[HN Gopher] The Most Dangerous Censorship ___________________________________________________________________ The Most Dangerous Censorship Author : 0xedb Score : 184 points Date : 2021-06-22 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (edwardsnowden.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (edwardsnowden.substack.com) | longtimegoogler wrote: | The question is who is the mob. I fear the crazies much more who | stormed the capital and tried to overthrow our democracy than | some online SJWs who are going to try and cancel someone for | having an unpopular opinion. | | Not that either are great, for instance I didn't find Damore's | opinions outlandish although expressed poorly. | manux wrote: | What about the self-censorship of our neo-cortex telling us not | to insult other people? Is that bad too? | | Expression, and respectful expression, is a very nuanced and | complex topic. This dramatic post presents the far end of the | spectrum where every word can lead one to be fired. The truth is | somewhere in the middle. | seaorg wrote: | Yes, it is bad. Cultures that discourage "rude" comments | invariably have more corruption than cultures that encourage | frankness. Take the Netherlands for example. People say they | are rude. But really, it's just that Americans can't tell the | difference between objective honesty and malicious insults. | | People who say what they mean and call it like they see it are | brave. They don't cash in tomorrow for a little convenience | today. | type0 wrote: | > Americans can't tell the difference between objective | honesty and malicious insults. | | Sometimes it's actually both when you are speaking with the | Dutch. | cortesoft wrote: | Are you actually arguing that we should always communicate | every thought that comes to our head? That we should never | choose to keep a thought to ourselves? | | This does not seem like a good idea in practice. There are | lots of thoughts we should keep to ourselves. If you see a | friend with a new haircut, and you think it looks ugly, | should you immediately just blurt out "hey, your new haircut | looks awful"? Why? Just because it is how you feel doesn't | mean you need to tell everyone. | | I find the people who insist on "telling it like it is" and | who are "just being honest" are often just being assholes. | ishiz wrote: | > If you see a friend with a new haircut, and you think it | looks ugly, should you immediately just blurt out "hey, | your new haircut looks awful"? Why? | | My friends would expect me to say this, yes, and I have the | same expectation. If everyone thought my haircut looked | bad, I would want to know. | ben_w wrote: | For what it's worth, "radical honesty" does exactly that. | Best done with the consent of those you're being radically | honest with, because without that one definitely comes | across as a dick. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_honesty | seaorg wrote: | Yeah except that countries that lean closer to what you're | talking about are universally better than countries that | lean in the direction of politeness. Lower corruption, | happier by all metrics and so on. Should you let your | friend walk around town and become a laughing stock of the | community just because you were too afraid to tell him the | guy at Supercuts must have had a hangover? Like I said, | you're trading in tomorrow for today. Trading in the big | picture for short term gain or convenience. Ultimately it's | a net loss and it's societal poison that, if left | unchecked, leads to corruption and stagnation. | | The emotional reaction to harmless words is not an | intrinsic aspect of human biology. If someone says mean | things in a malicious attempt to hurt you, it is natural to | be emotionally disturbed or upset at the fact that someone | has malicious intent toward you. But in some cultures you | can tell someone their haircut is messed up and they | understand that you don't have malicious intent. It's a | cultural artifact, albeit a widespread one. It tripped me | up for a long time too because I was born in a country that | doesn't know any better. | longtimegoogler wrote: | Any evidence of this claim? It hasn't been my experience. | For instance, I believe that politeness is more valued in | Asian countries like Japan and Korea and I would disagree | with your assertion. | | Anecdotally, I've found Russians to be the frankest and | corruption is rampant there, so I am not sure what the | basis of your assertion is. | | Politeness is about respecting others. You can | communicate difficult things while still being polite. | throwaaskjdfh wrote: | > What about the self-censorship of our neo-cortex telling us | not to insult other people? Is that bad too? | | Sometimes it's bad. Insults are an occasionally useful tool, | and can be wielded to diminish the standing of adversaries who | might otherwise be more powerful. | | EDIT: speaking of insults, this is on the HN front page right | now: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27595429 | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reply_of_the_Zaporozhian_Cossa... | overgard wrote: | I think it's different on the internet though. Like, if we | state an opinion in person, there's a few key differences: | | - People are likely to respond in a much more civil manner, | they're not just going to yell at you | | - A lot of complex intonation and nuance gets across a lot | easier | | - Any misunderstandings can be quickly corrected | | On the other hand with the internet, you lose all those things, | so IMO it's more up to the receiver to give the speaker the | benefit of the doubt, unless it's clear the speaker's intent is | to insult. | kingsuper20 wrote: | >- People are likely to respond in a much more civil manner, | they're not just going to yell at you | | While I think that's true to a certain extent, I'd also say | that the internet selects for the loudest, rudest voices. | | Example. I was reading this this morning. (this this? English | is an odd language). | | https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-bret- | weinste... | | Fine. I get it. Look for the first response (and others) from | some guy named Thom Prentice. That's what the internet is all | about. 10 second of research shows you that he's That Guy who | goes to all the city council meetings to yell, continuously | runs for office, has restraining orders. Every town has them. | | That Guy has come to their full potential on social media. | overgard wrote: | I love taiibi's substack! As to that comment, WOW. There's | this weird internet hate for guy's like weinstein or jordan | peterson when, even if you happen to disagree with them | they're incredibly tame about what they say. | nraynaud wrote: | slight tangent, but as a teenager we had to read a Danilo Kis | book: "Early Sorrows" ( | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Sorrows ), that was quite a | jolt. | quaunaut wrote: | What happened to the concept of being proud of your beliefs and | ensuring they align with the lifestyle you lead? | | The nebulous fear so many have seems rooted either in not | thinking through the problem of so-called "cancel culture", or in | people thinking they shouldn't suffer the consequences of their | decisions. | syshum wrote: | What happened is that any minor offense, misunderstanding, | obtuse comment or joke is taken to nth degree by a permanent | victim culture that is looking to be offended at everything to | highlight how oppressed they are by society. | | as to "Suffer the consequences", when a single tweet results in | your complete ostracization from society, your lively hood | terminated, your safety put in danger, etc well I think the | punishment does not fit the crime. I dont care how offensive | that tweet was. Doubly for those that have had this happen for | comments made 10, 20, or even 30 years in the past. | | Neither proportionality of punishment nor forgiveness seem to | be concepts that are entertained in cancel culture. | | As I was told many times growing up, Sticks and Stones can | break my bones but words can never harm me. It seems today we | have replaced that valid and correct axiom with "Words are | violence" which is a most dangerous precedent indeed. Further | here lately I have begun to see an even more dangerous one that | is being put forth "Silence is Violence".. | dane-pgp wrote: | > that valid and correct axiom | | There is nothing valid and correct in the saying "words can | never harm me". Repeated insults and threats can lead to | psychological harm (even if they are never followed up with | physical violence) and a concerted effort to misinform | someone can cause them to make physically harmful decisions. | | This should be particularly obvious in the case of children, | and as you mention, the saying is generally used to influence | that group in particular (which is ironic, given the harm the | saying ends up doing). | | The more pertinent debate isn't whether words can harm, but | whether censorship is likely to do more harm than the words | it would prevent being spoken. | breuleux wrote: | I would be careful about accusing anyone of indulging in a | victim culture, because it's a very easy script to flip. | | The common "leftist" perspective is that "cancelling" is a | rare occurrence, mainly targets the rich and is not | particularly effective in the grand scheme of things given | that politically incorrect speakers routinely reach hundreds | of millions of people. They would also argue that it can be | tricky to tell whether someone is "cancelled" because | primarily because of their views, or because they are | insufferable and people were already looking for excuses to | get rid of them. In other words, they don't think it's a big | deal. | | Now, if the leftist is correct (I'm not saying they are), | then your post ironically becomes a textbook example of | victim culture: you're blowing up a relatively minor | phenomenon out of proportion, painting yourself as being | oppressed. The only reason you don't see it that way is | because you think you're right and that the problem you see | is truly serious. But obviously the people you think indulge | in a "victim culture" also believe that the problem they see | is serious. You should be more understanding of their | mindset. Otherwise, all I'm seeing here are victims screaming | past each other. | slver wrote: | Honestly I'm not sure being "proud of your beliefs" is a great | advice. I'm trying to think of beliefs I'm proud of. Can't | recall any in particular. | | The phrase communicates lack of flexibility, because if they're | "beliefs" they're firmly held, and if you're "proud" you won't | have an open mind ready to change those beliefs in face of new | evidence. | | In fact I very often see beliefs and pride be exploited to push | propaganda where you get to defend someone else's interests | without even realizing it. | syshum wrote: | I am proud of my belief in Philosophy of Liberty[1], and the | principle of self ownership[2]. | | You are also correct as I am inflexible in this belief, as | they are foundational ethical beliefs for which there can be | no new evidence for me to change my mind over | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9srplWe_QQ | | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ownership | quaunaut wrote: | I'd disagree on both notions- while my beliefs are firmly | held, I also try to question them regularly. The reason | they're firmly held is that they've managed to stand up to | what scrutiny I've tried them against, repeatedly, for years. | | On other things, I simply haven't spent a lot of energy | thinking about it, and as a result am more than happy to | apologize if I'm even slightly in the wrong. Generally, I'm | quick to apologize if someone's made a good reason for me to, | as I don't regard the need to apologize necessarily with me | being a worse person. | tomjen3 wrote: | That worked as long as both sides ran by the gentlemans | agreement that you debate and let the best argument win. | | As with many things, that worked until people forgot why the | argument (or indeed why it is called a gentleman) was created | in the first place and so tore it up for political points. | quaunaut wrote: | I mean, if you're somehow under the false impression that | people were more cordial in these disagreements in the past, | I don't know what to tell you. | | One of the largest popular phenomenons in the new millenium | is a musical based on a politician being shot by another | politician. Fist fights have been a regular occurrence by | members of congress since our inception. We show pictures to | every schoolchild in the US of violence used during the 1960s | Civil Rights movement. | | I'd also wonder, how the concept of "cancel culture" impacts | that at all. Not once have I seen someone getting | "cancelled"(which itself is nebulous enough that more than | half of those it is perpetrated against have better careers | after than before) remove any inability for public discourse | to continue about what they did. | | Even the article from yesterday, about a man who experienced | harassment for admitting to a problem he'd supposedly fixed | long ago, largely became a conversation about the issue at | hand. | | Essentially, I'm wondering why so many are convinced that | someone else's use of their free speech so negatively impacts | their own. | reggieband wrote: | I very often type out comments on HN and then delete them. As | Snowden alludes to, everything we submit to public forums is | logged and stored. There is no doubt in my mind these comments | are easily associated to my real identity with very little | effort. | | Another side of censorship I consider often is signal to noise. | There is no reason to prevent people from saying whatever they | want if no one will ever see it. I recall a stat I heard that | YouTube receives ~400 hours of content uploaded every minute to | their site. Or the long-tail of Twitch streamers with 0 viewers. | | Finally, there is a threat of violence. We all know what happens | to high-profile journalists because of their high profile. I | often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of | comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs. | RIMR wrote: | You seemed fairly reasonable up until you revealed that you | believe in some paranoid conspiracy to disappear internet | nobodies for their social media comments... | | >I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of | comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs. | | The answer is zero. I hope this helps. | nixpulvis wrote: | I post and edit. It's become an obsession frankly. | slver wrote: | > I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of | comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs. | | Maybe a bit conspiratorial. Even dictators need to prioritize | their actions. And they'd go for speech that has impact (like | said high-profile journalists), and less so for random noise on | no-traffic forums with anonymous authors. | | A lot gets lost in the internet noise. Nobody cares about it. | Cyph0n wrote: | > Even dictators need to prioritize their actions. | | A bastardization of Andy Grove's famous words: "Only the | paranoid [dictators] survive". | | You'd be surprised at how paranoid dictators get. Every | little sign of disobedience is magnified into a "threat". | This is the reason why almost all autocratic systems end up | devolving into police states with (usually) multiple large | intelligence agencies keeping each other in check. | reggieband wrote: | I try not to be paranoid about it, but there are several | governments that I just don't talk about online. They are | known for aggressive Internet task forces and have histories | of taking actions. I don't see any benefit publicly voicing | my opinion on them. | | All it takes is for them to indefinitely store all content | posted to certain sites (and you can bet reddit and hacker | news are on that list), then run algorithms to de-anonymize | it. Then they can score you. | | Maybe in the future you get a promotion. Maybe you're | crossing a border. Maybe a YouTube video you post goes viral. | Suddenly that scored record of you sets off an alarm. | | The digital history you are creating today isn't going away | for the rest of your life. | Workaccount2 wrote: | I'm haunted by Roko's Basilisk. | | The story in it's original incarnation may be a bit outlandish. | However, dial it in a few notches and you get a powerful AI | that can associate you with anything you have ever left a data | trail for, in the hands of an unknown future bad actor. In fact | I wouldn't be surprised if that was the thrust for the initial | conception of it. | | Given that, the Basilisk may already be in it's infant stage. | e40 wrote: | I had never heard about this. Interesting. Sounds like the AI | in _A Fire Upon the Deep_. Awesome hard SciFi by Vernor | Vinge. | wizzwizz4 wrote: | Tangent: You have nothing to fear from Roko's Basilisk. I | analysed it from the perspective of four different decision | theories, and in every one: | | * It doesn't make sense to build the evil AI agent; and | | * the evil AI agent has no incentive to torture people who | decided not to build it (unless its utility function relates | to such torture, but it doesn't make sense to build that AI | agent unless you want to torture people - in which case, you | should be scared of the mad scientist, not the AI). | | I didn't publish because I find my essays embarrassing, but | if you have specific worries I can assuage them. | remarkEon wrote: | Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought the point of the | thought experiment was that the Basilisk builds itself? | handoflixue wrote: | I think you've got an interesting idea there, but I'm not | sure why you'd associate it with Roko's Basilisk given that | people who are aware tend not to take it very seriously. It | seems like you'd be better off just presenting your own idea, | and maybe gesturing that it was "inspired by other ideas from | LessWrong" if you really feel the need. | wcarss wrote: | I do the same. I write tweets, or facebook notes to family or | friends -- argumentative or loving. Or hacker news comments, or | blog posts, or whatever. I often spend a surprising amount of | time in editing, re-reading, and honing them out. | | Then, I tap `CTRL+A, delete, CTRL+W`. | | Many times I have sat down for a 'writing project', and found | it a struggle to decide out what to write about, or write | something and feel it is not really something I need to say out | loud. | | I have an old draft post where I mused about a coworker's | hamfisted and awkward attempts to magnify the voices of those | around him whom he felt were under-represented. He, a cisgender | cissexual 30s-ish white tech guy, would often single out | individuals and loudly try to cajole them into giving opinions | on topics when he felt they were being "too quiet" or | "unheard". It was surely coming from a good place, but it | almost without fail made his targets and everyone else around | uncomfortable. It was interesting, and I wrote about it. | | Then I didn't post it, because I really don't know if 'my take' | as a 30s-ish cisgender cissexual white tech guy on some other | same dude's hamfisted attempts to be an ally would really read | well at the time, or especially, years later. He was trying. | Should he not have tried? I wasn't trying enough. Should I | have? I'm still not sure. I didn't have a great answer then, or | now. But I wrote it and stashed it -- part of that chilling | effect, right? | | I also wrote a big 'intro to contributing to open source' post, | but I felt it was too long and rambling, and I worry I'm | unqualified to post it, so I stashed that too. | | Was I self-censoring in _the most dangerous way_ in the first | instance, but not in the second? What brings about the | distinction? I felt in both cases that the post might reflect | poorly on me, so I didn 't post it. | | Snowden's post, to me, reads like a 'writer' writing about | having writer's block. He sat down to write something, because | he has this big new writing project he has to do, and he came | up with 10 ideas. Then he crossed them all out as he thought | about really seriously trying to write about and grapple with | each one. Who is he, after all, to write about topics X, Y, Z? | Just some guy! He just did a great thing, not become an expert | on most info-sec/cultural/political topics. | | So what's left? He can write about what he's going though! And | 'how bad it is to censor yourself' is a pretty elevated take on | writing about... how hard it is to figure out what to write. | | (For the record, my desire to just delete this rather than to | post it is _strong_ , as it's so long and convoluted, but, this | case merits an exception.) | strogonoff wrote: | I wonder how Snowden reconciles his position on self-censorship | with his current country of residence. Is it meta, in the sense | that he too has to self-censor out of fear for own life? Does he | consider it a necessary move, presuming any country with stronger | freedom of speech is also a country that would extradite him to | the US? | emsy wrote: | How do people reconcile that Snowden, who should be lauded as a | hero finds refuge at a country where Vladimir Putin is | president is frankly a much more interesting question.Btw: He | doesn't need to be a martyr to be a hero. | throwkeep wrote: | Because he didn't have much of a choice? I have a feeling | he'd much prefer being back in the US or somewhere in Europe | or any other number of places, but all of those lead to a | jail cell. | Dylan16807 wrote: | You misread that question. | mdoms wrote: | Dude it's not like Snowden is stoked to be living the dream in | Russia. He's an exile. | strogonoff wrote: | Not blaming him and not sure whether he had a choice. Just | noting a certain dissonance in reality, which I'd assume he | also experiences, and wondering how he frames it in his mind | (e.g., does he think "yes, my writing is affected by the very | thing I describe, but I currently have no other choice", or | "I'm not self-censoring since somehow I have a deal that I | can write anything I want, as long as I'm not trying to | disseminate it in Russia", or "self-censorship is a thing | happening everywhere now, so Russia or not there's not much | difference where to reside", or something else entirely). | | It's not quite an elephant in the room, but IMO if he went a | bit meta on this it could make for an interesting read (maybe | he does elsewhere--I'm not using Substack and not following | his writing very closely). | UncleOxidant wrote: | It's not like he had a huge amount of choice in where he ended | up. Putin allows it because he can point to Snowden and say | "see, he uncovered programs in the American system that are | doing things they accuse me of". And likely also because Putin | sees Snowden as a potentially valuable bargaining chip. | h2odragon wrote: | "with his country of residence" wtf? ... he prefers Russia to | "suicide" in an American jail, and this is supposed to | negatively impact his credibility? | | Or should he martyr himself to integrity and start calling | Putin and the leaders of Russia out for their bad behaviors? | | I honor the man as a hero; but if I was him I'd STFU and try to | live a quiet life in the woods somewhere, never attracting | public attention again. Lest the end be messy and spectacular | like Assange is being treated to. | GeekyBear wrote: | > I wonder how Snowden reconciles his position on self- | censorship with his current country of residence. | | By remembering that he got only got stuck in Russia because the | United States revoked his passport while he was on an | international flight that was to make a connection in Moscow? | strogonoff wrote: | While it's a good point, it doesn't really explain anything | here. | | I don't have the details, but isn't there a way to apply for | an asylum, say, in neighbouring Georgia, Ukraine or Finland | (by walking into an embassy or even straight to a land | border)? Is he being held against his will? Does he not | desire to move? Is it because he's thinking those countries | would be likely to deport him at the request of the US? Is it | because he doesn't believe living in a country which regime | is closer to one's own philosophy is worth the hassle of | moving there? Or he doesn't consider those countries any | better than Russia in this regard? Etc. | ben_w wrote: | He applied to 27 countries including Finland. Apart from | Russia, the ones he could actually reach turned him down. | | I have no doubt Russia is milking this for all it's worth | (wouldn't you in their place?) but Snowden really didn't | have a totally free hand in where he ended up after his | passport was cancelled -- just America or Russia. | strogonoff wrote: | If he did apply for asylum and was refused, that explains | the situation to me personally. I never thought all of | the (admittedly, quite few) directly adjacent to Russia | democratic countries would do that to him. I hope he | continues to write on these topics from wherever he is. | dane-pgp wrote: | > directly adjacent to Russia democratic countries | | I wonder how necessary the "directly adjacent" criteria | is. Couldn't he sail from Russia to Iceland, for example? | Perhaps if he was wanted by Interpol he would find it | hard to travel through the territorial waters of European | nations (assuming their coast guards would intercept a | vessel carrying him). | | In practice, though, I assume that Putin's government has | made it very clear to him that his safety relies on him | remaining a useful propaganda piece for the regime, so he | wouldn't even get as far as Russian waters. | randompwd wrote: | American operatives cant move freely in Russia as they | can in any other European/Western country. | gentleman11 wrote: | > For fear of losing a job, or of losing an admission to school, | or of losing the right to live in the country of your birth, or | merely of social ostracism, many of today's best minds in so- | called free, democratic states have stopped trying to say what | they think and feel and have fallen silent. | | There are a lot of topics I won't touch any more, more every | year. Accounts - can't stay anonymous, ml systems working around | the clock to identify posters. My social justice focused friends | have it worse, their online "friends" attack them publicly over | every single little thing. They go quiet or form a tiny invite | only groups to hide after an attempt to do something good that | backfired because their skin is the wrong colour or they aren't | trans. They have panic attacks over the guilt and stress | throwkeep wrote: | When I worked at a FAANG, anti-censorship and pro free speech | was normative. What happened? Why have we let a small number of | intolerant activists scare us into silence? | wutbrodo wrote: | I left Google in 2015, and I started to notice the flip from | liberalism to illiberalism around 2012-2013. I still remember | how weird it was the first time I heard someone on Memegen | say that due process (ie, trying to understand whether a | complaint occurred) was a legal constraint that Google didn't | need to adhere to when adjudicating intra-employee complaints | (eg harassing comments). | | IMO it's pretty straightforward, in Google's case at least. | They scaled wildly in terms of headcount (I think they have a | bit under 10x the headcount they had when I joined), right | when competition for the best tech employees exploded. They | obviously had to lower their bar[1] significantly to keep | growing, and they ended up scooping up masses of coastal | urban[2] midwits, precisely the population that was most | susceptible to and hit hardest by the religious awakening | that occurred in the early 2010s. A bit more speculatively, | there's some evidence that higher cognitive ability is | correlated with support for free speech[3] and other tenets | of liberalism, so any company going from a highly-selected- | for-intelligence employee base to a dumber one has a built-in | backlash against liberalism/pluralism/open-mindedness/etc. | | [1] I'm not suggesting that a binary switch was flipped, and | that I personally made it in right before they started | dumbing down their hiring. I wouldn't be surprised if the bar | was higher a few years before I joined, and I can't say | whether I would've met that bar. It's an iterative process | that sped up over time and the company started to suffer the | cumulative effect in the quality of their employee body. | | [2] This isn't implying that being coastal and urban makes | you stupid. I myself am very much coastal and urban and have | been my entire life. These are just the areas that were hit | hardest by these ideologies, and "midwits" (to borrow a term | from Taleb) are fertile ground for new mass movements. | | [3] https://www.psypost.org/2020/05/higher-levels-of- | cognitive-a... | cnvml wrote: | Truth is downvoted. There are tons of people hired after | 2012 who aren't that great and survive on being political | losers. | | The politician needs a framework to control other people | and fake enforced wokeness serves that purpose quite well. | nightski wrote: | Part of it is being scared. But in the world of 24/7 | surveillance I think it's more that anything you say can | haunt you for the rest of your life. It's not OK to make | mistakes or slip up because it's captured and stored forever. | People aren't allowed to debate, learn, and change. | pianoben wrote: | Anecdotally, most of my interactions with friends has moved | offline. I wonder whether that's a broader trend, and | whether it will be sustainable? | | Like, in the same way I learned not to post personal stuff | on Livejournal (then MySpace and Facebook), will we just... | log off half the time, and treat the rest as a resume? Or | will we hole up in private discords/IRC/Matrix/etc groups? | | (* and for anyone wondering, we're all fairly left-leaning, | pro-social-justice people. we're not hiding from Cancel | Culture, we just feel more free in smaller groups.) | slver wrote: | The flip side is what exactly do you need to say that you're | silenced from saying. Our natural instinct to enter debates | and "win" them really leads otherwise smart people astray as | well. | | Let the activists yap. And you do what you want to do. | | We've evolved to speak not to win arguments, but to | coordinate our actions better. And actions still speak | loudest. | Siira wrote: | > We've evolved to speak not to win arguments, but to | coordinate | | Extraordinary generalizations require extraordinary | evidence. | [deleted] | slindz wrote: | For me, it's less about having things I need to say and | more about endlessly analyzing what I'm about to say. | | There is little, if any, forgiveness for the well- | intentioned mistakes. | tick_tock_tick wrote: | College's changed; It used to be free speech focused with | debates and exposure to a wide set of ideas being seen as | critical to a well rounded education. Now you can't even get | vaguely controversial speakers on campus. | | Tech workers tend to be younger so the more recent changes to | the political views of colleges effect them first. | | Hell famous comedians won't even preform at college campuses | anymore: https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/jerry- | seinfeld-reve... | pope_meat wrote: | ...I laughed. | | Billionaire Jerry Seinfeld can't seem to relate to the kids | these days, blames the kids. | throwkeep wrote: | A couple points... | | College campuses are where you are supposed to be | confronted with challenging ideas and different | perspectives. That's one of their great gifts. But even | mainstream Jerry Seinfeld, who created one of the most | popular sitcoms of all time and doesn't even swear, is | now considered too controversial? | | It's not just him. Dave Chappelle and many other | comedians have been saying the same thing about college | audiences. | pope_meat wrote: | You living in the wrong decade still. | | Jerry Seinfeld was relevant in the 90s, and Chappelle in | the 2000s. | | Jerry keeps dating 18 year old girls, and Chappelle can't | seem to restrain himself from shitting on trans folks. | | Sorry, these heroes suck. | slibhb wrote: | People are going to love Jerry forever because of the | sitcom. His standup isn't a big hit with the kids these | days but everyone still knows the sitcom. | | Chappelle is one of the biggest comics alive. The people | who are bothered by trans jokes are a small, humorless | minority. | delecti wrote: | The problem with trans jokes is there's basically only | one of them that most comedians tell. It's just degrees | of incredulity about the variety of things that people | identify as. | | Patton Oswalt's version got chuckles out of me though. | His take was basically "I'm on your side, I'm just old | and don't know what you're talking about", which is at | least poking fun at the incredulity, rather than the | variety. | pstuart wrote: | Had to google it, but he delivered. | pstuart wrote: | I have a good sense of humor. Making fun of a group that | is persecuted is not funny to me because I don't find | anything amusing about taunting the disenfranchised. | | So tell me so good trans jokes and change my mind, eh? | [deleted] | type0 wrote: | All the trans people I know actually like his jokes, it | seems that you are living in a wrong decade that doesn't | exist. | dragonwriter wrote: | > Jerry keeps dating 18 year old girls | | AFAIK, he is only know to have done that once (and they | first met and went out, though Seinfeld said later that | they weren't "dating" yet, when she was 17, not 18.) | ryantgtg wrote: | Plus this was in 1993. So "keep" is inaccurate here, | unless this person has additional data to provide. | raclage wrote: | Consider that maybe people agree that being confronted | with challenging ideas and perspectives is valuable but | they don't find the same value in Jerry Seinfeld's comedy | as they do in, say, a lecture by someone with radical | beliefs. | MrRadar wrote: | Are people on college campuses generally clamoring to see a | standup routine from Jerry Seinfeld? As the article points | out, he's 66 years old and his humor is self-described as | "observational". Maybe today's college students just don't | connect to the observations of someone two generations | older than them? | flavius29663 wrote: | It's one thing to not enjoy his humor, it's another to | make it such that nobody can enjoy it. | delecti wrote: | But why perform for an audience full of people who won't | enjoy it? In my experience, performances hosted at | colleges overwhelmingly attract audiences of students. | It's nobody's fault that his humor doesn't land with that | audience, but it is his fault that he's blaming the | students for it. | btilly wrote: | Read https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles- | Ideol.... Then read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_ | Ideological_Echo_Ch... for what happened when a Google | engineer wrote that. | | Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Damore, he | was engaged in free speech. What he said is supported by a | significant body of research and researchers. (And opposed by | others - as it often the case on controversial topics.) | | And yet, he was fired and made an example of. Anyone who | publicly says that he had a point got shot down both within | companies like Google, and on various discussion forums like | this one. | | I don't know how or when we lost tolerance for free speech, | both as an industry and as a society. But the Damore incident | is when I realized that we have. | Miner49er wrote: | I don't think this is anything new for society. Companies | have always fired people for going against the company too | much or in the wrong way. | raclage wrote: | I don't understand why Damore is the hill people are always | trying to die on. He didn't publish that in the marketplace | of ideas. He sent it to his coworkers, using company | resources, on company time. Your workplace has never been a | free speech bastion. | | Any person may or may not like that but it's been true | forever so I'm not sure how it indicates that free speech | is now in some sort of novel danger. | ravel-bar-foo wrote: | Have you read the Damore memo? It is fundamentally about | how Google should increase diversity, given the data | showing that most women are choosing to not go into | engineering-like fields, rather than being forced out of | them. | | It's a corporate policy proposal, and it was posted to a | private internal board of people interested in how to | shape Google corporate policy to increase diversity. Sort | of a workgroup. In a sane world, that's exactly the sort | of workplace discussion one would want. | dgs_sgd wrote: | It's because he published a memo pertinent to a hot topic | at the company and rather than engage him on the merits | of his ideas leadership decided to fire him. Is it | unsettling that the employees at a company with a global | monopoly on information retrieval seem to not tolerate | dissent within their ranks? | dgs_sgd wrote: | The irony of the response to that memo, and to cancel | culture more widely, is that reasonable people who read it | and don't agree with everything it says, but at least agree | that some of it is worthy of discussion, are more likely to | be radicalized than side with the cancelers. The diversity | and inclusion mob is tolerant of diversity only when it | satisfies their narrow definition of what that is. | RC_ITR wrote: | >I don't know how or when we lost tolerance for free speech | | I think you're confusing lost tolerance for free speech | with 'raising the value of the speech of traditionally | marginalized groups.' | | A man at Atari in 1976 who argues women are worse engineers | than men mostly broadcasts to an audience of empowered men | and disempowered women. So his 'free speech' is respected | while those women's is not. | | A man at Google in 2018 who argues the same thing has to | deal with the consequences of women's speech, but to him, | that feels like a chilling of his free speech. | | I'm fine that we are in scenario 2, having listened to a | lot of other ill-informed white men give heir 'opinion' on | things for no true reason. | cnwq wrote: | LOL, disempowered women in 1976. The real student revolts | took place in 1968-1970 and produced hippies, free love, | another instance of feminism (second wave I believe). | | It was probably a better time for being a woman in CS | than now, with disingenuous bros paying lip service to | SJW causes in order to keep their > 250,000 salaries | while not having a clue. | btilly wrote: | Honest question. Have you ever actually read the memo? | | If you have, please tell me what passage makes you think | that it says that women are worse engineers than men. | Because as far as I can tell, there are none. | | The topic at hand is controversial enough WITHOUT making | up stuff about what was said. | Barrin92 wrote: | >I don't know how or when we lost tolerance for free | speech, both as an industry and as a society. But the | Damore incident is when I realized that we have. | | The tech industry was just an exception for a decade or so | because it was fairly non-corporate. Go to any conservative | law firm or traditional management and try to start a fiery | political debate, and see how that goes. There was never | any lively democratic discourse or tolerance in any | corporate environment, or any other private environment for | that matter, ask any gay person that's older than 25 and | doesn't live in a liberal state. George Carlin made a | career of saying 'shit' on television, that's how free- | wheeling discourse was. | | Also as a sidenote on that Damore debacle, he got canned | because of his presentation. You can cite 100 studies, when | you start to argue that women drop out of high stress jobs | because they're neurotic you might as well commit seppuku. | He should have passed that manifesto by someone who isn't | on the spectrum because anyone could have seen that | trainwreck coming a mile away. | pseudalopex wrote: | I know several people on the autism spectrum. They say | Damore was an asshole. It frustrates them so many | neurotypical people casually equate those things. | btilly wrote: | I know people with every combination of on/off the autism | spectrum, who like/dislike Damore. Given that, anecdotes | from any particular perspective aren't very telling. | pseudalopex wrote: | It isn't about liking or disliking Damore. It's about | respecting the social intelligence of other people on the | autism spectrum. | type0 wrote: | He got canned because his work place was not-inclusive to | people on the spectrum despite of the big G claiming | otherwise. | cynicalkane wrote: | > You can cite 100 studies, when you start to argue that | women drop out of high stress jobs because they're | neurotic you might as well commit seppuku. | | I mean, you could characterize this as a problematic | _presentation_ , but I'm not sure I'd say presentation is | the problem with that sort of statement. | DSingularity wrote: | The authors underlying point is that factoring in traits | of the population -- as described statistically and not | anecdotally - is the way to make social structures more | inclusive. | | For example, let's say that statistically it was | discovered to be that more women prioritize work-life | balance over all else. Let's also assume that you want | women to feel included in that little "meritocracy" you | created. Is it more or less inclusive that your corporate | strategy for promoting favored women who sacrificed their | work life balance by working on weekend? | | Show me what is wrong with this line of thinking. | goldenchrome wrote: | For people like Damore, the hardest part of being on the | spectrum is encountering non-autistic people. | [deleted] | [deleted] | chmod600 wrote: | Let's say, for the sake of argument, that all the people | doing the canceling are right and all the people being | canceled are wrong. | | Cancel culture will make racism and sexism _worse_. Even | the most well-intentioned will fail to learn when they are | afraid of expressing the wrong answer. | | Try to teach someone mathematics where every time they get | the wrong answer, they get shocked. Not a good learning | environment. | | And that's exactly what we have now. Repeat a few buzzwords | and you are safe. But when problems manifest in a new way, | you won't be able to understand or correct them because you | don't really understand. | | Being wrong is part of the path to being right. If you are | cancelled for being wrong, you'll never be right. You'll | just have to be quiet. | tasty_freeze wrote: | > Try to teach someone mathematics where every time they | get the wrong answer, they get shocked. Not a good | learning environment. | | The problem with the analogy is that the underlying | assumption is that the people learning math want to know | the truth and are acting in good faith even when they get | the wrong answer. | | On the other hand, there are people, powerful people, who | push ideas that don't care about the truth. Here is a | specific example. As the Republican nominee in 2016, | Donald Trump tweeted that 81% of white murder victims | were killed by black people. This is *wildly* wrong. When | he was corrected, he didn't send out a correction, he | didn't even remove the old tweet. The point is he was | sending a message to his target audience that made them | feel a certain way, and that was his goal ... not | communicating the truth. | | https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/nov/23/donald- | tru... | chmod600 wrote: | Politicians who are crafting policy are certainly a | different category. | | Many well-intentioned people do get stuff wrong when it | comes to racism or sexism. It's a complex topic with | shifting definitions and evolving standards. | | 100 years ago, academia was at the forefront of racism | due to some flawed philosophies and bad science. Should | we really expect the average layperson to be ahead of | those scholars just because some time has passed and they | hear "racism is bad" a thousand times? No. The education | needs to happen, and being wrong is a starting place. | | There's also been a general failure by academia to | explain modern racial concepts. Many people don't | understand why it's OK to discriminate against asians in | college admissions, for instance. | btilly wrote: | Yes. | | The scariest thing about Trump is not that he lied like | crazy. It is that he really had an audience, and that | audience is reasonably close to half the country. If | you're a progressive, it is worth spending some time | thinking about how to reach out to and get support from | that half of the country. Because attempting to govern | without them is a guaranteed disaster. | rootusrootus wrote: | That ship has sailed. The progressives have been playing | the strategy 'if we just follow the rules of the game, | eventually they will play along'. But the populists | completely threw out the rulebook a number of years ago, | they no longer want to play the same game. And now there | is a new breed of younger progressives coming into power | who recognize that and also want to throw out the | rulebook. Interesting times coming. | pstuart wrote: | > Being wrong is part of the path to being right | | Only if one is willing to acknowledge being wrong. I'm | not seeing that here. | AlexTWithBeard wrote: | Even more interesting exercise. | | Let's assume - for the sake of the argument - scientists | have managed to scientifically prove some unpopular | theory. Pick your favorite one: working women do not | benefit the society, some races are smarter on average | than others or - god forbid - vaccines cause autism. | | What's next? What are we going to do with these results? | | P. S. And for those looking to reply "this cannot happen | because it can never happen" - remember, this is just a | mental exercise. | crocktucker wrote: | > Being wrong is part of the path to being right. If you | are cancelled for being wrong, you'll never be right. | You'll just have to be quiet. | | Well put. | kingsuper20 wrote: | >Cancel culture will make racism and sexism worse. | | I completely agree with that. | | Just to keep an eye on matters, and you never know how | you need to set up your life going forward, lately I've | made an attempt to eavesdrop on snatches of private | conversations. | | I'm blown away by how radicalized people are becoming, | and not in a way that progressives would like. Formerly, | these people were essentially indifferent. Now, not so | much. | mrbadideas wrote: | Yes 10000x. | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Something is asymmetrical here. Those who cancel are also | communicating things. Why don't _they_ face pushback from what | _they_ say? Why don 't _they_ face consequences? | RIMR wrote: | They do face consequences. Turn on Fox News for 5 minutes and | you're bound to hear some talking head spreading alarmist | narratives about cancel culture. Social Justice minded people | get doxxed and dragged through the mud for their speech every | day. | | You seem to be complaining that "those who cancel" aren't | being stripped of their voices. That's not a valid complaint | if you care about free speech. | | Free speech means you can say whatever you want about | anything you like. It also means, that after hearing what you | have to say, I can say whatever I like about you and your | opinions. I can disagree with you just as much as you can | disagree with me. | | Disagreement isn't censorship, it's free speech. Social | consequences are a natural counterpart to speaking your mind. | People are allowed to draw lines, judge you, and cut you out | of their lives for what you say. | | Free speech applies to everyone with a voice, not just you. | Censorship is when you aren't allowed to speak, not just | simply facing consequences for what you choose to say. | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Let's say I post something online. And let's say that 100 | people decide, not just that they disagree, but that they | want to destroy me. They send anonymous rants and threats | to my employer, my family, my neighbors, and my friends. | They dox me, so that I have to worry about physical harm | from any random nutcase who agrees with them and decides to | bother. | | What consequences do they face? Does anyone go to _their_ | boss (times 100) and say, what this person is doing isn 't | right, and is making your company look bad? Does anyone dox | the doxxers? | | I'm not saying it doesn't happen to Social Justice types. | I'm saying, whoever it's done to, do the people doing it | face consequences of their own? (If the Social Justice | types are doing this themselves, then in their case the | answer is yes.) | | It's easy for a group of 100 angry people to cover one | person they decide to destroy. It's less easy for the one | person to return the favor to all 100 of them. | js8 wrote: | Power perpetuates itself through incomplete information; | that's the asymmetry you're looking for. | | Those who cancel often mindlessly repeat emotional lies, in | anger. It takes lot more effort to engage somebody on cool, | rational level. | ben_w wrote: | Likewise. A few weeks ago someone took enough of an exception | to me writing _here_ that (COVID) masks are trivial that they | went to my blog and vented quite unpleasantly. I know others | who have had it much worse than me. | throwaway6734 wrote: | >They have panic attacks over the guilt and stress | | They should get off of twitter | jimbokun wrote: | And there you have self censorship at work! | emsy wrote: | It's not self censorship, it's mental hygiene. | ben_w wrote: | It can be both, depending on the why. Leaving Twitter has | been great for me, but I didn't leave it because someone | was threatening me. I do know someone who left Twitter | for that reason. | kbelder wrote: | Soon, nobody will be left on twitter but lunatics and | journalists. But I repeat myself. | throwaway6734 wrote: | Does avoiding 4chan also count as self censorship? | malwrar wrote: | Politicians, journalists, academics, every celebrity | ever, etc aren't on 4chan (or at least trying to have | serious conversations there). This isn't a good | comparison. | throwaway6734 wrote: | There are multiple other places to get news and academic | information from. | malwrar wrote: | Twitter is the public square more than it a news source. | The effects of loud voices there lead to global, real | world change. Journalists talk to and police each other | there. Celebrities influence millions of people there, | enough to where people pay them to tweet certain things | advantageous to them ("buy these cool Nike shoes!"). | | 4chan is an anonymous, interest-based forum that is more | or less irrelevant to most non-internet people. | throwaway6734 wrote: | >Twitter is the public square more than it a news source | | ~20% of Americans use twitter. | (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/10/share- | of-u-...) | | There's definitely some influence there, but the | twitter's importance and impact on the world is severely | overhyped. | Sophistifunk wrote: | Nobody has tried to have a serious conversation on | Twitter in 5 years. It's nothing but performance of your | team allegiance. | nebula8804 wrote: | >Accounts - can't stay anonymous, ml systems working around the | clock to identify posters. | | Really? Thats fascinating! Anything you can provide that gives | more insight into this? Has anyone written about this practice? | f1refly wrote: | There was a post here a few days ago that would analyze your | hn comments and output the most identical looking other | accounts. Lots of people wrote it output their alts and | throwaways. | floxy wrote: | It looks like this was that article: | | Show HN: Find Your Hacker News Doppelganger | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27568709 | eeZah7Ux wrote: | > backfired because their skin is the wrong colour or they | aren't trans | | Are cis/white people are often discriminated against? | leetcrew wrote: | yes? isn't this why racism is defined as "power + prejudice"? | anyone can be prejudiced for or against a particular race, | but only some people are in a position to do something about | it. | mkr-hn wrote: | I don't think anyone escapes some kind of discrimination in | such a deeply toxic society. It's maybe less obvious for cis, | straight, white, and otherwise Default people, but it does | happen. The material effects are usually not as severe as | they are for anyone else. | dangus wrote: | > They go quiet or form a tiny invite only groups to hide after | an attempt to do something good that backfired because their | skin is the wrong colour or they aren't trans. They have panic | attacks over the guilt and stress | | This right here is your indicator that this comment is an | entirely made up story about hypothetical friends, with the | sole intention of ragging on "liberals." | | Basically, it's contrarian conservatism that criticizes not- | very-controversial values (e.g., general equality) for | incredibly vague reasons. | | It's even more ignorant than plain old bigotry because it's so | devoid of ideology. It's just contrarianism for the sake of not | doing what the "liberals" do. | | The anti-masking movement of 2020 is the perfect demonstration | of that contrarian ideology. Conservatives don't even know why | they oppose masks except that the liberals were putting them | on. | | It's pretty sad considering that the first two sentences about | ML and online identity were relatively productive conversation | that could have gone somewhere thought provoking. | tomjen3 wrote: | The trick to avoid getting found out online is to change small, | irrelevant details. Then, when they try to dox you, they will | be chasing a phantasm. | | The NSA already knows, but they don't care about that. | devenblake wrote: | > They go quiet or form a tiny invite only groups to hide after | an attempt to do something good that backfired because their | skin is the wrong colour or they aren't trans. | | It really sounds like they accidentally offended someone, the | person who was offended was so much so that they couldn't | communicate why they were offended, and then your friends | misinterpreted the issue. | tick_tock_tick wrote: | That's an odd reading of what they described. It sounds more | like there friends did something good in the world but were | told to sit-down and shut-up because they were the wrong | race/gender/x. | devenblake wrote: | Yes, it sounds that way, but the event you (and they) | describe has never happened. | CapmCrackaWaka wrote: | That seems like a pretty ignorant thing to say, that in | the sum of all human interactions online, the event OP | described has never happened (or is even supposedly that | rare). I would like to know why you think that would be | true. | mdoms wrote: | There's a good example of just this thing happening right | here[0]. A group of young climate activists disbanded | because despite the good work they were doing they | decided their group was too top-loaded with white people | and should be led by POC. | | [0] https://www.facebook.com/schoolstrike4climateauckland | /posts/... | [deleted] | malwrar wrote: | It certainly exists and I truly envy the fact it hasn't | affected your life yet. n=1 but it's affected mine as a | recent college graduate and person who works in FAANG. | klyrs wrote: | Telling somebody to sit down and shut up is an exercise of | free speech. | RIMR wrote: | If you try to speak for the Black community, and you aren't | black, you don't have the "wrong color of skin", you are | speaking for others without their permission, and they have the | right to correct the record if they consider your take to be | inaccurate. | | If you try to speak for the trans community, and you aren't | trans, you aren't being censored, you are being rebutted. Trans | people have the right to correct the record when someone speaks | on their behalf in a disagreeable way. | | Anyone who sees disagreement as a form of censorship needs to | take a step back and recognize that the right to disagree is an | important facet of free speech, and attempting to defeat things | like "cancel culture" and other vocal forms of public | disagreement is a demonstrably larger threat to free speech | than anything the social justice community could ever dish out. | | Censorship is largely being redefined as experiencing | consequences for what one says. This is an extraordinarily | cowardly misrepresentation of censorship, that tries to | redefine free speech as _your_ speech, and tries to force the | narrative that disagreement with _your_ speech is actually | stripping you of the right to speak. | | Sure, public shaming and doxxing may have a chilling effect on | many people's willingness to speak freely, but a lack | individual willingness is not equivalent to a lack of | permission. | | Free speech requires bravery. If you are too much of a coward | to speak freely, you aren't being censored, you're just a | coward afraid of others' free speech. | deregulateMed wrote: | Yeah I think anonymous accounts get a bad reputation and it's | unfortunate. | | Fake bought accounts have a good rep. | nine_k wrote: | Theocracy may be bad, but an aggressively religious society is | worse. | | Religious here means that certain things are articles of faith, | and any attempt to discuss them in any way, let alone disagree | with them, gets you marked as an enemy who needs to be driven | away and stripped of any respect or role in society. | | I won't even say it's the majority that's so aggressive. But | the majority of people who are somehow active in the society | and thus visible outside the circle of their family and | coworkers, either actively or passively agree. Either they | share the faith (many do), or they don't want trouble. | | What good is the First Amendment if citizens themselves see | free speech as a dangerous transgression? | Zababa wrote: | The big difference is that religion usually believes in some | kind of forgiveness and repentance. I can't say I see the | same things in the current society. | bilbo0s wrote: | There is no difference. I've heard that Islam and | Christianity, as _religions_ , are good and forgiving. I've | also witnessed the behavior of actual muslims and | christians. I would not call these people good. I certainly | wouldn't call them forgiving. | | My feeling is that the poster is on the right track. | Ideological groups, (not trying to pick on politics, but | they are usually political ideologues), have become the new | pseudo-religions. As people in the West have fallen away | from church, we've witnessed the rise of ideologue | communities on the right and left. | | You can't argue with them. You can't question them. Some | want to kill off half the people in the country. Others | want draconian control over the other half. | | And people are surprised that the only option available to | a reasonable person is to opt-out? | | If anything, I think people are being shortsighted in | viewing the threat. For some people in the US, this | ideology war is not only about a right to speech, it can | come down to a right to live. Those people have to oppose | the ideologues, or die. | | I don't claim to know the solution, I do know that it's a | tough, tough problem. | UnpossibleJim wrote: | Just like with any belief system, there are many more | moderates than zealots. The problem is, zealots help the | leaders of those belief systems gain more power. | Moderates, for the most part, just want things to keep | working and not to feel the lash on their back. When the | zealots can't let this happen and the powers that be lose | control of the zealots, that's usually when revolution | happens =( | unyttigfjelltol wrote: | The structure of a revolution-- it usually begins when the | rabble acts up and no authority is willing or able to stop | them. So, 1 out of 1,000 users seek quasi-religious | vengeance on Twitter and the mechanisms that used to inform | the other 999 don't work. The NYT picks up toxic views of | the rabble and reports them as mainstream, which the rabble | have converted to a weapon in itself. | | Most revolutions I've read about, large and small consist | of an authentic breakdown in or reorganization of, society. | Here and now, seems like we're actually discussing an | antifeature of manufactured social technologies combined | with capture or weakening of traditional media. | nine_k wrote: | I think you mischaracterize these people as "rabble". | Many of the vocal "woke" figures are highly educated, | highly intellectual, and well-off. Professors, top | business officers, high-achieving scientists, writers, | engineers. | | They do it _not_ because they are stupid, for they are | not. They truly believe that what they do is right, that | it 's the shining path to the better future. | thaumasiotes wrote: | > I think you mischaracterize these people as "rabble". | Many of the vocal "woke" figures are highly educated, | highly intellectual, and well-off. Professors, top | business officers, high-achieving scientists, writers, | engineers. | | That is the actual structure of a revolution. Your parent | comment is misguided; revolutions that aren't led by | elites are rare and, when they occur, generally don't go | anywhere. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_Revolt | type0 wrote: | And most of the worlds biggest atrocities has also been | done on "the shining path to the better future". | nine_k wrote: | Exactly my reference :( | nine_k wrote: | Repentance -- yes, galore, it's exactly the expexted action | from the one accused of transsgression. Write a long blog | post condemning the bitter mistake, step out from your | post, if you have any. | | But on the banner on this religion is not Love, but | Justice. So, forgiveness is hard to obtain. It takes either | converting into a zealot, or hiding in oblivion. "If God | were to show justice instead of His endless grace, we would | all end up in Hell", wrote one medieval theologician. | | This whole thing is thoroughly medieval, if you look at it | at a certain angle. While declaring that it stands for | progress, it rejects the values of the Enlightenment much | more deeply than many alt-right philosophers who flaunt | this rejection. | | If you ever wondered what highly westernized Iran might | look like before the revolution, this may provide a | glimpse. Feeling righteous and rejecting doubt is a | powerful and addictive drug :( | Zababa wrote: | Do you have the source for the quote of the medieval | theologian? It's very interesting. | nine_k wrote: | Apparently it was Isaac of Niveneh, a Middle Eastern | Christian theoligian from 7th century: | https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/st-isaac-the- | syrian... | | I think Christ himself pushes this view in a number of | fables and sermons, right in the canonical gospels. | Zababa wrote: | Thanks. | mkr-hn wrote: | It's always the loudest few. I've read takes from | conservatives in favor of BLM, racial justice, queer rights, | etc _from_ conservative principles. The "conservatives" who | go feral over any queer representation in media or even | discussing reparations probably don't represent the majority | numerically, but the silence of the rest (probably out of | fear) makes it hard to say they aren't, essentially, | representatives. | | I try to do right from my "side," but sometimes it's scary | when popular checkmarked people on Twitter call for genocides | of "red" states, where I happen to live, to thunderous | applause. | nine_k wrote: | I personally am entirely fine with queer people (some of my | closest relatives and friends are queer), I think that | racism is wrong due to many reasons, and certainly I'm | totally fine with immigrants because this is how America | came to be and later became great. | | What I see as troubling is the "cancel culture", the force | of the righteous mob. I believe that a society with more | justice and grace than we have now can be built entirely | without it, and that the intolerant fighters for inclusion | and tolerance make the prospects of building such a society | weaker. | | You can't force people to be just, loving, and caring. You | can force them feign that, but I suppose you very well | understand how fraught such a society would be. There is a | number of historical examples, all sad. | mkr-hn wrote: | At the risk of self-promotion, I found some cause for | empathy for the crusader types when writing about the | subject: | | "They're mostly people whose elders, the people who might | guide them to a fierce but strategic advocacy, were | murdered by police or mob violence, thrown in prison for | bullshit reasons, or allowed to die in a plague. If you | can bring empathy for the guy who got fired from Google | for circulating a paper that made his colleagues | uncomfortable, you can bring it for people who are | dealing with a strange world with no one to talk to who | gets what they're going through." | | https://viewfinderfox.com/history-is-canceled/ | | This is the part where I'd anticipate a crusader type | accusing me of infantalizing people if I were on Twitter. | I don't think it's entirely people who have no guidance + | people taking up their cause (often without asking), but | I think it's a large part of it. Some of it, maybe most | of it, is Well-Meaning Allies causing a lot of noise | while not listening to the people they're trying to help. | I had a cis woman on Twitter lecture _me_ on nonbinary | identity because she didn 't realize I was describing my | own experience. I think that type is what most people get | annoyed at, and sometimes their anger/fear has splash | damage on people who didn't ask for that help. | nine_k wrote: | Indeed. The fury of revenge is totally understandable, | but also not very constructive; it did a lot of sad | things throughout history. | | The founders of great spiritual movements, Buddha, | Christ, Muhammad, all warned against revenge and called | for forgiveness (even though Quran calls more to the due | process and justice while gospels call to radical | forgiveness). This is easy to understand rationally: a | society with a lot of revenge keeps killing itself and | keeps nurturing cruelty. Such societies tend to not | survive for long. | | I'm very sorry for all the Black, queer, Jewish, Arabian, | East Asian, etc people who were victims of bitter | oppression. I adore those of them who struggle for | justice, cessation of oppression, peace, and | reconciliation with the rest of the society. But I would | not join those of them who strive for a war and a | revenge. | | Fighting against a powerful enemy, it's important to be | watchful and not become the enemy's mirror image. I hope | the people among them who possess more wisdom and | compassion will eventually help most of them choose a | better path. | [deleted] | kradeelav wrote: | This is possibly a unique angle, but by being in taboo art | circles (erotic art specifically), I'm struck at how much I see | this topic resonating with my fellow artists. | | I know so many, _too_ many, far more than I can count on my hands | who have simply given up posting kink art because they keep | getting mobbed, doxxed, slandered, and harassed simply by posting | art (or seeing their friends getting shredded as well). I know so | many that have forced to bounce from platform to platform from | instagram to tumblr to twitter because either the algorithm | censors you or the mob abuses the "report user" button if they | simply don't care for your art. | | I know so many who have had to host on friend's servers because | big-name hosts ban erotic art and kinks in tiny print in the TOS | and it's just not worth it to fucking bounce from host to host | unless if it's an actual friend who supports true artistic | freedom. | | I know so many who are winding up in making zines as a last | resort, because zines can be printed at the home computer, so | they're one of the last truly uncensored artistic mediums in | comparison to the internet. And yet - how many trailblazing | artists have we lost from that crushing top-down censorship even | with that one meager avenue open? | | So yes, this is relevant and urgent, and in more ways than it | appears. | username91 wrote: | "Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter" are not moral highgrounds for | free speech - they're engagement-driven platforms that thrive on | drama and conflict. | | Posting on these platforms is not real human communication. | | If you can't calm down and remove yourself from an online | argument before posting something that is almost guaranteed to be | misunderstood, you're not evading self-censorship, you're feeding | an addiction. | | I'm probably doing it right now. | tsegratis wrote: | Powerful comment on how we cancel ourselves, before we let others | do it to us | | -- | | Just observing today my favourited and most impactful (to me) | articles on HN were all flagged | | Why do we do this to ourselves? | paganel wrote: | What articles were those? Was on my phone for most of the day | (i.e. not in front of my work desktop) and I couldn't catch | them as easily. | tick_tock_tick wrote: | Because most people don't want to be tracked down, harassed, or | forced out of their job because they said something someone | took as offensive to the wrong people. | | People use twitter as their personal army and no one is worse | than people who think they are morally just. | | C.S. Lewis articulates this well. | https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/19967-of-all-tyrannies-a-ty... | RIMR wrote: | Free speech includes calling your employer and telling them | what you said online. | | Your employer doesn't have to listen or do anything about it. | Should they choose to fire you, it's because whatever you | said online was deemed worth firing you for. | | If the things you want to say online could get you fired, | find a new job before opening your mouth. If you like your | job, don't do things that will get you fired. | | Free speech doesn't mean that people have to be forced to | tolerate what you say. If your words make it to your | employer's ears, and they decide to terminate your | employment, that's because your employer no longer views your | employment as worthwhile, which is entirely their choice to | make. | | Most of America is at-will employment. If you want to | establish the right to work, fight for that - otherwise, | accept that your employment comes with certain terms. | goat_whisperer wrote: | This is pretty rich. I'd argue the worst kind of censorship is | getting murdered/disappeared by a totalitarian government for | speaking out against them. Kind of like what happens to critics | of Putin, Snowden's current patron. But hey, I guess getting some | mean tweets directed at you is pretty bad too. | | Anyone appreciate the irony that Snowden's posts are probably | monitored/vetted by the KGB? | neonate wrote: | https://outline.com/TeXdAx | [deleted] | type0 wrote: | Here's a good and poignant clip about "mail snooping" from Little | Murders (1971): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g16InStip5k | overgard wrote: | I think we need to let go of the idea that offending people is | harmful. It's fine to take offense, we are all free to do that, | but I don't think there should be any expectation that people do | anything to avoid offending you other than practicing basic | civility. You are likely not harmed just because I believe | something different from you. Frankly, if you feel like you need | a safe space to hide from ideas that you disagree with, the world | is too sharp for you to handle. | RIMR wrote: | On that same note, if you decide to express offensive views, | you should be willing to accept the social backlash for doing | so. | | Your right to speak isn't infringed by allowing others to | exercise their own right to speak against you. | | Letting go of the idea that offending people is harmful is | probably a good thing, but you will also need to let go of the | idea that people aren't permitted to be offended by what you | say. | | If you cannot accept the consequence of offending others, you | should keep your mouth shut. Free speech doesn't mean you get | to say whatever you want and hear nothing in return. | dooglius wrote: | Snowden's publisher was sued and prevented from paying him for | the work. What's the deal with the paid subscription option then? | Will substack end up just pocketing the money, or is there some | legal workaround? For that matter, could the government try and | go after any paying subscribers? | mkr-hn wrote: | Stripe probably has better lawyers with more experience dealing | with payments than the publisher. They might even be the same | lawyers Substack has since they're both YC companies. | vorpalhex wrote: | Not sure about substack, but usually the Fed won't chase small | time subscribers. They are more likely to yank the money at the | payment processor. | theshrike79 wrote: | This is why I delete all my old tweets, posts and comments on all | sites with a passing link to my actual profile. | | Nothing good has ever become of people's old tweets popping up | years later. Ever. | | I think HN has the longest history of my comments, just because | it's not possible to delete or anonymize comments without | creating a bunch of throwaway accounts. | 11thEarlOfMar wrote: | "I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what | makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn't | believe anything." | | - David St. Hubbins | zuminator wrote: | In one sense, I'd argue that the feeling of censorship is | misguided. People are more free to communicate now with a larger | audience than ever before in history. Before if you had something | controversial to say, unless you were an extremely well-known | academic or politician, it didn't get any further than your | barstool or bridge club. Now your thoughts can be instantly | transmitted to an audience of literally millions. Ideas are being | hyper-amplified, not hyper-suppressed. | | However, it comes with a catch. In pre-Internet days, when your | verbal blurts potentially reached dozens, you felt fairly free | and unimpeded to reach the limits of your communication bubble, | tiny as it was. Even if you were roundly condemned, the area of | effect was likely small and the duration transitory. Now that | your verbal blurts can reach millions, so many more people can | take issue with your words, and they remain part of your dreaded | "permanent record" forever. Consequently the stakes have become | much higher. Speech doesn't feel free and unimpeded, even though | in practice structural impediments have been greatly reduced. | | It seems to me unfortunately that the lowering of structural | impediments to communication ineluctably goes hand in hand with | the raising of social impediments. People are becoming cautious | because we simply can't take for granted that any speech we | generate will stay safely within its intended audience. Private | emails can be dredged up years later. Screenshots can be taken | without our knowledge. Phones can record videos of us saying and | doing things we thought were personal and confidential. | Information just wanted to be free, and got its wish, but it's | turned people into prisoners in a panopticon. My point being, | these are two sides of the same coin. Blaming "Marxism" or | "cancel culture" and the like isn't going to change that fact. | raclage wrote: | I think this is a good analysis and I think too few people | consider it this way. I'm not convinced that changes in culture | are driving this as much as changes in how information is | shared and spread and I'm disappointed how few people, even on | Hacker News, seem interested in this angle. | ckemere wrote: | When I think back to the me of my teenage years or early | twenties, I recognize that I had many strong beliefs that were | probably wrong. I think that modern requirements of self- | censorship have at least one really valuable outcome. They force | people (with jobs, reputations, etc) to think carefully before | posting online. I suspect that many people may be like me - they | are hesitant to click "add comment" not out of fear of having a | mob come after them, but rather because (a) they have realized | that their own current opinions may be wrong, and recognize that | there is harm that comes from an abundance of wrong opinions or | (b) the cost in time of careful self-editing is too high. Maybe | the author of this piece would argue that this is a bad thing, | but my impression is that it's almost universally the case that | if you can't be careful in speaking/writing there will usually be | less harm from silence than from blurting out whatever comes to | mind immediately. | overgard wrote: | Conversely though, if you're afraid to express an opinion that | may be incorrect, then you're likely to hold that opinion much | longer because nobody will be there to tell you you're wrong. | waterhouse wrote: | There are plenty of people that cheerfully post extreme | opinions, even under their own names on Facebook. I get the | impression that these people are some combination of: | reckless/impulsive, in a social bubble, "got nothing to lose", | or not very careful thinkers. I think that the effect of more | careful and cautious thinkers self-selecting out of the | conversation is often just to make the conversation dominated | by the above sorts of people, and I don't think that's an | improvement. | haecceity wrote: | Free Snowden. Free Hong Kong. Why do we care more about Hong Kong | than Snowden? Snowden needs to work on his marketing. | thekyle wrote: | > Why do we care more about Hong Kong than Snowden? | | Well, Hong Kong is an entire city of people, while Snowden is | just one guy. | cortesoft wrote: | Are you seriously asking why we care about 7.5 million people | more than we care about one person? | runbathtime wrote: | We can't say the truth/opinion about certain topics because it | will offend certain people and the mob will exert its power to | take something from you by threatening you or an employer. | | Could it be considered blackmail to get someone fired from their | job for outing something they said to an employer? | captainoats wrote: | Blackmail as a crime requires the blackmailer trying to get | money or something of value out of their victim to prevent them | from exposing some sensitive information. Would be interesting | if someone could argue the outcome of cancelling someone fell | within that definition. | jfengel wrote: | The most dangerous censorship is the one that is happening to | you. | | We used to have a policy literally called "Don't Tell" in the US. | People who "told" (or were outed) were fired... assuming they | weren't killed for it, by somebody who would claim that they | "panicked" (a defense still legal in 38 states[1]). That wasn't | the most dangerous censorship. | | Women are commonly told that if they wear the wrong thing, then | they deserve to be raped. Clothes are a form of self-expression | -- but shutting that up isn't the most dangerous censorship. | | A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist was denied tenure because one | donor didn't like what she said. But that's not the most | dangerous censorship. | | We all watched a videotaped murder last year, and when the police | were sent in to beat up peaceful protesters -- including | journalists -- that wasn't the most dangerous censorship. | | A lot of censorship goes on, and has gone on. As far as I can | tell, this one rises to the level of "most dangerous censorship" | because he thinks it's the one that's happening to him. I hear | not a peep about any of the others. | | [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/virginia- | becomes-12t... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-06-22 23:01 UTC)