Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

E Pur Si Muove

blog.samaltman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 853 posts

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#171

Post by colordrops »

tclancy wrote: post #144
rb808 wrote: post #5

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.

Yes, the argument really lost me by mentioning feeling more comfortable in Beijing than SF. I am sure it's not intended that way, but one of the things it reminded me of is the bimonthly "Why are all these homeless people in front of my startup when I pay taxes?" posts from Valley success stories. 100 floors up in Beijing isn't exactly my idea of grounded in reality.

I believe he is mostly talking about day to day could conversations among friends, acquaintances, and coworkers. I lived in Beijing for 9 years and I can tell you those types of conversations are absolutely more free in China. It's common to tell someone they are fat or ask them how much money they make without people taking offense. You can discuss various social topics and take a less popular opinion without being ostracized.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#172

Post by longerthoughts »

throwaway8766 wrote: post #64

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…

I've lived in cities on both sides of the political coin and can comfortably say that this is consistent for both liberal-dominant and conservative-dominant cities. I think part of the problem is that a lot of the issues you mention are seen as moral rather than ideological because peoples' values become so deeply rooted once they've spent enough time in like-minded communities (and perhaps some of the issues were really a question of morality to begin with). Beyond that, there's a heightened degree of generalization of "the other" when you're in a homogeneous community - if you support anything that aligns with an opposing political party, people will tend to project other values onto you that are generally associated with that party, regardless of whether or not you've expressed them.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#173

Post by davebryand »

Sam, your point is incredibly valid, and you'll be able to lead the charge if you reframe some of your concepts and let go of paragraphs like this.

"To get the really good ideas, we need to tolerate really bad and wacky ideas too. In addition to the work Newton is best known for, he also studied alchemy (the British authorities banned work on this because they feared the devaluation of gold) and considered himself to be someone specially chosen by the almighty for the task of decoding Biblical scripture."

Like I tell my son, "anytime your minds says something is 'weird or wacky', what it is really telling you is that you should seek understanding'.

[Updated] To be clear, what I mean is that you confessed your limits of acceptable thought by declaring alchemy and decoding of the Bible as being bad and wacky. If a genius like Newton was willing to believe these were worthy of his attention, and the British authorities were worried enough to ban it, maybe it's time to challenge the scripting you have that won't let YOU go there.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#174

Post by throwaway34689 »

guelo wrote: post #155
throwaway34689 wrote: post #148

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…

As if southerners aren't constantly cursing or making fun of "San Francisco values".

Honestly - in my experience, they are not. I didn't know anything about SF before I moved there. No one around me in the South ever talked about it. Now that I go back home and I mention I lived in SF I may hear people say something along the lines of "wow they are really liberal out there aren't they?". Nothing along the lines of the vitriol I hear in the Bay Area.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#175

Post by papaf »

blfr wrote: post #103

We 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.…

century of poverty, slavery, and hundred million deaths

I am genuinely curious about where you get the figure of 100 million deaths from. I also believe that all the societes that had slaves were capitalist ones.

But we can both agree that communism leads to poverty although the poorest countries in the world are failed states rather than communist: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-poorest-countries-in...

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#176

Post by colordrops »

ch4s3 wrote: post #8
rb808 wrote: post #5

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.

That struck me as ridiculous. If you piss off the mayor of SF you don't get disappeared, but that very much does happen in China.

That's not what is being talked about here. The topic is about social ostracization based on opinions you hold, rather than the ability to challenge authority over public broadcast mediums.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#177

Post by defen »

ak_yo wrote: post #108
throwaway8766 wrote: post #64

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…

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…

I work with vegans who think the fact that I use and consume animal products is immoral. They regularly make smug or passive-aggressive comments. And frankly I don't give a shit, and it doesn't stop us from working together.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#178

Post by RightMillennial »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #83
Cyberdog wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

That's exactly what you do. Maybe we could use some employee protection laws to protect employees exercising their right to free speech. E.g., protection from being fired when they are not acting as official representatives of their employers, or talking privately, or using personal social media accounts. Don't we already have similar anti-discrimination laws?

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#179

Post by angersock »

xocyabencl wrote: post #106
conanbatt wrote: post #75

I 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 y…

> We aren't a bunch of robots - our productivity is influenced by what our colleagues say.

Indeed!

That's why it's so concerning to some of us that our colleagues are apparently children who blindly parrot misinterpretations of source material and call for blood over their own fabricated outrage.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#180

Post by blfr »

papaf wrote: post #175
blfr wrote: post #103

We 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.…

century of poverty, slavery, and hundred million deaths I am genuinely curious about where you get the figure of 100 million deaths from. I also believe that all the societes that had slaves were capitalist ones. But we can both agree that communism leads to poverty although the poorest countries in the world are failed states rather than communist: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-poorest-countries-in...

Black Book of Communism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism

Post reply on HN