryan wrote:
| Yes great point. What we do is trade off "wrong-being" for
| "wrong-thought" or "wrong-talk."
| golemiprague wrote:
| alanlammiman wrote:
| Wow, 802 comments here. No way I can go through all that, but I'm
| really curious. If you happen to have read a significant % of the
| comments could you do a summary? (wasn't there a blog that had
| that kind of thing?)
| [deleted]
| yojo wrote:
| Woo boy. Generally liked the concept for the essay, but this
| piece jumps out as problematic (or just poorly written):
|
| > _The clearest evidence of this is that whether a statement is
| considered x-ist often depends on who said it. Truth doesn 't
| work that way. The same statement can't be true when one person
| says it, but x-ist, and therefore false, when another person
| does._
|
| Really? He can't think of a statement that is racist when a white
| person says it and not a black person?
|
| Many (most?) statements embed some of the speakers attributes,
| either explicitly or implicitly. At a trivial level, saying "I am
| hungry" can be true when one person says it and false when
| another does.
|
| Obviously "I" statements are not what Graham is talking about,
| but the idea that your lived experience cannot qualify or
| disqualify you for passing certain judgements seems suspect.
| newbamboo wrote:
| You are expressing a literally racist opinion. "Only race y can
| express idea x."
|
| Unlike others, I don't want to cancel you for being racist,
| though you clearly are, by your own admission.
|
| This tolerance I show towards others allows dialog and thus
| enables human progress. Cancelling racists does the opposite. I
| support your right to think out load and bless the sacredness
| of your inner spirit even though you think racistically about
| free speech which imo is not really "free" speech.
| yojo wrote:
| I think you're injecting a lot into my comment that wasn't
| there. I never talked about cancelling anyone. I talked about
| whether speakers are always equally qualified to make the
| same statement.
|
| Here's an example: There are words that have historically
| been used as slurs that have been reclaimed by the people
| they were used against.
|
| If you are not a member of that group, your use of the word
| invokes the history of its use, and is likely x-ist. As a
| member, you are likely able to use it.
| ByteJockey wrote:
| > Really? He can't think of a statement that is racist when a
| white person says it and not a black person?
|
| He can't think of a statement that is false when a white person
| says it and true when a black person says it (or vice versa).
| yojo wrote:
| The literal quote is about the "x-ism" of the statement, not
| its veracity. He goes on to extrapolate about truth later.
| ByteJockey wrote:
| Yes, but it's in the context of someone already having said
| that an "x-ist" statement can't be true.
|
| The quote in question is immediately after this paragraph:
|
| > If you find yourself talking to someone who uses these
| labels a lot, it might be worthwhile to ask them explicitly
| if they believe any babies are being thrown out with the
| bathwater. Can a statement be x-ist, for whatever value of
| x, and also true? If the answer is yes, then they're
| admitting to banning the truth. That's obvious enough that
| I'd guess most would answer no. But if they answer no, it's
| easy to show that they're mistaken, and that in practice
| such labels are applied to statements regardless of their
| truth or falsity.
|
| Which the quote about the variation of a statement is given
| as an obvious counter argument once someone has already
| said that x-ist statements cannot be true.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I suppose you have to unpack pronouns when you are evaluating
| truth or falsity of a statement and maybe add some additional
| context. If you say "I am hungry" when we evaluate that
| sentence we have to unpack it to something like "Yojo is hungry
| at time X" so that way your statement would be equally true or
| false if I said "it" (the unpacked version) or an hour after
| you said it and had eaten a full meal.
| h2odragon wrote:
| I read that as "Truths can be stated by anyone, and are still
| true". If you are saying some truths can only be said or are
| only true for some groups... We'll have to agree to disagree.
| yojo wrote:
| I take issue with the speaker not influencing whether a
| statement is or is not "x-ist"
|
| There are truths that are empirical (math, physics, etc), but
| most controversy that includes "x-ism" is about things that
| are subjective and don't bucket neatly into a true/false
| dichotomy.
| glogla wrote:
| What is true is not relevant in many cases.
|
| Consider looking at piece of art and saying "I think this
| part is badly done". This is a very different statement
| depending whether it is the author saying it, the author's
| mentor saying it, unrelated person saying it to their
| friends, or the same unrelated person writing it on twitter.
| And it doesn't matter whether it is true - it might not even
| be possible to say, objectively, whether that part is
| actually badly done.
|
| Same goes for talking about groups of people. Criticising a
| movement as a member internally, as a member on twitter and
| as a member of opposing movement is very different, no matter
| whether it is true or not. And movements are (usually)
| voluntary - it matters even more when talking about groups of
| people by categories they can't chose, like cultures, sexual
| orientations, skin color, etc.
| h2odragon wrote:
| the art is badly done or not according to you, the viewer.
| The opinion of others isn't relevant. The only truth there
| is individual.
|
| "grouping people by categories they can't choose" _is_
| "x-ism". people are more than their skin color, sexuality,
| or anything else.
| prtkgpt wrote:
| Ghost writing?
| falcolas wrote:
| Might be simpler. PG no longer has to censor his own speech
| in fear it will rebound on his business.
| jimmar wrote:
| Maybe you chose your "hunger" example in haste, but it's not a
| great counterexample to the points in the article. Only the
| person making the statement about being hungry can know the
| truth. The focus of the article, as I read it, is on shared
| truths that must be evaluated in public sphere.
| [deleted]
| tomlockwood wrote:
| Pxtl wrote:
| It's important to remember that this particular kind of "heresy"
| is not about hurting an imaginary God, but actual real people.
|
| Questioning the legitimacy of geocentrism is a victimless crime.
| Questioning the legitimacy of gay marriage or gay adoption or
| sexual transitioning has very defined, specific victims that face
| real actual harms from these attitudes.
|
| Right now parents of trans children are being accused of being
| abusers, with legal threats to that effect. Gay parents and their
| supporters are being called groomers.
|
| Clamping down _hard_ on that is defensible. You may believe that
| this is an unjustifiable restriction of speech, but it is
| materially different from old concepts of "heresy".
| ratww wrote:
| There is an _OCEAN_ of difference between saying what this
| article is saying and being okay with the recent wave of anti-
| trans /anti-LGBT conservatism in the US.
|
| Someone saying that "teaching about sexuality is akin to
| grooming" is clearly telling a lie. If someone gets shit for
| it, then the hubbub/cancellation is definitely not _taking
| priority over the question of truth or falsity_.
|
| Heck, if anything, the anti-trans/anti-LGBT conservatism you're
| referring to also falls into the same issue: it's also bullshit
| "Heresy" that people use to punish others over truth.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| > "teaching about sexuality is akin to grooming" is clearly a
| lie.
|
| Out of curiosity is there an age limit on this statement for
| you?
|
| Because while we're talking about heresies I'd like to say
| teaching sexuality to young children without parental consent
| is grooming.
|
| What happened to asking for a permit slip signed by the
| parents if you want to give a sex talk.
|
| It's a parent's rights issue, not a LGBTQ issue.
| otterley wrote:
| I'm always amused when I see people who say that "abortion
| is not a legitimate right because it's a court-created
| right that's not enumerated in the Constitution" are the
| same people who have no trouble finding a "parent's right"
| where no such enumerated right exists, either.
|
| Also, this word "grooming" gets dispensed a lot lately when
| discussing this issue, and I'm not sure that the people who
| say it know what it means. Or, alternatively, they are
| afraid to say what they really think the consequences of
| talking to children about all the different relationships
| people have because they know it is wrong and would subject
| them to fierce ridicule.
| ratww wrote:
| There is an ocean of difference between "teaching children
| about sexuality in an appropriate manner" and "grooming".
|
| Comparing teaching to grooming and considering the two the
| same is a bad-faith argument.
|
| Anything that could realistically be considered grooming
| would NEVER appropriate, even with your so called "parental
| consent". Even with adults.
|
| Just because you call something "grooming" doesn't make it
| so.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| I would still like to know if there's an age limit in
| your view for discussing sexual relations with minors
| without parental consent?
|
| We'll come back to what term to call it after we can nail
| down what we're disputing being taught and to who.
|
| - EDIT (post limit) -
|
| I didn't ask you about grooming, I asked you what age do
| you think it's okay to teach these kids these lessons
| without the parents consent.
|
| > teaching children about sexuality in an appropriate
| manner
|
| What's the "appropriate manner"? In my opinion talking to
| a minor about sex without parental consent is never
| appropriate.
|
| - EDIT 2 -
|
| > Parental consent is also not what makes certain
| information appropriate or inappropriate. It either is
| appropriate for the children or not. Depends on multiple
| factors and depends on the children. But it definitely
| doesn't depend on a parent agreeing or disagreeing.
|
| Okay ignore consent for a second, please tell me the
| "multiple factors" and the attributes of the children
| that come into play in gauging what is "appropriate" when
| "teaching children about sexuality".
|
| > That's quite a radical position, and a wrong one. There
| are appropriate ways for people to talk about sex, either
| in classroom, between friends, or in the media. If you
| don't think so, the only thing we can agree is to
| disagree.
|
| There's a difference between children talking to peers
| about sex vs adults. In some cases even peers doing it
| would be sexual harassment if it wasn't solicited.
|
| > Not some radical opinion of an helicopter parent that
| wants to micromanage every information their kid
| receives.
|
| It's not every bit of information, it's one specific
| issue. Teachers talking to children about sexual
| relations against their wishes or without their
| knowledge.
|
| Just get permission and if you don't have it don't talk
| to kids about sex. I don't see why liberals are dying on
| this hill.
|
| -- EDIT 3 --
|
| > Because it accomplishes nothing but ignorance to
| children of conservative parents, which can lead to...
| children being more vulnerable to real grooming.
|
| That's ridiculous, conservative parents teach their kids
| about sex. It's not about sheltering, it's about
| preventing an adult talking to your kid about sex when
| they don't need to.
|
| If teachers want to, they can ask, if they are denied
| they should respect that.
|
| You seem to have a curriculum in mind to protect the
| children against "real grooming", which grades would you
| target and what topics exactly?
| ratww wrote:
| I answered.
|
| Grooming is wrong at any age, period. Even after the
| person is 100 years old and their parents signed on it,
| grooming is wrong. There's absolutely no "parental
| consent" that would turn anything that could be
| considered "grooming" into "appropriate". Your entire
| premise that something is grooming or not depending on
| parental consent is pure bullshit.
|
| EDIT:
|
| _> I asked you what age do you think it 's okay to teach
| these kids these lessons without the parents consent_
|
| Same thing. Parental consent is also not what makes
| certain information appropriate or inappropriate. It
| either is appropriate for the children or not. Depends on
| multiple factors and depends on the children, and it is
| better answered by professionals rather than by laymen.
| But it definitely doesn't depend on a parent agreeing or
| disagreeing.
|
| _> In my opinion talking to a minor about sex without
| parental consent is never appropriate._
|
| That's quite a radical position, and a wrong one. There
| are appropriate ways for people to talk about sex, either
| in classroom, between friends, or in the media. If you
| don't think so, the only thing we can agree is to
| disagree.
|
| Like the PG essay says, wether something is "truth" or
| not, and whether this information will be positive or
| negative for a child should be what govern this. Not some
| radical opinion of an helicopter parent that wants to
| micromanage every information their kid receives.
|
| _> I don 't see why liberals are dying on this hill._
|
| Because it accomplishes nothing but ignorance to children
| of conservative parents, which can lead to... children
| being more vulnerable to real grooming.
| [deleted]
| otterley wrote:
| Can someone _please_ explain what is meant by grooming
| and how this statute intends to prevent that from
| occurring, whatever it is?
| ratww wrote:
| I can explain what is definitely not grooming: grooming
| is not something that would magically become okay after a
| parent consents to it and would be wrong before. Grooming
| is real and not something to be used as a boogeyman.
|
| There is an age for children to learn everything. A 1
| year old might be too young for Javascript. But calling
| it grooming is going way too far.
| otterley wrote:
| > Grooming is real and not something to be used as a
| boogeyman.
|
| I ask again: _what is it_?
| Pxtl wrote:
| I have literally never heard any person complain as PG is
| complaining with this article about being "cancelled" about
| anything other than an opinion on LGBT rights.
|
| https://mobile.twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/10503916635.
| ..
|
| """
|
| Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views
|
| Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes?
|
| Con: LOL no...no not those views
|
| Me: So....deregulation?
|
| Con: Haha no not those views either
|
| Me: Which views, exactly?
|
| Con: Oh, you know the ones
|
| """
| dangoor wrote:
| This reminds me of a Popehat article I finally got around to
| reading yesterday: https://popehat.substack.com/p/our-
| fundamental-right-to-sham...
|
| In that article, Popehat talks about the need to define cancel
| culture and understand how the free speech rights of the first
| speaker intersect with the free speech and association rights of
| people that respond.
|
| I think the most useful aspect of PG's article is that he does
| actually define what he means by heresy:
|
| > Structurally there are two distinctive things about heresy: (1)
| that it takes priority over the question of truth or falsity, and
| (2) that it outweighs everything else the speaker has done
|
| PG doesn't give any examples, but I do think that trying to be
| clear around definitions in order to be able to say "is this an
| example of heresy at work?" or "has this person been unfairly
| cancelled?" is a valuable exercise.
|
| FWIW, my main reason for commenting is that I find Popehat's
| article to be a valuable addition to the conversation because
| it's specifically addressing the "cancel culture" terminology
| rather than trying to swirl a new term (heresy) into the mix.
| malnourish wrote:
| I had not seen that article; thank you for sharing it.
| atoav wrote:
| > For example, when someone calls a statement "x-ist," they're
| also implicitly saying that this is the end of the discussion.
|
| I tried to recall the few times I called someone out on being
| sexist, racist or whatever, and it was _never_ a discourse or a
| discussion: the majority were tasteless jokes in the presence of
| someone would have been affected (e.g. tasteless joke about how
| all women are $X in the presence of a women which very clearly
| was the polar opposite, or how all people with a certain
| enthnicity have a certain negative trait etc.
|
| These people were not guilty of heresy they were insensitive
| assholes (when done on purpose) or at least ignorant.
|
| In an honest discussion with someone about e.g. the differences
| between men and women, I _never_ called someone a sexist, just
| because their ideas were outdated and flawed as long as it
| actually _was_ an discussion. The thing is, that more often than
| not the goal of people spouting such things is not getting to the
| bottom of things, but validating their own opinion. This is of
| course out of insecurity, which is why calling someone sexist is
| not a good way to respond in such an situation. Better is to ask
| them what they mean and have them explain it to you. And if they
| realize themselves they are sounding a bit odd, you can just tell
| them this is not your experience.
| smugma wrote:
| There's a big difference between calling it out in person and
| over the Internet. You were rightly calling out the person's
| language as unacceptable. Maybe the hope was to change their
| behavior (unlikely, at least in the short term) or at least
| stand up for what you thought was right.
|
| When this is done over a mass medium, there are many other
| motivations. Could be to make themselves look good within
| another group, attempt to cancel, etc.
|
| It may come from similar positive/good faith motivations but
| easily becomes distorted.
| freebuju wrote:
| It may be too late to have the kind of conversations you are
| envisioning with young people raised in this generation. They
| have conjured up big words and terms that don't even mean
| anything in the practical sense and will easily take offense
| with anything or anyone about whatever values they strongly
| identify with.
|
| This is the generation that needs (and sometimes demands that)
| their spaces online be protected from any ideas that are
| divergent to those they subscribe to.
| causality0 wrote:
| That's one of the more depressing parts. Even the people I
| agree with never engage with the actual argument of their
| opponents. For example, I'm pro-choice. The people who are
| anti-choice believe that abortion is the murder of a child.
| The people who agree with me, however, never engage with that
| argument. They just point out ways in which the anti-choice
| people are sexist or otherwise hate women. Similarly, the
| anti-choice people refuse to engage in discussions about body
| autonomy. A similar pattern is reflected in almost every
| other contentious political issue. Factions don't argue with
| each other, they just talk at right angles as loudly as
| possible.
| freebuju wrote:
| Strange observation indeed. Must be difficult to live in a
| world where everything is black or white to you.
|
| Is body autonomy absolute when you have a living organism
| inside of you? Is the "hate for women" justified for the
| sake of saving life? Is life even that important to us if
| we can allow a pregnant woman to arbitrarily take it? If
| so, what is our definition of life then?
|
| Excuse my little tirade. I love the age-old abortion
| debate:)
| causality0 wrote:
| _Must be difficult to live in a world where everything is
| black or white to you._
|
| Oh hardly. I'm of the least-popular opinion, that
| intelligent human minds are what make people valuable and
| that the death of a newborn isn't significantly different
| from the death of a fetus.
| freebuju wrote:
| > death of a newborn isn't significantly different from
| the death of a fetus
|
| Sounds like you are trying to quantify (the value of)
| life. What about mentally handicapped people, are they
| deemed not valuable humans in your eyes because they are
| not intelligent?
|
| Am pro-abortion in extreme cases involving rape or abuse.
| But am also anti-abortion and pro-life. Not sure if
| there's a category for people who hold this idea.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| It's tempting to point out a few heresies. My hunch is that
| you'd err on the side of feeling uncomfortable. "Ignorant" and
| "insensitive" are telltale signs of orthodoxy, the way that
| clouds are telltale signs of a thunderstorm.
|
| I had a relationship with a much older woman when I was
| younger. It was long distance, and after a few years we met up
| for a wonderful trip down a river. It was one of the best
| memories of my life. Swimming with her, making a fire and
| cooking our own food, laughing the days away. When she had to
| leave, we sobbed our eyes out at the airport in front of
| everyone. I was 16.
|
| This experience enriched my life. Ditto for the years leading
| up to it.
|
| Today, the universal conclusion would be that I was groomed,
| taken advantage of, manipulated, and so on. In a word, she'd
| committed heresy.
|
| I don't think most people would want to have an open discussion
| on the merits of teenagers dating older women. The teen's
| feelings don't matter; whether the teen initiated it and
| pursued them doesn't matter; the question of whether it's a net
| benefit for their life certainly doesn't matter. What matters
| is the power imbalance.
|
| Do you see what happened? This is equivalent to saying that
| certain truths _aren't allowed to matter_. The question of
| truth becomes irrelevant. You can't have public conversations
| about it without summoning a thunderstorm.
|
| Swap the genders in the above story, and it'd be a firestorm.
| Everyone would gleefully watch you burn.
|
| The reason pg didn't dare mention any specific heresies is
| because you can't mention examples without immediately making
| the conversation about that, and not the bigger question of why
| so many opinions need to be so closely guarded now, when they
| didn't need to be before.
|
| I can think of at least five other heresies. But I wouldn't
| dare point them out publicly.
|
| It's worth trying to force yourself to think of some. I say
| "force" because the ideas are uncomfortable by definition. And
| if the ideas you think of are also very popular, that should
| worry you -- what are the odds that we happen to live in the
| precise decade when we got our morals exactly right? Or even a
| little bit right?
|
| There's a reason pg started with fire as a metaphor. We're
| fortunate to live in a time where it's merely a metaphor. And I
| think we should worry whether we're burning people for the
| right reasons, the same way you'd worry if your neighbors set
| fire to a house while arguing that it's okay --- the people
| inside really deserved it, right?
|
| Sometimes they do. But if your moral compass just so happens to
| point in the same direction as all of your peers, it's
| important to occasionally ask ourselves whether we might be
| mistaken.
| otterley wrote:
| > "Ignorant" and "insensitive" are telltale signs of
| orthodoxy
|
| Some would call them telltale signs of knowledge, wisdom, and
| a moral framework that places great weight on respect for
| others, when used in a corrective context.
| exolymph wrote:
| Indeed, some would. Would _you_? Note that you reflexively
| express your position by reference to a putative consensus.
| otterley wrote:
| I'll put it this way: there are a lot of people,
| including many here, who are ignorant and insensitive;
| and _in this very conversation_ , there are quite a few
| people who are unapologetically so. They don't even know
| how ignorant or insensitive they are being, because they
| seem surprised and/or defensive when it is pointed out to
| them.
|
| And when confronted with this feedback, instead of
| responding with humility, open-mindedness, and
| intellectual curiosity, they seek shelter in groups or
| try to clumsily defend their ignorance through
| whataboutism, slippery-slope arguments, unrelated
| grievances, or other forms.
|
| Alternatively, they question the _entire premise_ of
| social norms or morality, such as what PG has done here.
| People like him are intelligent enough to know that they
| cannot attack the truth and defend a lack of respect
| head-on. Instead, they try to mount a flank attack by
| publishing pieces such as this that appeal to selfish
| audiences who care more about their individual freedom
| than our need to work together to build a better society.
| It 's not super surprising that they do this; after all,
| controversy and endless argument makes them money.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| > Alternatively, they question the entire premise of
| social norms or morality, such as what PG has done here.
|
| This isn't a deflection, though, it's the core point.
| What PG (and the rest of us) are trying to communicate is
| precisely that we hold different concepts of social norms
| and morality which used to be common in our circles.
| Among my friends up until the late 2000s, "insensitivity"
| was a minor character flaw and "ignorance" was no flaw at
| all. I still remember how shocked I was the first time I
| heard the phrase "educate yourself", because the idea it
| expressed was completely foreign to me - the people I
| personally knew who were passionate about some idea or
| another were always happy and excited to talk about it
| with people who weren't familiar.
| otterley wrote:
| Thank goodness it's not like that anymore. I remember
| those days too. People thought we were insufferable jerks
| back then, too, but they weren't on the Internet to tell
| us so. They were telling us in real life, but many of us
| weren't receptive to it.
|
| > I still remember how shocked I was the first time I
| heard the phrase "educate yourself", because the idea it
| expressed was completely foreign to me - the people I
| personally knew who were passionate about some idea or
| another were always happy and excited to talk about it
| with people who weren't familiar.
|
| I think what happens is, after a while, smart people get
| tired of exerting the effort to provide basic information
| over and over again to people who could find it by way of
| a trivial Google search.
| FerociousTimes wrote:
| How do you go about building a better society
| collaboratively when you started with calling your
| intellectual opponents ignorant and insensitive??
|
| That's what actually turn people off joining collectivist
| causes; the judgmental rhetoric, moral absolutism and
| holier-than-thou attitude.
| otterley wrote:
| There are more- and less-effective ways to communicate. I
| agree that turning people off is a bad outcome. I don't
| necessarily recommend using those words head-on; rather,
| I try to summon facts, history, law, etc. in order to
| bring more knowledge to the table. Similarly, I try to
| help people see things from other people's perspectives,
| or try to help them complete their initial thoughts to
| their logical (and often absurd) conclusions so that they
| might see things differently.
|
| Sometimes it works; but more often than not, it doesn't.
| People can be really freaking stubborn. They _really_ don
| 't like being proved wrong.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > and not the bigger question of why so many opinions need to
| be so closely guarded now, when they didn't need to be
| before.
|
| But this begs the question, doesn't it? Like the real answer
| is that
|
| 1. Lots of opinions were guarded or hushed or held closely
| even 20 years ago even in much of the western world (being
| trans or gay, being particularly nonreligious,
| socialism/communism/any kind of viewpoint left of Obama, all
| kinds of things about dating and sex, and more)
|
| 2. People weren't generally having discussions, or _figuring
| things out_ with tens of thousands of listeners. Saying
| _really dumb things_ because you don 't actually know what
| you're talking about because you're a nonexpert is common and
| has been common forever. But people didn't start doing this
| until social media.
|
| 3. Things that were previously handled by whisper networks
| ("This professor says all kinds of wild racist shit",
| absolutely something said in my undergrad, and "this prof
| gives better grades to women who wear short skirts in the
| front row", something that absolutely was said in my parents
| undergrad) are now handled more openly and explicitly. This
| is probably a globally more optimal result, in that fewer
| people have to deal with sexual or racial harassment. But it
| also means that misunderstandings can blow up.
|
| That's it, that's the issue.
| exolymph wrote:
| Another fraught heresy, which I'm about to commit, is that
| men and women are intrinsically different (in aggregate, on
| average, blah blah blah) and thus if you swap the genders in
| your story, it is a genuinely different story. Granted, I
| can't say that I have positive regard for older women who
| sleep with teenagers, though I'm glad you didn't garner any
| trauma from it, but my personal experiences lead me to have a
| _very_ negative opinion of older men who sleep with
| teenagers. Maybe it 'd be different if that weren't a highly
| stigmatized thing to do, but currently the selection effects
| are such that 99% of them are scumbags. For the same reasons
| that counterculture groups have a higher-than-average
| incidence of rapists (anecdotally, I admit) -- when you
| gather a bunch of people willing to transgress societal norms
| together, well, said transgression continues.
|
| > The reason pg didn't dare mention any specific heresies is
| because you can't mention examples without immediately making
| the conversation about that, and not the bigger question of
| why so many opinions need to be so closely guarded now, when
| they didn't need to be before.
|
| I just proved your point, didn't I? :P
| mise_en_place wrote:
| > Swap the genders in the above story, and it'd be a
| firestorm. Everyone would gleefully watch you burn.
|
| It could still be a net positive for the teenager, even
| though it was an extremely inappropriate/problematic
| relationship.
| civilized wrote:
| I like Paul and am very sympathetic to this essay. But I want to
| make some points that may subvert his thesis, in the hope that we
| can nuance things a bit, hopefully in an interesting way.
|
| 1. Some things may be true (or at least potentially true) but not
| appropriate to point out in a given social situation. Example:
| "Avi did a good job on this project in part because of his
| Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, which conferred a genetic intelligence
| advantage." This _could_ be true, it has _some_ scientific
| support, but it seems to be not a good idea to say. It would
| probably still not be a good idea to say even if we _definitely_
| knew it to be true. A person who habitually says things like this
| might reasonably risk reputational and professional consequences.
|
| 2. Paul says there are more heresies than in decades past. Is
| that true, or are they just different?
|
| 3. Are there some things that _should_ be heresies, like arguing
| vigorously for the legalization or destigmatization of adult-
| child sexual relationships? Don 't those things provide some
| insight into why people might see themselves as legitimate in
| making X-ism a heresy?
|
| Will add more as I continue reading.
| jzdziarski wrote:
| Graham seems to have missed the mark here. What he's describing
| as the unjust labeling of x-ism usually isn't related to the
| deviation from a norm, insomuch as it is the prejudices behind
| that deviation. He argues that truth is ignored, but it's not the
| truth that's usually at issue in such matters, it is the manner
| of delivery of whatever truth may be, filtered through a set of
| prejudices the hearer is offended by. The hearer then can either
| utilize the thought terminating x-ist label, and walk away, or
| attempt to address those prejudices directly. In the former, they
| are saying, "because I have identified these prejudices in the
| way you've presented your case, I cannot give credence to any of
| the truth you are arguing". Reasonable, but less than ideal. The
| latter - and often better response is, "that's x-ist and let me
| tell you why." That's how you cut through the BS and have a
| productive conversation. I hope this is what he was trying to
| convey, but didn't quite get there.
|
| What he seems to have missed in separating truth from prejudices
| is important to recognize. This is an expected communications
| problem in a society that struggles with decency, and decency is
| what's at issue here - not truth. Because at least one party
| lacks decency, they've lost their credibility to convey any
| truth. The other party may lack tolerance, but that intolerance
| is, at least usually, about those prejudices, and not any
| underlying truth.
|
| Regardless, actual heresy - of the biblical type that Graham is
| trying to use to support his argument here - has historically
| been more based on threatening a power structure, such as was the
| case with Martin Luther, for example. Ironically here, the tables
| were turned, and the "heretic" (Luther) presented factual
| information while it was the hearer that reeled with prejudice.
| The two cases are about as much alike as a camel and a spork. I
| am surprised he tried to make the comparison. Nonetheless, if
| that is what he's trying to argue, then he's seemingly suggesting
| the fault is always on the listener for being offended. In the
| cases Graham is describing though, it is far more likely to be
| the speaker who wraps whatever truth there might be into vitriol
| brought into the conversation. It at least would have made for a
| good essay to point out both possibilities.
|
| Tl;Dr: truth always falls victim to prejudice, on either side,
| which is why we should work to identify and root out our own
| prejudices before engaging.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Has anyone considered this whole phenomenon from a materialist
| analysis? Global society is more interconnected than before. The
| public discourse on social media platforms is huge. It's also
| hugely polarized for multitudes of reasons. People (on the
| Internet) are getting into arguments with more people than ever
| before, usually with strangers.
|
| From that perspective, canceling/labeling heresy could
| potentially be thought of simply an act of automation. People
| identify reoccurring patterns of arguments, classify their
| adversary, and use a cached response. Thus, instead of spending
| the costly time and energy to respond to every argument in
| detail, you tag, use the appropriate function, and move on. And
| because modern society is so polarized, those functions tend to
| be fairly absolute- who wants to get dragged into another
| argument they've had before?
|
| The problem is that modern discourse just can't scale.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| It's the US society that is so polarized. Global society is
| just in a situation where it has to deal with the fallout of
| that.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Sort of. Social phenomena like the rise of Bolsonaro or
| Zemmour, or the gender wars currently going on in South
| Korea, might be influenced by culture wars in the U.S. but
| are also propelled by their own local experiences.
| noduerme wrote:
| I think this is a useful take because it points to a positive
| solution: Taking the time to weigh evidence and context on an
| individual, case by case basis, as opposed to walking around as
| if you have a "mute" button for everything.
|
| I was accused of saying something I didn't say at a bar, by a
| black woman I was talking with. She complained to the bartender
| who, without having heard any of the conversation, called me a
| racist and threw me out.
|
| I was very distressed by this. On hearing the story, a friend
| brought up the fact that bartenders don't have the time or
| training to resolve every dispute between customers, so they
| just make snap decisions that are often wrong. He also said
| that in days gone by, the black person would have been the one
| who got thrown out in a dispute, and so this is a form of
| restorative justice. I found this a helpful idea, because it
| implies that people still aren't treating each other any more
| equally or listening to both sides, or weighing things wisely
| or on the merits; and _that 's_ what needs to be fixed if we
| want to have any kind of discourse at all.
| themanmaran wrote:
| Agreed on the individual side. It's a response to decision
| fatigue. You cannot effectively understand every individual,
| their opinions and intentions, while scaling your personal
| "social network" up to thousands of people. So instead you
| apply a label and move on.
|
| But "modern discourse just can't scale" is a bit of a defeatist
| mindset. Surly there is _a_ solution out there for reducing
| polarization.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I think polarization can be decreased, I just think one of
| the prices to pay might be we need to collectively agree to
| refrain from the luxury of arguing with random strangers.
| idleproc wrote:
| > Surly there is a solution out there for reducing
| polarization.
|
| Well, there's compassion. But that's always been rather
| difficult, and seems to have fallen out of fashion...
|
| Maybe you meant a technical solution though.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I appreciate how you bring up the point of efficiency. One of
| the things that challenges me in communication and resolving
| conflict, especially on the internet, is that it often works
| better if I use more precise language, which often requires
| more words.
|
| So, for example, adding qualifications can show uncertainty and
| humility, yet adding "often works" is longer than "works" both
| from a character limit and a typing it on a phone keyboard.
|
| Another example, saying "that's annoying" can be quicker than
| "that annoyed me" or more so "that annoyed me and may annoy
| others like me."
|
| As much as I try to catch myself taking these linguistic
| shortcuts, I still may give in to the quickness of them,
| especially when I'm in a rush, and sometimes, especially
| online, conversations can move so quickly they put me into a
| heightened rush state.
|
| Anyway, I'm grateful you pointed out this element of efficiency
| and scalability. I think these conversations can scale better
| by taking a little extra time to communicate than by always
| taking the shortcut. Maybe akin to how code can become more
| legible, and thus easier to maintain and scale, if the
| developer takes the time to more precisely name things. The
| name may be longer but may be more precise and prevent future
| problems.
| sanderjd wrote:
| > _The reason the current wave of intolerance comes from the left
| is simply because the new unifying ideology happened to come from
| the left._
|
| This is an (aggressively?) conventional idea that I have an (I
| guess) heretical opinion about. I'm somewhat persuaded that there
| is a recent outbreak of intolerance for differing ideas and
| ideals (though I suspect every generation expresses a version of
| this opinion as they get older and become out of step with
| cultural evolution), but I don't think it has any particular
| political valence. I have to watch my tongue just as much around
| "aggressive conventionalists" on either side, they just have
| different conventions. It's just as disqualifying as the x-isms
| from the left, if you care about staying in the good graces of
| convention on the right, to express opinions like "immigrants are
| good", "the 2020 US presidential election ran smoothly and had a
| clear victor who was duly inaugurated", "gender is a social
| construct", "people who are attracted to others of the same sex
| are normal and should have the same rights as anyone else", etc.
| etc.
|
| Honestly I think this whole thing is as simple as, people just
| have different views and lots of people of all stripes don't want
| to agree to disagree with the people they spend most of their
| time with.
| randomtwiddler wrote:
| Seems a false equivalency. The majority of the personalized
| destruction, cancelling, firing, etc, comes from one side.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| How about bills restricting voting access to people of color,
| or the ability to say the word "gay"? Those don't qualify as
| material consequences for violating conventions/ideology? You
| have a one sided view.
| honkdaddy wrote:
| Which bills restrict voting access for people of color?
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| Read the news some time.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > bills restricting voting access to people of color
|
| I'm not aware of any such bill. What's its name? And why is
| it not dead on arrival due to the Equal Protection Clause?
| joshuamorton wrote:
| https://archive.ph/zUVTp is one of many, they work by
| making it more difficult to vote if you are working
| class, and usually urban in a state with a high
| percentage of minority residents. These laws, in
| practice, disenfranchise mostly minority voters.
|
| It's not dead due to work by the Roberts Court to gut the
| voting rights act, which was the law that prevented this
| kind of shenanigans.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Isn't that just saying "buses and other readily movable
| facilities shall only be used in emergencies"? What does
| that have to do with being working class or a minority?
| joshuamorton wrote:
| The entire article, I didn't mean to link to a particular
| subheading.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| I'm not playing plausible deniability games with you.
| Everyone knows what the point of these bills are.
| josephcsible wrote:
| How is anything I said "plausible deniability games"? You
| claimed that bills exist that would restrict voting
| access to people of color. I asked you exactly which
| bills these are, and you can't/won't tell me.
| ss108 wrote:
| Because that side simply has economic power.
| sanderjd wrote:
| This is a common claim that seems to be based more on vibes
| than on evidence.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| Yeah there are laws being passed to prohibit certain
| concepts from being discussed in private corporate
| trainings. Those laws are being passed by those same
| partisans who loudly claim to oppose cancel culture. I
| don't think we can have an honest discussion on the topic
| without acknowledging one side is using voluntary
| dissociation as a means of punishment while the other is
| using the power of the state to prohibit the expression of
| certain ideas.
| slibhb wrote:
| > It's just as disqualifying as the x-isms from the left, if
| you care about staying in the good graces of convention on the
| right
|
| The question isn't "staying in good graces". While people
| should have friends with whom they disagree, the topic here is
| _heresy_. Heresy leads to punishment that goes beyond social
| consequences.
|
| At this point, it's hard for me to know how to respond to
| people who remain skeptical of the thesis here. The NYT
| editorial board has acknowledged the problem. If you're still a
| holdout, you're probably part of it.
| _Microft wrote:
| Minor criticism: I wonder why including a statement like _" like
| a vector field whose elements become aligned"_ was thought
| necessary. It does not make much sense technically and it does
| not even add to the content. If anything it makes me doubt the
| rest of the essay by suddenly making me aware that Gell-Mann
| amnesia is a thing. From my point of view it is absolutely net-
| negative.
| mjburgess wrote:
| He's sort of thinking of a phase transition. I imagine it's
| included as a symptom of how he's visualizing the situation.
| The idea of a phase transition here makes sense, and I suspect
| is a fair description of some social phenomenon.
| vmception wrote:
| > For example, when someone calls a statement "x-ist," they're
| also implicitly saying that this is the end of the discussion.
| They do not, having said this, go on to consider whether the
| statement is true or not.
|
| I've been asking, practically begging people, to comment on the
| accuracy or inaccuracy of my statements than the way it makes
| them feel.
|
| Looks like Paul Graham wishes for this too.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I want this essay to work in the future, not just now. And
| unfortunately it probably will
|
| It doesn't work _now_ ; it might work better in the future when
| the current claims (which are right-wing propaganda) are
| irrelevant, and only the vague, not particularly actionable,
| generalities.
|
| > Back in the day (and still, in some places) the punishment for
| heresy was death
|
| It still is. Did you miss 1/6 and the "hang Mike Pence" chants?
| Did you miss the Pizzagate lies and the violence they instigated?
| Did you miss the current "groomer" propaganda directed at the
| LGBTQ+ community and allies from the right for merely existing
| openly, including the Disney "bring ammo" shirts being marketed?
| (All of which--at least, promotion of the ideas, if not the
| actual execution of the violence--is not limited to the fringes
| of the right, but mainstream major party political and media
| figures.
|
| > The reason the current wave of intolerance comes from the left
|
| There can't be a reason for a thing that isn't true. Falsely
| portraying the intolerance as primarily a left-wing phenomenon is
| the central element of the persecution propaganda that is the
| common underlying foundation of all of the right-wing violent
| intolerance efforts going on; while PG is pretending to be above
| the fray and neutrally negative on the left only because of the
| dynamics of current condition, he is actively participating in
| the things he is criticizing by knowingly validating the false
| premises underlying the most violent, dangerous anti-"heresy"
| movements.
|
| > There are many on the far left who believe strongly in the
| reintegration of felons (as I do myself), and yet seem to feel
| that anyone guilty of certain heresies should never work again.
|
| "Many...seem" is pretty weaselly, but I (and I bet I have more
| experience with the far left than PG, despite not being a far
| leftist) know of no one on the far left who believes in
| reintegration of felons for whom there is reason, at least
| negative, to believe are reformed that does not believe that for
| non-criminal moral wrongdoers.
|
| Those who have neither reformed nor even acknowledged their acts
| or the wrongness of them are...not the same.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Is the situation in the US that insane or is he fighting strawmen
| strapped to windmills?
| [deleted]
| uxp100 wrote:
| The Us is a little culturally weird right now (and always), and
| it depends on your industry a little but he's mostly fighting
| strawmen strapped to windmills. I mean, what would PG know
| about this whole topic?
|
| Also, you want to write software without "being canceled?"
| Well, dust off your oscilloscope skills, in the unglamorous
| embedded world I hear toned down right wing rants about Putin
| being canceled and Covid testing as a mass surveillance program
| and all that happens is sometimes someone's like, alright,
| let's move the meeting along.
| emerged wrote:
| It's pretty insane. Notice any comment which is against witch
| hunt culture is being downvoted. The tech industry is fairly
| heavily ideologically captured because of where startup culture
| is largely based (SF).
|
| Edit: and now it's flagged.
| odonnellryan wrote:
| No. It isn't insane at all.
| 3qz wrote:
| > Is the situation in the US that insane
|
| Does PG live in the Bay Area? That's probably why. Most
| mainstream American opinions would get a person fired there.
| odonnellryan wrote:
| Name one?
| kylemh wrote:
| Just read the comments in here. This is a whole lot of words to
| say: "I wish I could say things without facing consequences."
|
| As somebody else said in this thread, it's really rich to see
| Paul write about "implicitly ending the discussion" when he
| instablocks anybody on Twitter so easily.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > instablocks anybody on Twitter
|
| This is hardly implicit.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > it's really rich to see Paul write about "implicitly ending
| the discussion"
|
| Misquote. He said "implicitly ending the discussion by
| calling someone a x-ist", which is not the same at blocking
| someone who is annoying - blocking someone is just shutting
| your door, not making them lose their livelihood by defaming
| them.
| malnourish wrote:
| Simply _calling_ someone x-ist does not cause them to lose
| their livelihood by defaming them.
|
| If you know of any instance where someone has lost their
| livelihood due _only_ to being called an x-ist, please
| share.
| guelo wrote:
| strawmen
| gottebp wrote:
| G.K. Chesterton boiled this down pretty well:
|
| "The Special mark of the modern world is not that it is
| skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it. It says,
| in mockery of old devotees, that they believed without knowing
| why they believed. But the moderns believe without knowing what
| they believe - and without even knowing that they do believe it.
| Their freedom consists in first freely assuming a creed, and then
| freely forgetting that they are assuming it".
|
| Noteworthy to add that for Chesterton "heresy" is defined as the
| obstinate rejection of a dogma.
| [deleted]
| javajosh wrote:
| Too complicated. The culture war was explicitly born of a left-
| wing power grab through cultural means, and it was foisted on
| college students starting in like 2014, and has had remarkable
| success (for its proponents). College kids believe a lot of
| stuff without knowing what, or why, and cancel culture rules
| are no different.
| [deleted]
| morelisp wrote:
| > The culture war was explicitly born of a left-wing power
| grab through cultural means
|
| The current culture war got stoked in the early 90s by
| conservatives because it got them votes, and has been
| escalating since then because it still does. Or are you going
| full Buchanan to claim black and gay people getting equal
| treatment in the civil arena is a "left-wing power grab"?
| woodruffw wrote:
| And even beyond that: there's a direct line from
| Goldwater's open hatred for the press and academia to the
| Contract With America/early 90s "big tent" cultural
| conservatism.
|
| Conservatism in America has not existed as a unified front
| modulo the culture war for decades. The only thing keeping
| the stakeholders together are social issues and revanchist
| sentiments towards anything that has even _historically_
| challenged those issues.
| rendang wrote:
| Did Buchanan claim that black people should not have equal
| rights? I'm not too familiar with his work.
| javajosh wrote:
| pstuart wrote:
| I'm sensing a bias in your observations.
|
| There is indeed a culture war happening but both sides
| are _actively_ engaged. I think it 's worthy of looking
| into what each side considers "winning" and working
| backwards from there (i.e., is that really a "good
| thing"?)
| tomrod wrote:
| You might be missing the point.
|
| Business leaders encouraging inclusivity is a winning
| strategy for their business, as it helps them get the
| best skills. This is not a war, it's simply honest to
| goodness market forces getting things right.
|
| The decision in the US of the GOP to stoke division while
| as a party deciding to be deliberately obstructionist
| caused things to go off the rails. That is why you get
| shenanigans like Republicans claiming that Obama would
| never nominate a centrist like Garland the day before the
| announcement, then pivoting 180 to prevent their
| constitutional duty to advise and consent. They are lucky
| Obama respected the Constitution as they have opted to be
| derelict in the performance of their duties.
|
| Your point on terminology isn't the problem in your
| statement. It's that you project towards cultural
| division the real issue of classist division.
| javajosh wrote:
| No I just think there's no point in calling the right
| out. The only people I have any chance of influencing are
| my fellow liberals who have themselves made the mistake
| of becoming authoritarian re speech. I think it's really
| alienating and hypocritical to call yourself anti-racist
| and then attack white people, in general. And cooling the
| reverse-racism would yield very good benefits, as this
| one "policy" fuels a great deal of Trumpian insanity. By
| controlling ourselves we have every chance of
| deescalating a bad situation.
| philjohn wrote:
| You seem to be ignoring Pat Buchanon who literally used the
| term "culture war".
| evocatus wrote:
| Fantastic essay, as is par for the course.
| quantum_mcts wrote:
| > when I reread it 20 years later it sounded like a description
| of contemporary employment
|
| Here is my problem with it: It is not something that "appeared in
| the last 20 years". It was always like that.
|
| You just from a group that was completely shielded from it.
|
| Now the protective shield that you so used to starts to dissolve.
|
| You start to realize how the real world works. Not so perfect.
| Not so happy.
|
| And think that it is some new ill destroying your perfect happy
| world.
| mmastrac wrote:
| What I find most interesting are those arguing against "cancel
| culture" and the revival of heretics don't find issue with things
| like the "critical race theory" boogeyman and the "don't say
| gay"-style bills preventing teaching of sexuality topics.
|
| It's interesting how consistency of free thought isn't really the
| important thing here.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| Both of those topics are fraught with gaslighting ("nobody is
| teaching X") and misrepresentation ("don't say gay") along with
| outright fabrication ("it's a _right_ ").
| XorNot wrote:
| > and misrepresentation ("don't say gay")
|
| Exactly like you're doing here when you rode on in to "both
| sides!" this argument.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| You condemn "both sides" but the fact of the matter is that
| large groups of human being suck. It's impossible to
| maintain any kind of nuance or individual compassion at
| scale. So, yeah not just both sides, all sides.
|
| If you think there's some large group of people that all
| wear white hats and aren't being shitty or ruining anyone's
| life, you are being willfully blind.
|
| Furthermore, when you engage in this whataboutism garbage
| ("what's always interesting to me", yeah I'm sure it's
| fascinating) when someone tries to point out something your
| "team" is doing wrong, you are part of the problem.
|
| Yes, Trumpists suck---that means everyone else should get a
| free pass? By that token shouldn't Trumpists get a free
| pass because Putin is out there committing atrocities?
| [deleted]
| nonesuchluck wrote:
| Whole thing boils down to "I've always been in the cultural in-
| group, but man it sucks here in the out-group," as he notices
| for the first time what life has been like for most people, for
| most of history. Hilarious.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| That's a bad faith argument. He isn't complaining being
| shunned out of some culture, he is talking about people
| losing their job, people losing access to platforms that
| contain lots of people who want to listen to them.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _what life has been like for most people, for most of
| history_
|
| Aren't _most_ people in the majority, in whatever metric is
| under consideration, by definition? Which tends to be the in-
| group in democracies?
| glogla wrote:
| Yup. If you want trans and gay people, history of racial
| oppression and female nipples on tv banned, that is just
| "normal" and "natural". But anything else is horrible attack
| on mah freeze peach.
| [deleted]
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| otterley wrote:
| Please tell the class what grooming is.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| Do you not have access to a dictionary or Wikipedia?
| otterley wrote:
| I want you to tell us because 1/it will help us evaluate
| whether you know what you're talking about and 2/it will
| better help us determine what kind of person you are.
| tedivm wrote:
| This is pure bigotry. Allowing children to know that gay
| people exist is not grooming. It isn't even close to
| grooming. Knowing that two men or two women can be married
| isn't grooming.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Yes, but the commeter is saying that he's read the bill --
| and it actually says nothing about whether you can tell
| children that men can be married. I personally dont see
| where it prevents this at all.
|
| As far as I can see, the explicit wording of the bill is
| just to delay "social sex education" till c. 8/9 years old
| -- right?
| tedivm wrote:
| I've also read the bill, and it's easy to quote. It
| explicitly says that any discussion about "sexual
| identity" is banned.
|
| One of the requirement clauses states that the bill is
| "prohibiting classroom discussion about sexual
| orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels or
| in a specified manner". That quote is the whole clause.
| It doesn't ban instruction, it bans discussion. It is
| explicit. Those exact words. Anyone who says otherwise
| either did not actually read the bill, or they didn't
| read it very well.
| mjburgess wrote:
| I don't read that as saying a teacher can't say "men can
| be married" -- that isn't a discussion of sexual
| orientation. If I prohibit talking _about_ atoms, I am
| not prohibiting talking about every physical object. I am
| prohibiting talk _about_ the explicit concept of atoms.
|
| Likewise here, how I read this is straightforward:
| explicit discussion of sexual orientation, ie., which
| genders/sexes people are sexually attracted to; must only
| occur from c. 8/9yo+.
|
| Ditto for gender identity. That a person's born physical
| sex may deviate from their perceived sexual identity --
| discussions _about_ that don 't seem all that urgent
| below 9yo.
|
| The issue the bill seems to be addressing isn't
| mentioning that people are gay, are married as gay etc --
| the issue is in having discussions about anyone's sexual
| preference "too early" with children. I think even saying
| "X person is trans" in classroom isn't forbidden --
| rather just making "trans" or "gay" (or "straight") a
| topic of discussion.
|
| The bill is a direct response to rare, but noted
| occurrences of teachers giving very young children
| lessons from highly controversial books on gender and
| sexuality at ages where those children are not being
| _taught_ these subjects -- but necessarily, rather, being
| encouraged to accept (controversial) conclusions about
| them.
|
| We arent talking about educating 5yos on the nature of
| sexuality. They don't have enough experiences and
| development to _discuss_ this.
| tedivm wrote:
| Lawyers completely disagree with your interpretation.
| Being say is part of someone's sexual orientation, so the
| don't say gay bill prohibits discussing it at all. Being
| trans is part of a gender identity so it is not allowed
| to be discussed. The law is very explicit in this, as
| I've quoted.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Calling it anti-grooming only is ignoring its ability to
| chill free speech (people will avoid talking about things
| that _might_ get them sued, even if they 're permitted) and
| be weaponized to suppress speech ("It would be a shame if
| someone took that thing that you said wrong..." even if it's
| permitted).
|
| Same with CRT banning. The existence of a law, even an
| ineffective one, on the books provides opportunity for abuse.
|
| (Said as someone who thinks the parts of both parties who are
| loudest over these issues are childish demagogues who ignore
| historical peril)
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| tedivm wrote:
| This is a lie. It blocks not discussions about "sex" but
| "sexual orientation". It bans students from saying they
| are guy. Calling people groomers who disagree with you is
| despicable.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Sexual orientation is about sex, it's literally in the
| name. It's quite pathological to sexualize classroom
| discussion in early grades, there's no possible
| educational purpose and the kids cannot be expected to be
| able to understand and relate to that sort of discussion
| like an adult would.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| The flipside is that people like him get called
| "transphobic" and harassed despite his very reasonable
| objections to the way his kids get educated. I don't know
| that calling him "transphobic" is any less (or more)
| accurate than him calling others "groomers".
| pjbeam wrote:
| None of the competing thoughtcrime tribes seem to care about
| things like free thought, discourse, etc. This is the
| frightening part to me--people in the "other tribe" aren't
| worthy of things like due process, and authoritarian approaches
| are fine as long as they are aimed at the "other".
|
| I know history repeats itself but wow, c'mon.. the 20th century
| wasn't that long ago.
| otterley wrote:
| Nobody's trying to put you in jail for having differing
| views. But there's never going to be a world in which there
| aren't social consequences for having them. If you think, for
| example, that the world is going to greet people who think
| it's ok to molest children (whether they do it or not) with
| open arms, you're just deluded.
| throw_away_lol wrote:
| bradleyjg wrote:
| I agree this is true. But we can do better than we are now.
| There was a time when an Episcopalian wouldn't consider
| being friends with a Baptist. We are a better society for
| the fact that this is mostly not true anymore.
|
| I'm not saying it should be unlimited or anyone should be
| legally or morally obligated to refrain from social
| consequences for any and all speech, but I do think a
| society where tolerance is extended to a majority of the
| other people by a majority of people is healthier than one
| where that isn't the case.
| glogla wrote:
| You can't put a jew and a nazi into a room and say "have a
| free thought discourse". Or a (american) white supermarics
| and (american) person of color. Or a homophobe and a gay
| person.
|
| There can be no discourse when one side wants just to be left
| alone and the other wants to exterminate them.
|
| You might want to rethink that 20th century lesson.
| nitrogen wrote:
| _> Or a (american) white supermarics and (american) person
| of color._
|
| Counterexample: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis
|
| _> His efforts to fight racism, in which, as an African
| American, he has engaged with members of the Ku Klux Klan
| (KKK), have convinced a number of Klansmen to leave and
| denounce the KKK._
|
| In fact, bringing people of different minds together _is
| the only way to have free discourse_ , and the only way to
| change minds.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I have heard a scant few stories of people having their due
| process taken away.
|
| There is some controversy though about whether the concept of
| due process as per law should be extended to a general
| principle that guides the operation of privately-owned
| websites. That isn't how the internet used to work so the
| jury's still out.
| pjbeam wrote:
| "aren't worthy of" is distinct from realized actions of the
| state. If you recall the impulse of the mob during me too
| was to burn without trial any accused--this sentiment is
| what I'm talking about.
| fossuser wrote:
| I agree - I also think this post does a nice job getting into
| it: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WQFioaudEH8R7fyhm/local-
| vali...
|
| Main relevant bit copied below.
|
| ###
|
| " The game-theoretic function of law can make following those
| simple rules feel like losing something, taking a step
| backward. You don't get to defect in the Prisoner's Dilemma,
| you don't get that delicious (5, 0) payoff instead of (3, 3).
| The law may punish one of your allies. You may be losing
| something according to your actual value function, which
| feels like the law having an objectively bad immoral result.
| You may coherently hold that the universe is a worse place
| for an instance of the enforcement of a good law, relative to
| its counterfactual state if that law could be lifted in just
| that instance without affecting any other instances. Though
| this does require seeing that law as having a game-theoretic
| function as well as a moral function.
|
| So long as the rules are seen as moving from a bad global
| equilibrium to a global equilibrium seen as better, and so
| long as the rules are mostly-equally enforced on everyone,
| people are sometimes able to take a step backward and see
| that larger picture. Or, in a less abstract way, trade off
| the reified interest of The Law against their own desires and
| wishes.
|
| This mental motion goes by names like "justice", "fairness",
| and "impartiality". It has ancient exemplars like a story I
| couldn't seem to Google, about a Chinese general who
| prohibited his troops from looting, and then his son
| appropriated a straw hat from a peasant; so the general
| sentenced his own son to death with tears running down his
| eyes.
|
| Here's a fragment of thought as it was before the Great
| Stagnation, as depicted in passing in H. Beam Piper's Little
| Fuzzy, one of the earliest books I read as a child. It's from
| 1962, when the memetic collapse had started but not spread
| very far into science fiction. It stuck in my mind long ago
| and became one more tiny little piece of who I am now.
|
| > "Pendarvis is going to try the case himself," Emmert said.
| "I always thought he was a reasonable man, but what's he
| trying to do now? Cut the Company's throat?"
|
| > "He isn't anti-Company. He isn't pro-Company either. He's
| just pro-law. The law says that a planet with native sapient
| inhabitants is a Class-IV planet, and has to have a Class-IV
| colonial government. If Zarathustra is a Class-IV planet, he
| wants it established, and the proper laws applied. If it's a
| Class-IV planet, the Zarathustra Company is illegally
| chartered. It's his job to put a stop to illegality. Frederic
| Pendarvis' religion is the law, and he is its priest. You
| never get anywhere by arguing religion with a priest."
|
| There is no suggestion in 1962 that the speakers are
| gullible, or that Pendarvis is a naif, or that Pendarvis is
| weird for thinking like this. Pendarvis isn't the defiant
| hero or even much of a side character. It's just a kind of
| judge you sometimes run into, part of a normal environment as
| projected from the author's mind that wrote the story.
|
| If you don't have some people like Pendarvis, and you don't
| appreciate what they're trying to do even when they rule
| against you, sooner or later your tribe ends.
|
| I mean, I doubt the United States will literally fall into
| anarchy this way before the AGI timeline runs out. But the
| concept applies on a smaller scale than countries. It applies
| on a smaller scale than communities, to bargains between
| three people or two.
|
| The notion that you can "be fair to one side but not the
| other", that what's called "fairness" is a kind of favor you
| do for people you like, says that even the instinctive sense
| people had of law-as-game-theory is being lost in the modern
| memetic collapse. People are being exposed to so many social-
| media-viral depictions of the Other Side defecting, and
| viewpoints exclusively from Our Side without any leavening of
| any other viewpoint that might ask for a game-theoretic
| compromise, that they're losing the ability to appreciate the
| kind of anecdotes they used to tell in ancient China."
| tomrod wrote:
| Precisely my thoughts.
|
| > In the late 1980s a new ideology of this type appeared in US
| universities
|
| I don't think this was new. Liberality tends to go hand in hand
| with seeking reality, as discovering something and then
| adopting it requires intellectual big-tentism. Perhaps the
| author bemoans the rise of bureaucracy within the university,
| which has demonstrably increased?
|
| My concern is that these arguments about moral puritanicalism
| aren't without merit, but that they are often ignore the
| cancerous alt-right, which is bereft of morality beyond racial
| nationalism. Perhaps the cancel culture creedal concern is
| considered to be salvageable.
| newbamboo wrote:
| Is there an alt-right? People use that term, but they might
| as well be talking about unicorns. All these years, I've not
| met a single alt-right person despite being told this is a
| large and growing segment of our population, a pernicious and
| growing "threat to democracy!"Well, if they exist they look a
| lot like the old-right that voted in exactly the same
| fashion. If anything the right has gotten much more
| progressive. My statements here can all be quantified lest
| you disagree.
| tomrod wrote:
| > Is there an alt-right
|
| It's a nicer form of the term fascist.
|
| Here is more information to start with, as well as several
| linked sources, compiled by people for your benefit:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right
| skellington wrote:
| I think you know that the alt-right is mostly a fantasy
| created by the current neo-marxist religion. Religion
| always requires a devil, and if it doesn't exist you make
| it up.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| It's not "don't say gay", it's "don't subject, expect or
| mandate young kids to learn stuff about things like sexual
| orientation (or even gender identity) that they cannot possibly
| relate with prior to the biological changes of adolescence, and
| that are enough of a minefield for adults already. Leave this
| stuff to family and broader society for the time being."
| kjksf wrote:
| It's not "leave this stuff to family".
|
| It's "you're going to jail if you dare to talk about it".
|
| That's the obvious violation of First Amendment: government
| cannot use force to dictate what you say.
|
| And this topic is not on the short list of exceptions
| (threats of violence etc.).
|
| And stepping back: realize you're being played by
| politicians.
|
| Republicans know well this bill is unconstitutional.
|
| They know there are topics way more important to spend their
| very limited legislative time on.
|
| But DeSantis is going to run for the president so Republicans
| are picking fights with stupid bills to whip up their base to
| vote for them.
|
| Those stupid fights are also distracting you from things that
| actually matter i.e. how to maintain and increase prosperity
| of the people.
| [deleted]
| rascul wrote:
| > That's the obvious violation of First Amendment:
| government cannot use force to dictate what you say.
|
| Laws around hate speech and defamation seem to contradict
| you.
| otterley wrote:
| I don't think this is true; it's not a criminal statute.
| While the law is problematic for plenty of reasons, the
| threat of imprisonment is not one of them.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| lol no it's not - it's literally a vigilante system that
| prevents teachers from talking about reality
| edent wrote:
| Do you _really_ think that young kids don 't notice their
| parents affection for each other? Or that their older sibling
| is dating someone? Or that people get pregnant?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| brohoolio wrote:
| The teachers can't address why someone in the class has two
| dads without risk of being sued. Heck the wording is vague
| enough you might not discuss marriage.
|
| The ambiguity in the law is there as a feature to hush normal
| conversations that might otherwise happen.
| kurthr wrote:
| Arguably, using "Mom" or "Dad", or even gendered pronouns
| is restricted. Of course not using these would upset the
| very people who wrote the laws, which is another part
| (beyond the enforceability) that makes them insane.
| scruple wrote:
| Why is an individual students parents a subject for a
| classroom? That is utterly bizarre and it sounds like the
| teacher in your hypothetical is singling out the student.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Florida education law, and this law, and education law in
| general, all have some real problems.
|
| It's somewhat unfortunate that misinformational memes of this
| sort travel much faster than reasonable understandings of its
| problems (this is but one example.) I believe it impairs the
| resolution of the nation's problems. Yeah, it galvanizes some
| support, but also hardens the opposition, and impairs the
| ability to make any sort of incremental progress, leaving
| achievable reforms stalled for years or even decades.
|
| Moreover, as a matter of principle, I don't really want to be
| part of a political movement which values spinning a story to
| its advantage more than it cares about informing the public.
| Build your movement on something solid.
| otterley wrote:
| It's important to read all the parts of the law. The
| concerning parts are 1/the vagueness of it, and
| 2/enforceability though a private right of action (instead of
| having the state enforce it, parents get to sue the schools).
| It's a minefield that educators must now trepidatiously
| tiptoe through. It makes their jobs significantly harder and
| more stressful.
|
| And for what real benefit, exactly? How is this improving our
| society in any real way?
| [deleted]
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Yup. It is conveniently one-side. I don't think it's by design,
| just accident. When you've concluded that there is a partisan
| problem, it takes a lot mental discipline (more than even some
| prominent technology figures have) to see it on both sides of
| an acrimonious divide. Nothing could be more cancel-culture
| than ethnic nationalism and efforts to disenfranchise large
| groups of persons.
|
| Who even came up with the phrase cancel culture to begin with?
| When? Why does it rhyme and is a just a few syllables? Why
| doesn't anyone who creates and pushes these slogan/memes and
| what their motivation is?
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| I find these "the same people who argue for/against X are the
| same people who argue for/against Y" comments odd. Do you have
| a specific example of this outside of politicians*, or are you
| lumping everyone in camps X and Y together without proof of
| significant overlap?
|
| *Politicians don't start from "I believe X/Y, let's do
| something about it." They start from "How do I get my voters
| agitated and eager to vote for me, and what position should I
| take on controversial issues X/Y during an election year to
| achieve this goal?" Politics/electioneering is showmanship
| first. Silly things like real personal political beliefs only
| get in the way of politicians' end goal of power.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| babyshake wrote:
| Another thing I have found related to heresy is that the
| strongest accusations of heresy often involve ideas and
| statements that are the most difficult to argue against.
| Recently, I was involved in a workplace conversation about how
| the org had a certain gender/racial proportional makeup and
| there was a goal of those diversity numbers being different
| within a specified timeframe. I suggested that this implied
| bias, and was warned that what I said might offend people. I
| think this was because I said something fairly rational and it
| would have been difficult to argue against in rational terms.
| Along these lines, the calls to cancel Dave Chappelle for
| example are largely because he has made some good points.
| sputr wrote:
| This comment is not just intellectually dishonest, it's also a
| basic example of the core problem of our society: demonization
| of "others".
|
| You can have a problem with cancel culture and not be anti CRT.
| Who would have thought, right?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Who are the major anti-cancel culture pro-CRT figures?
|
| It seemed to me that the firing of Timnit Gebru at Google was
| superficially the political reverse of the firing of Antonio
| Garcia Martinez at Apple. And yet the latter case is
| considered cancel culture, while the former is not.
| kardianos wrote:
| Yes, I have a problem with teachers talking to my kindergarten
| kid about sex.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| DSG is the status quo as far as I'm concerned. In the most
| liberal US state a decade+ ago, we had to have parent-signed
| slips to attend sex ed at all.
|
| The idea that you could introduce homosexuality or anything
| else without the same basic check seems backwards.
|
| Granted, the DSG bill has some badly-written foibles but the
| general idea is on the mark.
| prtkgpt wrote:
| Why is it flagged?
| stareatgoats wrote:
| People thought it would be like a joke perhaps. Anyway, it's
| unflagged now.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| And now it is flagged again. This really seems to rub some
| people (dare we say the "the aggressively conventional-
| minded"?) the wrong way ...
| falcolas wrote:
| It's flamebait, and will never incite civil discussions.
| Why would we want it on the front page?
| hunterb123 wrote:
| there's plenty of civil discussion in this thread.
|
| imo banning an article about cancel culture would only
| bolster its point.
|
| but I'm curious, why do you think it's flamebait and not
| a topic warranting discussion?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Because heresy.
| cultpfog wrote:
| Probably people irritated at HN being a cult of personality for
| Paul Graham. He's not that interesting a writer, but people
| here swallow his literary turds like they're pure gold.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Great essay as always, however the deliberate withholding of
| examples is irritating me. I'm not looking for witches to burn,
| but names or examples of "grumpy, censorious people in a group --
| the ones who are always first to complain when something violates
| the current rules of propriety." would be helpful to identify the
| described mentality.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Giving examples is left as an exercise for the reader.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Vaguely gesticulating at your stated enemy instead of
| identifying them is a time-honored rhetorical technique: it
| allows the reader to insert their individual grievances into
| the shape of the argument rather than reflecting on whether
| their grievances are actually well-founded.
|
| Edit: And to be absolutely clear: it's a lame technique. It
| works because it's emotive, not because it reveals any
| particular amount of truth.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| I find it illuminating how he ends his blog-post:
| "All we have to do is keep pushing back, and the wave
| collapses"
|
| Sounds like a political rallying cry. A rallying cry for
| those on the ramparts. The line assumes the reader knows they
| are part of the "we" and calls them to action. Who are they?
| Stop the steal?
| randallsquared wrote:
| > _it allows the reader to insert their individual grievances
| into the shape of the argument rather than reflecting on
| whether their grievances are actually well-founded._
|
| Given that it's specifically about the shape of these sorts
| of arguments, adding specific examples would produce tangents
| into the merits of the specific examples; omitting them
| encourages the reader to consider the pattern in the context
| of their own experience (as you say), but by removing the
| actual "grievance", this technique reduces emotion, and gives
| us more opportunity to consider the pattern dispassionately.
| This would actually be _more_ "emotive" if it forced us to
| confront examples which we might violently agree or disagree
| with.
|
| Providing specific instances of the pattern would only be
| necessary if the pattern itself has few enough examples that
| the typical reader hasn't encountered any. Given that
| Graham's entire point appears to be that this pattern is
| increasingly pervasive, by providing examples, he would
| undermine his own conclusions.
| woodruffw wrote:
| "The shape of an argument" is the polite way to say that an
| argument is imprecise. Less politely: it's a way to beat
| around the bush about what you _actually_ believe while
| maintaining plausible agreeability.
|
| Graham _can 't_ make the point that it's pervasive, because
| he won't provide any evidence to that effect. He won't do
| that because he knows that hand-wringing about "heresy" is
| much more agreeable than the interior position: that rich
| and powerful men like himself shouldn't be made to bear
| uncomfortable thoughts.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > Graham can't make the point that it's pervasive,
| because he won't provide any evidence to that effect
|
| Yes he can. The reader can use their brain and think of
| examples themselves.
| randallsquared wrote:
| If someone extracts a pattern that, say, three arguments
| follow, which we can then call the "shape" of this kind
| of argument, which of the three arguments are you
| suggesting is imprecise? Or is your position that any
| actual argument which fits into any pattern at all is
| somehow imprecise? It's clear that we are
| miscommunicating regarding the meta vs object level of
| this essay, but I'm not sure exactly where the disconnect
| lies.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| > Given that Graham's entire point appears to be that this
| pattern is increasingly pervasive, by providing examples,
| he would undermine his own conclusions.
|
| If Graham wants to argue that "this pattern is increasingly
| pervasive" wouldn't it help to provide examples of how fast
| it is becoming more pervasive? He could do this with
| examples. If he's claiming it is becoming more pervasive I
| think he failed to present any evidence for that.
| trash99 wrote:
| tootie wrote:
| It's straw man after straw man. Facile and reductive. Basically
| a long form version of "you can't say anything anymore!" Could
| have been written by Archie Bunker.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| Feeling that there are more "heresies" now than, say, 25 years
| ago says a lot more about the orthodoxy of ones' opinion than it
| says about the state of the world.
| jounker wrote:
| > Up till about 1985 the window [of what you can say without
| being cancelled] had been growing ever wider. Anyone looking into
| the future in 1985 would have expected freedom of expression to
| continue to increase. Instead it has decreased.
|
| In 1985 in most places in the USA a public school teacher openly
| supporting gay rights in the classroom would have been risking
| their job and possibly their entire career.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I know, it's a very common but very bizarre centering of the
| general concept of intolerance on China and on lib college
| students. States make laws denying work to people who support
| BDS. Announcing that you don't give a shit about whether Russia
| takes over Ukraine could get you _fired_ , _especially_ if you
| 're ethnically Russian, but announcing that Ukraine should
| fight until the breath of the last Ukrainian is spent and the
| last blade of Ukrainian grass is burned will get you a spot on
| local TV news in Milwaukee, WI, USA.
|
| The BBC had MI5 vet its employees for correct political
| opinions and associations into the 90s, and won't deny that
| they do it now.
|
| https://www.thenational.scot/news/16176527.revealed-mi5-vett...
|
| http://tonygarnett.info/mi5-and-secret-political-vetting-at-...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/nov/14/bbc.research
|
| The major difference is that captains of industry used to be
| able to almost completely dictate orthodoxy, and now in the age
| of the internet there are competing orthodoxies - some of which
| don't consider power and wealth synonymous with wisdom and
| genius. It also turns out that plenty of powerful people who
| control institutions don't care about being seen as
| philosopher-kings, and are happy to let their PR and HR
| departments deal with controversy. They will happily capitulate
| to all orthodoxies in order to protect the institution.
|
| The problem is that labor rights have been overrun by freedom-
| of-contract at-will libertarians, so instead of people just
| hating you for things you've said and done, everyone also has
| to deal with apolitical sociopathic corporations that will
| excise you like a suspicious mole at the first whiff of
| controversy.
| chernevik wrote:
| Why a high school teacher needs a position on gay rights in the
| classroom, in 1985 or 2022, is beyond me.
| kemayo wrote:
| Ignoring for a second that it's perfectly legitimate for a
| teacher to do something like wear a rainbow flag patch, or be
| openly gay and mention their same-sex spouse in class, all of
| which would _not go well_ in many places in 1985... you can
| 't think of a reason to discuss gay rights in, say, high
| school level social studies, history, or literature classes?
| odonnellryan wrote:
| What topics are acceptable for teachers to hold views on?
| johnday wrote:
| Because it is the role of a teacher to educate, and it's
| entirely possible that some children enter the classroom with
| a set of values incompatible with modern life?
| johnday wrote:
| Because it is the role of a teacher to educate, and it's
| entirely possible that some children enter the classroom with
| a set of values incompatible with modern life?
|
| In other words, for the same reason that a teacher should
| have "a position" on any other civil rights.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| The man seems to have also forgotten the cold war and the
| entire era of McCarthyism because if he thought being a
| socialist in cold war America wasn't a heresy he should ask
| some. I'd pin 1985 as one of the most _monotonous_ periods of
| American discourse (mirrored in the election results of the
| time). Discourse is much wider today, mirrored in the resulting
| polarization that everybody talks about.
| eganist wrote:
| It seems like Paul is confusing intolerance of intolerance with
| heresy in this essay.
|
| Further reading:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
|
| Expression of just about anything is met with fairly minimal
| consequence at least in much of the US, but nonetheless, there's
| a difference between not accepting something versus being
| intolerant of it.
|
| E.g not accepting [way of living] in one's own daily life v. not
| tolerating it in the world around oneself. Are both of these
| rejections abhorrent? Probably. But the line is crossed when
| someone transcends a refusal of acceptance in one's personal
| sphere into a refusal of tolerance of such in the world around
| them.
|
| (I had a specific thing in the brackets, but pulling a page from
| Paul's essay, I figured I'd blot it out to make it a neutral
| point. Fill the blank with [religion] or [suspect classification]
| or [politics] and it still holds.)
| ByteJockey wrote:
| I think you're the one who is confused here. The paradox of
| tolerance was not conceived to describe people who merely hold
| opinions.
|
| To quote Popper (this is also quoted in the wiki link you
| posted):
|
| > In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we
| should always suppress the utterance of intolerant
| philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational
| argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression
| would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right
| to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily
| turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of
| rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they
| may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument,
| because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by
| the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim,
| in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the
| intolerant.
|
| Which is fair. If someone is going to respond to you by beating
| and shooting you, you shouldn't have to tolerate them. The
| justification for the intolerance of the intolerant is that the
| intolerant use violence to get their way.
|
| But rounding up a mob because someone holds an opinion is not
| what Popper is describing. It is much closer to hunting down
| heretics.
| eganist wrote:
| > But rounding up a mob because someone holds an opinion is
| not what Popper is describing. It is much closer to hunting
| down heretics.
|
| Neither was I. Nor do I think Paul should be "rounded up"
| either. Just that I believe his mode of thinking is flawed. I
| expressed an opinion just as he did.
| ByteJockey wrote:
| > Neither was I.
|
| Then I may have misinterpreted your statement. Would you
| mind elaborating on exactly which part of the essay
| confuses the paradox of intolerance with heresy?
| snerbles wrote:
| In practice it seems Popper's Paradox is frequently cited as
| a justification of force against heretics, accompanied by
| claims that the heresy is in and of itself a form of
| violence.
| ISL wrote:
| There is a certain joy in seeing that this submission is
| presently titled: [flagged] Heresy
| [deleted]
| prtkgpt wrote:
| define "joy" lol
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| amusing irony
| edent wrote:
| I mean, this is the only real response to people posting this
| sort of nonsense.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkCBhKs4faI
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| YouTube blocked in the US based on copyright grounds.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Cancel culture strikes again
| solarengineer wrote:
| It is a copyright block by the BBC. This video contains
| material created by BBC Studios that an individual then
| uploaded into their channel.
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| Title: Stewart Lee - These days, if you say you're English
| ...
|
| Is a clip from a BBC show (Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle,
| worth a watch if you enjoy British comedy) so copyright block
| not too surprising depending on where you're located.
|
| He basically takes the piss out of a taxi driver. The
| stereotype goes that a taxi driver will share their "bloody
| immigrants" opinions with their fares whether the fares care
| about hearing it or not.
|
| Cabbie says: "These days, you get arrested and thrown in jail
| if you say you're English, don't you."
|
| Stewart "wears him down" in the bit by repeating the question
| back with increasing incredulity and after about 3 minutes
| the cabbie character eventually just says, "no, you don't
| actually get arrested."
|
| It's fckin hilarious.
| [deleted]
| kache_ wrote:
| flagged.... lmao
| [deleted]
| fpiazza wrote:
| Excellent read
| ricardo81 wrote:
| I'll preface my comment by saying maybe (certainly) some people
| are more nuanced on the matter.
|
| I think the baseline is equality. Anything after that, we
| celebrate our differences and the debate is about a future
| direction for us all. Extremely generic I know, but better than
| trying to homogenise us into a singular point of view.
| incomingpain wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM
|
| Obama is a very smart dude. 2 years ago he saw it building and he
| misidentified this as activism.
|
| John Mcwhorter I believe better identified this as a religion:
| https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast/2021/11/2/2272...
|
| As an atheist you see the same pattern often. Here's a hour long
| video of sam harris and john talking about it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPHUu9sAGKo&t=2s
|
| This new religion has the christians, muslims, atheists, and
| others all worked up.
|
| It's unusual for a new global religion to form, nothing there to
| really prevent it. The big difference this time is they got
| really big while remaining undercover.
|
| I guess my prediction as well. You could become a preacher for
| this new religion, set for life to serve. Just need to figure out
| how to. If you do try this, make sure you are following the
| golden rule every day. Make sure you're 100% positivity. Try to
| merge religions, I'm pretty sure 'coexist' is a big part of this.
| noduerme wrote:
| While the logical proof is interesting - of x-ist statements
| being acceptable or not based on who says them, and therefore
| potentially true and worth evaluating - it naively presumes that
| the general interest values truthseeking over ideological
| conformity. I think a lot of collective activists will freely
| admit that to them, capital-T Truth is less important than unity,
| and by this avoid the apparent contradiction.
|
| As to the charge of undue weight being given to certain
| statements: Is there no statement that should result in the
| firing of an otherwise excellent employee? None? What about
| praising Hitler or advocating sacking the Capitol? If there is
| one, is there more than one?
|
| Lastly, I hate to bring this up, but I was silently shadow-banned
| (had all my posts publicly censored) on this board by Mr. Graham
| himself for the heresy of criticizing some of his business
| approaches.
|
| Sure, it was his right to do that, as the moderator. Isn't it an
| employer's right to fire someone for a statement that will harm
| the company - true or otherwise?
|
| There have always been consequences for unpopular speech, some of
| which strike us as unjust. The line has shifted radically away
| from valuing free expression in recent years, unfortunately. But
| to say that "heresy" in this sense ever went away is a false
| statement. The only question that's ever been in play is where
| the line is drawn, and that's what should be addressed, by anyone
| claiming to seek justice; case by case, individual by individual,
| and not by countering one hyperbole - "you're an x-ist" - with
| its opposite, e.g. "you're the Spanish Inquisition".
| darepublic wrote:
| Make sure to use main instead of m*****
| kalimanzaro wrote:
| Kind of sleepy but maybe heresies are sort of like a self-
| published but hard to verify/reproduce social zero day. Imagine
| NSO describing their iphone exploit in vague terms on their very
| own homepage.. that would get a rise out of concernable folks for
| sure
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