[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 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-10 23:00 UTC)