Blog Anonymously • Hacker News Board

Re: Blog Anonymously

#441

Post by M2Ys4U » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 4:21 PM UTC

syshum wrote: post #68

M2Ys4U wrote: post #40

>We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. We really, really aren't. >If speech has consequences that are administered outside the law, then it's not really free. Just take a moment and thing about what you just wrote. It's absolutely nonsense. I can't go in to a job interview and call the panel a bunch of cunts and then expect to be hired. That's a consequence o…

So a culture that respects free speech something like this would occur --- Person A: I think we should have strong border protection and limited immigration for these reasons ...... Person B: Well I understand and respect your position however I disagree because of these reasons..... --- Now a society with out a respect for free speech it would go -- Person A: I think we should have strong border protection and limit…

Conversations like these don't happen in a vacuum. There's the immediate context of the conversation and there's the historical context of people A and B.

And that's even assuming that the real meaning is in the text of the conversation rather than the subtext.

"All lives matter" is a good example. As a point divorced from any context it's an entirely correct and virtuous statement to make. But in the context of BLMthe subtext of the statement makes it a radically different one, and pointedly offensive, one.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#442

Post by joshuamorton » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 4:28 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #430

joshuamorton wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of those, the last three didn't suffer any long term consequences (all three were employed relatively soon after they were fired), and the first happened too recently to really analyze.

Analyzing the consequences is only half the ethical story. Doing the right thing sometimes is different to what the consequences are. If you don't do the right thing in the first place regardless of the outcome, you let weaknesses in the system grow. James damore's memo was created and went nowhere within google. It's some people fretting over the consequences who took it, spread it among the company and got a good e…

> James damore's memo was created and went nowhere within google.

I'm not sure what your mean here, but this applies most readily to James himself. He posted the memo to larger and larger mailing lists until finally it spread.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#443

Post by M2Ys4U » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #87

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a compelling hypothetical, but I can't think of a single person who only said they were in support of strong border protection and limited immigration and was subject to anything like what you're saying. Could you provide an example of what you mean?

JK Rowling is a good example of middlebrow views getting you and anyone who can be associated with you in trouble. She has widely-held opinions like trans-women should be respected, but they are different from women. But if you log on to Twitter, she's vilified so much as a "transphobe" that people have been attacked for merely signing the same open-letter that she signed. https://twitter.com/emilyvdw/status/12805803…

For people that have been aware of her it's entirely obvious that Rowling is not engaging in the issue in good faith.

For example, before she published under her own name she published under the pen-name of "Robert Galbraith".

So far so what, right?

Well that's the name of an infamous psychologist who experimented on gay people - often people in the criminal justice system who did not or could not consent to treatment - in order to try and convert them to heterosexuality.

Rowling has also been a vocal defender of Maya Forstater who lost a case at the Employment Tribunal in a case about how she described trans people for "[violating] their dignity and/or [creating] an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment". That's not the view of some random trans rights campaigner, that's a judge who must take in to account freedom of expression as provided for in the European Convention on Human Rights.

There's much more when you scratch the surface of Rowling's transphobia.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#444

Post by M2Ys4U » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #150

M2Ys4U wrote: post #40

>We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. We really, really aren't. >If speech has consequences that are administered outside the law, then it's not really free. Just take a moment and thing about what you just wrote. It's absolutely nonsense. I can't go in to a job interview and call the panel a bunch of cunts and then expect to be hired. That's a consequence o…

>Free association is also a right that needs to be protected. Does hiring process enjoy the right for free association? I'm pretty sure for employment specifically there's a huge chunk of legislation that governs it.

>Does hiring process enjoy the right for free association? I'm pretty sure for employment specifically there's a huge chunk of legislation that governs it.

Yes it does, and yes there is.

I'm not arguing that the right to free association should be absolute.

Both freedom of association and freedom of speech MUST be qualified if society is to function well.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#445

Post by dang » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

ytrytr wrote: post #428

dang wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't use HN for ideological warfare. It's not what this site is for and will eventually get your main account banned as well.

Can you explain what ideological warfare is according to the rules please? And how my comment is ideological warfare but not the people complaining about cancel culture?

I don't like definitions because every definition has loopholes and then people treat the loopholes as if they are sanctioned. Hacker News is supposed to be a spirit-of-the-law, not a letter-of-the-law place [1]

However, look at it this way: ideological battle is when people use HN to smite enemies rather than for curious exchange. Particularly, to smite enemies on hot topics. Those sorts of threads are predictable, tedious, and quickly turn nasty. They not only crowd out the quieter, more curious conversation this site is supposed to be for—they burn it to a crisp. For that reason we have no choice but to moderate it [2].

It always feels like the mods are against you; whoever your enemies are, I guarantee they feel just as strongly that we're against them [3]. This seems to be some sort of hard-wired bias. In reality people on both sides of the ideological divide get the same moderation messages. If someone was breaking the rules and we didn't moderate it, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here [4].

Accounts that have been created primarily for ideological battle are against the rules here and we ban them [5], so I banned this one. Please don't do that. As I said, it will eventually get your main account banned also.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[5] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: Blog Anonymously

#446

Post by DenisM » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #419

DenisM wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had to, would you be able to enumerate similarities between the mob rule and the cancel culture rule?

Yes, I think one primary difference is that mob rule is classically considered to be the primary form of government. It's a direct democracy with no tools to prevent immediate populist sentiment from controlling things. Cancel culture exists as an alternative tool that, in my opinion is generally only used when normal power structures break down. It's not really comparable to mob rule because it isn't "rule".

I was asking for similarities, not differences.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#447

Post by kbenson » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

kaitai wrote: post #433

kbenson wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are links sprinkled all throughout the comments of instances of people having views erroneously attributed to them and the public pressure causing them to lose their jobs. Here's one I just read.[1] How prevalent these are, and whether they outweigh any positive effects of the behavior (or if you even believe there are positive effects) is probably a more nuanced question. 1: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a…

I thought that was a poorly-researched article. I'm most familiar with the Holy Land Deli situation, and actually talking to employees and customers results in articles like https://sahanjournal.com/news/as-holy-land-grocery-attempts-... It discusses some of the significant problems they had with pay disparity and treatment of Black customers; racism occurs in the Muslim community as in others. Mounk indicates oh, Am…

> Mounk indicates oh, American dream ruined because of spoiled daughter, while actual journalism exposes systematic pay disparities and unequal treatment of customers. Huh.

Not to defend the article too much, but does that really matter (I would say it depends on the timeline)? Whether the person persecuted is eventually found to have some reasons why some persecution may have been justified, that does not justify the original persecution. All it does is make people feel better about their past actions, even if those actions were not justified.

Punching a random person on the street is not justified because you later find out they are a horrible person. It may make you feel worse about punching the random person... but it really shouldn't.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#448

Post by footlose_3815 » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #431

footlose_3815 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

James Damore threw away an engineering job at Google with a long, generalized, and internally-shared rant about women, listing off their "Qualities". He then tried to start a lawsuit making it about his politics, which never went anywhere. Why is there sympathy for this man?

It was scientifically sourced and he did not spread it himself, others did that on 'his behalf' whilst also stripping out the sources.

He sourced things from scientific journals, but he pieced them together to fit a narrative that he knows better about what women want. It wasn't a good argument.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#449

Post by jaccarmac » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 7:11 PM UTC

waheoo wrote: post #429

jaccarmac wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which human rights does my position violate? Please, enlighten me. YOU do realize that human rights don't include a blanket prohibition on people treating you differently due to your political opinions? Also, how do you reconcile these "universal" human rights in a state that violates them?

They apply to everyone, regardless of political stance. Articles 12, 20, 21, 23, 29. You do realise that while not a blanket prohibition on treating you differently, employment, wellbeing and political leanings are expressly covered for obvious reasons.

But I never suggested that Trump supporters should have their employment or wellbeing threatened for their support of Trump... I am merely making the point that support for Trump could reasonably be part of making one's colleagues feel unsafe. Additionally, the fact that political opinion is protected does not mean that a person's politics can be ignored.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#450

Post by joshuamorton » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #446

joshuamorton wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think one primary difference is that mob rule is classically considered to be the primary form of government. It's a direct democracy with no tools to prevent immediate populist sentiment from controlling things. Cancel culture exists as an alternative tool that, in my opinion is generally only used when normal power structures break down. It's not really comparable to mob rule because it isn't "rule".

I was asking for similarities, not differences.

Ah I missed that.

Before I give a partial answer, I'd ask what you're trying to gain from this: I touched on this, but I don't think "cancel culture rule" is a thing. So I can't draw similarities between them in that vein. I can draw similarities between "cancel culture" and "mob rule", but because of the differences I don't know that those matter much. I'm suspicious of this question because mob rule is ultimately considered to be a bad thing, so much as I said to the parent, I can't see how this won't be used to, as I said before, attack my morals.

Like if I say that they're both ultimately democratic movements (which I believe to be true) whereas others might highlight that both involve aspects (though imo not the same aspects) of anarchism.

I'd turn this around: what are the aspects of mob rule that concern you, and what are the similarities to cancel culture that worry you. I doubt that you're concerned by the fact that both are at their core, democratic, so what does?