boo hoo. white boy dissed for his chege ideas.
E Pur Si Muove
531–540 of 853 posts
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I think this gets to my core objection to the essay. It presents as being in favour of free speech, yet also implicitly says that anyone questioning progress (in more or less any form) is dangerous. The idea that you should be able to say or do whatever you want and also be shielded from criticism of those ideas is silly. Especially when you're some of the most rich and powerful people in the 21st century. No-o…
Saying "you are unethical for doing this research" is very different from saying "I think there are serious problems with extending human life". One is a legitimate criticism and is vital to public debate. The other is name calling.
I think the author explicitly states we need to be okay with name calling later on?
"This is uncomfortable, but it’s possible we have to allow people to say disparaging things about gay people..."
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#533We 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.…
That's because most people who take more than a cursory glance sees that there are multiple different ideologies lumped under the same name there, diverse enough that the supporters of some have historically been the most brutal persecutors of supporters of others - Among the millions dead you list are huge numbers of communists that fought against the regimes you complain about, in many cases in open armed conflicts…
> That's because most people who take more than a cursory glance sees that there are multiple different ideologies lumped under the same name there, diverse enough that the supporters of some have historically been the most brutal persecutors of supporters of others
This argument would be more credible if the least awful Communist regime wasn’t a toss up between Cuba and Yugoslavia. Every single attempt at actual communism has gone so terribly that any rational person would flee a country that was about to turn communist with the clothes on their back.
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#534This isn't happening in only SF, or only in tech. It's happening all over, and across the spectrum of ideas. Is the argument that social media is tearing apart our society correct? I think it goes deeper than that, and that it's tech in general. We've grown impatient with right-swipe, immediate communication (whether through texting or calling on a cell phone; remember when you had to find a phone, or wait until you…
The lack of patience seems right on to me. I get the feeling that a lot of these discussions where people feel afraid to speak their mind are issues where the orthodoxy feels it has resolved the issue and moved on to talking about something new. They're tired of having conversations they see as repetitive. And when someone questions some part of that perceived-resolved issue, there's a lack of patience to, as they se…
Thank you, this goes a long way to explaining why some people say "but it's ${CURRENT_YEAR}" as if that were an argument.
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#535Earlier quoted context omitted.
Black Book of Communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
In other words, one of the least respected books in modern historical scholarship.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communis...
The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, in the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. The estimates of the number of non-combatants killed by these three regimes alone range from a low of 21 million to a high of 70 million.
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#536Sam Altman is an idiot. The tolerance for "gay people are evil" has, more than once, led to "gay people must die". In fact, it is an inescapable consequence - if you declare people evil, you do declare you want to rid the world of them. And coming from that point: You are still free to say this, of course. And everybody in the Bay Area is free to say it, too. But there are consequences to your speech . And the conseq…
"The tolerance for "gay people are evil" has, more than once, led to "gay people must die"." Yes. undeniable. In fact more often it's lead to "gay people must be fixed" which is also inexcusable, but... "In fact, it is an inescapable consequence" .. NO. Tolerating people having distasteful and bigoted opinions, especially when they differ from yours, does not inevitably lead to those ideas beoming reality.
Tolerating distasteful and bigoted opinions, maybe not. Tolerating active hate from a large group against a minority? Inevitably, every single time. (By which I mean, I can't come up with a single example - I obviously haven't exhaustively searched all of history. If you have a counter example, please share)
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#537The author says that it's safer to discuss "controversial" ideas in Beijing than America, but I wonder if that's partly because the ideas in question aren't actually controversial in Beijing. Presumably the ideas the author has in mind are those that might be interpreted to impugn certain disadvantaged groups. But if I found it more easy to say "gay people are degenerates" in Beijing, I don't think I would take that…
Also, perhaps the authors status in San Francisco means that any comments he makes will be more likely to get attention (and hence criticism) than in China.
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#538Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a pretty good point. People complain about Californian culture being too sensitive but choose to stay there. If your startup can't survive unless it's right next to Silicon Valley then it probably deserves to die anyway. NYC has plenty of tech talent to work with. Altman is not staying in SV because he can't afford to move. He's staying in the area because he actually prefers working with the people he's comp…
"If your startup can't survive unless it's right next to Silicon Valley then it probably deserves to die anyway." Do you actually genuinely believe these absolutist statements, or you make them just coz they make for good sound bites?
Yes, I believe that statement. There are two things that being located in SV gets you:
1. Ability to hire elite programmers that are a few percent better than those in NYC. You'll pay for that quality though. Plus the cannon fodder programmers that you'll hire if you get big cost more in SV for the same quality as NYC.
2. VC money that is a bit easier to get for tech startups compared to NYC.
Your business is not robust if it would be successful if you hired a 99th percentile programmer and had $5mm in investment in SV, but it would fail with a 95th percentile programmer and had $3mm in investment in NYC. People that don't think they could make their idea work in NYC aren't confident in their idea and just playing entrepreneur.
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#539We 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.…
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15924284 and marked it off-topic.
Re: E Pur Si Muove
#540Earlier quoted context omitted.
Damore did make a scientific case for his claims and referenced a bunch of studies. That's probably why it got so much attention. The original had a bunch of links and graphs and plots. But the version most people read was published by some newspaper that stripped all that stuff out (and titled it an "anti-diversity screed" just to show how unbiased they were.) >they should "respect all points of view" (no matter how…
> Damore did make a scientific case for his claims and referenced a bunch of studies. Most of those studies were debunked as using very shaky methodologies. Just because you can quote a paper it doesn't mean the paper is right. > Everyone believes their opponents beliefs are flawed and ignorant. Probably, but objective observable truth should prevail. The problem is lately a lot of people make claims based on nothing…
>Most of those studies were debunked as using very shaky methodologies. Just because you can quote a paper it doesn't mean the paper is right.
I'd love a source on that, because as far as I remember most of the stuff he referenced wasn't very controversial. E.g. one of his biggest points was that men and women have statistically different five factor personality distributions.
>Probably, but objective observable truth should prevail.
Sure. The problem is I strongly disagree with you about what the "objective observable truth" is.