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What You Can't Say (2004)

paulgraham.com

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Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#11

Post by masonic »

dang wrote: post #3
masonic wrote: post #2

Most active recent past posting, 120+ comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18221049

(Edit: just to be clear, links like this don't mean that the article shouldn't have been reposted! Reposts are fine on HN after a year or so—this is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html . Had this repost had been a bad one, we'd have marked it as [dupe] in the title instead. The purpose of linking to previous threads is that readers find those interesting.) Also, from 2017: https://news.ycombinator…

> links like this don't mean that the article shouldn't have been reposted!

I didn't say, or even imply, that. I just thought reference to past discussions would be useful.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#12

Post by rocqua »

aazaa wrote: post #7

This quote is eerily prescient: > I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them. It's especially powerful when paired with this question: > Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front…

> I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them.

Later, Paul Graham comes with the following variation of the above:

> What groups are powerful but nervous, and what ideas would they like to suppress?

Which I think is better. The difference is "weak enough to need taboos" vs "nervous". The group just needs to feel their power slipping away. This makes it a lot more applicable to your white males comment too. Whether white males' position is "weak enough to need taboos" is much more up for debate than whether some are nervous that their power is slipping away.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#13

Post by chimi »

mikelyons wrote: post #6
kristianc wrote: post #4

The inverse of this seems to be taking hold now: that it’s socially acceptable to say things which are unreasonable, outlandish or downright factually incorrect, if they’re considered to be in service of a cause that ‘our side’ believes in. But yes, this has also been discussed a lot here before.

Selfishness is devilry, and devils make Truth out as falsehood and spin falsehood as true.

This is pervasive in society right now. It's rampant in politics, advertising, dating... and it seems to be getting worse not better. It's almost like we don't have time to evaluate honesty. Politicians win, not because they will answer a question honestly, but because they will repeatedly deflect and they get away with it.

Why do we allow it?

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#14

Post by traderjane »

aazaa wrote: post #7

This quote is eerily prescient: > I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them. It's especially powerful when paired with this question: > Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front…

Which group is countering the strength of straight white males? When one looks at the faces of the powerful in America, what do they see? Gay black women?

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#15

Post by dang »

masonic wrote: post #11
dang wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Edit: just to be clear, links like this don't mean that the article shouldn't have been reposted! Reposts are fine on HN after a year or so—this is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html . Had this repost had been a bad one, we'd have marked it as [dupe] in the title instead. The purpose of linking to previous threads is that readers find those interesting.) Also, from 2017: https://news.ycombinator…

> links like this don't mean that the article shouldn't have been reposted! I didn't say, or even imply, that. I just thought reference to past discussions would be useful.

Oh, I didn't in the least think you did. I meant that bit to apply to the link you kindly shared as well as the ones I listed. I added it because another commenter in the thread referenced that this had been discussed a lot before. Sorry for the misunderstanding!

I still don't know a reliable way to briefly link to past discussions, or mention linking to past discussions, without it coming across to many readers as an implicit reproach. Which is not at all the intention.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#16

Post by [deleted] »

masonic wrote: post #11
dang wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Edit: just to be clear, links like this don't mean that the article shouldn't have been reposted! Reposts are fine on HN after a year or so—this is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html . Had this repost had been a bad one, we'd have marked it as [dupe] in the title instead. The purpose of linking to previous threads is that readers find those interesting.) Also, from 2017: https://news.ycombinator…

> links like this don't mean that the article shouldn't have been reposted! I didn't say, or even imply, that. I just thought reference to past discussions would be useful.

[deleted]

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#17

Post by iconjack »

Things you can't say in the tech world, 2019: * global warming is junk science * there are approximately two genders * Trump is a great president * the US is not a racist country * Apple sucks

Edit: If you're one of the many downvoters, who presumably disagree with this, I dare you to say any of these things if you work for a tech company.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#18

Post by tomrod »

jonahrd wrote: post #5

> It could be that the scientists are simply smarter; most physicists could, if necessary, make it through a PhD program in French literature, but few professors of French literature could make it through a PhD program in physics. Well having taken a lesson from the article, I think he's purely mistaken with this point. (As well as divisive, insensitive, etc..) Quite the hubris to make that assumption!

There is a certain, je ne sais quoi, gravity to it.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#19

Post by georgewsinger »

> For example, at the high water mark of political correctness in the early 1990s, Harvard distributed to its faculty and staff a brochure saying, among other things, that it was inappropriate to compliment a colleague or student's clothes. No more "nice shirt." I think this principle is rare among the world's cultures, past or present. There are probably more where it's considered especially polite to compliment someone's clothing than where it's considered improper. Odds are this is, in a mild form, an example of one of the taboos a visitor from the future would have to be careful to avoid if he happened to set his time machine for Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992.

This is interesting. I've heard multiple people say that there have been two political correctness peaks: one in the early/mid 90s, and the other starting from about 2013 to now.

Are we already coming down from our current PC peak? I think we might be, even though it seems weird to say (given that we're still near the peak, so that political correctness is still high). Some evidence for this:

1. There seems to be a larger and larger cultural awareness of the toxicity of political correctness, so much so that it's starting to no longer be counter-cultural anymore, but just a well-represented view. The IDW is becoming more mainstream (which means they need to stop representing themselves as a persecuted group, lest they become stuck in 2017). For the record I'm a huge fan of the IDW. I don't want to see them stagnate.

2. Leftists -- usually blamed the most for political correctness -- are even now able to discuss a few ideas in public that they weren't formerly able to quite as easily: (i) they can more openly discuss the merits of socialism (using the "s" word) and (ii) they are free to question the orthodoxy of traditional free trade. In fact nearly every major candidate for the Democratic nomination has denounced free trade in some way. This would have been unimaginable 10 years ago.

There's still a long way down from the peak, but times feel less PC now than they were say in 2017.

Re: What You Can't Say (2004)

#20

Post by sincerely »

iconjack wrote: post #17

Things you can't say in the tech world, 2019: * global warming is junk science * there are approximately two genders * Trump is a great president * the US is not a racist country * Apple sucks Edit: If you're one of the many downvoters, who presumably disagree with this, I dare you to say any of these things if you work for a tech company.

"Apple sucks" got 1000 upvotes yesterday on this exact website.
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