151–160 of 853 posts
You know Sam, if you stopped censoring controversial positions or posts from hacker news I might take you seriously. Coming from someone who is now almost automatically moved to the bottom of threads or the ridiculous "See More" section you all implemented, who as a result just doesn't post much anymore.
I 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.
This, in fact, happens as the move to criminalize speech against Israel on campuses and eslwhere shows.
> This is uncomfortable, but it’s possible we have to allow people to say disparaging things about gay people if we want them to be able to say novel things about physics. What about all the novel things about physics that we won't ever hear from the gay people who are forced out of physics because of a life-threatening climate of hate and bigotry?
What about whataboutism?
Their argument is 100% relevant to the sentiment that was expressed. If the stated benefit of excluding one group to allow for the free expression of the other is increased scientific discourse, how do we balance that against the loss of discourse from the excluded?
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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 controver…
I think that life extension is dangerous and wrong and therefore people dedicating their lives to it today are unethical people. I haven't censored anyone or shut down any argument by saying this, and neither was I attempting to, so your point seems to be confused.
You haven't shut down any argument by saying "anyone who works on this is a bad person"? Seriously? I happen to think the exact opposite: life extension is probably one of the most noble things we could possibly be working on. Imagine if Einstein were still alive. We never learn from history, maybe because the people who lived it are all dead now. But in your mind, thinking this way probably makes me unethical (i.e. bad)! It's no problem when we're both two blobs of text on a forum, but I certainly wouldn't want you to be a boss or someone I was forced to interact with on a regular basis. And if enough people behave as radical as you are they will likely want to go beyond simply labelling people (e.g. see all the "hate crime" talk).
Of the places I've lived (not necessarily in order): - Deep South (18 years - born + raised) - Boston MA (5 years @ college then job) - NYC (6+ years) - Los Angeles (1yr @ startup) - San Diego (1yr @ startup) - Bay Area (6 years, including 4+ at household name tech company) I found the Bay Area (and SF in particular) to be the most intolerant, rigid and inflexible culture I've ever lived and worked in. I've never enc…
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"The worst you'll get is a tongue-lashing?" Not even close. It is quite ordinary for SV employees to be fired or "resign" after being caught participating in wrongthink. Eich is the most famous example, but Apple's former chief of diversity is a more recent one. No, this is not quite as severe as being arrested and imprisoned for thinking the wrong things. But career-wise, at least, it can be almost as disastrous.
Okay but how do you solve that? You take away the right of companies to fire people for speech? I see no way to increase freedom from the status quo here.
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It would be a funny assertion to say that you're less free to speak in SV where the worst you'll get is a tongue-lashing vs China where the worst you'll get is quite a lot worse. How would you even fix this freedom? Somehow constrain people to not speak their mind when they disagree with you? Constraining them through government would obviously make us less free so that's out. Constraining them through culture is no…
"The worst you'll get is a tongue-lashing?" Not even close. It is quite ordinary for SV employees to be fired or "resign" after being caught participating in wrongthink. Eich is the most famous example, but Apple's former chief of diversity is a more recent one. No, this is not quite as severe as being arrested and imprisoned for thinking the wrong things. But career-wise, at least, it can be almost as disastrous.
It surprises me that Sam didn't include instances like that in his essay; maybe he wanted to avoid specifics so his argument couldn't be attacked on an individual case level, but nonetheless.
Side note: Are there any other alternatives that take privacy as seriously as Apple?
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In what world are these opinions not voiced? I don't think this argument stands up to empirical scrutiny -- there's an incredibly robust network of vocally conservative student organizations.
See this list and go to the most recent years: https://www.thefire.org/resources/disinvitation-database/ When the list started it was fairly evenly distributed between right and left leaning speakers being disinvited. Now it's much more commonly right leaning speakers.
Specifically, this evidence could be explained by an increasing rate of conservatism on campuses. The rate of disinvitation could be the same, it's just that there's a greater number of conservative speaker invitations going out from a greater number of conservative students. And right leaning speakers are disproportionately invited by right-leaning student organizations.
I'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…
What I would take away from that notion is that large is relative. A large portion of the country still has fewer people than New York City. I am of course, not trying to start a flame war either, but my take on it is that those sorts of issues would be inappropriate to bring up at work or in a job interview in the first place, regardless of your position. Based on your description, I believe I probably espouse the o…
It also gets murkier nowadays because companies are expected to take stances on social issues, and with certain ones are criticized when they don't.
Next time he's in China maybe he should think about donating some money to a local union and see how free the speech is there. I'm no fan of the Bay Area but comparing to China freedom of speech is a bit weird.
I think it's pretty obviously the latter....