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E Pur Si Muove

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: E Pur Si Muove

#611

Post by prepend »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #555
prepend wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn’t it simplistic to equate all transphobic people with murderers who commit violence against trans people? Would you also be scared of working with men because they typically commit homicides more than women? I think being afraid of your life simply because someone is a bigot who hasn’t exhibited any violent behavior is on you, not the bigot. A small number of bigots are violent and dangerous, that doesn’t mea…

But isn’t it simplistic to equate all transphobic people with murderers who commit violence against trans people? When your life is on the line, it is generally wise to err on the side of caution. If you assume someone openly transphobic is a threat to your life and you are wrong, you are at worst being rude to them. If you assume they aren't a threat to you and are wrong, you may end up dead (or maimed or otherwise…

By that reasoning you should avoid everyone right? Because all people have a potential for violence.

The odds of a trans person being murdered by a transphobic person are phenomenally low. I think you need to balance risk vs return. Just like driving a car has costs and risks it may be worth it to get to the grocery store.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#612

Post by prepend »

ak_yo wrote: post #553
prepend wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn’t it simplistic to equate all transphobic people with murderers who commit violence against trans people? Would you also be scared of working with men because they typically commit homicides more than women? I think being afraid of your life simply because someone is a bigot who hasn’t exhibited any violent behavior is on you, not the bigot. A small number of bigots are violent and dangerous, that doesn’t mea…

I'd encourage you to think of this from the perspective of the person who's fearing for their life. It's rational to assume that the likelihood of someone potentially harming you is much higher if they're vocally expressing hatred about your identity.

It the fear is irrational, then it’s really not that wise to try to think from their persective. Since that irrationally might make someone flip. Like those people who self radicalize.

Now, this is quite different if someone is expressing or advocating violence. But some old catholic lady being against gay marriage represents zero threat of violence. Especially if she isn’t vocally expressing the hatred at work, but does something outside of work.

The issue I have is that simply expressing disagreement “I hate class X” is not a threat compared to “I want to cause grevious harm to class X.”

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#613

Post by volgo »

Buldak wrote: post #514

The 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…

A lot of people think you have to watch what you say in China, and they almost always are people who have never been there. There are very specific political things you can't do, but otherwise literally not one gives a shit about you. You can say what you want, and unless you specifically go organize a large group of people and screaming in public something politically sensitive, no one cares. Ideally in a society we don't want those people anyways.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#614

Post by acjohnson55 »

volgo wrote: post #613
Buldak wrote: post #514

The 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…

A lot of people think you have to watch what you say in China, and they almost always are people who have never been there. There are very specific political things you can't do, but otherwise literally not one gives a shit about you. You can say what you want, and unless you specifically go organize a large group of people and screaming in public something politically sensitive, no one cares. Ideally in a society we…

I found that to be the case in Cuba. It actually felt more liberating than a typical American city, in that I could walk down the street alone drinking a beer at night in the middle of the city without fear. However, I also know that, like most totalitarian regimes, they'll allow a good bit of flex until they decide not to anymore, and then the crackdown is swift.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#615

Post by colordrops »

ch4s3 wrote: post #598
colordrops wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Beijing for 9 years and I never once felt threat for my ideas, those of which I spoke to pretty much anyone. And I'm definitely anti-authoritarian. You really are only gonna get busted if you hold up signs or organize protests. The topic of this post is not about public protests. Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with China's treatment of public protests, and think it's despicable. And I find that free spe…

Yeah, I also know a number of extremely left leaning folks who advocate some authoritarian nonsense, and I agree that they're wrong. I don't care to address the free speech week which was clearly set up to provoke the response they got. However, none of that changes the fact that Sam Altman is playing loose with some sloppy analogy. No one is stifling his speech.

No one is stifling his speech because he is richer than god. But a plebian such as myself won't bring up current affairs with most friends and coworkers anymore though. It's not really a topic of conversation anymore. And I'm pretty confident that tolerance of differing views is a casualty of the last election. Propaganda campaigns on social networks mobilized the easily swayed on both sides and drew a hard line down the middle that no one is allowed to cross anymore.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#616

Post by cortesoft »

btilly wrote: post #414
cortesoft wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the 'logical response' isn't wrong, it just isn't followed by all self-proclaimed 'liberals'. Of course some liberals will have emotional reponses to something that is not actually an intolerant opinion, like your example. There is no admission requirements to be a 'liberal', so we can't deny entry to people who don't understand the difference between a moral question and an implementation question like minimum w…

In my experience, the "logical response" isn't an accurate description of most liberals. The original statement is. The fact that a liberal thinks that "conservative" should be replaced with "intolerant" is a symptom of the problem that I describe.

You say in your experience, 'most liberals' act in the original statement. Are you willing to entertain the possibility that your impression might be mistaken?

You probably don't really think about the times a liberal person is reasonable and logical. You certainly will remember the ridiculous liberal who says illogical things.

Might that be skewing your impression of what 'most' liberals believe?

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#617

Post by geofft »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #581
geofft wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Is the idea that Sam is morally corrupt too dangerous, too heretical to be voiced? Should we not debate ideas?

Why is this comment collapsed by default? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that, even on heavily downvoted/flag-dead comments.

Because it turns out it is too dangerous to be voiced, I guess? It confused me too—it's currently at +4, hasn't been negative (as far as I've seen), and hasn't been flagged. The HN mods have also not emailed me out of band to tell me to cut it out or to say anything else. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#618

Post by cortesoft »

Houshalter wrote: post #592
cortesoft wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Liberals are not going on mass firing and blacklist campaigns of conservative Muslims. Where are these 'mass' campaigns happening? I am sure there are some by fringe liberal groups, but 'mass' is probably an overstatement. Same with filtered and censored on social media; I see plenty of right wing posts on Facebook and Twitter. > This was a big issue in the atheist community. A lot of atheist thinkers became massiv…

There are a number of high profile examples like Mozillas CEO being kicked out for donating to conservative groups or Damore's firing. As far as mass campaigns, there's a number of managers that have admitted to keeping political blacklists just within Google: https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/google-manifesto-blacklists.h... And there are various large campaigns to dox people on the far right like https://www.npr.org/s…

Again, the Mozilla CEO held a belief that some of his employees didn't deserve the rights that other employees had. Should he have remained CEO if he shared his belief that blacks and whites shouldn't be allowed to marry?

If your belief is that you want to deny rights to some people, you are going to be held accountable by society in the sense that you won't get to hold powerful jobs. You won't be arrested, but society isn't going to let you run a public company.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#619

Post by cortesoft »

Houshalter wrote: post #595
cortesoft wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is a non-sequitur as much as focusing on different concerns. While it is true that the RW statement doesn't imply that all Muslims are terrorists, it does imply that it is ok to ban ALL Muslims if some are terrorists. The liberal position is that this is NOT ok; we feel that the cost of blocking innocent people from entering the country is not worth the cost of allowing some possible terrorists in. T…

The two arguments aren't exactly equivalent. Gun buyers are US citizens have a lot of rights and obligations from the government. Immigrants are not citizens and don't have any rights or obligations to fairness from the government. We already have very different rules for immigrants from different countries. A Canadian can get into the country much easier than other countries for example. I don't personally support b…

You might be correct that the country doesn't have a constitutional obligation to non-citizens (although courts have ruled that non-citizens do have SOME rights when they are in the country), I was saying the liberal position is that we SHOULD have obligations to all people of the world to be treated fairly.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#620

Post by mikeash »

beachy wrote: post #364
Diederich wrote: post #339

Shortly prior to the recent US presidential election, I worked next to a nice, smart young man from California who went to a well-known progressive university in the bay area. Politics was very rarely discussed at work, but in the weeks before the election, there was some cross talk in the isles. He trusted me enough to message me privately that he was planning to vote for Trump. At that time, I was quite anxious abo…

Leaning in from outside the US, the path forward is obvious. "Progressives" should embrace guns and reject abortion. That would make them palatable to these mysterious deplorables that seem to hold sway over the US political system, giving them access to the halls of power. Then said progressives, having kept their powder dry, could expend it on what really matters - convincing the deplorables that science is a thing…

Unfortunately, most of the deplorables would just find new reasons to hate Democrats, because their party preference is rooted in tribalism rather than in policy, and you'd scare off lots of lefties who don't think the state should be outlawing important medical procedures.
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