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E Pur Si Muove

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: E Pur Si Muove

#651

Post by chasing »

"So what of China's billion-plus citizens who are not members of the free-speech elite? Although an average citizen could privately express sentiments similar to those published by Li Rui, if an average person had written and privately published what Li Rui wrote, or presented such sentiments in a speech to a large political gathering as he did, there is little doubt that Chinese authorities would prosecute them for subversion."

"In January 2003 the website of the People's Daily, the official newspaper of China's Communist Party, reported that a court in Hefei, Anhui province sentenced two men, identified only by the surnames He and Yu, to prison terms of nine and seven years respectively for "unlawful operation of a business." Their crime was publishing love poems without government authorization."

"Prior restraints are synonymous with censorship, and represent one of the most onerous infringements on freedom of expression. The term "prior restraint" refers to any system in which the government may deny a person the use of a forum for expression in advance of the actual expression. Chinese authorities employ several different types of prior restraints over the citizens of China in order to ensure that the Communist Party is able to silence critics and maintain direct editorial control over political information and news reporting..."

"The Communist Party's Central Propaganda Department sends out regular bulletins to editors informing them which topics are forbidden."

Etc.

https://www.cecc.gov/freedom-of-expression-in-china-a-privil...

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#652

Post by chasing »

rspeer wrote: post #645
gdudeman wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..."

This is uncomfortable if you're Sam Altman, but it's possible we have to allow people to say disparaging things about Sam Altman.

Look, if saying disparaging things about Sam Altman is what we have to do to move physics forward -- that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#653

Post by a_bonobo »

marme wrote: post #552
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…

this is exactly the case. Try saying "taiwan is an independent country" in beijing and see how well that statement is received

Even Justin Bieber is banned because 'he has engaged in a series of bad behaviours, both in his social life and during a previous performance in China, which caused discontent among the public', and he isn't even politically active or anything. China's public sphere is highly controlled.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/21/justin-bieber-...

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#654

Post by rspeer »

BadassFractal wrote: post #207
robinsloan wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't describe my experience of the Bay Area (2004-present) at all. Here's a sincere tip: start attending the Seminars About Long-term Thinking organized by the Long Now Foundation. Take a friend or two. Sitting in those (packed!) theaters, listening to big, bold, and really very challenging ideas -- not just presented and left at that, but also opened up and interrogated -- I really don't think you'll feel yo…

If you're going to that sort of event, you're intentionally going out of your way to be around people who are interested in, as you said, big, bold, and challenging ideas. The issue is that the next day, when you're back to your 9to5 at BigCo (or even a random startup in the area), you are not back among people who support authoritarianism and will shoot you down (possibly getting you fired) for not having the same v…

Wait. What does the Long Now Foundation have to do with supporting authoritarianism? Or how do you get from "big, bold, and challenging ideas" to authoritarianism?

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#655

Post by jbigelow76 »

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…

I thought it was ironic that earlier today I read an article about China's (by way of private companies) "Social Ranking" score from Wired[1], part of it entails journalist Liu Hu being part of the "Supreme People's Court black list" and the fallout that it entailed.

It's convenient to be a tourist sometimes.

1. https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#656

Post by jmtame »

While I'm not trying to pick apart small pieces of the essay, I agree with some of the high-level points. Culturally in SV, we are increasingly afraid of discussing anything that is controversial. Ad hominems are increasingly popular for any dissenting opinion or difference of view.

It wasn't always like this, and it has definitely gotten worse IMO. Based on conversations I've had with some friends, they also agree. We've all been living in the bay area for over 6 years and we're now entertaining the idea of moving away. I also know some smart people who have left naming this as one of the reasons.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#657

Post by btilly »

cortesoft wrote: post #618
Houshalter wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 socie…

"Society" does no such thing. As proof note that Dan Cathy is still CEO of Chick-Fil-A. As further proof look at who is running Washington these days.

What does that are liberals who are trying to assert their power. Now I would bet that most of the liberals who helped bring about that result wouldn't support a legal right for polygamy, polyandry, or marriage between close relatives.

Why not? While being sexually attracted to close relatives is very rare, the portion of the population that is preferentially polyamorous is larger than the proportion that is preferentially gay. Why should people who wish to make multiple commitments not have the rights that gay people have?

I submit that their reasons for not supporting those causes are no better or worse than Brendan Eich's for not supporting gay marriage. I further submit that when people are punished for publicly supporting statements that half of the nation supports, you're creating chilling effects for free speech that fly in the face of how this democracy is supposed to work.

In the sake of disclosure, my white mother was married to a Chinese man before that was legal in much of the country. Furthermore my sister performed a gay marriage before THAT was legal most places, and I have another close relative who was openly polyandrous for over a decade. As a libertarian, my only issue with gay marriage is why the government involves itself in people's private affairs.

But that is a lot less important to me than concern over political correctness making people feel scared about expressing unpopular opinions. When am I going to have an unpopular opinion that I get penalized for?

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#658

Post by DoreenMichele »

prepend wrote: post #650
DoreenMichele wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. Most people are not violent without good reason. But if you are gay, trans or in any group that gets targeted for violence by irrational people without any provocation beyond being a member of that group, you need to consider that open verbal hostility is a potential indicator of willingness to harm you in some way.

How grounded is this in data? I think there are two questions that need to be answered. First, it is not a given that everyone is capable of violence. There are some people who will not carry out violence, this is pretty much the vast majority. But it’s hard to predict who can commit violence and who will not. Given this small amount of people who commit violence, what is the probability of people with open verbal ho…

How grounded is this in data?

It is very grounded in data.

I have had college classes on Intro to Psychology, Social Psychology and Negotiation and Conflict Management. I spent a lot of time in therapy and have done a lot of reading on social subjects and so forth. I was a military wife and history major and I have an AA in Humanities. The one urban planning conference I managed to attend, I went to all the social lectures rather than, say, design stuff.

I probably can't readily produce the kind of data you would like to see and I am sure I don't want to bother. Your remarks make it pretty clear to me that it would be a waste of my time. There would be no convincing you of anything.

I am leaving this remark here primarily for the benefit of other people, plus to give notice that if I don't reply further, it isn't some tacit acknowledgement that you are right. I just don't really want to play this game. That's all.

I will add for clarity's sake that the phrase willing to harm you in some way was carefully chosen. It doesn't assert violent intent. People can do you enormous harm without being violent and it is shockingly common for people to be willing to do some kind of material harm, even if they are disinclined to be violent. Marginalized peoples very much need to be leery of that fact.

Re: E Pur Si Muove

#660

Post by jacquesm »

Diederich wrote: post #625
rtpg wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be trite, but are you saying this person voted for Trump to "own the libs"? Doing something out of spite like that is a pretty miserable experience...

> are you saying this person voted for Trump to "own the libs"? No, that's not what I said nor is it what I implied. He voted for Trump because, among other reasons, he thought Mrs. Clinton was a terrible candidate and would make a terrible president, and he personally weighed that more heavily than what he knew of Trumps disadvantages. I don't agree with that assessment, but it is reasonable.

Besides how you feel about it, how does your friend feel about it? Have his expectations been met?
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