Very much related to this, my brother is an assistant professor at LaFayette College and has co-founded a series of talks called "The Mill Series" on promoting viewpoint diversity.
E Pur Si Muove
101–110 of 853 posts
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#102[deleted]
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#103We need to accept that some of these ideas ... are inherently dangerous.
Maybe but somehow we don't focus on dangerous ideas. Communism is by far the most dangerous idea devised in the west. It infected dozens of societies and led them to a century of poverty, slavery, and hundred million deaths.
Yet someone who's open about being a communist won't really be ostracised in SF. Communist flags are available on Amazon. Communist subreddits are not banned. So no, I don't buy this new wave of censorship as a defence against dangerous ideas.
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, he's asking for ideas to be criticised, and for the people presenting the ideas not to be ostracised. You can say "it's a bad idea to work on extending life", but following on from there to cast the person presenting the idea as unethical is doing more harm than good.
This distinction seems very fragile. I notice you've switched the act from "working on" in the original quote to "presenting". I don't think your distinction works anymore if you remove that change you made. Why would it be wrong to regard someone dedicating most of their time to actively accomplishing ("working on") an unethical thing as an unethical person? What else could "unethical person" possibly mean?
The issue is that what we're discussing is not objectively unethical. If we were discussing disecting live babies, then no one would disagree that anyone for that is unethical and even evil. But extending human life? We don't know exactly what would happen if we did that. Some people think it would be the end of the world, others (like me) think it would actually bring about positive change. Given that it's controversial, the problem is stating "I believe it's dangerous and wrong" and combinding that with "and therefor you are a bad/unethical person". That is censoring and shutting down the argument. Who are you to make that call?
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#105I wonder how much of this is an outgrowth of the current university campus climate where opinions that don't fit into the predominant liberal worldview can't be voiced. I don't mean this as a criticism of liberals or liberalism specifically here, since I realize many conservatives would do the same about issues they care about if they had the power and numbers to.
Maybe I'm old and grumpy, but things seem pretty crazy these days on campuses.
When I entered university in 1989, there was an extremely controversial professor at my school [1]. There was outrage accompanied with generally peaceful protests.
How it was handled at my school back then was that they organized a live TV debate with someone to argue the side against the professor's position.
In other words, we the students (and the public for that matter) were treated like adults and we were expected to be able to hear and process ideas we may not agree with without overreacting or having our heads explode. IIRC, the whole notion of going to university, among other things, was to further develop our critical thinking skills. That seems to be hard to do in an echo chamber.
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#106I remember being in argentina a couple of years back and seeing the "Political correctness" pro-trump slogan and thinking how dumb that sounded. Moved back to SF, and there is a HUGE difference of what it was for me 5 years ago. The people I know are way more cautious and the people I don't are even more afraid. The Damore essay is still one of the unspeakables. I know I fear getting fired if i publicly said i agreed…
Can you explain your last paragraph further? Obviously saying you agree with something you never read is a bad idea. Since you haven't read it, you don't know how bad it is, right? For all you know it could be Mein Kampf. Or it could just say your boss is an idiot, or that working at your company is a waste of time, etc. Especially as a knowledge worker, ideas you espouse at work could affect your employability, so you should know what they are before espousing them. We aren't a bunch of robots - our productivity is influenced by what our colleagues say.
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#107Isn't this just asking for your ideas to not be criticized? Me: let's extend life Someone else: If people live a lot longer it will be disastrous for the environment, so people working on this must be really unethical Isn't this exactly how it's supposed to work? Why would Sam complain about an encounter like this?
As a scientist that has worked for a medical lab and pharma in the past, I actually have somewhat similar reasons for leaving the industry and I actually feel like my reasons are controversial and I’m “not allowed to talk about them.”
Scientists get paid like children, seriously most in medium size cities can’t afford a mortgage on the crappiest house in the cities they work in. I will not build products to extend the lives of NIMBYs that vote against high-density housing and public transportation all for a shit salary that can’t even get me a house!
I’m basically extending the lives of selfish people while simultaneously making it harder for me to ever buy a home. Die NIMBYs Die. I’d love to help you live longer if you’d let me own a home, but you’ve proven you’ll prevent that as long as it benefits you.
So, die NIMBYs die.
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#108I'm extremely aware of this as someone who is socially conservative in terms of abortion, gay marriage, trans issues, etc (seriously not trying to start a flame war). It's weird knowing that a large portion of the country has similar values to me, but in a major city I can never mention these things or I'll immediately become unemployable. It doesn't matter that these things have zero impact on my behavior at work; y…
From my perspective, I don't want to work in an environment where people are voicing their opinion that (e.g.) gay marriage is illegitimate or wrong. How am I supposed to work with someone who thinks a huge part of my life is immoral? I would have an incredibly hard time believing that that person was taking me seriously, really wanted to work with me, wasn't going to undercut me, or trusted me.
It's not that you can't have these opinions or voice them -- but it's also not the case that the people who are most affected by those opinions are going to feel OK about it.
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#109California has been ridiculous for as long as I can remember. Come to New York, we have 20 million or so people who don't give a fuck about you and what you do all day as long as you don't clog up the subway stairs. It's quite lovely.
"You know what I love about this place? Nobody here gives a fuck about you."
- An Irish tourist I met in a bar.
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#110Isn't this just asking for your ideas to not be criticized? Me: let's extend life Someone else: If people live a lot longer it will be disastrous for the environment, so people working on this must be really unethical Isn't this exactly how it's supposed to work? Why would Sam complain about an encounter like this?
>Isn't this just asking for your ideas to not be criticized? No, he's asking not to be critisized for his ideas. And it's troubling to me that you think what you presented is a proper discourse but I guess that's where we are today. The "someone else" in your example is simple minded and potentially dangerous in large enough numbers. It is not at all a given that people living longer would be disasterous for the envi…
>How far is it from "they must be unethical" to "we should boycott their means of feeding their family" or even "we should probably put them in jail before they do something bad".
Well the jail comparison is really far away. The boycott one probably isn't so far but who cares? If people band together to boycott someone they view as unethical that doesn't seem wrong to me.
>No, he's asking not to be criticized for his ideas. And it's troubling to me that you think what you presented is a proper discourse but I guess that's where we are today. The "someone else" in your example is simple minded and potentially dangerous in large enough numbers.
Or we're dangerous in large numbers huh? How long until you start jailing us?!?! Anyways somehow I don't think people are calling just any idea unethical. Usually the idea that provokes this kind of response is an idea which involves hurting some one or some group. The idea that I can work towards something which hurts a lot of people and not be criticized for it? Come on man.
>It is not at all a given that people living longer would be disasterous for the environment [1] and therefor, no, people working on this may not be unethical.
Then make the argument. Where Sam cuts this conversation is totally arbitrary but it invokes the feeling that calling someone unethical ends the conversation. No, it's a claim. You don't think it's unethical then argue back. Maybe the someone else is convinced, maybe not, that's called a conversation.