"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.
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.
I can easily imagine such laws in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They already exist in Australia. The consensual mass hallucination regarding those places is that they are democratic countries that profess to value free speech.
Arrested for "incitement", admittedly a vague concept that the government can do a lot with, like "disturbing the peace". But you find that kind of thing in any country, Australia is nothing special.
It's worse than most places that aren't China tier if you simply observe what happened there over the past two years, but it's true that basically the entire world with very few exceptions to lesser or greater extent really draped themselves in shame over the same period. Australia was just by far the worst of a bad bunch.
That is one of the most ridiculous articles I've ever read.[0] Maybe the most ridiculous. Please stop posting outrageous crap like that to HN, thank you. A conspiracy site and Alan Jones, as you've posted on this page, do not add value to HN. I notice almost all your comments on HN are edgy, flamebaitish political hot takes, maybe you would suit some other site better.
[0] e.g. "The Premier of the Australian state of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, has just tabled legislation in parliament which is possibly the most monstrous ever introduced into a country calling itself democratic. ...the legislation openly stamps him as a totalitarian psychopath. ...This is Australia 2021, not Germany 1935/36. Those who sneer at the comparison are deceiving themselves as the essentials are the same"...
The talking head in that video is Alan Jones, Australia's most notorious right-wing talk back radio host, or he was last time I checked. That's about as far as you can get in Australia from a reputable news source. His whole thing is stirring up ignorant lynch mobs by being inflammatory. Human flame bait.
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.
The reality though is, SCOTUS can decide to trash precedent at-will once a case is in front of them. If you put political hacks into the SCOTUS and they decide the Sedition Act is legal then its suddenly back on the table.
Actually a whole lot of us did. There are dumbasses on both the right and the left constantly trying to forcefully silence people who they don't like, and there's a rather larger group of us in the center who have been screaming bloody fucking murder about it for over a decade now, but you all keep pretending that we're inconsistent and actually just Republicans (or libtards/groomers, if you're of the other persuasion). It's maddening.
That article doesn't at all refute the fact that a ton of centrists have very reasonable beliefs and are loud about them. "Citation required" is a zero-content contribution, please go away.
Check out any state abortion laws lately? How about something called "teaching actual history?" And the best one "we didn't want to teach kids about gender differences, so now teachers are going to ignore gender entirely" in Florida.
But please, do go on about the "Bush-era evangelicals." I'm sure they've totally calmed down since then.
You're confusing opposition to the left's overreach with evangelical resurgence.
> Check out any state abortion laws lately?
This mistakenly assumes that opposition to abortion is necessarily evangelical in nature. By requiring the availability of elective second trimester abortions, Roe mandates an abortion regime that extends significantly beyond what most people can stomach. Most Americans think elective abortions should be prohibited after the first trimester: https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abort.... But highly secular countries like France, Denmark, and Finland also restrict abortions after the first trimester. Most of the developed world draws the line for elective abortions at "when the fetus has a face" and not viability like Roe does. So you will continue to see things like Mississippi's abortion law (which imposes a 15-week ban with exceptions for health of the mother and baby) regardless of the strength of the evangelical movement.
> How about something called "teaching actual history?" And the best one "we didn't want to teach kids about gender differences, so now teachers are going to ignore gender entirely" in Florida.
It's not only or even mostly evangelicals that are worked up about the effort to normalize folks like Robin Di Angelo and Ibram Kendi in schools, or to teach young children about sexuality.
On these issues, the left thinks it’s relitigating issues it previously won, but in reality they’re taking up again issues the far left lost in the 1970s: racial preferences, racial separatism, breaking down social notions of gender, etc.
> You're confusing opposition to the left's overreach with evangelical resurgence.
No, I'm not. The opposition to abortion in the evangelical community didn't begin until Republicans bundled the issue with black civil rights and trickle down economics. Both Roe and her lawyer were Southern Baptists, and there were editorials published in Baptist and Evangelical periodicals affirming the decision as the right thing. Religious opposition to abortion rights should not extend to our laws. Oklahoma just passed a 6 week bill with no exceptions for rape, so please, spare me the hand-wringing.
> It's not only or even mostly evangelicals that are worked up about the effort to normalize folks like Robin Di Angelo and Ibram Kendi in schools, or to teach young children about sexuality.
You ignored the part about "teaching actual history," which includes teaching kids about the effects of slavery and Jim Crow and how that permanently damaged minorities because it might make little white minds evaluate the damage their ancestors did and how that continues to harm minorities today. That Florida bill had nothing to do with teaching kids about sexuality, and it backfired and will continue to do so. There is zero way to word those bills that will not result in malicious compliance because they are plainly meant to be discriminatory.
> The opposition to abortion in the evangelical community didn't begin until Republicans bundled the issue with black civil rights and trickle down economics.
The opposition to abortion was an international phenomenon happening around the same time. Within a few years of Roe, high courts in Canada, Germany, Italy, and France heard abortion cases as well. All except Germany determined that it was a question for the legislature. Germany determined that legalized abortion violated the basic law. To this day, German, French, and Italian abortion laws contain several restrictions that Roe doesn’t permit, specifically limiting elective abortions to the first trimester. Those counties must be full of evangelical Baptists according to you.
> In response to a question on access to abortion and restrictions on Medicaid coverage of the procedure, [Justice] Ginsburg said, "Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe [v. Wade] was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion."
> You ignored the part about "teaching actual history,"
Virginia didn’t just vote for Glen Youngkin (including half of Asians, who are almost all in liberal northern Virginia where I grew up) because they oppose teaching “actual history.” It’s because Fairfax County paid Ibram Kendi $$$ to come lecture to teachers.
> which includes teaching kids about the effects of slavery and Jim Crow and how that permanently damaged minorities
That doesn’t sound like “history” but pseudoscience. Racist pseudoscience at that, conflating Black people with “minorities” and implying they are “permanently damaged.”
> because it might make little white minds evaluate the damage their ancestors did and how that continues to harm minorities today.
> That Florida bill had nothing to do with teaching kids about sexuality, and it backfired and will continue to do so.
The law is literally limited to “instruction” about “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Prior to fourth grade, it’s prohibited. After fourth grade, it must be “age appropriate.” If you think it’s just evangelicals that don’t teachers instructing their kids on human sexuality in third grade, you need more POC friends.
Were the artists formerly known as Dixie Chicks cancelled or did their market fragment and they chose to focus on one segment? For some, is the notoriety of "cancellation" a welcome signal of authenticity and salience to consumers? For example Prince successfully used self-cancellation as a marketing rebirth during a legal dispute.
The Dixie Chicks are joining a growing list of brands, entertainers, and artists making changes in wake of the racial justice movement happening now. Like many, they "want to meet this moment" in history, which is why the country trio will go by The Chicks from this point forward.
Gosh, this is utter nonsense. Pretty much every anti-woke person on the left was just as critical of illiberalism when the right was flexing its cultural muscles. Are you under the impression that Paul Graham was in support of post-9/11 restrictions on speech? Or that eg the comedians now complaining about cancel culture were totally cool with people losing their jobs for insufficient "patriotism"? For God's sake, Bill Maher lost his show under precisely the same norms that he criticizes now, except that the illiberalism at the time was right-coded.
Are you so unable to conceive of a person holding a principle that you need to create an alternate timeline to resolve the cognitive dissonance? It's always truly horrifying to be reminded that people like this exist.
He still gave a presentation, it just wasn't on his stupid "anti-vaxxers are just like Nazi Germany" nonsense that was beneath both him and the university.
Restrictions to free speech used to be in place to protect the Most Powerful - the Kings (still do - in places where there are kings), The Party, even The Government (in places where democracy is but a sham)
In Western democratic nations, new restrictions to free speech are being considered to protect the Most Marginalized - the most weakest, most discriminated against, lowest represented members of society.
It is ludicrous to look at this movement and compare them like-for-like. There is no backsliding here, there is no slippery slope here. There is a very distinct difference between who is protected and who is exploited.
I still sense you advocating for coercive equity policies in your comment; i.e. redistribution of power from the slightly more fortunate to the slightly less fortunate but on a whim and flimsy excuses and without due process, because let's pretend for a moment that people at the very top; the one percenters would be affected by this cancel culture nonsense, it's always middle class people and every once in a while, a member of the upper middle class get devoured by the SJW monster and that's it.
You sense incorrectly. I have no qualm with democratic institutions of power. (For some reason I have to explain to people on HN that a username with 'commie' in it does not mean I'm a communist)
As long as they're actually democratic. My qualm is with oligarchies and plutocracies. A capitalist system should allow for the wealthy and it is inevitable that wealth can be used to acquire power. But political systems need to be firewalled from this MUCH more than they are in society today.
The thread is about free speech, and my comment was solely focused on speech. I'm not a free speech absolutist in way that you or Paul Graham might be, because I don't believe words and speech is like physical violence. A bullet is egalitarian. It doesn't care who fires the gun or who it's hitting, it will still do the same damage whether it's fired by a billionaire at a homeless person, or the other way around. Words are not. Words need a medium. The medium's control is asymmetrical.
But regardless of what we think about asymmetrical implications of free speech, ultimately my point was that those who's free speech we are talking about protecting shifted 180 over the last century. Pretending that is irrelevant is naive. Is there a difference between a Russian Soldier killing a Ukrainian Soldier outside of Mariupol this week, and a Ukrainian soldier killing a Russian one? Of course there is. And so there is a difference between restricting the speech of a person to criticize the government, vs restricting the speech of a government to criticize a person.
> 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
Try to give in UK an opinion regarding the State of Israel not matching the Pro-Israel lobyy diktat and you will find yourself in trouble. Ask Jackie Walker.
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.
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.
There are plenty of exceptions to freedom of speech in countries I'm familiar with. Things like advocacy of terrorism, hate speech, threats, disturbing the peace, obscenity in public, blasphemy, pornography of certain kinds, providing financial advice without a license, leaking secrets, copyright.
Edit: fraud, incitement. Who knows how many others?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Isn't a teacher being fired for being associated with the LGBTQ club at the highschool she teaches at? In Texas I think, after administrators started banning rainbow flags and stuff.
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".
> 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.
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.
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.
> The concerns were over some nudity and profanity
No, they were not. The only nudity in it were mouses. It was not erotic. It did not included ressembleable human parts. This was not about prudity, it was about excuse. It was not childish, it was cynical.
> It certainly wasn't an attempt at removing any education about the Holocaust from the curriculum, yet that it often how it was framed.
The thing about Maus is that it makes you feel bad. It is made from point of view of victim. It is not even idealizing the victims, it does not require the victim to be that great perfect person so that you feel bad about him. Maus also does not end with happy end where they lived happily ever after. It shows long term damage.
> With the author of Maus going so far to openly question whether these people might have neo-Nazi sympathies in an interview.
Did you considered looking at who those people specifically are and what other things they said or done? Or did you just rejected what he said, because it would feel bad for you if he actually was right?
I just read the minutes of the meeting[1]; it didn't support what was often said about the decision at all. Your comment is a good example of that I talked about in [2] with your rather odd "it just makes you feel bad" accusation.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
> 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.
In most US states, local governments are explicitly given power by the state government. It is not like the relationship between state and federal governments: the local governments are strictly beneath the state government.
They are not only beneath, they are organs of the state government and have no separate sovereignty of their own. They’re like wholly owned subsidiaries.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
This law is intended to provide a small number of parents with an implicit veto over what is taught within their local school districts. It does so by placing the judgement over whether a conflict is "resolved" with the parents, and then empowering those parents to initiate a legal procedure that must be paid for by the school district (in the case of a special magistrate) or specifically contemplates "damages", attorney's fees, etc, being awarded to the parent who complains.
As there are no particular limits declared in the law, no school board can withstand a large enough number of attacks being conducted "in parallel", each of which must be paid for by the board.
What I find at least a little interesting is that there doesn't appear to be any contemplation of what happens when a parent sues in the opposite direction -- specifically saying that X and Y are age- and developmentally-appropriate topics for classroom instruction, and to avoid teaching them is inappropriate.
Maybe that's a stretch. But it doesn't really matter, because it's up to the parent to decide if their issue has been "resolved"...and the parent can just go straight to court if they don't like the answer.
> The teacher will absolutely face litigation and censure, which are the words I used.
Litigation? No. As I've already said, the teachers aren't legally liable. The school district is. So it's the school district that faces litigation, not the teacher.
Censure? By whom? By the parents? Well, yes, if the teacher is doing something that the parents strongly disagree with, they should expect to be censured by the parents.
Censure by someone else? Who? And on what basis? If it's because other people also think what the teacher did is wrong, isn't that, again, just what should be expected? And if other people don't think what the teacher did is wrong, why would they censure the teacher?
> Students should be allowed to confide in educators and expect that those confidences will not be betrayed
I don't see where the law requires a teacher to reveal something the student told them in confidence. The law says teachers should encourage the student to talk to the parents, but it doesn't require the teachers themselves to talk to the parents. (I agree that this means the teacher is not required to do what I suggested in my previous post, to bring the parents into the discussion themselves. I still think it's a good idea if it can be done, but it's not required by the law.) Nor does the law require teachers to reveal something that isn't part of the student's school record--which a confidential conversation wouldn't be. And the school district can't prohibit a teacher from talking to the parents, but it can't require them to either.
> if the student asks me to call them "they/them", suddenly things should be super different?
Nothing in the law singles out this kind of discussion between a student and a teacher. But note that asking the teacher to call them "they/them" in public is not a confidential request. (If it's just in private between the student and teacher and not in the public classroom, that's different.)
> social mores about gender are fundamentally changing
And there are deep divisions in our society about such changes. A teacher might have strong opinions on one side or the other. But as a teacher, they should not be pushing their personal agenda. They should be respecting all viewpoints, and that includes the viewpoints of the parents. If a teacher believes that any parent who objects to their child wanting to be called "they/them" is automatically abusing that child, that teacher has a personal agenda that should not be allowed to intrude into the school environment.
> You just get to choose how much it sucks for kids in the process.
I certainly agree that having adults in their lives who strongly disagree about basic aspects of life sucks for kids. But that strong disagreement is not just the fault of parents who are unwilling to consider change and let their kids explore new things. Ideologues who push their agendas on kids without regard for the viewpoints of the other adults in those kids' lives bear responsibility too.
> Litigation? No. As I've already said, the teachers aren't legally liable. The school district is. So it's the school district that faces litigation, not the teacher.
The teacher will not have to deal with the litigation? They're not going to have to show up to depositions, have their actions scrutinized and mocked by opposing counsel, etc?
In practice, this gives every parent a veto right: they can say they're not satisfied with what the district did, and tie educators up in litigation and cost the district a bunch of money.
> I don't see where the law requires a teacher to reveal something the student told them in confidence.
If Thomas says that he'd like to be called "Tom", this is a longstanding request that we'd have always complied with. We'd also typically ask how he'd like to be referred to on his report card and if this is something his parents know.
If Thomas says that they would prefer the pronoun 'she' and like to be called "Tammy"-- we're going to have to create a record of it. If Tammy then says she does not want her parents to know this, we still cannot withhold the information.
> And there are deep divisions in our society about such changes. A teacher might have strong opinions on one side or the other. But as a teacher, they should not be pushing their personal agenda. They should be respecting all viewpoints, and that includes the viewpoints of the parents.
In general, when it comes to the courtesy of names, and now pronouns: we do what students request. With information that students indicate their parents would not approve of, we keep confidences. If they say they don't want to be a nurse like Mom and Dad want, and are thinking of an alternative path, we advise them as best as we can. If they say they want to be referred to be 'she' and their parents will freak out, we keep it in confidence.
> Ideologues who push their agendas on kids without regard for the viewpoints of the other adults in those kids' lives bear responsibility too.
I don't favor "pushing agendas" on kids. But the kids are talking about gender and sexuality among themselves in terms largely unfamiliar to you and me, and there's major social change underfoot. Kids deserve teachers that will A) respect reasonable requests made by students for how they are addressed, B) keep confidences, and C) help them navigate this new world as best as we can. Pushing these concerns into the dark or being a conduit directly to parents is not beneficial for student safety or mental health. If you think these changes are largely driven by school staff I think you are highly confused.
> 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.
I heavily disagree with this idea that the parent should be brought into a discussion involving their child when the parent is a danger to their children. This goes against how abuse should be handled in any other circumstance. A teacher should absolutely be going behind the parents' backs when they suspect the child is in danger or is being abused such that they can assist the child in getting out of the dangerous/abusive situation.
> I heavily disagree with this idea that the parent should be brought into a discussion involving their child when the parent is a danger to their children.
How do you know when a parent is a danger to their children? Who gets to decide? On what basis?
The answer for this law is that the state already has criteria for that, and those criteria are to be used. Which means the teacher's personal opinion, by itself, is not enough. And that's as it should be. If the teacher really believes the parent is a danger to their children, they have a process they can follow to get that judgment checked by others, and if necessary acted on. But they can't just cut the parent out of the process based on their personal opinion. That's what this law says, and it's correct.
> If the teacher really believes the parent is a danger to their children, they have a process they can follow to get that judgment checked by others, and if necessary acted on.
Surely there's some kind of continuum between "needs to be immediately removed from the home by the state, with all evidence in hand to demonstrate this" and "will be supportive and react reasonably to something the student is expressing at school."
Teachers routinely keep confidences for their kids. We hear about doubts in parents politics, doubts in the choices that have been made for their future, etc. We are expected to help kids express their own opinions and keep those confidences.
Outing some trans kids is going to get them thrown out on the street by their parents, beaten, or worse. That's a guaranteed consequence of this law. I think you know that, deep down.
> You seem to believe your views preempt those of your students’ parents.
I'm a parent too. I believe that my kids should be able to be their own people at school. I don't know everything that happens with them there.
> You are exactly the type of educator this law is intended to target
I don't work for a government entity. But nice try at being vaguely menacing.
> You should not be keeping secrets from students’ parents in the first place.
I'm just curious if this is what you really think. Anything that happens at school-- anything kids express-- should be rolled up in journal form and provided to the parent? Or is there any role for discretion?
> Actual abuse is illegal. Report it through proper channels.
Waiting for actual harm sounds bad. And there's plenty of harm that's legal or nearly so: if they want to force the kid to leave home on their 18th birthday because of what I told them, that still sucks.
The law says the teacher can cut the parent out of the process when it comes to reporting abusive parenting. The current discussion is that a new, additional law guarantees additional child abuse occurring. Using the guise of "cutting out" the parents from the child's identity navigation is ignoring the fact the child is requesting confidence because of the parent's abusive behavior. There would be no need for confidence except for the knowledge the parent is dangerous to their child.
Before one points out there is already child protective services- functionally, child protective services is overwhelmed, underfunded, and overworked. They are shockingly ineffective through little fault of their own.
For what it's worth, I think that the critical position on this bill is basically extreme skepticism about what the parties initiating legal proceedings are going to consider "instruction ... on sexual orientation and gender identity". Because that's a very vague passage, and I'm not confident that bigots won't cause a large chilling effect on schools by suing over teachers mentioning that gay/trans people exist, even if these lawsuits are eventually lost by said bigots.
> Of course not. ... The teacher is just stating a fact.
A lot of "classroom instruction" is stating facts. You're instructing the children about what these facts are. The law seems very vague on where this line is going to fall.
(The other issue is the extreme lack of consideration of the possibility that parental-abuse is the problem you're now required to inform the parents their child has complained about in the other sections of the bill...)
>or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards
This could easily, under the US legislative framework, be interpreted as extending beyond the 3rd grade. The law does not, actually, strictly, limit this to 3rd grade or lower. This line, as I understand it, makes it so the law can be applied to other grade levels as well, because they can simply say its not "age appropriate" or "developmentally appropriate" at any level.
I don't think its an accident this line is worded in a way that would allow this.
> This could easily, under the US legislative framework, be interpreted as extending beyond the 3rd grade.
The or makes it quite clear this is the intent:
> Classroom instruction by school personnel or third
parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur
in kindergarten through grade 3
So, no instruction in K-3 is permitted.
> or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
And in 4-12, it may only be age appropriate / developmentally appropriate as determined by state standards. (E.g. it's not an independent finding of fact by the court as to whether what you said to a bunch of 11th graders was age appropriate.)
Right, which is, from all suggested evidence so far, is intended to allow the state to suppress educators from talking about sexual orientation, gender identity et. al.
Hence, the layman’s one liner of “Don’t Say Gay”
Why on earth the Republican Party and it’s voter base is so concerned with non heteronormative information making it’s way into classrooms, where what is suppose to be the fundamental place where our youth are suppose to learn about the world and what things are, has always baffled me.
It’s a disservice to children and adults frankly. It’s not like these things just disappear because people disagree with them.
Personally, I'm amused by the interpretation that the best way to comply with this law is to avoid all mention of gender and sexuality in classrooms. All children shall be "they"; books mentioning heterosexual romance will be forbidden from reading. It's the only way to avoid conveying some sort of instruction about the concept of gender identity...
When teachers are agents of the state, they are bound by the restrictions on what the state is allowed to do, being required to afford equal protections to all people.
While I agree that the people should have a say in what gets taught, and that includes culture, in certain cases that say is (and needs to be) inherently limited. For example, if 90% of people would vote that some 10% minority should have limited rights, they should not (and do not) get a say about that, that minority deserves equal protection from state action no matter what the taxpayers or voters want.
And arguably (though the exact details matter) "don't say gay" legislation violates that by having state agents (i.e. teachers and administrators) apply unequal discriminatory treatment to those employees and students who are gay.
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.
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.
> 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.
Why do you cut the line there? What evidence do you have to include or not include these or other things? How do you define violence? Is causing brain damage violence? AFAIK it's possible to do that only by speech.
I've never seen an argument which wouldn't be possible to be phrased a way by which it wouldn't be "heresy", and include everything which isn't about changing others' feelings. For example, immigration. Almost 100% of useful arguments about immigration are not "heresies". The problem is when somebody is against immigration, and "forget" to mention that they opinion can cause death. Useful arguments don't "forget" this.
Yes, causing brain damage is violence. No, speech can not cause brain damage.
Unless inaction or speech is directly and unmistakeable the cause of someone’s death, then they cannot be held responsible for that death and trying to do so is just an attempt at manipulation.
So it's not possible to insult or threaten somebody - or in this case a child - during a speech according to you. You need to say this explicitly, because people usually think otherwise. Do I need to send you a random Trump speech to prove it to you, that you just moved the goalpost?
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.
Yes, or if they write what a dictator says (eg Putin) then people read it and think "hmm the newspapers report that he said this, so it must be important, maybe it's true"
And in that way the dictators can fool the citizens in democratic countries via their own newspapers
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.
> 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.
That's true, but also I think people sometimes have an overly narrow focus on one single aspect of legal protection - especially, in the US context, the First Amendment. While 1A is the most crucial way in which the US legal system seeks to support that ethical value, there are other ways – something which violates the ethical value of free speech may not violate 1A, yet may violate other legal provisions.
To give just one example – California Labor Code sections 1101 and 1102 outlaws political discrimination in employment in the State of California. This can provide added protection to the ethical value of free speech compared to 1A. 1A does not prevent private employers from firing employees for publicly expressing particular political views – at least in some cases, 1101&1102 will. And a few other states have similar legal provisions, and there is always the chance that more states could adopt laws like this – getting state laws amended is far easier than amending the federal constitution, or putting in place a Supreme Court bench which will interpret it a certain way.
“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.
> “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).
"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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
I have thought that through and considered putting that in my post, but I didn't want to dilute the original thought.
Of course I support the idea of "off topic", but it is something that needs a lot of consideration and however one writes such a restriction, it's liable for abuse and probably has a zillion edge cases. E.g. is it off topic if I post "<your favorite politician> hates cat videos" onto a cat video forum? What if I am a moderator with <other side> political views, and I allow those posts if they come from people that agree with me and disallow them if they come from people who agree with you? What if I divide my site into multiple sub-fora, one of which is "politics of cat videos"? What if de facto use of my forum or a sub-forum becomes political discussion, but that everyone attaches a cat video to each post?
In other words, yes, I have thought a lot about it, but this warrants its own separate discussion.
That's a very reasonable response. I'd add another thought: A site (e.g., Twitter) could define "off-topic" as anything that goes against its Terms of Service or Code of Conduct (CoC), which would probably result in exactly where we are now. Same problem with a lot of similar ideas - "Spam? Anything that violates our CoC is spam"; "Degrades the experience for the user? We feel that violating our CoC degrades the user experience"; and so on. Not a problem easily (or even able to be, IMO) solved.
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.
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.
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)?
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.
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?
...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.
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?
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?
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?
>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.
> 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).
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.
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.
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.
I am a free speech absolutist. I believe anything else would be decadence living in a first world nation. My country still does restrict speech and did so for centuries now, has spawned multiple dictatorships and still believes it to be a working concept. But that is another topic.
Platforms that promote certain content are absolutely free to do so and should not be forced to do anything else. But it should be understood that this is their motivation and their choice. They do not practice freedom of speech or freedom of opinion. They advertise for something and it is not about any intellectual discourse and probably more about advertising.
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?
> 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.
As the saying goes "Your right to swing your arms ends where my nose begins." Shouting someone down who is speaking to an audience that explicitly came to listen to them in a venue they arranged for isn't "freedom of speech", it's disruptive and a form of trespass. It's also made worse by the fact most of the things being shouted when this happens is arguably slander.
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?
There are privately owned spaces (shopping malls, some towns) that have been treated as public spaces for free speech purposes in US court cases, as I understand it.
Basically, if a privately owned space is promoted as a "commons" and acts as one, some of the rules about speech start changing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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).
> 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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
It is my experience though. I don't really care if people can use Twitter/Facebook to write whatever they want in their own name (yes, even harassment and incitation to violence, as long as it is done under your real name). But I do use the 'but corps are people too!' argument because I know it triggers some people who don't like having their arguments used against them.
My radicals friend all do the same thing, one of them even participate to witch-hunt/deplatforming rally despite being morally against it, just to be able to say 'but isn't a corporation a moral person?'. Until this notion is broken (and if we could break Limited liability too...), i don't think anybody can legitimately argue against deplatforming.
So join with anarchist/trotskyist, ecosocialists and all the radical left against corporation as moral person, and you'll find a lot of allies for your freedom of speech fight.
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.
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.
You're right about banks in USA, but I think that this is wrong and indicates that the ability of these middlemen to prevent people from interacting in society (being able to pay one another is essentially part of freedom of association) needs to be restricted.
In my mind there is a big difference between banning particular views versus banning someone for their particular views.
Like, Cloudflare or Twitter should be free to choose what speech they publish and what they prohibit, but they (and banks and electricity providers) should not be banning someone because of who they are as a person or for their political views expressed elsewhere. Cloudflare should be free to ban Daily Stormer as they did, but if the same people from Daily Stormer were just running a cat picture site through Cloudflare (and publishing their neo-Nazi stuff elsewhere) then IMHO Cloudflare should not ban their cat picture site.
To choose an extreme (but less-political?) example of paedophilia, it's obviously okay to ban distribution of child sexual abuse material, but IMHO someone who's just came out from prison after being convicted for child rape should not get automatically banned from platforms (or banks, or electricity providers) as a person despite being a paedophile child abuser, they should be able to participate in the society unless/until their ongoing acts become criminal and they get removed from the society by the courts. And if that's the case, then it also applies to the less extreme views.
> We're not banning you, we're just want to prevent you from using our electricity for undesirable activities. Well, since we cannot actually distinguish undesirable activities from non-undesirable activities, we'll just stop providing you any electricity, that way we can be sure you're not using it for undesirable activities.
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.
Exactly. IMHO, we just need to accept that "public" has extended and changed to encompass publicly-accessible, privately-owned platforms of a sufficient size.
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?
> "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.
First, this comparison is inapt. We forbid people from discriminating against who can buy housing because a person’s race is something that is part of their identity, they are born with, that they didn’t choose, and has no bearing whatsoever on whether they can afford or deserve to own property. Restrictions in social media, on the other hand, pertain to voluntary behavior that the subject is 100% in control of and should be responsible for.
Second, you can't easily separate the property-rights issue from the free-speech issue; they are naturally intertwined. In this case, that property (equipment, software, etc.) is being used specifically to broadcast speech, and we don't force people to repeat the speech of others (using mechanical devices or otherwise).
Finally, fairness as a platform concept was once a thing imposed by the FCC up till the 1980s (due to the scarcity of broadcast channels) and is now dead. We've replaced that with the possibility of infinite numbers of outlets. There's nothing stopping someone from building an anything-goes Twitter. And in fact, people have tried, as recently as two years ago (remember Parler?), but they end up dying from their own radioactive contamination.
I've seen the first argument made before and IMO it's not a workable refutation because it ignores those protected classes for characteristics one is not born with intrinsically, namely religion/creed, which can change, e.g. people leaving cults, conversions between faiths, and those who become agnostic/atheist, and gender identity, given proponents of that concept believe it to be fluid (as best I understand it). Unless you are denying those classes should be protected classes, then there is significant precedent for protecting changeable aspects of one's identity.
Regarding the second point, actually we do (or did; the Trump administration rolled it back and the Biden administration is trying to re-instate it) "force people to repeat the speech of others"; one of the points of the FCC's net neutrality definition was "No blocking: This includes a right to send and receive lawful traffic, prohibits the blocking of lawful content, apps, services and the connection of non-harmful devices to the network" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S...) and even deplorable speech is still lawful.
Regarding the third point, lots of online services died before the dominant incumbents of today came to power, e.g. AltaVista, Lycos, etc. Various conservative media outlets, like Fox News, are still around and thriving; you can bet they are watching and learning from these failures. Whose to say that one of them doesn't dislodge the incumbents and it becomes your viewpoint that needs protection? Public opinion is fickle.
(As an aside, sorry if my original post was confusing; I need to get better at writing.)
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.
The second paragraph is saying that the practices that the FHA banned were also illiberalism, just like the current practices of the current service providers.
And there is no charitable interpretation or benefit of the doubt needed; it's crystal clear. In order to even have the option of reading it the way you keep trying to, I'd have to ignore: referring to the landlords who had their bad behavior banned as "bigots"; putting scare quotes around both cases of "wrong"; explicitly calling the current platform providers illiberal.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
Yes, though "town square" is a metaphor which typically refers to public space generally, and usually includes things like streetcorners in its definition.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
Yeah, so the people in power currently are Ukrainians.
Look, i agree with the rest of your analysis, but this Tacitus sounds stupid (I am pretty sure Voltaire didn't write this). It's ignoring that most pamphlets and songs actually targeted people in power, historically (yeah, thinking about it, no way it's Voltaire). And people mostly take the dominated/wronged side.
> 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.
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.
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.
>>>> . . . in any epoch, to know who is in power, ask who you may not criticise.
> I'm not sure it was about criticism of the powerful.
Are “the powerful” not “who is in power?” The comment of the g-g-g-parent did not mention the Holocaust or any other act of genocide. Unless there is some anti-Semitic hidden message the statement is nearly a banal platitude.
Also, your Biden analogy is as flat as your example of workplace ridicule of people affected by autism. A contrary example might be that the jeers of crowds are allowed for so long as they are not truly threatening or subversive. In the lead up to Biden’s election the news of his son’s laptop was suppressed. Effective criticism is not allowed.
> Unless there is some anti-Semitic hidden message the statement is nearly a banal platitude.
There is. The original quote is from an actual literal Neo-Nazi who used this statement to argue that Jews secretly run the world because Holocaust denial is ostracized.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
>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.
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."
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.
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.
>But the quote isn't about "ideas" being in power. It is about people.
False distinction, people are machines inhabited by ideas, just like how programs inhabit computing machines. Ideas can't be in power, just like programs can never actually be "ran". Both are electromagnetic patterns in the physical medium of some computational architecture (mammalian brains/Von Neumann processors), "Ideas In Power" was a metaphorical shorthand by me, what's in power are people inhabited by those ideas, and the obvious result is that they mount strong resistence to any opposition and make it quite costly to criticize or make fun of their ideas.
>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.
They are, in the sense that their identities and thought patterns motivate and emotionlly charge people in institutions ranging from the white house to mega corportations to do things they might have otherwise not done, sometimes to the detriment of the institutions.
Your implicit argument seems to be:
- for a person to be in power, he/she/it has to wear funny clothes and be
referred to with funny titles.
That's a very naive view of how power works. The catholic pope in the middle ages was never directly in charge of more than a small principality's worth of land and people (although he did wear funny clothes and was referred to with funny titles), yet he had immense power that spelled the downfall of the byzantine empire, demarcated the whole world between 2 other empires, and ignited a series of civil wars that killed millions. That's because his "Ideas were in power", i.e. the papal way of thinking and typical thought patterns inhabited people of immense power and motivated and charged them to behave and say as the pope behaves and says.
Ideologies essentially assemble people believing in them into super-organism, just like an ant colony can be a force to be reckoned with while an individual ant is a trivial organism; In the same way, one can say that gays, transgender people and feminist women/men are in power but none of them - individually - necessarily holds any special power.
(Note the 'feminist' modifier on women, it's quite disingenuous to equate women with feminism, one is an ideology, the other is a natural subset of humans whose vast majority haven't even heard of the ideology or care enough about it's first world problems).
>Unless there is some actual secret shadow government operated by women, gay people, and transgender people
That's quite a funny cartoonish version of the argument that you have constructed for yourself right here, the "secret" and "shadow" modifiers also serve no meaningful role other than to evoke a general vague sense of ridicule.
It almost never works like that, when communism were in global supremacy in the 1950s and the 1960s it wasn't a secret shadow government that controlled the world behind the scenes, it was a bunch of (sometimes contradictory) ideas that inhabited various powerful people and motivated and charged millions to live and work and die. Communism was in power. You were allowed to criticize Stalin or Lenin in plenty of times and places, in fact in some of those times and places you were even suspect if you didn't criticize them, but you were never allowed to criticize the Ideas in power, which were all a variant of communism.
The quote never actually says that
- The people in power are a single monolithic entity that is omniscient and
omnipotent
- The people you aren't allowed to criticize are the same as the people in
power
Which seems to be 2 implicit assumptions you keep making. It's most obvious interpretation is "When there are disproportionate costs to criticizing some idea or group or lifestyle, that idea or group or lifestyle is that of people who have dominion over you in some way or another". This is almost tautologically true: People in power will not be pleased to see anyone criticizing something they believe in.
>the quote is idiotic on its merits
Not the quote, the peculiar interpretation of it you have, which seems almost constructed to be easily refuted. The natural interpretation is so obvious as to be trivially true, which is to be expected of an aphorism.
> They are, in the sense that their identities and thought patterns motivate and emotionlly charge people in institutions ranging from the white house to mega corportations to do things they might have otherwise not done, sometimes to the detriment of the institutions.
This is an extremely strange definition of "in power." I donate a lot of money to the local food bank. This doesn't make it so that starving people are actually running my life.
>This is an extremely strange definition of "in power."
Is it? It's a rather straightforward one in my view, power is the ability to influence the real world. Do you have a simpler or more convincing definition?
>This doesn't make it so that starving people are actually running my life.
This is because donating your money is an entirely voluntary action to an inanimate object that only affects yourself. If you were donating the money of someone else, or if you were donating the time/work of someone else, then the starving people who benefit from those food banks would be indeed in power over you. They affect (through a complex indirect chain of cause and effect) the world so that you do things you have no good reason to do, that's power. But voluntarily donating is not like that, you have very good reasons to donate without being coerced, power only happens when you do things against your natural incentives, i.e. Coercion.
The actions against people criticising the "Sacred Cows" of western progressives are neither of the 3 things :
- They are non-voluntary as there is quite a bit of consensus-manufacturing and lobbying that those groups or groups affiliated to them engage in
- The actions are typically done to humans (firing, censoring,...) and affect a lot of people
Therefore, these Sacred Cow groups are actually in a lot of power, they bend the incentive landscape in their favor in a way that other groups do not. That's a very clear power differential.
>Feel free to keep your conspiracies to yourself.
I advise you to know the definition of words before using them. Conspiracies are unproven and unlikely non-falsiable stories about the world, the fact that you can't criticize the list of groups above is one you can trivially verify for yourself on any social media website.
> 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.
Is it irrelevant, though? I mean, there's a reason you haven't edited your post to say "Kevin Strom, a noted white nationalist[1], is credited with". (Or even just "Kevin Strom is credited with", with no reference to his politics at all.)
Notably, you're employing a fallacy as well -- "Tacitus or Voltaire" functions as an appeal to authority here. These famous people said this, it must have merit. A resistance to correctly attributing the quote suggests that the mantle of authority is the point.
(I don't care about debate fallacies, really. I just like to bring up when people complaining about them are employing their own. Petty, I know.)
Yes, it's as irrelevant as Aristotle's opinions on slavery is to his work on formal logic. The words bear no evidence whatsoever of the author's opinions, therefore it's fallacious and irrelevant to bring them up.
>there's a reason you haven't edited your post to say
Correct, and that reason is that I don't care. I'm entirely ok with quoting a white nationalist, I have quoted worse human beings.
>Notably, you're employing a fallacy as well -- "Tacitus or Voltaire" functions as an appeal to authority here.
I think you're overreaching here a little bit to fit my words to a fallacy rather than the other way around. I don't care one bit who said the words, you can attribute them to whoever you like, go ahead and attribute them to Einstein or Ghandi, that won't increase or decrease their truth value. It's a tautologically true aphorism, anybody can say it and it would still ring true.
>A resistance to correctly attributing the quote
No such thing, I immediately conceded that point when it became clear to me it's a misattribution, the reason I haven't back-edited the comment is that my comment doesn't depend on it, you can substitute "X" or "Santa Claus" for "Voltaire" and you would still get a comprehensible argument that you can either side with or oppose.
>people complaining about them are employing their own
Eh, I wouldn't say your rather stretched interpretation of my words are evidence they are an appeal to authority, sounds to me like you really just wanted to use the words "Appeal To Authority" in a sentence.
Regardless, if the mention of Voltaire annoys you, remove it from your mental cache of the comment and I will defend every single word of the resulting argument, provided you didn't remove or add any other thing.
>I don't care about debate fallacies, really
You should, they are convenient names for extremely common and sometimes-involuntary logical shortcuts that people take all the time which make arguments and conversations blurrier and less fruitful. Me naming a fallacy in an argument doesn't automatically mean that argument is invalid, it just means the argument defender wants to hide something (possibly from themselves), it's not a gotcha to catch your opponent doing then declare victory, it's a "code review" tool to make conversations clearer, more honest and consequently better.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Interestingly, there were 3 justices that were around for both the flag burning case and Citizen's United (money-is-speech case): Scalia, Kennedy, and Stevens.
Scalia and Kennedy were in the majority (broad speech rights) in both cases and Stevens was in the minority (narrower speech rights) in both cases.
So, I guess (loosely speaking) if fire is speech, then money is speech too.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
Potayto potahto. I was talking about the same thing that the article called "heresy".
My claim isn't that shunning and social pressure doesn't exist or isn't a problem. I'm just a bit skeptical that it's a lot worse now than in the past, and I'm a lot skeptical that it's only a problem on one side of the political aisle. I don't even think it's really a thing with a political valence, I think it's just a human thing.
The essay specifically says it's not worse than in the past. No one's being burned at stake for example. And by the way, that's one reason I continue to believe in moral progress.
The essay does claim things are worse than 10 years ago. But 70 years ago? Things are better now than during McCarthyism.
> I don't even think it's really a thing with a political valence, I think it's just a human thing.
It's definitely a human thing. However, like I said, if you deny the political valence that currently exists, you're either not a clear-eyed observer of the present or you're part of it. And of course no one is saying "in 2022, the right never cancels anyone" just that present day punishments for heresy in the US are clearly politically-valenced.
My biological grandfather got expelled from his private university and disinherited by his parents during the Vietnam war in 69, because he was a communist hippy basically, and went in Europe to help boat people. Lost all he had, and the only jobs he could get were basically undeclared construction/farming jobs in the Appalachians.
So anecdotal evidence to your point. If any of the deplatformed people has had a worst experience, I'd love to hear it.
Since you claim "gender is a social construct" or "immigrants are good" are examples of heresy - can you provide examples of people fired over stating these opinions? I'm not aware of such instances but maybe they're just not as visibly reported.
Is this the definition of "heresy" being used by the article? That at least one person has lost a job because of the belief? That would at least make me happier, to have a somewhat testable definition. But the article seems to be using it more broadly than that.
I haven't seen any examples of those specific ones in the news and I don't have examples I'm personally familiar with. But the "Parental Rights in Education" bill is a handy example of the same phenomenon coming from the right; teachers will certainly lose their jobs or be forced to resign due to having the wrong beliefs in the wrong profession in the wrong state (and other states will almost certainly pass similar laws soon). Maybe that is an isolated incident, but I'm skeptical.
Frankly, I would really like to see someone try to gather and present data on this. It's really hard because the definition of what you're even looking for is wishy washy and most of the information is private; there isn't a public database of reasons why people didn't get, were forced to resign, or were fired from jobs.
"Gather data so we can analyze this phenomenon" is a dodge. Some people, when confronted with a contrary opinion, transform into David Hume and demand that we all become empiricists. Would you demand evidence that the "Parental Rights in Education" bill does what you said? If we're going to be empiricists, let's wait on that and gather data before rendering a judgement.
Yes. I'm very much interested in data on what happens as a result of that bill and others like it that end up passing. It will be hard to gather and take awhile, but I hope someone will try to do a good job of it rather than only reporting on inflammatory anecdotes, which I'm sure will also happen.
I'm not demanding empiricism, what I'm saying is that I find this whole debate to be overly influenced by high profile anecdotes, which people cherry pick to tell their preferred narrative.
That project is a definite step in the right direction, and if people start citing analyses of it when writing articles like and OP, instead of just throwing out definitive statements as unsupported premises, then I'll be much happier with those articles than I was with the OP.
One interesting thing to note is that that project has an explicit list of heresies that are beyond the pale (section 3 under "what is not included"). I think that's intriguing!
definition of "heresy" is quite clear in the article:
- the fact that it's heresy takes priority over the question of truth or falsity
- it outweighs everything else the speaker has done (I would add that the implication of that is "disproportionate punishment").
By this definition, yes, getting excluded from your family for stating some opinion is proof that said subject is taboo/ said opinion is "heresy" in your family. But, all kinds of families are broken in all kinds of different ways; surely you can find fascist families in USA - that doesn't make the USA society fascist. You can find atheist families too! (and nobody would claim the US is atheist). The question is: is the concept of "heresy" making a come-back at the level of the entire society?
> the "Parental Rights in Education" bill
Didn't know about it (I'm not a US citizen), and yes it's a dumb and wrong law by the sound of it. Even so I think it falls a bit short of fitting the definition of "legal enforcement of heresy" unless it extends outside the classroom (to opinions stated - privately or publicly - by teachers in their spare time).
(btw, I am not claiming heresy is only enforced by the US left. However, this fact only makes things worse, not better - it's sad that this practice is excused by "the others are worse" mantra. Even if/when it's true, and "the others" really are worse.).
To your aside at the end, I've said here that I'm a bit skeptical about how new this problem is (I think it is more the case that it has become a trend to complain about it), but what I'm really pushing back on is the OP's casual statement of the premise that it is uniquely a problem of the political left, which I think is poorly supported.
To the rest: I agree that the definition used in the article was broader than just people getting fired. You asked me for examples of that specifically, which made me think you thought the definition being used was that more narrow one.
Don't know about getting fired, but it's not hard to recall stories about people getting shunned by their relatives or expelled from their family for expressing such views.
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.
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.
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.
Isn't the part of the bill you linked to 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?
The entire article, I didn't mean to link to a particular subheading.
And now the "plausible deniability games" begin in earnest. It is entirely possible to write a law that is ostensibly race neutral while making it apply discriminatorily. For a non-racial example, consider preferring tall candidates or military veterans as a proxy for men.
Similarly, things like requiring a drivers license or travel to an in-person voting location prevent working class people who don't own a vehicle and who work 9-5 from being able to vote without sacrificing wages (or perhaps at all!)
> It is entirely possible to write a law that is ostensibly race neutral while making it apply discriminatorily.
I agree it's possible, just not that this bill does so.
> requiring a drivers license or travel to an in-person voting location
But the bill you linked to doesn't require either of those things. There are explicit provisions for people without driver's licenses in it, and it didn't ban absentee voting.
> Right, which you need to be familiar with and be able to assert your rights about.
Being allowed to vote without an ID isn't good enough, because some people might not know it's allowed? And why would you need to "assert" your rights? If this bill were to pass, wouldn't pollworkers be aware of the new set of rules?
> 1. All else equal, will this law decrease turnout by predominantly black working class voters?
> 2. Did the bills drafters intend this?
> Three answers to both of those are "yes". Which brings up the third question: why isn't that discriminatory?
If the answer to both of those questions were actually yes, then I'd agree that the bill were discriminatory. But you've just asserted the answer is yes without providing evidence, and I don't agree with your assertion.
> If this bill were to pass, wouldn't pollworkers be aware of the new set of rules?
That depends on your race. The fun thing about arbitrary and unnecessary restrictions like this is that they can be enforced only against some people, something that the VRA explicitly prevented at the policy level until it was gutted.
The answer to the first is yes, policies like these result in voter suppression that has to be countered by additional gotv efforts for equivalent turnout (among predominantly black, working class, democrat voters).
The answer to the second is also yes. The Republican legislators aren't dumb. The theory that the election was "stolen" by the Dems, which led to this law is functionally that too many Democrats voted. And the point of this law is to prevent that, under the guise of blocking "illegitimate" (working class black democratic) voters.
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.
The reason they won't tell you is because you've already presented yourself as someone who would deny the racist goals of a bill merely because it doesn't explicitly mention race.
Differently put: everyone knows what these bills are except people who are in denial of institutionalized racism. You've used an argument structure that is reminiscent of that used by people who are in denial of institutionalized racism. Therefore, it is assumed that you are in denial of institutionalized racism, and thus, there's no point telling you about the bills because you're just going to be in denial about them anyway.
Meanwhile, anyone who is not in denial can just use any random search engine and find articles like this one:
After 4 years of trying to engage thoughtfully and being given the run around, I'm done putting myself out there for people who don't demonstrate an ounce of genuine interest in understanding the issue.
I consume a wide range of media every day and I've never seen a bill that "restricts voting access for people of color". It's an extraordinary claim so you would to need provide strong evidence, rather than being dismissive.
> I consume a wide range of media every day and I've never seen a bill that "restricts voting access for people of color".
Bills that restrict voting rights in America along racial lines are all over the news, even outside of America. That leaves only two possibilities. Either your range of media isn't as wide as you think, or you are in denial. You've already dismissed another commenter’s response, so I'm leaning towards the latter.
If said bills are so well-known and all over the news, why not just link to one? This is HackerNews, if someone says "____ exists and it's a problem" and someone else politely asks "which ____ are you referring to?", the appropriate thing to do is to just reference the thing in question - we don't need to get pedantic about the range of one's media consumption.
It's because the bills in question don't actually explicitly restrict people of color from voting, they just make voting a little less convenient (i.e. a bill that you have to show a photo id to vote, for example, and a person of color might be statistically less likely to have a photo id than a non-person of color)
The reason I (and I assume other commenters, but I don't presume to speak on their behalf) don't care to dig up sources for you is because it's a waste of time. There are only two possibilities: either you're in denial, in which case there's nothing I can present to you that you won't also be in denial about; or you're not, in which case you can just search for it yourself (e.g. “bills that restrict voter rights in America”). Things that are all over the news are also generally easy to find.
Forming conclusions about racism requires interpretation. Every time I trust one of you to be genuinely curious about the issue I’m disappointed, and here I am again, disappointed. Not particularly surprising though.
Ezra Klein and John Oliver aren't news, they're entertainment personalities like Joe Rogan or Tucker Carlson. Though if they're a big part of your information diet as it is, I don't really see this being a fruitful conversation. /r/politics tends to accommodate to that kind of viewpoint a little more, I'd suggest moving the soapbox over there :)
John Oliver is more prone to histrionics, but Ezra Klein is genuinely insightful and thoughtful. He’s really a much better/more truthful journalist than joe Rogan or tucker.
ignoring your point to nitpic but, none of these (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", ) are position of the right. They are the left's worst spin on the right's positions.
Yeah his take is very interesting, but I think it's also very personal, very much coming from his own personal milieu (which contains a lot of very reactionary right wing folks...). I think it's an example of what I meant by saying this conventional wisdom seems to be more informed by "vibes" more so than data. It's definitely true that the SSC and pg crowds have are deeply convinced that this is a problem unique to the left, I'm just skeptical that their belief is as factually based as they might think. The SSC article does a good job of incorporating this uncertainty, but the OP does not, in my view.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This would be fine if we were moving towards canceling thoughts, and not people. In a hyperconnected society where everyone is watching everything all the time, we're all bound to be cancelled for something eventually.
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.
I’ve seen glimpses of this in tech recently. Could you please give some explicit examples? I’ve been sheltered from it for a long time and I’m wondering if what I’ve seen are examples of what everyone means by “brogrammers”.
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?
Are you talking from a US/European perspective? Being gay was entirely open and mainstream in the 90s/2000s. Although I'm not sure what that has to do with heresy which was the topic of the essay.
Totally. I have no idea about Paul Graham's upbringing, but back in the 80s and 90s I was a "fag" threatened with violence just for being a slightly effeminate nerd obsessed with computers and weird music, etc.. One didn't even have to be gay to be subject to homophobic hate and intolerance. I have teenagers now -- one self-identified queer high schooler and the other a middle schooler in a tiny rural school not unlike where I grew up -- and today's society is an amazingly tolerant dream compared to what I grew up with.
One still happens today and has received zero essays from PG, despite it still being an issue in the tech community, and the other doesn't actually happen.
> In 2020, Shor was fired by Civis Analytics after tweeting a summary of an academic study about protests by Omar Wasow, a black political scientist at Princeton University. Shor's tweet read "Post-MLK-assasination race riots reduced Democratic vote share in surrounding counties by 2%, which was enough to tip the 1968 election to Nixon.
"In 2020, 8.9% of employed LGBT people, including 11.3% of LGBT employees of color and 6.5% of white LGBT employees, reported being fired or not hired because of their sexual orientation or gender identity."[1]
Your dude david who "serves as head of data science with Blue Rose Research" is barely a blip.
Shockingly low considering it’s self reported. I would expect far more people to latch on to any excuse for getting fired or not hired besides “I wasn’t that good at my job”.
We're not conflating, we're providing context. Western culture had/has a sickness of violence and intolerance that decades of activism is chipping away at. Some people perceive this activism as "intolerance to heresy" when to others it's "intolerance to intolerance."
I'm not in an oppressed group, and I've done my fair share of foot-in-mouth. But my sympathies are with the ... subaltern..., not generally with people claiming to be treated as heretics because they got censured (not censored) for using their public or corporate positions to pick on people or support picking on people.
Yes, there are excesses. I don't support them. But I'm glad I'm living through an era where it's becoming less acceptable to be a prick in public.
Even if people may disagree about the specific year, the initial upward and currently downward trend is unmistakable and visible also all over Western Europe.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Is your core concern here the fact that when Paul Graham writes about things he likes, his posts have a positive tone, and when he writes about things he dislikes, his posts have a negative tone?
When he writes about things he dislikes, his writing gets less interesting --- not in the sense that criticism and negativity is uninteresting; I enjoy a zero-star Ebert review as much as the next person, but in the sense that his actual prose style gets less interesting --- and, as the comment upthread noted, markedly more misanthropic. He doesn't seem to be having a good time writing it. I can point to things he's written where it reads like he's really enjoying himself. Maybe he's just not good at cultural criticism?
Don't let me sound like I'm psychoanalyzing the guy. I'm sure he's fine, probably saner than I am. I'm just talking about the writing.
I think it's more “when he is consciously lying to advance political propaganda and needs to avoid engaging at anything more than a general level to avoid immediately giving the game away, his prose becomes less interesting.“
His classic piece “The Submarine” is negative on its subject, but it's quite engaging and not evasive the way this piece is. And there is a reason for that.
We probably agree on the substance of the piece, but that aside: there are people who write bad takes on this stuff that clearly enjoy the writing (Matt Taibbi is a classic example). Paul Graham isn't one of them. I wonder why he bothers: he's exactly the least persuasive kind of person to take the "cancel culture is a problem" side of the argument, and the process doesn't seem pleasant for him.
This would be a convincing argument if it was extended with links to people who have written about "cancel culture", "wokeness" or whatever in a genuinely pleasant way, even and perhaps especially to criticize it. Maybe "Scott Alexander" of Slate Star Codex got closest, but even he reportedly regrets much of that writing - i.e. it does make him unhappy, which I think speaks volumes. I don't think it's realistic or fair to demand this feat from Paul Graham.
I'd look for someone writing from the perspective of "all humans are innately predisposed to prejudice and must work to overcome it", which avoids dividing up the world into "x-ist people / not-x-ist people".
I don't hold out hope that this perspective will ever become mainstream, but because it's an alternative to "us-vs-them", there's more opportunity for redemption, communion, and joy.
> all humans are innately predisposed to prejudice and must work to overcome it
Much of "Scott Alexander"'s following came from the readership of a blog named literally 'Overcoming Bias', that's devoted to descriptions of how all humans are often remarkably petty and prejudicial in obscure and counterintuitive ways. It's definitely not taking a mainstream perspective, and the 'redemption' in it is quite subdued, but it does seem to avoid that particular pitfall.
I agree; I am saying that this is a mode where Graham doesn't write well, not that it is impossible to write engaging badly-detached-from-facts propaganda.
Though Taibbi writes for a different audience that probably makes that easier.
I presume you refer to the avoidance of examples in the article. Your comment suggest he was correct to do so. Some people will be desperate to disprove that modern heresy exists, and highlighting forbidden opinions would help negate the entire article.
It's a piece about identifying 'PR hits' that misidentified something as a 'PR hit'. There's a microscopic 'correction' at the bottom but the fact the correction undermines the premise of the piece - that you too can learn to identify 'PR hits' from Paul Graham - is just ignored.
> 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
Talking about PR[1] isn't wrought with intellectually-dishonest landmines in the manner that it is for talking about what Graham terms "heresy-hunters". This is also obvious to even anyone who's paying a mild amount of attention to the cultural changes he's describing.
[1] the topic of "The Submarine", for those who are unfamiliar
I wrote a comment here about how the term "heresy hunter" is a good example of what I'm talking about, bad writing because "heresy hunting" is a clunky made-up term, and there are much better, more vivid words to use instead. But, it turns out, there is a lot of writing about "heresy hunting" out on the Internet --- in Evangelical Christian theology. Maybe that's what happened? Maybe Graham is born again?
I chose that term carefully, and put it in quotes, to avoid derailment about my choice of words. I wanted to make it clear I'm referring without judgment to the types of people he is talking about, and was willing to make my short comment clunkier in the name of keeping it precise.
But the clunkiness you're saying is in my comment, not his essay. The essay includes the words "heretic hunters", but it's only used once:
> 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
Personally, this single usage and less-clunky grammar doesn't strike me as especially bad writing.
You're hinting that most accusations of heresy come from the right (evangelical christians), rather than the left. This almost seems absurd to me, as someone who consumes a wide range of news media every day.
Well, I came to the same sort of conclusion. This in particular:
>There are always some heresies — some opinions you'd be punished for expressing. But there are a lot more now than there were a few decades ago, and even those who are happy about this would have to agree that it's so.
Not only bears no resemblance to actual lived reality, because the penalties for speaking out against orthodoxy (or even just being trans or gay or a bi-racial couple) were far worse than simply being kicked off twitter, and virtually none of those had any impact on anyone else in the same way that refusing to mask up or get vaccinated does today. They'd have fired their asses in 1918 too.
Yep, also there are still rules at many businesses and schools that specifically target black hairstyles as unfit to be in public settings.
We could just point out that they're not really concerned about people getting "cancelled" as much as who is doing the cancelling and who's getting cancelled. Somehow it was a good thing when governments and corporations were able to cancel people based on race, gender, vaccination status, and sexual orientation... but now that they're being cancelled on the basis of being racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and... well, at least vaccination statuses have remained consistent... suddenly there's a problem. Suddenly the all-knowing overlords of business that people trust with their retirement accounts and their political landscape are WRONG. LOL.
And usually the cancellation doesn't even have anything to do with a job. It's freaking social media for crying out loud.
> Is there anyone at all who writes "happily" about cancel culture?
It is something that, like the Devil, exists primarily in the minds of people for whom it is a central part of the opposition in their mythological construction of the world, so no.
Cancel Culture has become one of the defining aspects of modern culture. Arguing it doesn't exist is going to be difficult when the elephant is clearly sitting here in the room with us.
Those feminists are so angry when they write about feminism. They seem happier when they write about other topics. Clearly, then, we know what to advise them to write about.
I don't understand. What do "feminists" have to do with this? There are a zillion different kinds of feminists. Did I miss something about this post, is it subtly anti-feminist?
To spell it out: just because someone seems unhappy writing about something, doesn't make them wrong, and it doesn't mean that they should stop writing about it.
I selected "feminists" as an "across-the-aisle" example.
I think you already know that. You could try speculating a bit. It just sounds like you're playing dumb to try to catch me out on something at this point.
You are fixating on the "feminists" when I just mentioned that they are an example. You can look up and see that I have said that. You know who Matt Taibbi is, so ... it just looks like you are playing dumb.
Instead of trying to explain things to you, I am going to ask questions and you can try to answer them.
1) Have you ever heard the phrase "across the aisle?" Consider this in the Congressional sense.
2) On what side or in what political party would you say that most of the feminists, despite their myriad combinations, would reside?
3) What side are the people who are against "cancel culture" on, generally? Again: as a trend.
4) Combining the answers to the first three, can you diagram out where the aisle is, where #2 is, and where #3 is?
5) What is the purpose of selecting an example from "the other side," generally?
Who are you speaking for here? I'm well aware of the political valence of feminism. I'm wondering why you seem to think Paul Graham is the anti-feminist side of this aisle. It's a simple question, I don't know why you're dancing around it.
As my great aunt (born circa 1899) said, "Sometimes the 'You shoulds are the shits.'"
I'd like to see more on topics of enduring interest from Paul than on the ever-evanescent fluff of tech. That his concern lies with teaching his kids not to be social gangsters rather than teaching them some current tech meets with my approval.
It's a big question, I guess: "why write anything?" I don't know! Certainly, neither pleasure nor persuasion could be the objective behind a piece like this. What are the other reasons? Venting? I'm interested in what you think.
> 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.
I think it's the part where a promotion of weaponization is claimed. I'm not seeing that either.
Is it weaponization of victimhood to disagree, and warn others of the hallmarks of a problematic position?
I don't think anyone was confused about who the 'us' and 'them' are. Every group casts a shadow, so it's hard to talk about a 'they' without there being an 'us'.
The weaponized victimhood is used browbeat critics and to ensure that whatever "x-ist" phenomenon someone may be speaking out persists unchallenged. "Xs are the real x-ists, and truth-telling heretics are the heros".
The degrees are more a matter of perspective than fact, though.
Christians consider Satanists the intolerant ones and vice-versa. Both can be claimed to be voluntary association, but if one isn't a choice, then neither is the other.
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 influence of these elements not to ruin the public discourse for all of us.
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!
I know it's futile to persuade a Canadian not to apologize reflexively anytime they get the chance to but your pro-collectivist explanation is totally fine with me :)
Here's my counter backstory, I grew up and live in a very collectivist society and I'm a very individualist minded person by nature, and it's like hell on earth for me, and to spare you the sob story and to get straight to the point, when I come across pieces like the ones authored by PG in defense of individualism and critical of collectivism, it always hits home and I experience a momentary feeling of relief knowing I am not alone in all of this, and when I see how the militant collectivist crowd is wreaking havoc in the West and making people's life a living hell, it really upsets me and I feel helpless reminding me of my own personal circumstances, and that's why I have strong reactions regarding this issue, and why I feel that something must be done to counter this destructive force and stop it in its tracks.
PS: I don't view every collectivist movement negatively, that would be extremely absurd and I believe that some currents of collectivism can be very beneficial for society and the entire world but I'm still a staunch defender of individualism and will ever be.
I think you're both a little wrong. The ideology isn't collectivist, it's pseudo-collectivist. For example, as a foreigner who finds ethnic "identity politics" rather natural, I'm completely befuddled by what passes for "identity politics" in America. It's not collectivism where everyone all the Muslim kids line up in their tribe and follow what the patriarchs and matriarchs say. It's a hyper-individualistic cosplay of collectivism. "Proud Muslim Americans" wear their identity on their sleeve and complain about "white people" and "Islamophobia," but their beliefs and causes align with those of their white progressive friends, not other Muslims.
This, incidentally, makes the movement seem much bigger than it is.
The immune response example is instructive, but supports Graham's position, not yours. Immune responses often are destructive--but we've evolved to have them anyway because the consequences are potentially far worse. There's some really important principles of our society--not just free speech, but meritocracy, color blindness, etc.--that are under attack right now by a novel ideology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Successor_ideology.
It's not an ideology that's widely embraced, but has outsize influence in key institutions (kind of like Scientology). And it manipulatively invokes large groups of faceless minorities to paper over the fact that it's being advanced by a small, affluent, relatively homogenous minority: https://hiddentribes.us/profiles/
I'd never heard of this "Successor Ideology" before today. Turns out it's a straw man crafted by its originator, Wesley Yang, for the sake of tearing down: he opposes it.
> Yang coined the term "successor ideology" in 2019 to describe an emerging ideology among left-wing movements in the United States centered around identity politics. Yang opposes this ideology and believes it may replace traditional liberal values.
Never mind "outsize influence", it has no influence at all — nobody follows "Successor Ideology", not even the person who made it up.
It’s like “trickle down economics.” It’s a phrase coined by its opponents to describe a real ideological trend. Obviously the people advancing that collection of ideas and policies don’t embrace the label and would describe their views differently. That doesn’t mean the label doesn’t describe a real thing. See also: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/please-just-fucking-tel... (“Please Just Fucking Tell Me What Term I Am Allowed to Use for the Sweeping Social and Political Changes You Demand”)
Like there are lots of people demanding to end the SAT because it’s racist against “Latinx.” What do we call those people?
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.
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.
He addresses topics just enough to scratch the itch he wants to scratch without putting any meaningful thought into them, which is why his essays are so easy to discard. Sure, they work for like-minded people who want to drink from the tap of the successful businessman stereotype, but they're usually not useful whenever he strays from talking about business.
It’s shallow with a purpose; the evasive on details is necessary to use the vague platitudes as a vehicle for validating right-wing propaganda points without making it clear that that is what he is doing.
PG is capable of at least somewhat greater depth, and has displayed it on occasion, but it suits his purpose to avoid that here.
I don't see it as anything other than a useful label in his writing personally. If you want to talk about something, you need a name for it, and I don't think there is one more apt yet bland one can ascribe to a group of people who take an arbitrary set of conventions to an agressive extreme.
I don't think it's immutable for a given person, but I think it is a sad fact of life that a lot of people are simply unable to have these kinds of discussions - even if they're motivated, which is even more rare.
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.
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.
The political left using this "heretic" tactic is relatively new, and if it's effective it's because the political right honed it for decades against women, LGBT, foreigners, non-Christians, and any other group they didn't want buying property next to them.
Simply categorizing human beings as conventional vs unconventional and passive vs aggressive, and then establishing an enemy in one quadrant is an example. Unconventional people are the victims, aggressively conventional people are the others.
I think the thing Paul really has a problem with is social brigading and mobs attacking people unfairly. Which is fine; but you can make that argument without painting yourself or people like you as a victim. Otherwise you’re just using the same tactic mobs use.
We’re all guilty of this to different degrees because social media algorithms are finely-tuned to propagate outrage and we’re being conditioned to respond to and generate said outrage. I think the way out of the loop is to recognize this pattern and try to break it.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
Which wrongthink is not the issue being discussed here and is beside the point. This is about principle. The issue is not being able to hold any wrongthink beliefs (and discuss them) while also holding a job. If you can't think of anything which may be true but also offensive enough to get someone fired for proclaiming it, you may be guilty of being a 'conventional thinker'.
Unfortunately any argument of that form can be rejected immediately on epistemological grounds. Take for instance the argument “we can’t say certain words any more because speaking them will summon an ogre who will immediately kill and eat the speaker…and I can’t give any evidence of this occurring, or give an example of any of these words for obvious reasons.”
There's something to be said for priors here. I personally know three (yeah, I hang out w/a fun crowd) people who have lost their jobs over social media heresy. I don't know (and have never heard of) anyone getting eaten by an ogre.
So yes, I am inclined to believe that modern heresy is a phenomenon, and I am not inclined to believe in ogres.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
Ignoring for a second that it's perfectly legitimate for a teacher to do something like have a rainbow flag bumper sticker on their car, 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?
A high school teacher needs a view on gay rights like they need an understanding of quantum mechanics. It's out there, but their students don't have the tools to come to grips with it.
In an ideal world, our high schools would have taught the Constitution, the American Revolution, slavery, the abolition movement, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow, and on that basis taught the civil rights movement. They would have taught Homer, Virgil, Greek drama, Chaucer, Shakespeare, poetry and novels. They would have looked at modern explorations of identity such as Kafka and Dostoevesky. They would have taught the Bible and the basics of Christian theology and morality, not as Truth but as the mindset and background of most of those who have, to date, built up our culture. (Much as they might teach Marx as vital background for understanding historically important movements.)
They would also train students to think and reason for themselves, to recognize and reac to susceptibility to persuasion, and to detect and break down propaganda.
With these foundations, a student might then be able to intelligently study "gay rights" or gay identity in literature.
Those foundations are the first job of the schools. Let them do that before anything else.
Too bad nobody respects teachers in the United States.
There's a reason the conventionalists don't want real education for their children and zero involvement of society in their nuclear family: control. They then frame it as some libertarian ideal.
Until a public school teacher can say no to a student, and their parents, nobody will learn the foundations of complex thought in the classroom. That is by design.
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.
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?
> 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.
The article was about heresy which he defined as a factually correct statement that will destroy your life if stated. It wasn't about being an unpleasant person with unpopular opinions.
PG is implying that the phenomenon of getting shunned for having said something right-wing on Twitter is new/different enough that it implies some shift in societal attitudes. I'm arguing that it is not, and the 1985 equivalent would be a progressive being shunned for being, let's say, pro-gay-rights in small-town Missouri. The mechanism changes with technology, but the cause has not changed since Hester Prynne at least.
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.
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.
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.
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.
That is a fairly bad excuse and exactly why I think that cancel culture, even if exaggerated, is of concern. Because you just admitted the motivation to deny people opportunity to state their opinion and I believe this shouldn't take too much influence in any academic discourse and a lot of protesters disqualify themselves here.
That is a tragedy not because the targets are indeed often wrong, but because it has a negative impact on when student activism is required and can have positive influences as it so often had in the past. I can be dismissed with references to incidence like those where people just were shouted down.
Should we fire anyone who thinks phrenology is real? How about flat earthers? Should they be unable to feed or shelter themselves because they’re wrong about something?
The whole idea of free speech is that there is no “we” who decides what topics are allowed and “how much room” particular topics get. Free speech means it’s free, and people can talk about whatever they want, however much they want.
If you don’t like what people are saying, you can use your free speech to explain why your ideas are better.
Okay so your solution is to give as much room as phrenology wants. If it gets incredibly popular then so be it, let the masses think that certain races are less intelligent due to head sizes.
Phrenology already had its chance, man. Look, the apocalypse didn’t happen.
You think you’re smart enough to determine which ideas should be allowed? How do you know you won’t be the Church burning Galileo at the stake? Hint: you don’t know that. That’s why you have some humility. Ultimately ideas that don’t work will fail.
Enlighten me. Please do describe the concerted efforts by governments and institutions to ban discussion of phrenology. What was the punishment for unauthorized phrenology lectures? Are you not violating all these anti-phrenology laws right now by even bringing it up?
> The ban seemed to make phrenology more popular, and it spread to other European countries.
Literally the very next sentence. Banning things doesn’t work.
Phrenology died out because it was openly discussed, debated, and debunked. If you are confident you can prove you’re right about an issue, you don’t need to ban anything, you just go ahead and prove that you’re right. When you start banning things people only take that as evidence that it’s some secret forbidden knowledge that threatens the existing power structure and they’re even more motivated to pursue it.
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.
> 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.
> I don't try to silence them; I try to engage with them for the purpose of changing either their mind or mine.
To strong-man "Cancel culture" - trying to remove people from decision-making roles after they have signaled they intend to make harmful decisions is not - on the face of it - a ridiculous idea.
> expresses opposition to the idea that websites should be required to be accessible
If someone openly holding this view applies for a job in charge of your website, are you going to seriously consider their application?
The point of cancel culture isn't to convince the person being cancelled, or to coerce those who agree with them by threat of losing their job. The point is to remove perceived political opponents from positions of influence.
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".
> 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?
One can say that Solomon Asch experiments on social conformity are great illustrations of the benefits of free speech. Diverse opinions discourage group think and encourage critical thinking and discourse. That works even if the opinion is bogus, since in that case it may encourage the individual to avoid adopting an overwhelming majority point of view. As you mentioned it is indeed a slower process, but a much more fault tolerant one. The simple analogy is the slower, complicated democratic process vs fast, simple autocratic process.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> "May 2020 testimony provided by Jerome Lockett, a black man who said Christian had “aggressively” threatened him in the park. Among the details: “when I saw that video, I thought, I cannot imagine if he approached her the same way how she may have genuinely been afraid for her life.” He continued, “If I wasn’t who I was, I would of [sic] called the police on that guy too.”
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.
There are many reasons outside of work performance to fire people. For example: someone who lies on their resume, then does a generally good job. That's generally a fireable offense in isolation from performance (though hopefully not as an automatic decision).
You assert that the two I named were fired from public pressure, but that looks to me like self-confirmed speculation based on what you want to believe. Were I a business employing either of those two people, I believe my own reaction would be to fire them. Not for woke reasons; they're just walking, talking disasters. Why employ assholes and idiots?
Anyway, since you mention it I do recognize more of these names, including the ones mentioned by the book you cited. They didn't come immediately to mind. But let's say James Damore is the best example in support of Paul Graham's essay (and far more nuanced and potentially sympathetic than the two I named). He argued (in part) for biological determinism, which is definitely "heresy"; and it's definitely possible to imagine a world in which that would lead to debate rather than firing.
If the essay had actually named a figure like Damore, would it have been more convincing? I can't answer for everyone but for me the answer would be: slightly more convincing, but not a great deal more. There's just a lot more to the story than "this person got fired for woke heresy", and it's not that convincing to do this kind of hand-waving simplification.
> There are many reasons outside of work performance to fire people. For example: someone who lies on their resume, then does a generally good job. That's generally a fireable offense in isolation from performance
Ok. "Work performance" may be too narrow in its obvious interpretation. What I mean is "quality of performance of your duties". Lying to your employer legitimately reduces trust that you'll continue to be able to perform your duties.
But let's say someone goes to private sex parties in their own time, full of consenting adults. That has nothing to do with your performance at work.
> You assert that the two I named were fired from public pressure, but that looks to me like self-confirmed speculation based on what you want to believe
Do you believe they would have been fired if this had not been made public?
You're right that I don't have proof, but I think my position here is self-evidently true.
> If the essay had actually named a figure like Damore, would it have been more convincing?
I think PG feared it would derail the discussion to just be about Damore. That his whole essay would be dismissed by large sets of people as merely "A Damore defence", without reading neither it or Damore's "manifesto".
And exactly as his essay describes it would be dismissed as x-ist, to shut down debate.
So… yes and no. It would be clearer, but risk being less effective in achieving his goals.
Also less timeless, which he explicitly mentions as a goal.
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).
In terms of firing people who don't deserve to be fired?
The thing you're claiming is that the company/decision makers think damore was right (or that his opinion was irrelevant) and fired him only to save face.
I don't think that happens regularly. I think sometimes someone points out that an employee is racist and the company fires that employee, but that's not "kowtowing", it's a combination of not working with assholes and taking customer feedback. I don't think the thing you're talking about happens much at all.
> I don't think the thing you're talking about happens much at all.
It doesn't happen much because it's not often a sufficiently large mob gets into a frenzy about firing someone. Can you point to any instances where the mob unjustly called for blood and the company/decision makers refused to kowtow? Brendan Eich was fired by a mob (consisting of Mozilla employees and Twitter users). His crime? Donating $1000 to a heretical political cause years earlier. Corporations always kowtow to the demands of sufficiently large mobs regardless of if the demands are just because not doing so means you'll have mutinous employees on your hands.
Fox news all the time, there were calls to fire some people responsible for firing timnit which never happened, etc. So yes. You just never hear about them because "company ignores Twitter drama" is the null hypothesis.
> Presumably the executives who fired him are intelligent people who can draw their own conclusions about what he did or didn't say.
Yes, but is it fair to say that they probably made the decision based on what's best for the business?
"Make the mob go away" is a rational decision to make. And one that's done all the time in this world of public shaming (see book "So you've been publicly shamed").
Damore does not have a cash value higher than the productivity lost by many other employees turning into a mob instead of working.
Maybe they would have fired him without the mob. But I don't think so.
> Damore was fired by a conspiracy.
No, I say by mob justice (the mob) and capitalism (best decision for the business).
I don't think this is unsolvable/inescapable, and I think we need to solve this.
In my opinion DoS isn't speech. DoS prevents not just a the speaker from talking, but denies all the listeners hearing it. Just like fraud isn't "free speech".
It's not a paradox of free speech that I can't reneg on a verbal contract, or written contract.
Free Speech is about the free exchange of ideas. DoS is literally the opposite of that.
The right of your fist ends where my face begins.
It's possible to argue that it's speech to express your displeasure with a person or their position by interrupting them. And demonstrating or doing a stunt during speech, is fair.
But if it goes so far that your intention is no longer to communicate your displeasure, but to deny speech, then it's like claiming "freedom of movement" to move your fist into someone's face.
The line isn't clear, and I literally mean it's debatable.
I saw several senior leaders (in industry and in the mob) say exactly what I quoted.
And privately I asked several angry people "did you read it?". Most said no, and some came back later saying "yeah that was not actually what they told me it was".
James Damore was in fact fired for workplace behavior it should be noted. His manifesto was a document discussing Google’s actions and policies and was distributed to coworkers.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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."]
"Republicans aren't getting cancelled for describing their political policies, they're getting cancelled for being racist or x-phobic"
but then,
"It is an utter moral necessity to not extend civility to or engage with Republicans on issues like healthcare or police reform, but instead do everything necessary to prevent their ideas from being heard or discussed."
I'm sure your next point is that everything conservatives believe reduces to wrongthink x-isms, and therefore everything is permissible, and you probably are unable even then to see the inconsistency. But it seems like others have taken note.
Oh, I see how you could read it that way, yes. Here let me refute some of these assumptions:
- I don't assert that opposing these things is a moral necessity for everyone, but do find it so for myself.
- I extend civility usually but not always, it depends on the circumstances. If being uncivil furthers my goals or feels correct then I will do it.
- I don't oppose "republicans" generally but I oppose specific harmful acts, including speech in some instances. "Engagement with" is too broad: I'm willing to (and do!) have coffee and discuss any issue privately, but may vehemently oppose the same conversation happening as a public debate, for example.
- Absolutely not everything is permissible and there are many more lines I won't cross than ones I will.
Just for a concrete example, if you read through my history a little you'll notice I fucking hate the police. What you wouldn't guess is my home AA group is all cops except for me. Many years ago I needed help and didn't realize that's what it was and they helped me and I stayed. None of us hide any part of ourselves there. There are men I have opposed in armed conflict in the street and then met with mutual love and grace in the room.
I see very clearly the humanity of my enemies but nonetheless find I must oppose them. I am rarely truly sure I'm on the right path, but I feel compelled to act and I hope for forgiveness for my mistakes and harms.
The tweet suggests the views targeted to are not ones related to taxation, government spending, or regulation-- standard fiscally conservative stuff. In its own act of conspicuous omission the tweet implies the censored views are obviously abhorrent ones. A later reply says the quiet part out loud, referring to the views of whiny conservatives as "racist views, misogynistic views, or xenophobic views".
Your comment states-- "I'm afraid I must oppose some ideas in ways other than ignoring them" to "get a doctor for my impoverished mother in law".
I think it's unclear to me precisely what you're saying here, but I can see how it can be read as saying you seek to silence fiscal conservatives who oppose state funded healthcare or other government support.
If your comment had not included an apparent example of a question of public policy that had little to do with racism, misogyny, xenophobia, or similar I suspect the person you're responding to wouldn't have seen any conflict.
I still think it depends on certain assumptions about my positions and why I hold them. Like, I oppose market-based healthcare access because it causes injustice, death, and suffering on a large scale. To me that is very consistent with opposing eg racism because it causes injustice, suffering and death.
I did, honestly, momentarily forget that this state of affairs is the status quo and so probably has wider explicit support than the others. It's all part of the same hell to me though.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, I think pg gets off on the wrong foot here---essentially saying that if something's true, it can't be x-ist---and proceeds in a circle. As you point out, many statements made with racist intent are at least partially true. This should also explain to Graham why whether something is x-ist can depend on who's saying it (and therefore what their intent is likely to be), while something that is true is presumably universal to the speaker: x-ism and truth are orthogonal dimensions.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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:)
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.
> 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.
The real-world error bars are quite wide because of the impact of moral character on a person's value, but sight unseen I would give the last seat in the life boat to the non-mentally-disabled person almost every time, yes.
Am pro-abortion in extreme cases involving rape or abuse
See, now that's a viewpoint I don't understand at all. The question of whether or not killing a fetus is killing a person is not affected by the circumstances of that fetus's creation.
A life isn't really that simple to define but yes. There are many "sins" external to the creation of life that warrant consideration of carrying a pregnancy to term. Some of them include inbreeding. At that point am okay with letting the society or the creators decide on the baby but am a bit more liberal on life created as a result of violence or psychological manipulation.
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.
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.
> 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.
> “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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> Except scientists themselves do not espouse such belief.
Every religion has members who know what they know.
> there is no place for "belief" in scientific research.
There is a belief that the scientific method is optimal for discovering truth. How well it works, is not relevant to the fact that it's a practice. This isn't complicated or doublespeak.
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.
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.
> 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).
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?"
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.
That is very far from 'the worst' I can imagine in someone. Further, it is hardly 'automatic' - it is a response to a hypothetical situation the author posited, for which multiple people considered that as the most prominent concrete example. If the author did not intend that, he did a poor job of making his argument clear.
Oh, I doubt he really wanted that. The sort of thing I suspect he was actually referencing is the "black people commit X% of all crimes" / "racial differences in IQ test scores show..." talking points. (Or their equivalents in other fields. Women-in-computer-science, etc.)
Why is possession of crack a more serious offense than possession of the same quantity of powder cocaine?
Is the single crime of selling a loose cigarette on the street equivalent to the single crime of defrauding tens of millions of dollars from investors?
How many officers are tasked with arresting people for "quality of life" offenses like loitering and disturbing the peace vs. tasked with arresting people for wage theft through unpaid overtime and time card fraud?
Are your statistics for "committing" crime in fact statistics for convictions? Are there systemic reasons those might be very different numbers?
If all of these are more useful subjects for discussion, what is the purpose of even making the original statement?
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
Came here to say the same thing. It is pretty ironic that in an essay that is basically criticizing people who can’t put up with heretics, he is doing the same thing with regards to "anti-vaxxers" without even realizing it. It doesn’t help that the term specifically (according to Merriam-Webster) is defined as:
> a person who opposes the use of vaccines or regulations mandating vaccination
It is a loaded term that is used mostly as a means to vilify people. There must be a lot of people who are pro vaccine, but against government mandates, so where does that leave them? Also, it is possible to be generally pro vaccines, but also skeptical of new vaccine technologies rushed through development and regulatory approvals in record time where the companies leading the push have a history of putting profits ahead of public health.
The fact that your comment shows up in gray here is further proof of the exact dynamic that he is referring to in the essay:
> But occasionally, like a vector field whose elements become aligned, a large number of aggressively conventional-minded people unite behind some ideology all at once. Then they become much more of a problem, because a mob dynamic takes over, where the enthusiasm of each participant is increased by the enthusiasm of the others.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
If you are not trying to persuade the other person, if you are only trying to describe, as non-judgementally and as objectively as possible, some context or situation, then you can't offend anybody. This is an axiom of Nonviolent Communication.
If you do end up offending somebody, it's because you veered away from the objective and started to put your subjective viewpoint into it. If you're describing your subjective viewpoint to another person, you're either looking to persuade them or to feel better about yourself (i.e. seeking empathy).
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.
"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."
> 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.
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.
> 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 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.
> 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.
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".
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.
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.
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
> 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.
"Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate"
"I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men
and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership."
And throughout the memo he keeps parroting this ridiculous line that women are more "neurotic" than men.
Sorry, but I'm incapable of reading something this insipid with a charitable eye
If you already believe he said women are biologically inferior, enough to throw quotes around it, you have a lot of work to do to unwind that bias. Most people would not be able to do it, especially if they are motivated reasoners.
I might respectfully suggest you try again.
If it will help you, he doesn't say women are more neurotic. What he says, truthfully, is that women on average score higher in neuroticism than men do in the Big 5 personality traits. It's a term in psychology with a specific meaning, it no doubt has a citation in his memo, and it has direct relevance to why there are fewer women in leadership roles. If the intent is to have more women in leadership roles, and this is true, it should be addressed, yeah? The memo suggests ways to do that.
I never said that he "said" that, I said he "considered" it. My evidence? Right here:
"Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate"
It doesn't matter whether he cites sources and tries to rationalize his position. He's in no place to be making these kinds of broad, overarching statements.
What does that mean to you? What do you think he's saying? Since you read the memo carefully and as charitably as you can, and not just scooped a quote from a news article about the memo, you will know that it's in the context of this bullet list:
> I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices:
> ● Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race [5]● A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates● Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate● Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scrutiny in the reverse direction (clear confirmation bias)● Setting org level OKRs for increased representation which can incentivize illegal discrimination [6]
> These practices are based on false assumptions generated by our biases and can actually increase race and gender tensions. We’re told by senior leadership that what we’re doing is both the morally and economically correct thing to do, but without evidence this is just veiled left
ideology that can irreparably harm Google.
> [5] Stretch, BOLD, CSSI, Engineering Practicum (to an extent), and several other Google funded internal and external programs are for people with a certain gender or race.
> [6] Instead set Googlegeist OKRs, potentially for certain demographics. We can increase representation at an org level by either making it a better environment for certain groups (which would be seen in survey scores) or discriminating based on a protected status (which is illegal and I’ve seen it done). Increased representation OKRs can incentivize the latter and create zero-sum struggles between orgs.
I'll note, as you no doubt know from your reading of the memo, that your quote has a link that requires a google email to open. I'm not sure what it says.
If you read that carefully and charitably, without mindreading (he "considers" indeed), it reads like a political conservative, and not someone upset about "diversity hires" per se. You can disagree with him. I do, regarding affirmative action, but you cannot, given that quote, draw a conclusion that he thinks women are biologically inferior.
I'm not sure how "We can increase representation at an org level by making it a better environment for certain groups (which would be seen in survey scores)" squares with your notions about the memo.
Ok, I don't think any of that will change your mind about the memo or Damore, so feel free to have the last word.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
...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 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.
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.
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.
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.
I like how you took it further. I agree that there may be fewer rules in interacting outside of such a dojo, but there are still some rules. For example, laws governing self-defense that often say people cannot respond to a push by beating the person to a pulp with a bat, lest they get charged for assault and maybe more. And beyond law, just norms on how we agree people should or should not fight fairly.
So I think there is a spectrum from all rules to no rules and that most, if not all, places of human interaction have some level of formal and informal rules on how we expect others to behave.
Indeed - I'm all for common sense and rules. So, whether you/the OP like it or not, the present 'formal and informal rules' of intellectual street-fighting do allow for the baseball bat of cancellation, rather than mere 'pushing-back', to be used against the 'push' of perceived prejudice. So if that is the 'push' one wants to make, better find an intellectual dojo that only allows pushing, not complain that your opponent didn't behave as you wanted them to.
But how does one try to change the rules of a place without talking about them? Is the only answer to leave the place and find one where the rules already align?
I don't ask this facetiously, as I studied intercultural communication in college and have lived in a lot of places, often asking myself how much do I stay in a place and try to change the rules versus leaving to find a place where the rules already align with what I want.
> 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.
You're just demonstrating PG's point exactly: that the x-ism depends on who says it even though it has no relation to truth.
You didn't even try to argue once that the statement is less true when a white graduate says it. The most you can say is one "might be considered" x-ist and affects a vague "value judgement". What does "might be considered subtly racist" have to do with truth?
You're technically correct, the first statement might be considered subtly racist because as PG argues: that's the heretical world we live in. I'd find it hard to argue that PG is socially crippled when he is precisely spelling out this social dynamic that leads to heresy.
The only difference is you seem content that society works this way.
The issue is that there is an implied difference in implied causation ("difficult because of their personal qualities" vs "difficult because of the college environment", say) and the truth values _with that implication included_ might be quite different.
But in this case one can be true and one can be false. If you imagine a world where either situation is true, then the context changes the truth of the statements.
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.)
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.
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.
“dog whistle” comes from supersonic dog whistles that dogs can hear but humans can’t, not just whistling to call a dog. The analogy is that a speaker can use a phrase that most people won’t notice but their intended audience will understand.
Maybe you already know this and I misunderstood your comment.
Judging racist insinuation from tone of voice, emphasis, and social context can definitely be valid. But I think it's really not a great idea to jump to negative conclusions about what a speaker said based primarily on the racial identity of the speaker. And making judgments primarily based on identity is what Paul is criticizing.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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). Interesting.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
She quit, she wasn't fired. And it was at least partly over incidents she wasn't even party too. Apparently she was upset that a supervisor suggested she not rap.
The Rolling Stone article is inaccurate. NYT article is better. Clean your mind of Rolling Stone.
Shaw quit because of a hostile work environment prompted specifically by her protest, which your linked article elides. Regarding the rap, she was told specifically she could not do it because she is white, and not because of any other reason.
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.
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!
> And? Minorities are racist just like everybody else.
There is a difference between minorities being racist, which of course they can be, and minorities not finding allegedly racist things to be racist. My point is that it makes no sense to define "racism" to encompass supposed "dog whistle" messages directed at minorities that those minorities themselves agree with.
It not only gets used to shut down debate, as PG observes, but it's exploitive. It gets used to argue on behalf of minorities against policies that minorities themselves support. Associations of law-and-order with racism got weaponized in the last couple of years to advance approaches to policing and criminal justice that minorities themselves rejected.
> Why do we have to triangulate this stuff?
Because white people shouldn't get to police other white people on minorities' behalf over statements that those minorities don't find offensive.
> Trump was obviously a pretty racist guy.
In the sense that pretty much every 70-year old man is racist? Sure. In the sense that any of his policies were racist? No. Strong borders, careful scrutiny of refugees from parts of the world rife with fundamentalism, quelling riots, etc., are not racist.
You did it again: you framed something like "Is Trump racist? No, this set of policies everyone says is racist isn't really racist." I don't even have to disagree with your premises to continue to find Trump's policies racist, because he did more than carefully scrutinize refugees and attempt to quell riots. (I do disagree with your premises, though).
I'm not out to get you with these observations. I don't think you're racist, or running cover for racists. I like that there are vocal conservative-leaning people around here. It's weird that you'd deploy high school debate tricks to respond to me, isn't it? If it's "sneaky lawyer trick" upthread, I apologize; I was just having fun, not trying to cast aspersions.
When people say that "Trump is racist," I take that to mean "Trump is personally prejudiced and that is reflected in his messaging and policies." I think whether he's racist irrespective of his messaging and policies isn't an interesting question.
> I think whether he's racist irrespective of his messaging and policies isn't an interesting question.
I don't think a leader's personal conduct and presentation are completely immaterial qualities, people/children can smell this stuff, and boy did Trump smell. A good leader inspires people to be better. Even more so for the figurehead of free world, I think folks should be able to say "look, that's our leader, he's a good (wo)man" to their children. They could with Obama, they couldn't with Trump. You're a parent, does this not cross not your mind at all?
I think mixing politics and morality is counterproductive at best and dangerous at worst. Politics isn’t a vehicle for imposing manners or enlightened attitudes.[1] I respect George W. Bush as an extremely moral person. He was also a bad President. Same thing for Carter. Meanwhile Clinton was an immoral person, but was a good President. I think Trump was extremely immoral, but his legacy will probably be one of the most profoundly positive turns in American foreign policy in generations: dismantling the Bush/Cheney neocon apparatus.
I think Trump is a boor and I certainly wouldn’t want my kids to emulate him. At the same time, I think many of his detractors have screwed up morals as well and worry about my kids absorbing those.
[1] I think treating “racism” as a political issue rather than something to be addressed through cultural means actively hurts “Black and brown people” by pissing away political capital on abstract debates that don’t actually help anyone.
Treating racism through cultural means rather than politics didn't get Black votes counted in the 20th century, and now that the Roberts court has dismantled the Voting Rights Act and we get to go through this all over again, it won't get Black votes counted in the 21st century.
Yes, we're on the same page there. (Some of) Trump's policies were racist: constructed and executed with overt racial animus, to a degree we haven't seen since the 1970s. That doesn't mean border security and cutting refugee slots is intrinsically racist; not everything Trump did was racist. I'm sure George Wallace did a bunch of stuff just to keep the lights on and the trains running, too!
Like what do you think was driven by racial animus? People use the “Muslim ban” as an example, but it’s telling that other Muslim countries didn’t want refugees from those places either.
None of those are indicative of prejudicial racism. Making it harder to sue landlords seems like something you’d expect a real estate developer to support.
As to Haitians and family separation, I don’t think that fits into “racism.” Refugees are from a different culture, they come from dire economic status, etc. Many countries have harsh reactions to refugees that have nothing to do with “racism” but with not wanting to provide for poor foreigners. For example Bangladesh has responded very harshly to Rohingya refugees, even though many (most?) acknowledge they’re closely related to Bengalis. (The Rohingya language is mutually intelligible with dialect spoken in Chittagong, where my dad went to college.)
How can that be a meaningful or illuminating example, though? The US has a completely different history in which race and racism have played a central role, for both ill and good. Bangladesh as a country is younger than Loving v Virginia.
All of them are indicative of prejudicial racism? There was a speaking tour on the FHA stuff that laid bare the objective? At the point where we're debating whether there's racial animus involved in affordable housing policy, I think we're giving up on the idea of having a discussion at all; like, you're assuming a set of positions that would resist charges of racism in the 1970s.
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.
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?
> 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.
That's being very literal. Jim Crow lasted until 1965. Loving v Virginia was 1967. Gay marriage was made legal in 2015. The 80s wasn't necessarily a watershed but it was a generation raised knowing that a civil rights battle could be won.
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.
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.
> 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.
"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.
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.
> 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.
"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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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)
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
> 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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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).
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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”.
> 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.
Yes she is, but more relevantly for your original concern, her magazine ran some outright neo-phrenology articles a while back. Intellectually she's a clown, but pg and other SV thoughtbubblers take her extremely seriously.
> 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.
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.
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.
I don't think you lived in the past. Racist jokes were told by teachers in school to their class. Minorities in work environments would be told racist jokes by white dudes to their face and they had to laugh at them or be fired. White dudes could basically say whatever they want, as long as it wasn't about another white dude (or their families). The past was probably more shocking than you realize it was.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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).
> 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.
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.
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.
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
> 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%).
> 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.
> 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."
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.
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.
> 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).
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.
"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"
I generally find white left wingers so hard to love because of the complexes and attitudes commonly connected to this sentiment. I try to forgive them for what I can't unsee as progressively dehumanizing everyone and everything in the spheres I have little choice but to inhabit, even though they give us no such quarter. The thing that pulls me out of anger at that tribe is sadness, when I think that probably (driven by forces that increase published statistical likelihoods) at least one atheist/left-winger I've read a mean comment or message from has killed themselves and is no more. If I feel they are dehumanizing, the correct reaction is to rehumanize.
> The right focuses on the second trimester issue because Roe mandates the availability of elective second trimester abortions, which people oppose.
Casey tossed out Roe and with it the trimester framework. The right focuses on the 2nd trimester because it polls in their favor.
> "social progressives"
I don't really think this term is super useful (is it pro-reproductive rights, pro-trans rights, what?), but stipulating that it is, I get what you're saying. There's a diversity of political views in the US, practically none are coherent and many are surprising (some Black Americans think things were better under slavery, if you can believe it). I believe they're all valid though, hard as they are to reconcile.
> Warren
My main argument here is that votes for the Warren campaign aren't a good measure of support, for all the reasons the Democratic primary process is a dumpster fire. You can dig into polls and I can throw process at you, but if you want to look at support for progressive issues across demographics, that's what polls are for. Dunno why you have an axe to grind w/ her.
> 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.
Descriptive representation matters a lot, especially in down ballot races.
---
My point with all the social progressive stuff is that it's poorly defined, and support is hard to poll across demos and issues. Which is why I reached for broad, inarguable measures like people who supported Biden/Harris, and also dug into specific questions in the Gallup poll. But you can be more granular, like how can you look at Sanders' support amongst Latinos and non-college White men and not think support for social progressivism is anything but diverse?
> "ideological rigidity"
This one drives me nuts. When the 40 people in the extremely online wing of the Democratic party display ideological rigidity, someone's Twitter mentions blow up. When the State legislature of Texas displays ideological rigidity, they effectively ban abortion and curb reproductive health access for millions of women. Are there probably weird cases of some super progressive losing it and crossing the line? Sure. None of it measures up to what State legislatures are doing.
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.
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.
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?
“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.
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.
> 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"?
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.
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.
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.
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"?)
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?
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.
> 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.
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).
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.
I witnessed someone get fired for wearing a MAGA hat in a Twitter picture at an unnamed tech company. Yes, that was the only reason. He was a good performer.
Holding a view that tens of millions of Americans have and you get fired.
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?
> 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."
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.
> 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?
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.
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.”
> 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.
...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.
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.
“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”.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
It's heresy to say that the races, having evolved in different environments for millennia, likely have different average levels of intelligence, consistent with patterns of scores on IQ tests and college admissions tests. Charles Murray's book "Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America" (2021) expounds this heresy.
The proposition can certainly be debated, but it's important that it is debated rather than shunned as heresy, because if it is true, pushing to make blacks represented according to population in high-IQ professions such as law, medicine, and engineering will erode standards and reduce productivity in those fields.
> 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.
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?)
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.
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.
> 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.
I would amend #1 to “the adherents of the conventional view are convinced its truth is beyond question.”
Truth is actually really important, maybe the most important thing for heresy. A defining feature of heresies is that those enforcing them believe strongly that the heresy is untrue.¹
Take PG’s example of doubting the divinity of Christ. Truth isn’t secondary in that case - just the opposite. Believing it, literally, is the core feature of Christianity.
> 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.
This is a fallacy. Insofar as this phenomenon exists (less than people think), it’s because the belief content of the statement is different depending on who says it. There’s a common view on the identitarian left that “minorities can’t be racist because racism is about power and they don’t have any.” But a Latino professor who spends his time arguing that Black people are genetically inferior to other groups will get cancelled just as quickly as a white one.
There seems to be some irony in this essay since the viability of today's "heresy" is particularly dependent on the use of computer networks, individuals, software and websites that are actively promoted by or otherwise connected to the author, e.g., through investments, mentoring and the like. Because the "business" of these websites is to generate web traffic for the benefit of web advertising, the operators can profit from the traffic that "heresy" generates. Imagine a "social media" or similar UGC-based website today that forbade the use of the website to identifiy "heretics". If that was the norm, would this essay have been written. Using the internet to pursue "vigilante justice" comprises such a large portion of UGC and associated traffic that it is arguably crucial to the "tech" company "business model." There are other uses of the internet. They might not be as profitable in terms of generating large amounts of traffic, satisfying advertisers and lining the pockets of "tech" companies and investors, but they might be equally or more beneficial to users.
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
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".
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?
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
"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
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.
> 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.
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.
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!?
"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.
> 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.
> 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?
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.
> 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.
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".
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.
>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.
> 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
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
>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?
> 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.
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".
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.
> 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?
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.
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.
>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.
> 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.
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 !
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.
Yet the situation is radically different, since trans, in addition to having "social issues", also have "body issues" ?
(Then there's also the situation with (real) pedophiles, which, unlike for gays, we have decided to keep in the mental illness category - and understandably so, considering the danger for children.)
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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”.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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".
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.
"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.
>> 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.
>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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I've read comments on articles about LGBT issues (often trans topics these days), and there are a lot of people that say things like "Being gay is a choice".
If that's not denying the existence of a different kind of person to you, I don't know what is.
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.
“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?
>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?
>> 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.
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".
> 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.
* 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.
* 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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
> 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)
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?
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?
>> 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?
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.
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.
> 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).
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.
>> 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.
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?
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??
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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!
> 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.
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.
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...
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.
> The bill would prevent teachers from keeping secrets about children from their parents. It enforces more speech, not less.
If teachers must disclose student confidences to parents, it discourages students in unsafe homes from letting on to their teachers that they’re questioning their sexuality. That’s a chilling effect on speech.
Early 2000's I was in school as a teenager and reading about feminism. It looked to me very obvious, even before that, the oppression of women, and the need to stop it, alongside all violence - which demanded consciousness and dialog. I tried to advertise the concept to the females in my classroom, and with only 1 or 2 exceptions they ridiculerized me and feminism, and some even told me I was a "fag" or some equivalent. I would tell them that the "level of emancipation of women in a society is also a measure to this society's general level of emancipation" [0], and they would reply: "ok, nerd. why would you even care if you are a man, supposedly?". I'm pretty glad with the deep advances we've been able to produce since then. Love produces love, and vice-versa - and that's universally desireable. On our way to Harmonia[1].
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.
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.
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?
At this point, there are more essays decrying "cancel culture" than there are rabbit's noses. On an ideological level, many of them are rousing, but if they enter the realm of everyday life by listing specific examples, the arguments weaken.
Many forbidden ideas are taboo because they, often obviously, have little potential to help society, and great potential to harm it.
I've deliberately avoided mentioning any specific heresies here.
I'll give the author credit for bringing that to the reader's attention. Then I also wonder if he wrote a draft with examples (the heresies of anti-feminists? groypers? race scientists?), and realized he would disgust his audience.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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?
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.
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".
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.
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.
My ultimate problem with all these heretics is that their heresies are ultimately just reactionary - There is a constant thread of the “good old days” and “in the past” and essentially their ideal is some past state.
It just feels a bit meh to me.
But perhaps that’s how all things are. I have a view which I think is heretical: I believe that banning organ trade is unethical and exploitative and that bringing organs to the market in a safe way is not only possible but required by us. I think it doesn’t fall into this fallacy because there is no time when this was considered except one year before NOTA passed. But perhaps you all think that is boring.
"when someone calls a statement 'x-ist,' they're also implicitly saying that this is the end of the discussion."
This thesis is the real "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". I can respect that it applies truthfully to many would-be SJWs, and the labels are indeed used to end conversations. However, meaningfully calling something racist, sexist, etc. is a start of a process, not an end. This meaningful discussion (and, much more frequently, reflection) is too often precluded when one party is too defensive to look honestly, openly, and beyond themselves, at their own biases.
So you let people control your life by letting them intelligently split interest groups by race and gender so that you can't effectively fight a class war? Bravo, you really fell for it.
The challenge I have when someone calls something racist or sexist, or even good or evil or beautiful or ugly, is that a person seems to be taking how they feel about a thing and labeling that thing as if everyone feels the same way with regards to that thing, which I think is rarely if ever true.
Which can lead to this:
Person 1: That thing is beautiful.
Person 2: No it's not beautiful.
Person 1: Yes, it is beautiful.
Person 2: No, it is not beautiful!
or slightly better, this:
Person 1: For me, that thing is beautiful.
Person 2: Well, for me, that thing is not beautiful.
Person 1: Why don't you find that thing beautiful??
Person 2: I just don't see it as beautiful.
or much better, this:
Person 1: I feel so much joy when I see that thing.
Person 2: I don't feel joy, I actually feel disgust.
Person 1: I'm confused, why do you feel disgust when you see that thing?
Person 2: It reminds me of this one thing that caused me a lot of pain before.
So while yes, I don't think labeling something as universally X necessarily ends the conversation, I think it can lead people to a binary debate about universals instead of open up the conversation for people to share their own experiences and more personal perspectives.
He's right in that there's a very important and popular Zeitgeist here in the U.S. where person A and person B can say a particular fact P, and depending on certain external physical visual characteristics of person A or B (how the light bounces off of them or refracts), P can be taken to be false, or evidence of heresy. And what is interesting is even just raising the above objection in purely logical terms, is enough to have the dark shadow of suspicion cast upon thee.
Let's hope the liberal values prevail, and we return to our search for truth, which does exist.
"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.
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.
I don't think you need to put "heresies" in vague quotes. He's defined it quite clearly as factually correct statements which will destroy your career and social life if stated.
>There are always some heresies — some opinions you'd be punished for expressing. But there are a lot more now than there were a few decades ago
I see this sentiment expressed often to the point where it seems to just be accepted as true without the need to provide proof. Is anyone familiar with a methodology that attempts to examine this view with more rigor other than just, "boy it seems like more people are being cancelled these days"?
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.
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.
This is the pot calling the kettle black and serves to divide more than it does unite. In the past PG was heavy handed on HN, later handing over the reigns to dang et al. That doesn't mean his influence is gone, or that the initial thumb on the scale had no lasting impact.
More competing tech from non-SV sources would be a boon for everyone including YC. There's no motivator like healthy competition.
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.
Once you start deviating from truth, you enable a wide range of extremely horrifically bad things. Things you have not witnessed, but humanity has. Do not do this. "Here be dragons," for the true idiots who don't bother understanding this.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I disagree. Conservative values that marginalize some groups are simply unacceptable. It's not a matter of faith or perspective, it's just rational observation. When conservatives draw up explicitly racist congressional districts or pass laws banning talk about gender identity, I see those as indefensible. Doubly so because so much of the justification is based on abject lies.
No one has ever been cancelled over support for, say, charter schools or wanting lower taxes. I disagree with those but they're not morally reprehensible.
This was a very interesting read, but I think there are some base assumptions left unanalyzed.
In my opinion, the reason why "cancel culture", or heresy as the author calls it, is so dangerous is because it legitimizes A) dehumanization, B) the idea that any evolutionary strategy is off the table, and C) the idea that you are not obligated to explain yourself if you want people to listen and take you seriously.
A) Society is regressing to the point where the mere utterance of a word or phrase can be deemed so offensive that it justifies murder, permanent injury and/or sexual violation being perpetrated against the speaker. This is a level of barbarism most would associate some distant dark age or the fauna of an unexplored jungle, yet here it is.
B) By evolutionary strategy, I am referring to the knowledge, experience and skill we apply individually and collectively for the purpose of survival, and the decision making processes we engage in along the way. People do not have to believe what you believe. They don't have to pray to what you pray to, or eat what you eat, or wear what you wear, or speak your language. And that's perfectly okay as long they aren't stepping your toes, and vice versa. There are many paths that can be taken to attain fitness and fulfillment. Monocultures suck, and stifled speech breeds them like there's no tomorrow.
C) A lack of transparency deprives us of the chains of logic used to reach a given conclusion, whether it's true or not. Tying this back into point B, in nature there is generally more than one right way to do something, yet the ugly monoculture that has come out of American social media and acadamia would seem to disagree. There is an all-pervasive "my way or the highway" attitude. When everyone is fearful and secretive it creates a chilling effect in every strata of society. It doesn't matter if you're a burger flipper or an electrical engineer. In all environments poisoned by this culture of hosility it becomes impossible to build enough trust to get the work done, let alone innovate or do it efficiently.
Human beings are smart enough to choose our own whetstones and sharpen ourselves in a controlled manner that leads to a lot less pain, suffering and death. But apparently not smart enough to overcome misplaced pride and petty tribalism. In my opinion this is the great filter. Not aliens, not an energy crisis, not space travel. Just learning to work well with others is going to be the hardest thing in the universe.
Reading the comments, there is a definite Dark Forest (or similar) effect here, where heretics can't say what they think because it's heresy, and inquisitors can't say what they think because it doesn't stand up to sustained inquiry. Thus both sides try to goad the other into going first.
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.
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
The idea that people could speak freely in jobs earlier without getting fired is beyond laughable.
The only thing being exposed by this is that a certain group of people were exempt from the rules most faced and are now having to face some small fraction of that.
I knew this was gonna be a rough read after the setup. And then he got to the part where he's "just drawing parallels" between the Cultural Revolution and college campuses, and I knew there wasn't anything else I needed to read. And of course it leads into "maybe we don't really need to make sure eeeeeveryone is vaccinated, freedom of choice" apologia.
The part he's missing, or being wilfully ignorant of, is intentionally distorting heresy and orthodoxy through bad faith and selfish uses of both. I can understand that the person who challenges the system due to experienced injustices or inequities is coming from a different place than the person challenging the system because they aren't allowed to dump mercury into the water supply. One is trying to speak to a system they perceive to be unfair while the other is trying to keep the system from performing as intended in order to further entrench their own interests. That they might seem similar is mostly window dressing.
I heard this argument in 2008 when folks loved to point out that Obama was popular with youth, just like Mao during the Cultural Revolution. It's Sinophobia, full stop.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, but it's also very much not the kind of statement PG is talking about. It's not generally something someone would be concerned about the truth value of.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> For example, when someone calls a statement "x-ist," they're also implicitly saying that this is the end of the discussion.
What a load of shit. So he sets up this opinion piece with a poorly constructed straw man (quite literally a false statement in every _discussion_ I've been part of) then uses this as an anchor for the rest? I mean, this is one of the most aggressively conventional takes on cancel culture I've read over the past year.
Maybe he should get back to being active with YC again so he has less time to embarrass himself like this.
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.
To disable heresy you'd need to disable personal or moral offense. But it's as unrealistic to think that could ever happen as it is to blame "the left" for reacting to the deliberate incitement and cultivation of prejudice that's so popular right now. People die because of "x-ism" and pretending "the left" are to blame is ludicrous in the worst possible way.
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.
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".
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."
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'?
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.
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.)
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.
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.
> 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.
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?
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)
"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."
> the current wave of intolerance comes from the left
Banning Critical Race Theory, teaching kindergarteners about gay people, and removing certain books from school libraries are all being done by the far right, today, via legislative bodies.
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."
paulg, despite saying "There are aggressively conventional-minded people on both the right and the left", immediately follows that with a fixation on 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."
We don't need to imagine. We're over a year into a wave of moral panic from the right focusing on local school boards in the united states, in which they seek to purge reading materials dealing with subjects that make them uncomfortable, fire people for raising those subjects, and impose rules against raising those subjects, in some cases carrying criminal penalties.
Looking over at Russia, we see the worst case scenarios Paul references in the esssay playing out quite explicitly, today. The example of how we'll know we're really in trouble ("Damn right we're banning ideas, and in fact here's a list of them") and the example of Mao saying "There are heretics among us. Seek them out and punish them"? Putin and his followers have already entered that territory [1] [2].
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.
The article was about heresy which he defines as something which is factually true, not generic notions of free speech.
If I can respectfully say something here: you're making sweeping statements about people based on their race etc. It's going to be difficult to make persuasive arguments if that is your debating starting point.
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.
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").
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?
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.
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.
"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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
“ 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.”
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 García Martínez at Apple. And yet the latter case is considered cancel culture, while the former is not.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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".
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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™ 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I wasn’t really attempting to win the argument. Just wanted to point out that while we believe we are above such things, given the right motivations humans will happily kill each other over a belief.
People in the West, please, don't complain. In Russia right now, if you just call a war in Ukraine a "war", you'll get arrested. Please enjoy what you have now, it's so much better. Left wing people are WAY much more soft than from the right.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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).
* 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
> 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.
Interesting how he chose to name nothing except anti-vaxxing.
Body autonomy is incredibly important.
But when people start ranting about anti-vaxxers that concept doesn't even enter their little heads. It's never I understand their rights and how important that is, but...
Because any complex thoughts on the issue are heresy.
Paul conviniently makes it seem as if it was a organic grassroots thing and not a result of the rulers directing them from the top.
There's never been stable rulers who didn't get rid of the naysayers. "Drain the Swamp" was unsuccessful and it was like the vaccine for them. Now, they just know what can be used to attack them, so they are just fixing those things, whether it's gripping technocrats by the balls or getting rid of punishments for pedophiles.
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.
The values assumed by the author of this essay are so far removed from my own that it would be useless to attempt to engage it on its own terms in this forum, but I do find this piece interesting from the perspective of an anthropological study of language. Graham's criteria for heresy are :
"(1) that it takes priority over the question of truth or falsity,
and (2) that it outweighs everything else the speaker has done."
This obviously has nothing to do with the classical conception of heresy most pronounced in the Christian tradition, which is well-defined and well-documented. Anyone with intellectual honesty can discover on their own that "heresy" simply denotes teaching that is markedly false in virtue of being contrary to dogmatic teaching, almost the opposite of what is implied in point (1).
Based on many of the underlying assumptions in this piece, I think it would be entirely fair to describe Graham as some kind of liberal. This is evidently something he would bemoan me doing (see: the bit about "x-ism" in discourse), but the ideas expressed, the value-judgments made, and the characterizations of medieval Europe made in this piece are by no means original or historically-unprecedented.
The liberal or perhaps whiggish historiography (a conception of history, in this case, in terms of the degree of negative liberty allotted to individuals not only by the state but the body politic as a whole) implicit in this piece appears at least prima facie to lead to its author's either mistaken characterization or perhaps purposeful recharacterization of the notion of "heresy". Liberalism ad absurdem would, in performance, consider a classical conception of "heresy" nonsensical, because it assumes the truthhood of a dogmatic teaching which isn't immediately obvious to everyone. However there is something that, at least if pushed on it enough, no one will deny without performative contradiction, and that is that certain things are good and true, and others not. No systematic thought can be non-dogmatic, because the dogmatic rejection of dogmas is a dogma (it is, in truth, only the dogmatic rejection of dogmas existing in some form on the present world-stage). Of course, the dogmas of the varieties of liberalism are, more or less, incompatible with orthodox Christianity, which popularized the term "heraese" in the Latin West, and this accounts for the different notion of "heresy", which appears to me now as a corpse of a term, once mostly denoting false teaching, now emphasizing the persecutory aspect of espousing teaching contrary to certain dogmas. Similarly, "paganus" once referred to a rural, bucolic person in the Roman Empire, and through pejorative use by Christians simply began to denote those who practiced the religion common among the rural Romans. Now, the so-called "neopagan" movement self-identify as such, appropriating the term entirely. I have also witnessed the phenomenon of some "far-right" people I know crying about being labeled "fascists" because they were not "fascists" as defined in the doctrinal document ghost-authored by Gentile, but then years later willingly adopted the term, accepting that the nuanced differences between their worldview and the IFP's were negligible from the perspective of people who use the term "fascist" pejoratively. I think a similar thing is going on here with the use of "heresy". The author clearly believes that the dominant thought-forms during the middle ages are "antiquated" (his word), and because the differences between traditions with different declared dogmas probably appear to him negligible from the perspective of his values and historiography, the only thing the word "heresy" signals to him is the mere existence of socially-imposed consequences for expressing this or that belief.
Quite fascinating how we, as a species, use language.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
Sorry, I don't really get the relevance of that objection.
In everyday life, most of us are happy to accept the "reality" (in whatever philosophical sense you choose to use) of all sorts of personality traits that exist only "in the mind": kindness, eloquence, sense of humor, willpower. If you likewise accept the reality of "gender identity" as a mental trait, then I don't understand why it makes sense to insist that trait is only meaningful when it's "fully formed" -- can we say that about any aspect of our personality?
I don't know if this exact question has ever been scientifically studied, but it seems pretty clear that if you offered people the choice to push a magic button and permanently change their body to the opposite sex, the vast majority of us would pretty confidently say, no, and a small minority of people would be equally confident in answering the opposite way. That's close enough to "objectively measurable" for me.
More to the point, we're talking about children. Should children be allowed to press the magic button?
We don't allow children to make other permanent changes to their bodies in general (and those tend to be stigmatized even with parental consent); and more to GP's point, the majority of children with a desire to be the opposite sex grow out of it.
It does not make sense to me that we question a child's judgment in all other matters except this one. This is important because gender affirming therapy is, medically speaking, nontrivial and not without severe risks.
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.
> 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.
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.
"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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
"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.