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Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

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Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#101

Post by jonathankoren »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #64
jonathankoren wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re always free to say it. What you’re talking about is being free of other people exercising their speech to denounce it. Let’s be honest here. What these folks want is the ability to insult and attack people with impunity. That’s not what free speech is. It never was.

I’m talking from an employment perspective where your wage is on the line. The Supreme Court has ruled in the US that there is no exception to free speech for hate speech. If this is not preferred, your argument is with the judicial branch or Congress and a constitutional amendment, not me.

You’re confusing the state with a private actor. Yes, private actors have a lot of power in this world, but that’s not what the law is about. The law is about the government, not private actors.

If you don’t allow businesses to fire people, then you’re compelling speech. Think about it. Say you’re a restaurant and you have a waiter that habitually refers to guests with a constant stream of expitives that would make a sailor blush. It gets to the point that it hurts your business. Patrons stop coming in. You can’t recruit. Do you fire him? Of course not! You’d be impugning his free speech and that’s horrible.

So the restaurant closes, and you start another. And guess who shows up for a job? Sailor Blusher. Do you hire him? Of course! You have to because if you didn’t, you’d be infringing in his right to get paid to berate strangers!

This story isn’t an exaggeration. This is the logical outcome.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#102

Post by rdtsc »

fmihaila wrote: post #62
woodruffw wrote: post #39

For better or worse, popular society has become a lot better at detecting dog whistles. "Diversity of thought is more important than diversity of skin color" is one of those dog whistles. I don't find the discussion itself objectionable, but I also don't want to grant intellectual capital to anybody who is going to use a controversial topic in bad faith to control the discussion. I don't want to be used to legitimize…

> "Diversity of thought is more important than diversity of skin color" is one of those dog whistles. I find it highly unlikely that a black woman in charge of Inclusion and Diversity at a most socially progressive company would blow into that particular dog whistle.

> a black woman in charge of Inclusion and Diversity at a most socially progressive company would blow into that dog whistle.

So she is Uncle Tom's wife and is secretly dog whistling to the white supremacists.

That's part of the reason people are not speaking what they think -- because they end up getting responses like that, which are completely indistinguishable from a comedy skit or an article from The Onion.

It's like talking to someone and hearing them try to convince you about contrails or lizard people. You can't argue at that point, because you realize it's way beyond that, so you just kind of keep quiet an nod. Especially if that person is your boss or coworker.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#103

Post by ender7 »

electrograv wrote: post #80
chasing wrote: post #58

You can say any of those things in Silicon Valley. I mean, people might make some judgments about you. But that happens whenever you state any opinion, especially if it isn't the mainstream. I think a lot of people are used to saying what's on their mind without consequence. They're used to other types of people remaining quiet on certain topics -- especially topics related to race, gender, and sexuality. And that's…

I 100% agree with your premise that “the more voices the better” (i.e. the fewer voices that are silenced, the better). What you describe certainly covers much of what’s happening, but something else is happening too: Voices are being silenced. And to respond to your opening sentence, I don’t mean anyone is silenced physically (who does that?), but rather psychologically, culturally, and socially. That’s not a good t…

On the contrary, silencing voices is a necessary thing. All societies have to determine what speech is allowed and what isn't. There are lots of things you can say in general American society that will get you censured. Claiming that black people are biologically inferior to white people, for example. Claiming that women are biologically inferior to men, though? Some still seem fond of that one.

This all boils down to the fact one group is trying to add a number of new entries to the list of censurable topics. It's fine to disagree with that, but then you have to state a) what topics you think shouldn't be added to the list and b). why. When people walk around loudly complaining about how they can't say anything anymore without being specific as to what they want to say, it suggests that perhaps they know that those positions are not really defensible.

[EDIT: To explain things a little more. Societies must limit some forms of speech because some speech limits who can be a member of a society. "We should murder all Asian people" is not compatible with a society that contains Asian people. And no, it is not fair to expect Asian people to have to constantly defend their humanity to others who have nothing to lose in the argument. Much as it's nice to think about abstractly entertaining every possible idea, when some of those ideas actively push out or dehumanize members, the society is forced to choose between accepting debate on the idea or excluding those members. So yes, if you want to complain about how SV society shuns people for not wanting to experiment on human embryos or whatever, go ahead. But assuming that all ideas should be up for debate is ignoring the fact that some ideas are incompatible with your fellow society members. And you get to choose between debating those ideas or having those people in your society as equals. You do have a choice, but you can't have both.]

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#104

Post by pretendscholar »

wavefunction wrote: post #92
pretendscholar wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>his financial support of legislative efforts to prohibit the same civil rights enjoyed by some in this country for other fellow Americans depending on their sexual preference. ...So his political views.

His political actions. Views are just beliefs. Mozilla is a private organization where Brendan Eich served at the pleasure of its body. What if he was pushing to rescind suffrage for women or to re-instate Jim Crow? Pushing for the legalization of child cannibalism by funding legislative efforts in that direction?

What if a woman pushed for the disenfranchisement of men believing that society would be better for it? I'd at least like to hear her out, maybe I'd even support it but I can't know if I can't even hear the view. I have no problem personally with hearing political views because I believe that over time and through discourse human society converges on better outcomes. Someone could state that they would like the return of Jim Crow but I'm confident that the people who hold those views in the long run will be outnumbered.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#105

Post by johndevor »

aphextron wrote: post #77
dahdum wrote: post #59

That article is completely out of line. For the record: I think SF is doing a great job tackling homelessness, human excrement management, and broad daylight IV drug abuse. They just need to raise taxes to increase funding for all the really successful programs underway. I'm sure they've got a handle on it. It's a wonderful vacation destination for families. Affordable housing will definitely be solved by higher taxe…

Can't tell if this is serious

I don't believe so. And I think SF has some real problems too.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#106

Post by matte_black »

woodruffw wrote: post #39

For better or worse, popular society has become a lot better at detecting dog whistles. "Diversity of thought is more important than diversity of skin color" is one of those dog whistles. I don't find the discussion itself objectionable, but I also don't want to grant intellectual capital to anybody who is going to use a controversial topic in bad faith to control the discussion. I don't want to be used to legitimize…

And if someone were to say the reverse, that diversity of skin color is more important than diversity of thought, what would you call that? Virtue signal?

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#107

Post by nstart »

pretendscholar wrote: post #73
wavefunction wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not his views, his financial support of legislative efforts to prohibit the same civil rights enjoyed by some in this country for other fellow Americans depending on their sexual preference. He lost the confidence of the internationally focused diverse organization he was charged with leading due to that financial support.

>his financial support of legislative efforts to prohibit the same civil rights enjoyed by some in this country for other fellow Americans depending on their sexual preference. ...So his political views.

I find it troubling that views based deeply in religious beliefs (gay people are unnatural and somehow should be sidelined for their differences makes sense only inside of a highly religious context) or just pure unscientific opinion are somehow being taken as a political view.

Back in the days, skin colour was a political view. That was a dumb idea. And the effects of that is still felt up to today. These days sexual orientation and climate change are political views.

This isn't ok. And we shouldn't treat it as such. Bigotry and un-science don't deserve a seat as a "reasonable voice" at the table of progress no matter who you are.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#108

Post by dionidium »

cbhl wrote: post #86
dionidium wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, most accusations of dog whistling on the internet range from misguided to incoherent. It's worth remembering what a dog whistle is, in the first place. It's a tactic used by politicians to assure a certain set of voters that you're on their side while maintaining public deniability of unpopular beliefs. It's a way of talking to the public that guarantees that each constituency hears what they want t…

Nit-picking about the definition of words is another form of "dog whistling" that popular society has learned to detect.

I'm not nit-picking. I'm arguing that most uses of the phrase are incoherent, yours included.

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#109

Post by chasing »

electrograv wrote: post #80
chasing wrote: post #58

You can say any of those things in Silicon Valley. I mean, people might make some judgments about you. But that happens whenever you state any opinion, especially if it isn't the mainstream. I think a lot of people are used to saying what's on their mind without consequence. They're used to other types of people remaining quiet on certain topics -- especially topics related to race, gender, and sexuality. And that's…

I 100% agree with your premise that “the more voices the better” (i.e. the fewer voices that are silenced, the better). What you describe certainly covers much of what’s happening, but something else is happening too: Voices are being silenced. And to respond to your opening sentence, I don’t mean anyone is silenced physically (who does that?), but rather psychologically, culturally, and socially. That’s not a good t…

> Voices are being silenced.

I think we've got to be cautious in defining what "being silenced" means. Because I see a world in which people are saying all sorts of things out loud. There was a protest with a bunch of people waving Nazi flags in a public park in Virginia a few months ago.

I don't think people are being silenced.

I think community norms are shifting quickly in many parts of the country and, again, it's disorienting for certain people who have held certain views without problem for most of their lives. Suddenly they're being told it's not okay to say something and it feels like they're being silenced. They're not, of course. But I understand that it can feel like it.

[Edit: This is in response to your original comment, which you edited.]

Re: Stuff You Can't Say in Silicon Valley

#110

Post by woodruffw »

ghostcluster wrote: post #72
woodruffw wrote: post #39

For better or worse, popular society has become a lot better at detecting dog whistles. "Diversity of thought is more important than diversity of skin color" is one of those dog whistles. I don't find the discussion itself objectionable, but I also don't want to grant intellectual capital to anybody who is going to use a controversial topic in bad faith to control the discussion. I don't want to be used to legitimize…

You think this is a dog whistle? > “There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation,” the inaugural diversity chief said. > ”Diversity is the human experience,” she said, according to Quartz. “I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the p…

See my response to 'fmihaila below.

I want to be clear: it's bad to fire people just for expressing a different opinion. But that's not what my comment was about -- it was about how, as a society, we've learned to detect and avoid conversations that are probably faithless.

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